Key Concepts of Multiculturalism (c/o Youngsuk Chae)

In Youngsuk Chae’s book Politicizing Asian American Literature: Towards a Critical Multiculturalism, she centers her critique and analysis of a variety of Asian American narratives (inc., The Woman Warrior, America is in the Heart, My Year of Meats) with reference to the development and deployment of U.S. multiculturalism.  Below, a few key quotes that may guide our own assessment of how Asian American narratives position themselves with reference to the ideologies and material conditions of multiculturalism:

From the preface:

“In this book, I have made a distinction between politically acquiescent and politically conscious Asian American multicultural writings in order to examine whether racial or ethnic minority wrters demonstrate an awareness of unequal power relations along race/ethnicity lines, or whether they allow themselves to be projected as cultural ‘others,’ while conforming to existing unequal power relations.”

From the introduction, “Who Consumes Multiculturalism?”

“Despite diversity and cultural pluralism becoming to some degree a fact of existence in ‘American’ society, U.S. multiculturalism’s emphasis on difference has not been accompanied by a corresponding realtiy in which the structural problems of racial discrimination and economic inequality are foregrounded or reduced or resolved.  U. S. multiculturalism, in spite of its recognition and appreciation of different cultures, is…still premised upon an underlying assumption that perceives racial and cultural minorities as the others, while leaving the color of white ethnic culture invisible in the background, enabling a toning down of racial issues.  The politically neutralizing tendency of U.S. multiculturalism suggests indirectly that the acceptance of cultural diversity of pluralism is likely to be tolerated as long as it does not threaten the power structure of the society, and that it may remain permissible within the boundary that white dominant (bourgeois) groups set up” (2).

“To my thinking, most ‘popular’ Asian American multicultural writings have not situated their narratives in specific socio-political and historical contexts.  Rather, they tend to decontextualize political and economic circumstances and the structural inequality that racial minorities and immigrants have faced by focusing mainly on issues of cultural conflict, generational gaps with their parent generation, or identity crisis” (4)

“Politically acquiescent Asian American multicultural writings correspond to the institutionalized U.S. multiculturalism, because both celebrate cultural diversity while masking unequal power structures and exploitation of labor against racial minorities and because they both in some ways ‘commodify’ cultural differences…” (7)

“Politically conscious Asian American multicultural works delineat a critical distance from white middle-class dominant ‘American’ cultural and politics.  […they] situate their stories in specific historical, political, economical, and legal contexts and draw our attention to the circumstances that have conditioned the lives of Asian immigrants.  Politically conscious Asian American writings, which I regard as  a critical multiculturalism, focus on depicting Asian immigrants whose lives have been determined by the historical or economic conditions (i.e., the development of U.S. capitalism and the ongoing U.S.-centered global restructuring of capitalism)as well as restrictive immigration policies.” (7)