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Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, people, concepts, and events from the lecture on Asian American heterogeneity, internment history, and cultural politics.
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Allegiance (musical)
A Broadway show inspired by George Takei’s family story, focusing on Japanese American internment and themes of loyalty and identity.
George Takei
Japanese American actor/activist whose internment experience inspired the musical Allegiance and ongoing civil-rights advocacy.
Lea Salonga
Tony-winning Filipina singer-actress who starred in Allegiance, symbolizing Asian American representation on stage.
Telly Leung
Chinese American actor who played the younger Takei character in Allegiance, highlighting generational viewpoints.
Gaman
Japanese term meaning “to endure the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience,” central to internment-camp survival and art.
The Art of Gaman (exhibition)
Renwick Gallery show (2010–11) featuring crafts made by Japanese American internees, illustrating resilience through creativity.
Japanese American Internment Camps
Ten U.S. wartime incarceration sites (1942–46) that confined over 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds U.S. citizens.
Proclamation 2525
FDR order (Dec 7 1941) labeling Japanese nationals 14+ as enemy aliens, paving the way for restrictions and internment.
Proclamation 2526
FDR order (Dec 8 1941) extending enemy-alien status to foreign-born Germans during WWII.
Proclamation 2527
FDR order (Dec 8 1941) classifying foreign-born Italians as enemy aliens alongside Japanese and Germans.
Enemy Alien
Legal category in WWII America for nationals of Axis countries lacking U.S. citizenship paperwork, subject to detention.
Camp Algiers
Louisiana INS detention station that held Jewish and other Latin American deportees as ‘enemy aliens’ during WWII.
Model Minority Myth
Stereotype portraying Asian Americans as universally successful, obscuring diversity and minimizing racism against them.
Hegemony (Gramsci)
Process by which a dominant group secures consent through cultural ‘common sense,’ blending coercion with ideology.
Antonio Gramsci
Italian Marxist theorist who coined the social-theory concept of hegemony used to analyze power and consent.
Strategic Essentialism
Temporary political tactic of emphasizing shared identity to mobilize a group while downplaying internal differences.
Critique of Strategic Essentialism
Lowe argues it risks freezing identities, erasing class/gender differences, and reinforcing racist homogenization of Asians.
Asian American Heterogeneity
Recognition that Asian America comprises multiple ethnicities, generations, classes, genders, and migration histories.
Hybridity
Condition of mixed cultural identities; Lowe uses it to contest fixed binaries of ‘American’ vs. ‘Asian.’
Intergenerationality
Differences and negotiations between immigrant parents and U.S.-born children over culture, class, and gender norms.
Janice Mirikitani
Sansei poet whose works (‘Japs,’ ‘Preparing Fish’) explore internment memory, feminism, and solidarity with other peoples of color.
Oshogatsu
Japanese New Year; Mirikitani’s poem uses fish preparation at Oshogatsu to express cultural politics and resistance.
The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan novel/film depicting Chinese American mother–daughter conflicts over sacrifice, class, and cultural meaning.
The Woman Warrior
Maxine Hong Kingston memoir raising questions about distinguishing personal, familial, and Chinese cultural influences.
Passing (cultural)
Act of adopting dominant cultural traits to avoid marginalization; discussed in relation to Korean-Japanese assimilation.
Letters for Black Lives
Crowdsourced multilingual letter project where Asian diasporic youth explain Black Lives Matter to older generations, modeling cross-racial solidarity.
Yuri Kochiyama
Japanese American civil-rights activist who allied with Malcolm X and advocated pan-ethnic and cross-racial justice.
Art, Film, and Literature as Public Memory
Creative media (e.g., Allegiance, poetry, exhibitions) used to include marginalized voices in collective WWII remembrance.