Essay Questions

Question 1

1. As Erica Lee detailed in “South Asian Immigrants and the ‘Hindu Invasion;,” the exclusion of South Asians from North America began in Canada and spread in to the US. What took place in Canada to spur on South Asian exclusion?

Answer 1

• Canada began heavily recruiting South Asians for cheap labor (ie working on railroads)
• created a racial strife between Canadian workers and the South Asians (whom Canadian workers believed were stealing their jobs)

Question 2

1. (continued) How did the exclusion of South Asians in Canada affect US immigration policies for South Asians?

Answer 2

• Exclusion in Canada came at the behest of “continuous voyage immigration rules” (Canada realized they couldn’t exclude South Asians because they were citizens of the British Empire and could travel within itself)
• the continuous voyage immigration rule said that if they didn’t come to Canada on a continuous voyage they weren’t allowed in to the country (which was a loophole because no voyage was continuous at the time)
• US Immigration Policies: After Canada excluded South Asians, US saw an influx of South Asians immigrating to work here (creating racial strife; US answered by following Canada’s lead and proposing exclusion that would not jeopardize international relations; they would get government surgeons to create certificates that deemed them ineligible to enter the US

Question 3

1. (continued) Why did the British Government get involved in the immigration restriction of South Asians from North America?

Answer 3

• South Asians were taking part in the Transnational Political Activism based within North America

(they were attempting to gain their independence from British Empire and England was like Ha. No, stop that. and stepped in)

Question 4

2. What are the three facets of the Global Cold War and why is it important to understand that there was more than one facet?

Answer 4

1. ) Anti Colonial Struggles of the 3rd World for independence
2. ) Rebuild Europe to ensure future peace
3. ) Ideological and military conflict between the US and Soviet Union

IMPORTANT BECAUSE:
- understanding the complexity of the Vietnam war comes from recognizing all the different facets

• understanding the different understandings of communism (Vietnam: anti-colonialism and a way to escape feudal society; US: it’s bad for them)
• understanding the Korean struggle fro independence from Japan

Question 5

2. (continued) What major even shifted US foreign policy and Cold War objectives from Europe towards Asia?

Answer 5

the fall of China to communism in 1949

Question 6

2. (continued) What does it mean that the Cold War turned ‘hot’ in Asia?

Answer 6

• true conflicts were beginning to arise (there was no real war in Europe because no one was dying but people began dying in Asia)
• ex. Korea was the first place war turned ‘hot’ (approx. 8 months after the fall of China to communism)

Question 7

3. Three immigration acts showcased America’s shift away from immigration restriction and towards the liberalization of immigration policies. What are these three acts?

Answer 7

1. 1943 Magnuson Act
2. 1952 McCarran Walter Act
3. 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act

Question 8

3. (continued) What is the 1943 Magnuson Act? Why was it significant?

Answer 8

• repealed the Chinese exclusion act
• established a racial quota (not a national; if you were a Chinese person living in Mexico who came to the US you would fall under the Chinese quota not Mexicos)
• granted Chinese the right to naturalization

SIGNIFICANCE
- countered Japanese propaganda meant to turn China against the US and unite Asia

• motivate to secure a Chinese Alliance
• restore US credibility (America is not Nazi Germany; we’re the good guys!)

Question 9

3. (continued) What was the 1952 McCarran Walter Act? What was significant about it?

Answer 9

• permitted immigration from the Asian Pacific Triangle
• granted all Asians naturalization rights
• allowed the entrance of GI wives as non-quota immigrants

SIGNIFICANCE:
- revised the 1929 immigration law and eliminated sex and race as bars to immigration

Question 10

3. (continued) What was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act? What was significant about it?

Answer 10

• abolished “national origins” as basis of immigration
• provided additional admissions of immigrants from the Eastern and Western hemispheres
• families (spouses, children, and parents) were exempted from quotes

SIGNIFICANT:
- immigration was viewed now as foreign policy

• immigration was viewed as a domestic civil rights reform
• established immigration control without anti-immigrant sentiment

Question 11

4. According to Susie Woo, Korean Children’s Choir contributed to the cultural and political work that made transracial and transnational adoption possible on a large scale. What are three cultural shifts that took place during the early Cold War years, prompting Americans to desire Korean Children?

