Bridges with Asia: Asian Americans in the United States

Bridges with Asia: Asian Americans in the United States:
Summary Report

Vishakha N. Desai _*
Vice President for Cultural Programs, Director of Galleries

May 2–4, 1996

From its inception, more than two years ago, “Bridges with Asia: Asian Americans in the United States” has sought to explore the implications of the bicultural identity—felt or perceived—of the Asian American in a global community in which the Asia-Pacific region has become increasingly predominant. The purpose was to examine the possible relationship between two significant factors in America’s national and international experience: the unprecedented growth of the Asian American population in the last three decades and the rise of the Asia-Pacific region as one of the world’s most dynamic areas as well as the one most crucial to the future of the United States. With an active advisory committee composed of scholars, community leaders, and representatives of other cultural organizations (see the end of this report), we attempted to address a number of key issues ranging from economic relations between different regions of Asia and the United States to generational attitudes toward Asian Americans’ countries of origin. The following questions provided the framework for discussion:

What roles do Asian Americans play in the increased interaction between U.S. companies and Asian countries? How are they affecting the domestic economies of their countries of origin?

How are Asian Americans perceived by local American political leaders and what is their impact upon American domestic politics? What role, if any, do they play in U.S. foreign policy toward particular Asian countries?

How is the notion of “home” used by writers and artists of Asian origin? How are conceptions of loyalty or nationalism made manifest for diverse groups of Asian Americans who often have very little in common except for a census category, or how they are perceived by others?

Key topics, outlined in the report and discussed at length at the conference, also formed the basis for discussion at regional meetings throughout the United States, where selected scholars, commissioned to write papers for the project publication, met with community leaders, other scholars, business executives, and members of the artistic or cultural community to garner crucial regional perspectives.

Such questions were considered within the context that indeed Asian Americans have been part of U.S. life for almost two centuries. Throughout this time, they have often been branded as foreigners or their loyalty has been questioned. Our advisors and participants continued to remind us that if highlighting the Asian origins of many Americans made them uncomfortable, it was the result of their lifelong experience with racism—not only through its most obvious manifestation, the Japanese American internment camps, but also through the discriminatory practices toward Asian Americans throughout the history of U.S. immigration.

Throughout the project, which lasted for more than a year and culminated in the national conference of May 1996, several observations continued to emerge as key generalizations. Everyone agreed that given the diverse trends of Asian immigration to the U.S. as well as distinct home cultures, it was hard to come to any generalization about the Asian American identity. Yet, being of Asian origin would not be enough. It was also agreed that while Asia gains prominence in an increasingly globalized world, Asian Americans could have an advantage. However, our new Americanness and the “nativist” prejudices of non-Asian Americans should bring us together, at least on strategic issues. To be effective one would have to be bicultural, investing the time to learn the language and culture of one’s country of origin. At the same time, there was concern that for an Asian American, being closely connected with the culture or heritage of one’s home country could be dangerous, especially during periods of U.S. immigration antipathy. There was a strong feeling that to be productive, Asian American communities had to learn to combine their considerable resources to form strategic partnerships. A number of speakers and conference participants also asserted that non-Asian Americans are unaware of the significant difference among groups of Asian Americans. Asian business people students living in America really need to be seen differently from Americans of Asian origin who have been in the United States for more than three generations. At the same time, it was acknowledged that, given the constant flow of people among the different parts of the Asia Pacific region and the United States, these distinctions were subtle and complex, requiring increased education and awareness.

In fall 1995 and spring 1996, as the election mobilized into high gear, the feeling that Asian Americans had to become more involved in domestic politics was fostered by the observation that, unlike some other Americans, such as those of Jewish, Greek, or Cuban origin, Asian Americans had not been very active in the articulation of U.S. foreign policy. A number of speakers alluded to this.

