The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans

Flashcards on the Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans by Claire Jean Kim

Mantra in scholarly circles

A call to go 'beyond Black and White' in discussions of race.

Different trajectories approach

Examines racialization as an open-ended, variable process that has played out differently for each subordinated group.

Racial hierarchy approach

Emphasizes the ordering of groups into a single scale of status and privilege with Whites on the top, Blacks on the bottom, and all other groups somewhere in between.

Racial Triangulation

Asian Americans have been racially triangulated vis-à-vis Whites and Blacks in this field of racial positions for the past century and a half.

Relative valorization

Dominant group A (Whites) valorizes subordinate group B (Asian Americans) relative to subordinate group C (Blacks) on cultural and/or racial grounds in order to dominate both groups, but especially the latter.

Civic ostracism

Dominant group A (Whites) constructs subordinate group B (Asian Americans) as immutably foreign and unassimilable with Whites on cultural and/or racial grounds in order to ostracize them from the body politic and civic membership.

Open racial triangulation

White elites overtly constructed each racial group as a fixed cultural-biological entity and justified its subordinated status accordingly.

Aliens ineligible to citizenship

Asian immigrants, seen as both unfit for and uninterested in the American way of life, were in fact the only group in American history to be legally rendered aliens ineligible to citizenship.

Biological racism

Elites overtly constructed each racial group as a fixed cultural-biological entity and justified its subordinated status accordingly.

Biological racism

Elites overtly constructed each racial group as a fixed cultural-biological entity and justified its subordinated status accordingly.

Coded racial triangulation

Occurs in a coded fashion, in cultural terms decoupled from overtly racial claims.

Model minority myth

Asian Americans have been widely valorized relative to Blacks via the model minority myth.