Contemporary Asian American Communities

Intersections And Divergences

Linda Trinh Vo

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781566399388, 9781566399371
• eBook ISBN: 9781439901243
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Once thought of in terms of geographically bounded spaces, Asian America has undergone profound changes as a result of post-1965 immigration as well as the growth and reshaping of established communities. This collection of original essays demonstrates that conventional notions of community, of ethnic enclaves determined by exclusion and ghettoization, now have limited use in explaining the dynamic processes of contemporary community formation.Writing from a variety of perspectives, these contributors expand the concept of community to include sites not necessarily bounded by space; formations around gender, class, sexuality, and generation reveal new processes as well as the demographic diversity of today's Asian American population. The case studies gathered here speak to the fluidity of these communities and to the need for new analytic approaches to account for the similarities and differences between them. Taken together, these essays forcefully argue that it is time to replace the outworn concept of a monolithic Asian America.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• INTRODUCTION: ON INTERSECTIONS AND DIVERGENCES
• Part I Communities in Transition: Spaces and Practices
• Part II Communities in Transformation: Identities and Generations
• Part III Communities of Alternatives: Representations and Politics
• About the Contributors
• Index