Answer 11

1. US Competition with Soviet Communism
   - US justifies unpopular war through benevolent paternalism; “save” orphaned Koreans from communism
2. ) Democratic possibilities of Cold War Liberalism
   - cross racial adoptions refigured family ties as political obligations (envisioning Asian-White familial love encourages racial tolerance)
3. The Nuclear Family Image
   - post WW2 created a new ideal of what a family should look like; mother, father, and children (the nuclear family)
   - created a demand for adoptable babies due to low number in the US at the time

Question 12

5. Why did the Hmong join forces with the US during the Secret Wars in Laos?

Answer 12

• the Hmong have constantly relied on external powers to counter marginalization (relied on France before the US)
• thought that in siding with the United States they would lead the Hmong to their own statehood and status

Question 13

5. (continued) What were the three main missions of the Hmong secret army?

Answer 13

1. Fight the Pathet Lao directly in combat
2. Because the US signed a neutrality agreement with Laos, they were not permitted to intervene; used the Hmong to maintain covert US operations without violating the treaty directly
3. Defend American military installations in Laos (specifically in the the Long Cheng valley)

Question 14

5. (continued) How did the secret war shape Hmong immigration to the US?

Answer 14

• only the elites were airlifted from Laos (because it was a secret war they couldn’t have the same image of mass evacuation of people like they did in Vietnam)
• eventually the Us felt guilty and went back to evacuate and bring in refugees (leads to influx of Hmong in US)
• because they were soldiers in a “Secret War” no one really knew why they were coming in (became unwanted and invisible immigrants rather than treated like war vets)
• at first the Hmong were dispersed widely throughout the country to avoid creating another “Chinatown” (but eventually moved to areas together to gain a sense of community they weren’t receiving from the white areas they lived in)

Question 15

6. As detailed in “In Search of Refuge,” the Hmong army was not the only secret that the US government kept from the American people. Outside of Laos, the US also intervened in the affairs of Cambodia. Discuss the military intervention of the US in Cambodia and its impact on the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Answer 15

• the US dropped a lot of bombs (#1 form of military intervention in Cambodia; ‘the killing fields’)
• created instability in Cambodia (created a gravitation toward a more radical leader (the US government back Pol Pot seemed like a good candidate so they went with him)
• Khmer Rouge eventually will kill off 2/3 of the Cambodian population; one of the largest mass genocides in modern history.

Question 16

6. (continued) During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian society underwent radical restructuring. Discuss two major changes and how they led to massive exile of the Cambodian people.

Answer 16

1. Pol Pot HATED religion
   - implemented policies that clamped down on religion (specifically hated Buddhism)

• those caught practicing were either killed or sent to re-education camps
  2. Institution of different policies to re-educate and purify the souls of the nation (those who didn’t follow his order were sent here and forced in to backbreaking physical labor to understand that he was ‘right’
• a lot of the landowning elite were sent to these camps

by taking away religion and forcing people in to torturous re-education camps there became a need to escape in order to save their own lives

Question 17

7. According to Yen Le Espiritu, what is the refugee success story?

Answer 17

flight, adjustment, assimilation

Question 18

7. (continued) As Espiritu detailed, the refugee success story relies on two narrative strategies. (What do they mean? What is useful about each narrative?)

Answer 18

1. “Before and After”
   - from socially stigmatized to socially recognized
   - use of photos; before photos depicted them with the background of a destroyed Vietnam; after photos of them flourishing in a cosmopolitan US area

WHAT IS USEFUL ABOUT THIS?
- before photos draw upon the notions of a 3rd world country riddled with poverty, hunger, and need; after photos depicts the influence and benefit of US democracy

2. “Would Have Beens”
   - look at the success stories and other Vietnamese immigrants through a lens of what “might have been” had they stayed in Vietnam (which was often poverty or death)

WHAT IS USEFUL ABOUT THIS?
- once again depicts the benefit and ‘help’ provided by the US and how much better off refugees are now that they are in America

Question 19

7. (continued) Why is the concept of ‘freedom’ important for the US war effort?

Answer 19

• paints the US as “freedom protectors” rather than just “war aggressors”
• paints freedom as an ‘indigenous property within the US (justifies our actions in countries abroad as us spreading our freedom)

Question 20

8. In the film aka Don Bonus, what are three institutional structures that contributed to the social isolation and marginalization of Don Bonus?

