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COM 597J
Week 5: Intersectionality in Cultural Studies
April 27, 2007
Sayumi Irey
Chronology of Twentieth-Century Race and Racism in the United States (selected)
1924
Immigration Act that imposed severe restrictions on immigration from Europe and
Asia (p.1)
1942
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is founded as a pacifist group seeking to fight
racism, integrate public facilities, and work for civil rights for African Americans
1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for
internment of Japanese Americans
1943
Detroit Race Riot comprises a series of violent encounters, sparked by competitions for
jobs and housing, between whites and African Americans in Detroit, Michigan
1943
Zoot Suit Riots, consisting of white attacks on Mexican American youth, erupt in LA
1944
In Korematsu v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court case upholds the internment of
Japanese Americans during WWII
1945
War Brides Act gave temporary permission to soldiers to bring their wives to the U.S.
(p.6)
1948
President Harry S. Truman issue Executive Order 09981 racially integrating the U.S.
military
1948
In Shelly v. Kramer, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the equal protection clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment prevents racially restrictive housing covenants from being
enforceable
1948
In Oyama v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down California’s Alien Land
Laws unconstitutional
1951
Bagsby v. Board of Trustees of Pleasant Grove independent School District involving
the district’s resistance to the abolishment of Negro elementary schools in a segregated
subdivision of Dallas (p.6)
1952
Briggs v. Elliott in Clarendon Country, South Carolina was presented in the court
1952
Congress passes the McCarran-Walter Act, which eases certain restrictions on
immigrants of particular national origins
1954
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S, Supreme Court declares racial
segregation in schools unconstitutional
(Source: Encyclopedia of Racism in the United States)
Simpson, C (1988). Out of an obscure place: Japanese war brides and cultural pluralism in
the 1950’s. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Retrieved April 18,
from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/differences/v010/10.3simpson.html
Scholar: Caroline Chung Simpson
Associate Professor at UW (Dept. of English)
Scholar’s Disciplinary Foci: Modern Literature, Popular Culture, Women's Literature,
Autobiography, and Twentieth-Century Literature
Selected Publications by the author:
"Review of Masking Selves, Making Subjects: Japanese American Women, Identity and
the Body." Amerasia (Winter 2000).
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with Joycelyn Moody. "Chapter 20: "Themes, Topics, Criticism"." American Literary
Scholarship. Indiana University Press. (2000).
Methodology: Historical & literacy analysis – Sources such as Life (1947, 1955), Saturday
Evening Post (1952), and Atlantic Monthly (1947) are used
Abstract: In the 1950’s, the Brown case added significant force for integration in America.
However, the notion of integration was still challenging to swallow for most white Americans;
thus, in order for cultural pluralism to be real, White Americans needed to embrace its idea. In
Simpton’s article, she compares and contrasts African Americans and Japanese Americans’ social
mobility and social isolation by illuminating historical legal cases and personal accounts as well
as examining main stream media. Simpton argues that the White America tolerated Japanese war
brides more openly because it was a less threatening way to demonstrate culturally inclusiveness
without “ever taking up the historical and political threat to white privilege posed by the Brown
decision” (p.16). In other words, Sachiko’s story is the “ideal postwar of white-middle class
domesticity to absorb and dissolve such anxieties, such [as democracy and white guilt]” (p.16).
Story like Sachiko’s gave a sense of innocence and goodness for the mainstream White America.
Keywords: cultural pluralism, social accommodation, social isolation, economic mobility, model
minority, American exceptionism, miscegenation, Orientalism, Nisei (Second generations), white
guilt
a) Model Minority: As Asian American critics of the 1960s model minority narrative have
repeatedly pointed out, the narrative is dubious because it ultimately serves “to discredit the
protests and demands for social justice of other minority groups” by positing the success of Asian
Americans as implicit proof of the failure of other racialized groups (Suzuki) (p.12).
b) Asian American women marrying up? – “Whiteness as Property (discussions from last
week)”
* While about three-in-four Asian Americans marry someone of the same ethnic group, about a
quarter marry an Asian American of a different ethnic group than their own or a non-Asian. This
rate of intermarriage is 3-4 times higher than for the general U.S. population (about 7%) (Census,
2006).
* Asian Americans who intermarry usually marry Whites. (Census, 2006)
References:
Min, P. (Ed.) (2005). Encyclopedia of racism in the United States. Connecticut:
Greenwood Press.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2006). Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006. Section 1:
Population. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Questions:
1) What do you think the “national” identity was like in 1950’s? Has it changed since then, if so,
how has it changed?
2) How was the ideological “romance” played between White Americans and Japanese women in
the main stream media? What are some underlying ideologies?
3) What are strengths and weaknesses of this article in terms of methodology she applied?
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Additional Sources (selected):
Okada, J. (1981). No no boy. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Takaki, R. (1989). Strangers from a different shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York:
Penguin Books.
Yamanoto, E. (2001). Race, rights, and reparations: Laws and the Japanese American
internment. Gaithersburg: Aspen Law & Business.
Williams, J. (1987). Eyes on the prize: American’s civil rights years, 1954-1965. New York:
Viking.
Wolters, R. (2008). Race and education, 1954-2007. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.