ASIAN AMERICANS AND THE POLITICS OF RACIAL JUSTICE

Abstract

The emergence of the Stop Asian Hate movement in response to anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a historic moment of Asian American mobilization. But the movement has also been marked by deep contention around the desirability and effectiveness of carceral responses to anti-Asian violence. These questions are especially fraught as the Stop Asian Hate movement comes on the heels of the Black Lives Matter movement and its critiques of carceral institutions, and as Asian Americans have long wrestled with what their place in racial politics is. Through an examination of the contemporary movement against anti-Asian violence, this dissertation explores how Asian Americans understand, construct, and make claims about their place in the American racial order and the political consequences of these acts of place-making. Drawing upon survey data; interviews with Asian American community activists and fieldwork in Philadelphia PA; Oakland CA; and San Francisco CA; organizational statements and materials; and legislative documents, I show that Asian American movement actors are engaging in two kinds of identity politics in their responses to anti-Asian violence: the politics of recognition, focused on gaining acknowledgement of Asian American racial injury; and the politics of solidarity, centered around acting in alignment with other communities of color and their movements. However, as Asian American have sought recognition by defining anti-Asian violence as a problem of “hate” that is legible to and fixable by carceral apparatuses, this has contradicted and foreclosed a politics of solidarity by legitimizing the very institutions that particularly harm Black and other marginalized communities. I explore how carceral infrastructures have constrained the Stop Asian Hate movement, as well as the limitations and possibilities of contemporary solidarity politics. Bridging scholarship from race and ethnic politics, Asian American studies, and political and feminist thought, this study contributes to our understanding of how Asian Americans constitute themselves as a political project. Ultimately, this study considers the political and ethical consequences of Asian American claims about racial injury and pursuits of racial justice.