Immigration Article of the Day: Reconceptualizing Asian Pacific American Identity at the Margins by Julian Lim

Reconceptualizing Asian Pacific American Identity at the Marginsby Julian Lim, Washington University in St. Louis – School of Law,UC Irvine Law Review

 Abstract: This forthcoming essay draws upon recent understandings of transnational migration to reconceptualize the boundaries of the Asian Pacific American “community” and the role of immigration law in constructing APA identity. The essay shifts our focus from California and the Pacific coast to the U.S.-Mexico border, showing how Chinese immigrants came to the border and established new social relations with Mexicans and African Americans in ways that do not easily fit a white/Other racial binary model. Introducing a transnational and multiracial framework into the well-established body of literature concerning APA identity and the law, I argue that adopting different models of migration opens up new ways of understanding immigrant incorporation in the United States and, in turn, a broader conceptualization of APA identity. Reminding Asian Pacific Americans of the origins of a pan-Asian American political identity, rooted in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, I call attention to the potential power of reframing APA identity as a political identity again, but one defined now by immigrant struggles that cross racial lines. Rather than defining APA identity based on anti-Asian discrimination, I ask what APA identity might look like if we based it on immigration law, and forged connections with other immigrant minorities such as Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants.

KJ