COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM IN SOUTHEAST

Asia

Colonization occurs when one country takes over the lands and people of another country or territory and subjects them to rule by its government instead of their own. When one country colonizes another country or territory, it usually exploits the land, resources, and people of the colonized lands for economic gain. Nearly every country on Earth has been either a colonized territory or a colonizing power at some point in its history (in fact, some countries have been both).

The term "colonization" means different things to different people. Because of this disparity, the list of countries that have never been colonized varies tremendously from one source to the next.

The age of colonialism began about 1500, following the European discoveries of a sea route around Africa’s southern coast (1488) and of America (1492).

To learn more about the historical background, motives, and colonial history, click here

Additional resources:

• Countries Never Colonized 2023 - https://worldpopulationreview.com/countryrankings/countries-never-colonized

• Colonialism in Southeast Asia: Resistance, Negotiation, and Legacieshttps://manoa.hawaii.edu/library/about/news-events/exhibits/colonialism-insoutheast-asia-resistance-negotiation-and-legacies/

• Across generations, South and Southeast Asians reflect on colonialism’s impact on identity - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/generations-south-southeastasians-reflect-colonialisms-impact-identit-rcna47092

• A Brief Look at Imperialism in Southeast Asia - video

• Difference between Colonialism and Imperialism - https://byjus.com/free-iasprep/difference-between-colonialism-and-imperialism/

ASIAN’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

There are some 260 million indigenous peoples in Asia, three-quarters of the world's total, making it the most culturally diverse region in the world. To learn more, click here

MAHATMA GANDHI’S INFLUENCE ON THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Even though Gandhi never visited America, his ideas travelled and were applied in the struggle led by Martin Luther King Jr. More importantly, the African American people, in their application of Gandhian ideas, provided perhaps the greatest interpretation of Gandhi’s method. To learn more, click here.

Additional resources:

• Mahatma Gandhi - https://www.biography.com/politicalfigures/mahatma-gandhi

• Gandhi’s influence on the American civil rights movementhttps://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/Gandhis-influence-on-the-American-civilrights-movement.html

• India: Civil Disobedience and Gandhi’s Early Influences - https://www.wondriumdaily.com/india-civil-disobedience-and-gandhis-earlyinfluences/

SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, & FAITH

Among the more traditional elements of Asian American culture, religion, spirituality, and faith have always been important to Asian American communities, as they were for many generations before them. But within the diversity of the Asian American community, so too comes diversity in their religious beliefs and practices.

The second-largest religious group among Asian Americans are "Eastern Religions" that include Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Baha'i, Shint, Zoroastrian, and Sikh.

At the university, we have an active Buddhist Student Association partnered with a faculty advisor that provides the opportunity to practice, meditate, and learn about East Asian culture.

To learn about the difference between Eastern and Western religion, click here.

Visit our Interfaith Center to learn more.

Asian Pride Project

Asian Pride Project is a nonprofit organization that celebrates the journeys, triumphs, and struggles of LGBTQ individuals and Asian and Pacific Islander (API) families and communities through the use of arts film, video, photography and the written word as a medium for social justice and advocacy.

To see the project, click here

Aapi Learning Journey Project

This journey of learning and exploration was crowdsourced by members of the Stanford Graduate School of Business community and members of the larger Stanford community. They have designed a calendar to be self-paced, and to take ~15 minutes each day to acknowledge and engage with the contributions and challenges of the AAPI community. We think you will agree that the totality of these thirty-one activities is awe inspiring and humbling, and only the beginning of our learning. Join us for this journey of learning and cultural humility.

To see the project, click here.

MEET THE FIRST ASIAN AMERICANS TO…

Most people think of Asians as recent immigrants to the Americas, but the first Asians –Filipino sailors settled in the bayous of Louisiana a decade before the Revolutionary War. Asians have been an integral part of American history since that time.

In the context of sports, 1947 is perhaps best known for being the year in which the legendary Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball. Lesser known is the fact that over in the NBA then known as the Basketball Association of America (BAA) a Japanese American by the name of Wataru Misaka did the same thing. To learn more, click here.

