Asian American Studies
1.Final Essay: Assemblage (1000 Words)
Form: The form of this essay is an assemblage of many different elements of writing, taking after Jackie Wang. You must include at least 10 of the following 13 things (though try to include all of them): a poem, an image, a quote, five uses of the word you, five uses of the word we, five uses of the word I, three question, a heading, a remix, a reference, a transcript, anaphora, two asterisks. You may use each item more than once; you probably will. Each usage beyond the required total does not add to your total count towards 14 things (ie. using 5 asterisks still counts as 1 thing).
Content: The content of this essay will circulate around your choice of at least two of the following themes of the course: colonialism, gender, queerness, neoliberalism, the family, migration, empire, visibility, multiplicity, carcerality, or any other pertinent theme. Implicitly or creatively answer any amount of the following questions: Why are these themes are important to you? What do they mean to you? How do they help you? How do they still confuse you? What do you want to do with them? Who cares? Why do you care? What will you do now? Where are you going? Where did you come from? What are your hopes? What are your desires? What are your fears? What do you remember? Who do you love?
Citations: You must reference or cite four texts, either poems or essays, from the readings weve done in class.
2.On Global Racial Systems (250 Words)
Asian racial formationsas noncitizen labor, as model minority, as threatening capitalist rival devalue Asians and measure and mediate geopolitical and national transformations. In our current moment, Asianness as model minority/model modernity is an index of the present U.S. settler racial order that reduces and dehumanizes blackness as surplus population, constructs Indigenous peoples as extinct or vanishing, and frames Muslims as threatening violence.
The authors of our final essay articulate our current moment as one in which various Asian racial formations both devalue Asians and also devalue other populations. Which part of this essay was most important to you? Where did you feel most drawn to? Why?
