Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
by Lisa Lowe
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In Immigrant Acts, Lisa Lowe argues that understanding Asian immigration to the United States is fundamental to understanding the racialized economic and political foundations of the nation. Lowe discusses the contradictions whereby Asians have been included in the workplaces and markets of the U.S. nation-state, yet, through exclusion laws and bars from citizenship, have been distanced from the terrain of national culture.Lowe argues that a national memory haunts the conception of Asian show more American, persisting beyond the repeal of individual laws and sustained by U.S. wars in Asia, in which the Asian is seen as the perpetual immigrant, as the “foreigner-within.” In Immigrant Acts, she argues that rather than attesting to the absorption of cultural difference into the universality of the national political sphere, the Asian immigrant—at odds with the cultural, racial, and linguistic forms of the nation—displaces the temporality of assimilation. Distance from the American national culture constitutes Asian American culture as an alternative site that produces cultural forms materially and aesthetically in contradiction with the institutions of citizenship and national identity. Rather than a sign of a “failed” integration of Asians into the American cultural sphere, this critique preserves and opens up different possibilities for political practice and coalition across racial and national borders.In this uniquely interdisciplinary study, Lowe examines the historical, political, cultural, and aesthetic meanings of immigration in relation to Asian Americans. Extending the range of Asian American critique, Immigrant Acts will interest readers concerned with race and ethnicity in the United States, American cultures, immigration, and transnationalism. show lessTags
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A very balanced book that looks at the condition of the Asian immigrant through the light of history, literature and politics. Lowe is probably at her best and most passionate in the discussion of the state of Asian immigrant women, and of the need for all of us to cross borders of race, ethnicity and class in order to work towards positive change.
She manages to contextualize some basic ideas while at the same time going in depth with some theories of Marx, Althusser, Audre Lorde, Fanon, Benjamin, and others and connecting them to this situation in ways I haven't thought of previously. She also does some great reading of [a:Jessica Hagedorn|6323|Jessica Hagedorn|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1281518101p2/6323.jpg]'s show more [b:Dogeaters|875730|Dogeaters|Jessica Hagedorn|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179107524s/875730.jpg|1912177], [a:Fae Myenne Ng|61437|Fae Myenne Ng|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s [b:Bone|1193750|Bone|Fae Myenne Ng|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|517882], [a:Carlos Bulosan|148317|Carlos Bulosan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1271607946p2/148317.jpg]'s [b:America is in the Heart: A Personal History|253813|America is in the Heart A Personal History (Washington Paperbacks)|Carlos Bulosan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173164746s/253813.jpg|384432], and, especially, [a:Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|52223|Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1286468056p2/52223.jpg]'s [b:Dictee|90894|Dictee|Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171224795s/90894.jpg|1397562].
Her writing can at times be dense and takes some getting used to, but it is a very important work to Asian American studies so it can't be ignored. It is winner of the 1997 Book Award in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies and an HOnoroable Mention for the 1997 John Hope Franklin Prize for the best book published in American studies. It brings out some major issues in feminist studies, Marxist studies, and Asian American and immigrant history in general. show less
She manages to contextualize some basic ideas while at the same time going in depth with some theories of Marx, Althusser, Audre Lorde, Fanon, Benjamin, and others and connecting them to this situation in ways I haven't thought of previously. She also does some great reading of [a:Jessica Hagedorn|6323|Jessica Hagedorn|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1281518101p2/6323.jpg]'s show more [b:Dogeaters|875730|Dogeaters|Jessica Hagedorn|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179107524s/875730.jpg|1912177], [a:Fae Myenne Ng|61437|Fae Myenne Ng|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s [b:Bone|1193750|Bone|Fae Myenne Ng|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|517882], [a:Carlos Bulosan|148317|Carlos Bulosan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1271607946p2/148317.jpg]'s [b:America is in the Heart: A Personal History|253813|America is in the Heart A Personal History (Washington Paperbacks)|Carlos Bulosan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173164746s/253813.jpg|384432], and, especially, [a:Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|52223|Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1286468056p2/52223.jpg]'s [b:Dictee|90894|Dictee|Theresa Hak Kyung Cha|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171224795s/90894.jpg|1397562].
Her writing can at times be dense and takes some getting used to, but it is a very important work to Asian American studies so it can't be ignored. It is winner of the 1997 Book Award in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies and an HOnoroable Mention for the 1997 John Hope Franklin Prize for the best book published in American studies. It brings out some major issues in feminist studies, Marxist studies, and Asian American and immigrant history in general. show less
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- Nonfiction, Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
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- 810.9 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American literature in English History and criticism of American literature
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