Anna May Wong was born in 1905 in Los Angeles as Wong Liu Tsong. She was cast in her first role as an extra in the film "The Red Lantern" in 1919 at age 14 and her first leading role in 1922 in the "The Toll of the Sea." She went on to appear in more than 60 films including one of the first movies made in Technicolor. She became the first Asian American lead actor in a U.S. television show for her role in "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong" in 1951.

Hollywood’s Anna May Wong became the first Asian American on U.S. currency. It went into circulation on October 24, 2022. To learn more, click here.

Sesame Street introduces the first Asian American Muppet. A 7-year hold Korean American character led by Kathleen Kim To learn more, click here

Susan Ahn Cuddy, a Korean American woman broke glass ceilings of her time when she became the first Asian American female officer to serve in the U.S. Navy at the height of World War II. To learn more, click here.

IKIGAI – FINDING PURPOSE

In a 2001 research paper on ikigai, co-author Akihiro Hasegawa, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Toyo Eiwa University, placed the word ikigai as part of everyday Japanese language. It is composed of two words: iki, which means life and gai, which describes value or worth.

According to Hasegawa, the origin of the word ikigai goes back to the Heian period (794 to 1185). “Gai comes from the word kai (“shell” in Japanese) which were deemed highly valuable, and from there ikigai derived as a word that means value in living.” To learn more, click here.

JAPANESE KABUKI THEATRE AND THE EVOLUTION OF WOMEN'S ROLES

A common theme throughout the two thousand years of theatre’s history has been the exclusion of women’s presence on stage in most, if not all regions of the world, at some point in time. Kabuki is a form of classical Japanese theater characterized by its extravagant costumes, make-up, performances, and a surprising lack of women’s bathrooms backstage. That’s because kabuki actors today are almost exclusively male. Kabuki was said to have been created in the 17th century by a woman named Okuni. She was a shrine maiden from Izumo who started organizing small performances of songs and dances (the literal meaning of “Kabuki”) in the dry riverbed of the Kamo River in Kyoto.

To learn more about how: “Kabuki became a guy thing” and “how the absence of women in Kabuki helped create the modern day image of ninjas,” click here.

Additional resources:

• From Gay to Gei: The Onnagata and the Creation of Kabuki’s Female Characters https://muse.jhu.edu/article/492046/pdf

• Okuni Kabuki Dancer https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okuni#ref22929

• Kabuki theatre: a drag act with a difference https://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2010/jun/24/woman-kabuki-theatre

How The Model Minority Myth Of Asian Americans Hurts Us All

UC Irvine political science professor Claire Kim created the concept of racial triangulation, which argues that Asian Americans “have been racialized relative to and through interaction with Whites and Blacks,” and that Asian and Black Americans have been pitted against each other by systems of White nationality that benefit from excluding others.

The concept such as model minority are the manifestation of racial triangulation today and maintain such structures of racialization and racially charged violence.

Model Minority stereotype is the cultural expectation placed on Asian Americans as a group that everyone will be:

• smart (i.e., naturally good at math, science, and technology),

• wealthy,

• hard-working, self-reliant, living the “American dream,"

• docile and submissive, obedient, and uncomplaining and/or

• spiritually enlightened and never in need of assistance.

Additional resources:

• Framing Asian Suffering in an Anti-Black World: A Conversation with Claire Jean Kim - https://edgeeffects.net/claire-jean-kim/

• Model Minority Stereotype for Asian Americans - https://cmhc.utexas.edu/modelminority.html

• Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the “Model Minority” Stereotype. And it Creates Inequality for All - https://time.com/5859206/anti-asian-racismamerica/

• Opinion: Here’s how the model minority myth hurts Asians and other people of color

- https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2021-0326/minority-myth-asians

What Is Patriarchal Violence

Patriarchy is about the social relations of power between men and women, women and women, and men and men. It is a system for maintaining class, gender, racial, and heterosexual privilege, and the status quo of power – relying both on crude forms of oppression, like violence; and subtle ones, like laws; to perpetuate inequality. Patriarchal beliefs of male, heterosexual dominance and the devaluation of girls and women lie at the root of gender-based violence. Patriarchy is a structural force that influences power relations, whether they are abusive or not.

