INTRODUCTION

In the following essay, we attempt to locate the field of Asian American Studies via an analysis of: (1) constraints found within the contemporary university in terms of the creation of ethnic knowledge; and (2) how different forms of power can impact the production of knowledge about people of color&emdash;in this case, people of Asian ancestry in the U.S.A.

Our basic thesis is that self-determination remains a central concern for the field of Asian American studies, especially insofar as it aspires to enable its practitioners to carry out grounded kinds of theory and practice. We also try to show why imposed or alienated forms of knowledge production should be resisted. Appropriated forms of knowledge, however, have and should continue to play a role in the overall evolution of Asian American studies as the field strives to develop to meet the challenges of the new century.

ROOTS, PREMISES, AND PROPOSITIONS

Playing a dynamic role in the oppositional cultural and political climate of the 1960s, the movement to create what is now known as ethnic studies on campus exploded onto the academic scene in 1968. Asian American studies [hereafter, AAS] was one of its constituent areas. The vision of the women and men who fought to build ethnic studies broke radically from that of the status quo in education. In part, this was because militant strikes and a series of protests were necessary to create institutional space for ethnic studies and AAS in an often rigid, traditional university setting. Further, as we note in the following paragraphs, students and their supporters explicitly rejected the premise that the academy could generate viable, authoritative, knowledge of Third World peoples and their experiences.

This realization was a result of pragmatic and basic deconstructions of existing knowledge production, fired by the spirit of the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, and the extreme dissatisfaction concerning U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Why was history only about Euro-Americans? Why did basic literature in the university only represent the English and the Anglo-American? Such simple and basic questions were asked as to why our experiences were erased, and relegated merely to singular chapters on slavery of African Americans, a passing reference to Chinese workers on the railroads, a paragraph on the concentration camps, euphemistically called "relocation centers," and no reference whatsoever to other people of color who helped build this nation. Where were our voices, our perspectives?

In light of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, many student activists also realized that the front lines were constituted of men of color and of the working classes. Furthermore, Asian American soldiers of that generation that actually served in Vietnam were brutally confronted by the reality and the irony that Asians were used to kill Asians. With these realizations and many others at the time, a Third World consciousness was born; students and community activists agreed that the ability to grasp such experiences lay well beyond the ken of traditional academic institution, and the majority of its faculty, as well as their practices for generating knowledge.

To examine these assertions further, it is necessary to delineate broad issues of power and "knowledge production" in the context of the academy--the primary "institutional structure" charged with the responsibility of education.

KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AND INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES

Figure #1 presents an heuristic typology, delineating ideal types of educational production and reproduction in academic settings. The first of the two key dimensions of the typology revolves around power over "educational resources," including whether such resources are rooted in one's own experiences or those that are exogenous. In the second dimension, simply speaking, the locus of "decision-making and power" is dichotomized into situations in which a given group either has or does not have self-determination. These dichotomies result in four cells that represent broad types of "educational production" that racialized minorities in this country have had to deal with.

In its most destructive form, educational production takes place in terms of dominant "outsider's" perspectives on a minority group's history and experiences, and subsequently determines images of the latter's roles and positions in the larger society. Similarly, inculcation in educational production occurs in institutional settings in which the "analyzed" group has no decision-making power with which to shape its own representations. This is worth exploring in more detail.

Although minority groups may "inform" by way of being the subject/object of surveys, ethnographies, creative literatures, etc., they had no real voice. Historically, before the creation of ethnic studies, they did not have the academic privilege of defining the analyses of their production in whatever form it took. An informant, for instance, is used for gathering data, while the scholar attempts to "make sense" of it. Even the ethnic poet or novelist, although perhaps praised in the academy, is nevertheless at the mercy of the literary critic who "interprets" within the traditional scholarly venue. This is not to say that there were no ethnic scholars per se, before ethnic studies, but rather that such scholars were constrained by the discourses that confined them in the first place. Thus, an insider's perspective that would include worldview and interests that are generated by one's race, ethnicity, class position, gender, and sexuality, traditionally did not figure in the formulation of the analyses. Similarly, cultural differences and class positions often are not taken into account in traditional psychological analyses, mainstream feminists discourses, etc. A discussion of individuation in psychology often does not take into account how cultural differences compound the tensions of generational difference, and the middle-class concern of professional women entering the work force completely ignores the particular oppressions of Asian American and other third world women in sweat shops. To be fair, we also note that perspectives of gender and sexuality often are ignored in analyses that take only race and ethnicity into account. Early Asian American discourses on race issues, for example, paid attention to the oppression of male subjects since men disproportionately comprised the original communities of Asians in America--in Chinese and Filipino immigrant communities, especially. This focus on male positionalities is something that we must continue to struggle with and overcome. Nonetheless, that traditional academic discourse is elitist in nature is a given. The discursive practice in which minority groups are the "analyzed" becomes the basis of an "imposed (and thus oppressive) education" that denies, alters, ignores, and devalues not only the ethnic group's histories and experiences as these are lived and perceived by members of that group, but also precludes these perspectives from informing and shaping alternative analyses.

