Asian American Racial Identity: Complicity or Solidarity

News & Opinion

Why Whites Should Fear Demographic Change

Scot Nakagawa
by posted on 6/14/13 in RaceFiles / 5 responses

Yesterday a New York Times article ran under the headline Census Benchmark for White Americans: More Deaths Than Births. I’m guessing that story read something like Tornado Strikes Minutemen Border Patrol Headquarters: Millions in Guns and Ammunition Lost among America’s growing ranks of white nationalists. But, before further panic ensues, the article also made it clear that demographic change is not exactly right around the corner, saying, The disparity [between white births and deaths] was tiny — only about 12,000 — and was more than made up by a gain of 188,000 as a result of immigration from abroad. But Read more »

The Democrat’s Jefferson-Jackson Fundraising Tradition and the Limits of Perspective

Scot Nakagawa
by posted on 6/13/13 in RaceFiles / 0 responses

One of my weekend rituals involves watching MSNBC’s Saturday and Sunday morning political talk show, Up, now hosted by Salon.com’s Steve Kornacki. Up provides a pretty good capsule account of the political week according to the center-left media. So I watch, occasionally find myself nodding in agreement, and just as often end up arguing with the TV. This past weekend, Up featured a story about the annual round of Jefferson-Jackson Day spring Democratic Party fundraising dinners. The point of the story was that, in the face of an increasingly racially diverse electorate, it might be time for the Democrats to Read more »

The Danger of Nostalgia: Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant’s Sexist Slip

Scot Nakagawa
by posted on 6/5/13 in RaceFiles / 4 responses

At a Washington Post Live event concerning children’s literacy on Tuesday, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant opened his mouth and dropped a bomb. When asked why America is so “mediocre” in terms of educational achievement, here’s what he said. I’m going to get in trouble — do you want me to tell the truth?…I think both parents started working. And the mom is in the workplace. Of course, the statement was media gold. Governor Bryant has since been lambasted, as well he should, as a male chauvinist pig. And since political polarization is good for business, liberal pundits were quick to Read more »

The P.I. in the A.P.I.

Scot Nakagawa
by posted on 6/3/13 in RaceFiles / 0 responses

Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month has me pondering the question of Pacific Islanders and where that group fits in the Asian-Pacific American coalition. I’ve wondered about it because I fear that by using that term, we too often tell a story about Pacific Islanders that contributes to their invisibility. There’s a certain amount of invisiblizing, if you will forgive my grammar, that goes on when we use the term “Asian American.” After all, Asian Americans are a mash-up of 40 or so ethnic groups from nations often at odds with one another within a region of origin that only thinks of Read more »

Lost in the Supermarket: The Psychological Burden of Invisible Racism

Scot Nakagawa
by posted on 5/29/13 in RaceFiles / 2 responses

Many Americans, especially many white Americans, believe we live in a post-racial era. They’re convinced that racism no longer has the power to organize the way we live and impose disadvantages on people of color. I’m holding out hope that this is wishful thinking and not just a convenient form of denial, but I’m guessing disappointment is on the horizon. Post-racial believers overlook incidents like the now famous racist rant of that Papa John’s pizza delivery man. Obviously, he’s not post-racial. And, you know, he didn’t learn his racism in a vacuum, nor was he singing to himself. And this Read more »

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