Japanese Americans and the racial uniform : citizenship, belonging, and the limits of assimilation

Bibliographic Information

Japanese Americans and the racial uniform : citizenship, belonging, and the limits of assimilation

Dana Y. Nakano

(Asian American sociology series)

New York University Press, c2023

  • : hardback

Available at  / 3 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Summary: "How race continues to shape the citizenship and everyday lives of later generation Japanese Americans as assimilation's model minority of model minorities"--Provided by publisher

Bibliography: p. 215-224

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

How race continues to shape the citizenship and everyday lives of later-generation Japanese Americans Japanese Americans are seen as the "model minority," a group that has fully assimilated and excelled within the US. Yet third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans continue to report feeling marginalized within the predominantly white communities they call home. Japanese Americans and the Racial Uniform explores this apparent contradiction, challenging the way society understands the role of race in social and cultural integration. To explore race and the everyday practices of citizenship, Dana Y. Nakano begins at an unlikely site, Japanese Village and Deer Park, a now defunct Japan-themed amusement park in suburban Southern California. Drawing from extensive interviews with the park's Japanese American employees as well as photographic imagery, Nakano shows how the employees' race acted as part of their work uniform and magnified their sense of alienation from their white peers and the park's white visitors. While the racial perception of Japanese Americans as forever foreigners made them ideal employees for Deer Park, the same stigma continues to marginalizes Japanese Americans beyond the place and time of the amusement park. Into the present day, third and fourth generation Japanese Americans share feelings of racialized non-belonging and yearning for community. Japanese Americans and the Racial Uniform pushes us to rethink the persistent recognition of racial markers-the racial body as a visible, ever-present uniform-and how it continues to impact claims on an American identity and the lived experience of citizenship.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Related Books: 1-1 of 1

Details

Page Top