In terms of the same typology, there are also forms of educational production that are mixed in nature and varied in terms of their possible freight. Alienated education entails a situation in which a group's own world view is drawn from as a resource; simultaneously, however, real decision-making, in terms of the ultimate formulations and uses of that resource, are being determined by some external educational entity. Without wanting to go into detail here, one can certainly identify examples that illustrate the negative dimensions of "alienated" forms of education. For example Asian Studies programs have resources and tools for the study of Asians in America that are based on in-depth historical and socio-cultural knowledge of the countries of origin. To this extent, they might claim to base their educational products on an "insider's" perspective, although their analyses or interpretations often are definitively not from the "inside." When peoples of Asian descent in America (whose experiences are being described by the academy) are denied the power to shape, represent, and present these experiences, they are being subject to an alienating and negating process. Similarly, the application of postmodernist perspectives to Asian American writings, solely to demonstrate how Asian American literary production fits into a theoretical cubbyhole, so to speak, is an example of a kind of alienated cultural production, since it deflects focus from the actual product and maintains the dominance of an external framework of aesthetic principles.

Appropriated education would represent another configuration of these elements. Here, "others'" views--which is to say exogenous theoretical, analytic, and conceptual resources such as Marxism or feminism--would be taken and applied to one's own history and experiences, in an effort to illuminate or re-examine these from other vantage points and perspectives.

In sum, the movement to build ethnic studies, as an institutionalized educational alternative, can be viewed as an explicit reaction to "oppressive" forms of educational production and reproduction. In its day, this was a revolutionary vision, insofar as it posited "ethnic education" as an autonomous educational enterprise, diametrically opposed to that generated by academicians working within the domain of "imposed education." At this juncture, it is useful to specify what Asian American studies is all about in more detail. Penultimately, this will enable us to see more readily the successes and the challenges that face the field as we approach the millennium.

WHAT IS ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES?

What specifically does the field of Asian American studies entail? Asian American studies is, inherently, a part of the larger field of ethnic studies. The student, community, and faculty activists who founded the field uniformly agreed that an alternative curriculum was imperative, given that "both implicit and explicit discriminatory attitudes and practices have and do exist in the academy and in our society." Given this charge, AAS was and remains still a transformative enterprise, encompassing critique and practice in order to bring about constructive social change, in pursuit of social justice, whenever and wherever necessary.

In terms of its day-to-day operations in the academy, AAS involves research, curriculum development, and teaching, all of which pertain to histories and experiences, identities, social and community formations, politics, and contemporary concerns of Asian Americans. While academic in nature, many Asian Americanists still are strongly committed to community-based issues and projects, at either ethnic-specific or "pan-Asian" levels. Others are committed to the extent that real-world politics informs their research directions and perspectives. Whether these scholars focus on a single community, the broader Asian American community, or take on global pan-Asian issues such as the problems of domestic workers overseas, political concerns are an integral part of their epistemology and their methodology.

In terms of institutional politics within the academy, Asian American studies aims to make education more democratic--more "equitable, diverse, and inclusive"--through the examination of the experiences of racialized/ethnic "minorities" in the United States, populations whose sufferings and contributions alike have often been ignored and thus erased. By these activities would democratic education be truly democratized. Democratization of instruction and institutions, in turn, promotes a more meaningful and relevant educational experience that would effect wider sectors of the population at large. Because scholarship in ethnic and Asian American studies reveals that assumptions and biases are inherently a part of intellectual production, the Studies provides a language and a standpoint from which people of color in the academy can raise critical discourse regarding: (1) the university's role in the production of knowledge; (2) the inherent strengths and weaknesses of that knowledge, as well as (3) the uses that knowledge, as constructed by the university's faculty, is put to. Ultimately, the discourses of Asian American studies and ethnic studies in general would only invigorate knowledge production that in itself is incomplete, being itself culturally biased in its inception. It could only make existing discourses self-reflexive and critical of their own established assumptions. Perhaps, because it does just that, there is such institutional and public resistance to such an autonomous and self-defined ethnic studies.

In sum, then as now, the construction of ethnic-specific and pan-Asian subject(s) is a strategy designed for specific rhetorical and political projects. On this basis, Asian American studies entails a coalition of like-minded students, professors and activists who:

**promote the analysis and critique of the "power-knowledge" matrix, formulated and imposed by the academy;

**critique, reject, and seek to dismantle assimilationist and Euro-/Euro-American centered premises and biases;

**promote the exploration of alternative, phenomenologically-grounded ways to construct ethnic-specific as well as pan-Asian American "subjects";

**promote self-determination over cultural resources, representations, and decision-making;

**reject the disarticulation of domestic and global linkages, since such linkages shape the perceptions and the very destinies of Asians in America;

**seek ways to link Asian Americans, as Third World people, to other domestic and international struggles for equality and justice; and,

**seek to connect the study of "race" and racialization to studies of other forms of social oppression, including those based on class, gender, and sexuality.

