Suchergebnisse

This dissertation examines Yuriko Amemiya's navigation of shifting legislation regarding race, gender, and citizenship between the 1920s and 1950s. I argue that Amemiya's training as a dancer allowed her to construct a versatile identity equipped to traverse discriminatory conditions and confront significant changes in the social location of Japanese Americans. I consider her dance training in pre-World War II Japan and analyze performances that took place in wartime and postwar America. This project reviews the social conditions of this period, including the interwar years, as second-generation Japanese Americans sought to establish a sense of belonging up-against the enforcement of anti-Asian laws, wartime incarceration, and the postwar period during which the Cold War and the enactment of new immigration policies drastically altered the demographic of Asians in the United States. Mindful of the tensions that erupted in these decades as U.S.-Japan relations vacillated, and as Americans faced job loss, war, racial segregation, and contested definitions of immigrant and citizen, I contend that dance allowed Amemiya the opportunity to re-choreograph her image away from harmful Orientalist representations. Yet, despite her increased social mobility, she continued to confront limitations as an artist and cultural critic working within the confines of American modern dance. This examination of Amemiya's early life as a performer reveals a complicated narrative that demonstrates the compelling ways in which a dancer negotiated restrictions and opportunities during periods of profound legislative and social change.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Our Voices -- Introduction: Our Histories -- Part I: Early Era, Indigenous and Global Roots -- 1. Mālamalama: Reconnecting as Native Hawaiian Women through Cultural History -- 2. Global Roots and Gendered Routes: Early Asian American Women's History -- 3. Two Sisters, Two Stories: Transnational Lives of Ume Tsuda and Yona Abiko -- Part II: New Intersections of Race, Gender, Generation, Communities -- 4. "Up to My Elbows in Rice!": Women Building Communities and Sustaining Families in Pre- 1965 Filipina/o America -- 5. Stretching the Boundaries of Christian Respectability, Race, and Gender during Jim Crow: Chinese American Women and the Southern Baptist Church -- 6. Stepping Onstage and Breaking Ground: Asian American Dancers Complicate Race and Gender Stereotypes, 1930s- 1960s -- Part III: New Cultural Formations, New Selves -- 7. "She Speaks Well": Language as Performance of Japanese American Femininity and Social Mobility in Postwar Hawaiʻi -- 8. History, Identity, and the Life Course: Mixed Race Asian American Women -- 9. Ancestral Ethics and Sāmoanness: Explaining the Contemporary Sāmoan American Women -- Part IV: Wartimes and Aftermath -- 10. Memories of Mass Incarceration: Mobilizing Japanese American Women for Redress and Beyond -- 11. Refugee Lifemaking Practices: Southeast Asian Women -- 12. "Defiant Daughters": The Resilience and Resistance of 1.5- Generation Vietnamese American Women -- Part V: Globalization, Work, Family, Community, Activism -- 13. Precarious Labor: Asian Immigrant Women, 1970s- 2010s -- 14. The Backbone of New York City's Chinatown: Chinese Women and the Garment Industry, 1950- 2009 -- 15. Women's Agency and Cost in Migration: Taiwanese American Transnational Families -- 16. "Revolutionary Care" as Activism: Filipina Nurses and Care Workers in Chicago, 1965- 2016 -- Part VI: Spaces of Political Struggles -- 17. The Mother's Tongue: Language, Women, and the Chamorros of Guam -- 18. Asian American Feminisms and Legislative Activism: Patsy Takemoto Mink in the US Congress -- 19. Opening the Path to Marriage Equality: Asian American Lesbians Reach Out to Their Families and Communities -- 20. Turning Points: South Asian Feminist Responses to Gender- Based Violence and Immigration Enforcement -- Part VII: New Diasporas, Diverse Lives, Evolving Identities -- 21. Locating Adoptees in Asian America: Jane Jeong Trenka and Deann Borshay Liem -- 22. "Let Them Attack Me for Wearing the Hijab": Islam and Identity in the Lives of Bangladeshi American Women -- 23. Navigating the Hyphen: Tongan- American Women in Academia -- Part VIII: Gender, Cultural Change, Intergenerational Dynamics -- 24. Linked Lives: Korean American Daughters and Their Aging Immigrant Parents -- 25. Negotiating Cultural Change: Professional Hmong American Women -- 26. Stories and Visions across Generations: Khmer American Women -- Reflections -- Acknowledgments -- About the Contributors -- Index