Answer 20

1. School
   - takes him a long time to get to schools

• teachers are culturally insensitive and unaware; his essay about his escape is immediately written off as an adventure story based on the title and is asked if he brings a machete

2. Criminal Justice System
   - they basically ignore his family and living community when they call for help

• when someone throws a rock and shatters their window they call the police but they never show
• when someone breaks in and steals all their items, he’s put on hold and sent to different lines in order to report it and still has to leave a message rather than talk to someone

3. Housing
   - his brother Tuch was the closest family he had but due to the unsafe neighborhood they lived in at first he ran away (neighborhood was incredibly poor and had a lot of racial tension due to segregation)

• his mother also avoided being at the house due to its unsafe nature and stayed with her husband (whom they all hated)

Question 21

9. In the Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang sought to define what it means to be Hmong in the US context. What are three definitions that she provides and what is significant about each definition?

Answer 21

1. Contained
   - corrects a misinterpretation made by another Asian-American scholar that said Hmong meant free

• Kao Kalia Yang was born within a refugee camp in Thailand
• most Hmong were sent to live in Bon Vanai (refugee camp) that didn’t allow them to leave and were guarded by armed soldiers

2. “Not even a footnote”
   - even though 2/3 of their population was killed in the war, due to the status of it as a “Secret War” there was no commemoration or recognition for what they did

• the more important question should not be who are they but why we know nothing about them

3. Skin Deep
   - superficial; implies their looks (their looks imply to Americans who know nothing of the Secret War that they are just “another Asian group within the country”

• wants to delve deeper in this definition; peel back the layer to discover they are more than another “Asian group” (Vietnam Veterans)

Question 22

10. For Kao Kalia Yang, the question “Where do the Hmong come from?” is a complicated one. She answers by describing three places. whatare the three places and what is significant about each place?

Answer 22

1. The Sky / Clouds
   - holds cultural significance; folklore says that before Hmong are born they wait in the clouds and return to the clouds upon death
   - also refers to their location in the upper / high altitude (mountains) of Laos
2. Camps / Processing Camps
   - beginning with bolded Ban Vinai Camp shows to demonstrate that is when history sees them or recognizes them but the unbolded, italicized text at the beginning of the story is supposed to be the true beginning of the Hmong
3. China, Laos, Thailand
   - reflects the complicated and not understandable (to some audiences) origin of their people (I’m from Thailand, refugee camp, but I’m actually from Laos)

Question 23

11. For Kao Kalia Yang, the Hmong women are central to understanding Hmong history in the US. She recounts the history through three generations of Hmong women (detail the significance of each generation)

Answer 23

1. Grandmother; “Heroism of War”
   - she is the ties that bind all the family together and that binds them to Hmong culture
   - demonstrates us all the ways to risk life in war (shows how women may have contributed to the war but are often silenced or ignored in the grand scheme of things to others like soldiers)
2. Mother; “living through the children”
   - represents the one who had to follow through with the patriarchy of Hmong culture (when she couldn’t produce a male baby, she had to watch her husband go out looking for/at other women who might be able to do so)
   - she’s giving Kao the chance to define her life as her own and not through the patriarchal standing
3. Daughter; “the bold new generation”
   - the generation bold enough to critique the Hmong culture (celebrates this through the telling of the Hmong history through women in her book rather than focusing on the stories and journeys of the men)

Question 24

12. As detailed in the article, “Islamophobia and the Making of Latino/as into Terrorist Threats,” the extension and growth of islamophobia has been supported by three different levels of the state. Discuss in detail these three levels. Be specific in your answers.

Answer 24

1. Political Rhetoric
   - Islamophobia is promoted by politicians who mobilize fear among the US public about the issues of immigration and terrorism in order to gain political power
   - they do this by portraying immigration control/policies as the best solution to contain terrorism (depicts terrorism and immigration as inseparable in order to play on xenophobia and promote anti-immigrant sentiment)
2. Public Policies
   - congressional representatives using the fear of the public to propose policies (new systems of surveillance that target immigrants as being potential terrorists and aggressive border control approaches)
   - policies result in racial profiling and only exacerbates fear in the public when they see someone who fits this profile (creates Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment)
3. Institution Level
   - different government agencies, which were working individually on immigration and terrorism, unite (post 9/11 INS and FBI worked together to search for terrorists among immigrants)
   - only strengthens the view that immigration and terrorism are inseparable