Ironically, in May 1997, the situation has undergone a reversal. Asian Americans have taken center stage in the domestic political arena as well as in the area where foreign policy intersects with domestic politics. With the current campaign financing debates, John Huang has become a household name. From being nonactors and relatively minor players on the national political stage, Asian Americans suddenly are being portrayed as threateningly hostile forces. Disturbingly, many of the concerns raised by various participants of the Bridges project are present in the coverage of the controversy. Underlying much of the coverage is a lack of understanding of the Asian American experience at best and a smear of racism at its worst. While reporters are quick to point out the legal violations committed by some Asians and Asian Americans, there is little or no discussion of the history of Asian Americans in the national political scene or the reasons that there may have been some excesses in the “bundling” of campaign contributions. Comparative studies of campaign contributions by other ethnic, special interest, or corporate groups are conspicuously absent. Most significantly, that the political parties thought it perfectly reasonable to review their roster of contributors and return those of all “Asian-sounding” donors is one of the more audacious forms of racism in recent U.S. history. The indiscriminate use of the terms Asian or Asian American, is a symptom of glib insensitivity to the complexities of the Asian American experience. Amazingly, in less than a year, Asian Americans have gone from being insignificant to a threat to national security. It is ironic that one of the goals of Asian American communities in the 1996 elections was to figure out ways of creating a stronger presence for Asian American (since they were not given senior cabinet appointments by the Clinton administration after the 1992 election). Larger campaign contributions were an important part of the strategy to create a more influential presence. After all, many other communities have done this successfully for a long time. After the 1996 elections, Asian Americans could not even approach the leaders in the Clinton administration, let alone negotiate senior cabinet appointments! The popular notion of Asian Americans, even those who have been here for multiple generations, as foreigners, underpins the current campaign controversy. As was pointed out in the conference deliberations, Asian Americans have been wary of the precariousness of popular American sentiment for at least the last century.

With the current debate surrounding campaign finance and potential contributions by foreign powers such as China, once again attention is drawn toward suspected nationalist loyalties of Asian Americans. Even after fifty years since Japanese American internment which has been officially acknowledged as a mistake, such questions continue to come up. The participants of the Bridges project have attempted to promote a better understanding of the complexities of the Asian American experience in an international context.

The summary report, coming a year after the conference, provides a record of the discussions and presentations that took place among 250 participants. In the current political environment, I hope it also will provide a reference for all those who are interested in transcending simplistic assumptions about the role of Asian Americans in mainstream society, both at home and abroad.

The Bridges project was a collaborative effort among our three organizations, the Asia Society, Leadership Education for Asian Politics (LEAP), and the Asian American Federation. I would like to acknowledge the friendship and the active support of J. D. Hokoyama and Cao O as well as their staff, who worked with Asia Society staff to ensure the success of the project. The National Advisory Committee has been an invaluable source in terms of the structure of the project as well as for recommending speakers and scholars to contribute to the project publication. I am grateful to our scholars, who agreed to take on an unusual assignment and travel the country to get a more highly nuanced sense of the Asian American experience. Lastly, I am grateful to Sayu Bhojwani, who managed the project at the Asia Society until last fall, when she left to pursue her dream of starting an organization for South Asian youth in greater New York. Sunita Sunder Mukhi, who joined the Society to assume Sayu’s responsibilities has diligently and persistently worked to produce the report in a timely manner.

As Asian Americans continue to gain prominence, and as the United States—often described as a country of immigrants—develops effective means to compete in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic international community, let us hope that we will enter the next century free of prejudice and with more heartfelt acceptance of the Asian American experience. We hope that Bridges with Asia will be seen as having contributed to that greater understanding.

Endnotes

*: Vishakha N. Desai is currently Vice President for Cultural Programs at the Asia Society. She has also been the Director of the Asia Society Galleries since 1990. She is responsible for the special exhibitions of Asian art, the world renowned Rockefeller Collection, and other art-related programs organized by the Asia Society. In 1993, she was appointed as Vice President for Cultural Programs to develop multidisciplinary projects involving visual and performing arts as well as other humanities and social sciences. Under her direction, the Society has inaugurated an ambitious and diverse program to present contemporary art by Asian and Asian American artists, while continuing to organize exhibitions of traditional Asian arts with new contextual foci. Prior to assuming her current position, Dr. Desai was at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, first as the head of Exhibition Resources and as the Acting Director of the Education Department and later as the Assistant Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian and Islamic Art in the Department of Asian Art. She has also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston University and Columbia University. Back.