Week Five: Parreñas and Siu

1.     Key words: diaspora, transnationalism, and globalization

2.     Diaspora:  “ongoing and contested process of subject formation” Entailing:  displacement, simultaneity of alienation and affiliation , and collective consciousness and connectivity p. 1

3.     Simultaneous relations:  p. 2

4.     Three interventions:  p. 2-3

5.     “Asian diasporas facilitate analysis of interlocking relationships that are at once local, national, and transnational.  It seeks to explore global connections from different angles.”  P. 3

6.     Diaspora:  as framework to study home (adopted), homeland (ethnic) and the geographically dispersed relations (coethnics) p. 3

7.     Area Studies p. 4

8.     Asian American Studies as “an area of study and a social movement” p. 5

9.     Diaspora:  “enthographically grounded and historically informed” p. 5

10.  Page 5:  read and understand

11. “not all Asian migrations are diasporic in nature” p. 7

12. “Aviod constructing Asia as a homogeneous homeland.”  p. 8

13. “We understand Asia to be a homogenizing category that is historically produced through a set of discourses and imaginaries and whose parameters have been drawn and redrawn by the shifting agendas of various intellectual and political projects.”  p. 8

14. diasporas (in its plural form) p. 9

15. A quick glance at the colonial history! p. 9  Think about this in reference to Lowe, Manalansan and Roque Ramírez.  “we also emphasize the uneven political and economic relations that have formed between Asia and the West, as well as within Asia, and discuss their implications in facilitating Asian emigration as well as in shaping the conditions of their displacement.”  p. 9

16. Page 10:  read and understand

17. Diasporic identity:  p. 11

18. “Nationalism is at the heart of diasporic displacements.”  P. 11

19. “The Making of Diasporas” fully understand and be able to apply pp. 12-13

20. Displacement and the nation-state p. 13

21. “being diasporic is not always is a matter of choice.”  P. 13

22. page 13:  read and understand

23.   “We do not view diasporas and immigration to be mutually exclusive categories of settlement. . .”  p. 14

24. “we recognize the subaltern who is without resources to cross or align across borders.”  p. 14

25. Home:  social relations, memories, imaginaries, cultural production that form multiple links to place, culture, and community.  p. 14

26. “the question of home serves not only as a source of anxiety but also as a site of creativity and refuge.”  P. 15

27. “it’s one’s positioning in the local that helps define one’s relationship to an ‘elsewhere.’”  p. 15  NB:  this is not Rabasa’s use of the term elsewhere, but what can we learn from both of these ideas in conversation

28. positioning p. 15

29. situated loyalties p. 15

30. Five Major Themes (pp. 16-24)  Be able to name and discuss each theme.  Think about how they relate to last week’s readings, and then to the overall structure of the class.

31. Culture p. 22

32. Diasporic Amnesia p. 22

33. Diasporic Cultural formation p. 22

34. Think about the author’s invitation to Palumbo-Lui and Ang.  After reading their pieces, what do you think “new directions for broadening this conversation” might be? p. 23

35.  The triangulating relationship p. 24 How does this relate to our overall theoretical project in this class, not the shape and form of the syllabus.