Marginals, citizens, subjects: The perilous foundations of Asian American Studies

This dissertation examines the philosophical impasse of Asian American Studies, which consists of a reiteration of biological and cultural racialisms within counterhegemonic strategies meant to counter the processes of marginalization and racialization. By addressing marginality, citizenship, and subjection, which are the three major conceptual moments/registers that determine knowledges about Asian America across the twentieth century, this dissertation argues for a re-orientation of the field which can untether the thinking of Asian America from the yoke of racial domination.In the first chapter, the history of the concept of "marginality" is examined in relation to its academic origins: the Chicago School of Sociology. The concept of marginality rests upon notions of racial assimilation and biological amalgamation and remains intact in current Asian Americanist thought. The racial foundations of American law are addressed in the second chapter in relation to Japanese American internment and the reparations movements. Because Asian American citizenship is an articulation of the racial exception which resides at the core of the U.S. legal system, it is argued that Asian American Studies must develop a theory of its relation to the state that addresses the limitations of "inclusion" and "full" citizenship. In the final chapter, the problem of racial subjection is explored in light of contemporary strategies which are meant to secure the academic "place" of Asian American Studies. Rather than argue for a reconsolidation of Asian American identity, this dissertation contends that the field must commit itself to a radical critique of its foundations in order to develop viable epistemological alternatives. Asian American literature is read as a strategic response throughout, intervening in debates surrounding the three major concepts the works of Younghill Kang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-Rae Lee, R. Zamora Linmark, Toshio Mori, Fae Myenne Ng, John Okada, Hisaye Yamamoto are examined for alternative ways to think of Asian America's possible futures. This study seeks to understand the limits of various Asian American Studies projects by exploring the perilous notions of racial identity that inhabit the heart of contemporary literary, sociological, and historiographical works.