The historical nature of gender-based violence confirms that it is not an unfortunate aberration but systematically entrenched in culture and society, reinforced, and powered by patriarchy. ~ Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence

To learn more, click here

Additional resources:

• Patriarchal Violence - https://www.conspireforchange.org/resources/patriarchalviolence/

• Understanding Masculinities and Violence Against Women and Girlshttps://trainingcentre.unwomen.org/RESOURCES_LIBRARY/Resources_Centre/mas culinities%20booklet%20.pdf

Violence Against Asian American Women Is Rooted In The Legacy Of Patriarchal Violence

AAPI women have been forced to live with stereotypes that take away our humanity and reduce us to sexual objects. We can trace these stereotypes as far back as 1875, when the Page Act, the U.S.’s first immigration law, banned Chinese women from entering the country on the grounds of sexual deviance. Decades later, wars in Japan, Korea and Vietnam reinforced this stereotype to the point where depictions of Asian women as temptresses or sexual servants took root in American popular culture. ~Sung Yeon Choimorrow

Additional resources:

• The Links Between Racialized and Gender-Based Violencehttps://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-links-between-racialized-and-genderbased-violence

• How Violence against Asian Americans has grown and how to stop it, according to activists - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-year-after-atlanta-and-indianapolisshootings-targeting-asian-americans-activists-say-we-cant-lose-momentum

• Stop Treating Violence Against Asian American Women as Just a Racism Problemhttps://msmagazine.com/2021/10/27/asian-american-aapi-women-stereotypesviolence-racism-sexism/

• Violence Against Asian American Women Is Rooted in More Than Just Hatehttps://newsletters.theatlantic.com/i-havenotes/623346923a37470020cf3ec3/violence-against-asian-women-with-connie-wun/

WHAT IS SCARCITY MENTALITY?

Scarcitymentalityistheidea thateveryoneexistswithinaspectrum ofcompetition.Thismentalityassumes therearefiniteresources (tangible and intangible),andthatevery resourceobtainedbyonepersonor groupcomes at the expense ofanother. Therefore,weneedtokeepresources forourselvesorreservethemfor peopleinourclosestcircle(s).

Theideaofscarcitywasintentionally weaponizedbydominantgroupsin powertojustifytheunequal distributionofresources.Mostnotably, thiswasdonethroughtheconstruction ofrace(underthefalsepretenseofbiology)tosystematicallyexploitgroupsseenas "others."

VisitoursharedresourcefoldertodownloadtheToolkitforUnlearningScarcity, CultivatingSolidarityintheAsianAmericanCommunity PartOneusestheAsian Americanexperiencetocontextualizeand understandhowscarcitymentalitymanifests differentlyformarginalizedidentities.

Xenophobia Vs Racism

Xenophobia has caused intense discrimination against the AAPI community because of blame and scare tactics. As a result, violence and fear targets the APPI community. To learn the difference between the terms, click here Considering reading Racism & Xenophobia in our shared resource folder.

The Seminal Moment In Asian American Civil Rights Activism

The murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese autoworker, by two white men was a seminal moment in Asian American civil rights activism. In 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was murdered in a racially motivated hate crime by two white autoworkers. To learn more, click here

Additional resources:

• PBS Documentary: Who Killed Vincent - https://youtu.be/vnrxkKmIq8 1hr. 23 mins.

• Vincent Chin Memorial Scholarship - https://www.aaja.org/news-andresources/scholarships-internships/vincent-chin-scholarship/

• 40 years after Vincent Chin’s death, activists work to keep legacy from fading - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/40-years-after-vincent-chins-death-activistswork-to-keep-legacy-from-fading

• Remembering Vincent Chin – and the deep roots of anti-Asian violence - https://www.vox.com/2022/6/19/23172702/vincent-chin-murder-fortieth-anniversary

INTERSECTIONALITY IN THE DISABILITY JUSTICE MOVEMENT: A SPOTLIGHT ON THE DISABLED ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

The Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative (AADI) is a youth-led nonprofit movement centered around intersectionality, aiming to amplify the voices of disabled Asian Americans. Their mission is simple: AADI empowers the next generation of disabled Asian American leaders with accessible resources so that they can combat anti-Asian racism and ableism in their own communities.