Here, we acknowledge that the term American in Asian American may be problematic for some, and with good reason, since the very word "American," in terms of its early historical usage, excluded all persons of color, including those with rightful, native birthright on this continent. We, who have experienced the painful realities of this apartheid history, may cringe at the implied identification with "America." Certainly, many people are not interpolated by the term, "American." In our minds, however, the term "American" need not carry the connotation of idealism or desire of assimilation. It is, merely, a practical term that asserts that all Asians, whether immigrant or U.S.-born, deserve and demand full and equal participation in a country whose economic and judicial systems have oppressed them, and continue to oppress them, both domestically and in the global arena. In this sense, "Asian Americans" who identify as such believe that they should have fair and equal treatment in all facets of life in the United States, and that this treatment does not of necessity require them to "assimilate" by obliterating what they wish to retain of their diverse ethnic heritages. (This also entails taking a critical perspective of the Euro-American dominant culture in the United States, simply because of its dominance, and its ability thereof to define or absorb others.)

In sum, the immediate and long-term goals of the Studies were oriented toward a shift in thinking about society and intellectual traditions, and ultimately toward personal agency and social change, which obviously would include conceptual changes. Thus, the field of Asian American studies offers students a set of alternative, and potentially oppositional, intellectual perspectives and resources--simultaneously cultural, social, political, and aesthetic. These can be used for reviewing, re-visioning, and re-constructing their individual and collective destinies. The subject category "Asian American" is a convenient designation that can be utilized in order to identify those persons of Asian descent in the United States who are interested in maintaining their diverse ethnic heritages, and who are willing to struggle to shape their boundaries and directions.

Obviously, there are complex differences between individuals of Asian descent that are based on issues of ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender, not to mention the separate histories and contemporary experiences that are shaped in part by distinct combinations of the above categories. Nevertheless, the goals and political projects of Asian American studies may always affect, assist, and invigorate those individuals in different ways and at different times. Furthermore, we assert that the erasure or disempowerment of Asian American studies would indeed create a vacuum in the lives of these individuals whether they are conscious of it or not.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTION

As we have seen, the initial vision of AAS revolved around a strident analysis of institutional power. In order to counteract the hegemony of the academy, students and faculty wanted to create a curriculum that assumed that: "[t]he thought, meaning, and understanding of Third World people must be based on the perceptions and conceptualizations of those who experience those lives." This vision was initially non-essentialist. It involved the construction of a subject, which was in effect a politicized reconstruction of self, politically informed about relationships of power and willing to engage at some level in alternative or oppositional acts. It is also an evolving cultural construction. Practitioners of Asian American studies often identify primarily as ethnic-specific, but they can also become "pan-Asian American" if and when this is strategically necessary. Even in terms of these "pan-ethnic" moments, however, each distinct ethnic group could simultaneously keep their priorities and needs distinct. For example, the anti-immigration initiatives of contemporary times threaten some sectors of the Asian American communities more than it does others. This is true of the Filipino American, Chinese American, and Korean American communities (to name but a few); however, it does not affect the Japanese American community as much. Furthermore, a commonality with the Chicano and Latino communities can be found in this instance, and thus, anti-immigration politics becomes an ethnic studies issue. Although the anti-affirmative action amendment concerning education in California is said (according to media statistics) to affect the Chicano, and African American communities more than the Asian American communities, whose voting trends have unfortunately shown a move toward conservatism, it remains, still an Asian American studies issue, since 1) many Asian Americans still need affirmative action in other areas, for example, such as to counteract the glass ceiling syndrome, and 2) some of the ethnic-specific, Asian American communities may still need and benefit from affirmative action in education; and, 3) as an ultimate strategy, community-specific issues should always be supported, at one level or another, on a pan-ethnic basis, since the establishment has always used a "divide, conquer, and rule" strategy to its benefit. Thus, identification is always strategically fluctuating and always political. Knowledge and "meaning" in Asian American studies revolved around the assumption that interested students and faculty would take an active, and indeed, central role in determining the content of their own education. What kind of research and pedagogical outcomes initially followed from this? On some campuses, AAS became an institutional vehicle to authorize "community-based" orientations as the key criterion to determine the foci, contents, and methodologies (including the pedagogies) of the Studies. In retrospect, this agenda was implicitly and/or explicitly tied to both ethnic-specific cultural nationalism, as well as the "internal colonial" model. As an example, we cite the following statement made by student and community activist turned professor, George K. Woo, that utilizes tropes like "Asian American," "the community," and so forth. The question of control becomes the central issue ... It is imperative that people, whether they are teachers, students, parents, etc., who involve themselves in Asian American studies be involved and be part of the community the Studies is supposed to serve. Isn't community control the prime reason we had the strike? Isn't community control the reason we want Asian American studies. This type of vocabulary, used by Woo and others of that era may now be viewed as rhetorical. At the time, however, it provided a convenient way to identify and seek solidarity around common needs and interests. The stance of "community control" also allowed for what was in fact both a foundational principle and the modus operandi of the Studies: ethnic-specific self-determination. In our opinion, this foundational principle of self-determination, an integral part and basis for the field, effectively has been disregarded and muted in the name of an institutional professionalism that seeks a non-political and non-threatening route in the academy, and a pseudo-intellectual posture that would dismiss political discourse as a nostalgic trope.

