AAS 3400 - Labor and Migration in Asian America

(crosslisted) AMST 3409, SOC 3400
(SBA-AS, SCD-AS, SSC-AS)

Fall. 4 credits. Student option grading.

J. Seo.

How do we make sense of the competing and often contradictory narratives about Asian Americans? For example, Asian Americans are cast as the model minority and as perpetual foreigners. If we take a social scientific approach to exploring this question, labor and migration emerge as two key social phenomena that undergird these narratives. A closer examination reveals how they impact almost every aspect of Asian American political and economic life: education, neighborhoods, entrepreneurship, the military, family, citizenship, and community organizing. By synthesizing multi-disciplinary social science research, we will better understand the ways Asian Americans shape and are shaped by racial logics and will locate Asian America within broader discussions around colonialism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and inequality.