Identity and family: African American and Asian American case studies

1. Identity and family: African American and Asian American case studies Intr-D 100 G Prof. Addo Fall 2011

2. Identity • Definition: the categories and characteristics of people as a members of particular groups. These groups may be distinguished by their ethnicity, “race,” class, gender, sexuality, language, occupation/ regular defining activity or any other marker that sets them apart from other groups in society.

3. Identity • Is private – how do I categorize myself in terms of a group to which I have affinity? • Is public – how does others categorize me? • Does any of this matter? Shouldn’t what I think of myself matter the most? • Answer= yes, but no…

4. In any society • Our identity (who we are) is a combination of private and public assumptions • E.g. W.E.B.DuBois’sidea of double-consciousness: “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others”….and “one ever feels his two-ness – an American and a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body…”(Du Bois 1903 [2003]:7).

5. Jesse Tauriac’s lecture (Oct 3) • Ascribed Identity OR Socially-assigned Identity = how others thinks about us or what groups they place us in Vs • Claimed identity = how we think about ourselves; what group we claim as our “peeps” b/c they have similar experiences to us

6. Jesse Tauriac’s lecture (Oct 3) • He asked 3 Q’s: 1. When you are out in a public context, what identity do people place you in (in other words, what are your ascribed identities)? 2. What is your claimed identity? 3. If 1 and 2 (above) are different, how does this affect your academic experience?

7. Issues raised by Ugwu-Oju “What would My Mother Say?” (2001) • Aspects of Local history in the hostland are not always understood by diasporans • Eg: Racism was not part of Ugwu-Oju’s experience, • but remember the film (“Neo-African Americans”)  Racism is a part of second and third generation African immigrants’ experience

8. How to talk about the differences in what the Af Am/Black girls felt and what Ugwu-Oju felt? • Answer = Ethnicity – the combination of claimed and ascribed identity that takes into account people’s history, culture, and self-definitions…. • Ethnicity is NOT THE SAME as Race • Race = category that is based on phenotype only • An Ethnic Category is more nuanced (eg; Ibo and Hausa; Caribbean; Jamaican; Continental African)….All are racially of African descent, but different in terms of ethnicity

9. Ugwu-Oju (2001:67) • Institutionalized racism = societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity. • Internalized racism = when people targeted by racism are, against their will, coerced and pressured to agree with the distortions of racism…sometimes come to hate one’s own “group” … but what if one does not identify as part of that group?? And what makes one able to identify over time??

10. Assimilation, ethnicity, and race • What do you learn from Jesse’s guest lecture that help you explain the differences in outcomes between American Blacks and Immigrant Africans and Caribbean people? • Note that the reading by Tormala and Deaux (2006) presents similar ideas

11. Relationship between diaspora and family • People who immigrate or retain ties are usually related to SOMEONE “back home” • Their identities are not as single people, but as members of families • Sometimes families are “far flung” • But individuals are still a family • Sometimes family groups are multi-territorial Sometimes social borders defy national borders (Yanagisako 1995:291)

12. NATION (see Anderson article, 1983, from week 2) • Nation = a political community that is imagined as inherently limited and sovereign (Anderson 1991 [1983]:6) • “The nations is always conceived as a deep horizontal comradeship” (ibid.:7) • NATIONALISM = allegiance to such a community; the community does not have to be in one geographical space; members are not necessarily co-ethnics

13. TRANSNATIONALISM • Nationalistic groups formed between people • The groups are not located in one single place; • Transnational groups are seen as an indication of a sign of the strengthening of inter-connectivity between people • Transnational groups are seen as an indication of a sign of the weakening of boundaries between political countries/nations

14. Transnational Identity • Involves Have a decentered consciousness (Ong 1993:742) • What does she mean by this? • Is her idea the same as Du Bois’s idea of the Double Consciousness of African Americans?

15. Citizenship • The state of belonging to a group • (modern) National citizenship – regulated by passports • Cultural citizenship – regulated by others in the group  a kind of ascribed identity

16. Citizenship • Overseas citizenship – having national citizenship in one country while living in another  Ong says this is constrained for Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong • The Law in a country also controls our identities. • SO…IDENTITY is controlled by: Family/ group; Self; and Law/nation

17. Long-Distance and Local family:Asian Americans as case studies in identity and citizenship • Presentation by Asmae, Vanessa, and Jason (postponed to Wed Oct 12, 2011) Paper # 1 also due on Oct 12, at start of class.