In establishing a self-determined and self-defined curriculum, responsibility and accountability in research, teaching, and organizing, alike were fostered because students and faculty were working in conjunction with community-based political and service organizations in order to ameliorate and attempt to correct injustices in various sectors such as the educational system, the social service system, the justice system, and so forth, throughout the larger political and socio-economic order.

Thus, in one of its initial versions, the studies entailed phenomenological and pragmatic epistemologies, both of which were rooted in a specific "community" base and practices in order to ensure accountability. Quite naturally, the key methodological approaches practitioners emphasized followed from these premises, and included the development of ethnic-specific "insiders'" histories, oral history projects, literary compilations, "participatory action research" projects that were designed to address concrete and specific needs, and advocacy.

Other concerns, however, were added to this agenda from the very beginning. First, some AAS programs paid more attention to developing an explicit class analysis of Asians in America. For example, early statements on the evolution of the curriculum at Berkeley reflect an explicitly Marxist orientation. Consideration of this point exemplifies how and why "appropriated education" has been part-and-parcel of the Asian American studies enterprise.

Retrospectively, it is worth noting that this was not a simple and mechanical application of Marx to the experiences of Asian Americans, but one informed by specific needs of a given community. Rather, early formulations were provisional, and directed toward a careful examination of how the conceptual tools of Marxist and neo-Marxist thought might be effectively appropriated, given that the trajectories of populations of Asian descent in the United States had their own characteristics and particular histories.

A central feature which helps account for the appropriation of the Marxist paradigm by members of the Berkeley and UCLA programs, for example, was its seeming utility as a "science" for the critique of capitalism on one hand, and the implementation of revolutionary social change on the other. It is also a paradigm that prioritizes the role of ordinary members of the working class in this struggle. Skeptical readers should not discount the tremendous impact that socialist ideologies had on people of color, domestically, during the 1960s and 1970s, when challenges were being put to Western colonial and neo-colonial rule by leaders throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, under the influence of socialist ideologies; nor should they forget Noam Chomsky's thesis that the United States and Northern Europe went to great lengths to insure that no country advocating an "alternative path to capitalism" would be allowed to succeed. For the record, it should also be noted that this orientation brought certain Asian American studies programs into direct articulation with explicitly revolutionary organizers and organizations, especially in California, an articulation which sometimes resulted in periods of intense and open political struggle, especially in competition over the "hearts and minds" of students.

A second type of internal struggle has to do with a complex set of dynamics that have yet to be analyzed. Some Asian American and ethnic studies programs have been the site of controversies having to do with the impact, and in fact the centrality, of gender and sexuality on the dynamics of "race and class," and vice versa. Although some view these struggles as divisive, they in fact should promote reflexivity about the biases entailed in the often unexamined, implicitly male-oriented "cultural nationalist" assumptions held by many--women and men alike--in the early days of the Studies. In this fashion, the longer-term impact of these struggles will energize and strengthen the field. If Asian Americanists should take the study of gender and sexual biases seriously, and not merely dismiss them as divisive, bourgeois enterprises.

Suffice it to say, then, that some practitioners of Asian American studies have been able to take from mainstream intellectual frameworks, specifically political economy and feminism, and shape them into viable critical tools that have been very useful for the development of Asian American and Ethnic studies. When seen in the larger context of the formation of Asian American studies these appropriations have constituted an important dimension of the overall field, especially insofar as we have had the power to utilize them critically and creatively.

FIGURE 1: MATRIX OF POWER WITHIN PROCESSES OF EDUCATIONAL ASIAN PRODUCTION/REPRODUCTION: AMERICAN & ETHNIC STUDIES

E DECISION MAKING

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U

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A | OWN | OTHER |

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I |------------------|---------------------½

O

N

A OWN autonomous alienated

L (Insiders') education education

R

E

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O OTHER appropriated imposed

U (Outsiders') education education

R

C

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