ETST Midterm 2

Deconolinzation

• Decolonization seeks to change the worlds order and is a historically-situated, ongoing process

• Decolonization will be different at distinct historical moments

• It  is not the same as social justice, critical methodologies or decentering settler perspectives 

• This is related to the concept of Indigenous sovereignty, what make Indigenous people in the U.S. different from other racial minorities

• Decolonization requires recognizing Indigenous sovereignty and contributions

Tuck and Yangs Argument

1. Decolonization should be about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life

2. It should not be a metaphor for other social justice goals

Tuck and Yangs metaphor

• It divorces the concept of colonization, specifically “settler colonialism” from Indigeneity

• The authors emphasize that using decolonization as a metaphor creates “settler moves to innocence” 

What decolonization should actually look like, according to Tuck and Yang

• Decolonization requires a change in the order of the world, not just swapping positions

• Decolonization is accountable to Indigenous sovereignty and futurity, not to settlers

• True decolonization means repatriating land to sovereign Native tribes and nations and dismantling the imperial metropole

Concept of Kuyaam as a form of decolonization

“Kuuyam is an abolition of institutionalized hierarchical conceptions of human difference that separate people by race, origins, religion, gender, and sexuality. Instead, Kuuyam establishes relations beyond difference in a non-hierarchical manner. … Decolonization through Indigenous theory, such as Kuuyam, is not based on going back to a former time but a decisive resolve for a future in which everyone recognizes our lands and our water as sacred sources of life.” (54-55) Sepulveda, “Our Sacred Waters”

Language Reclamation

which moves beyond a focus on direct language measures such as creating new speakers (language revitalisation), to incorporate community epistemologies such as how ‘language’ is defined and given sociocultural meaning

Language Shift

occurs when something ruptures the relationships people have to languages; language recovery thus requires rebuilding these relationships.

Language reclamation as a form of decolonization

can address this trauma by helping people to (re)establish healthy relationships with their languages and what those languages represent in their respective community contexts and cosmologies.

The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965

• Abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin

• Established a new immigration policy based on 

  • Reuniting immigrant families and

  • Attracting skilled labor to the U.S

Johnson Reed Act

• Created immigration quotas

  1. Represented shift from open immigration from Europe to an era of immigration restriction

  2. Placed numerical limits on immigration

Johnson Reed Act Implications

• Creating a “white” majority 

• Excluding immigrants of color

• Constructing a “White” immigrant American identity

• Promoting the value of whiteness to citizenship

Eugenics

• Congress wanted immigration quotas to reproduce the population of the US according to the 1920 Census

• Project to delineate the national origins of the residents of the country

• Difficult task because of intermarriage

• Tracing out strains of European heritage, ranking which European countries were not desirable (Britain)

Where does ideology come from

• Ascribing characteristics – labels, stigmas, stereotypes – onto a group of people

• These ideas about race usually come from a guiding “ideology,” shaped by messages from multiple places

Racial Projects

• Racial project propel forward a society's racial formation

• Racial projects are defined as “an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (Omi & Winant 56, emphasis mine)

Historical context of Johnson Reed Act

• Created immigration quotas

1. Represented shift from open immigration from Europe to an era of immigration restriction

2. Placed numerical limits on immigration

World War I

• World War I – wartime nationalism produced sentiment against hyphenated Americans; weakened the idea of a U.S. “melting pot”

• In the economic realm, by 1920, the country no longer needed the same levels of mass immigration

• Lobbying for immigration restriction

Border Patrol

• Lends credence to the idea of “deportability”

• From 1924 - 1965 these racialized immigration quotas defined the U.S. immigration landscape

  • 1952 McCarran Walter Act lifted the ban on immigration from Asia, allowing 100 immigrants per country

Ozawa Court Case

1922 Supreme Court Case which Osawa was trying to become a U.S. citizen based on his skin color

Thind Court Case

1923, Thind served in the US army and wanted to become a citizen

Refugees

• The 1980 Refugee Act was intended to help resettle migrants from

  • Vietnam

Disparity between creation of refugees and refugee resettlement

The assimilation narrative produces Vietnamese as docile subjects who enthusiastically and uncritically embrace and live the “American Dream.”

“Good’ refugee narrative of gratitude 

This “good refugee” narrative naturalizes America’s riches and produces a powerful narrative of America(ns) generously and successfully caring for Vietnam’s “runaways.”

Artists’ representation of refugees

a

Kim Phuc “Napalm Girl” story

A girl who was thrown Napalm in which it completely burned parts of her body leaving her with scars cause by the Vietnam War

Carcerality

a

Carcerality relationship to punishment

a

Reinforcing law enforcement

a

Carcerality affecting Black and Brown communities

a

Limiting alternative solutions to harm

a

Carceral Logic

a

Extending beyond the jail/prison system

a

How are homeless individuals affected by carceral logic

a

How are migrants affected by carceral logic

a

Who profits from carcerality?

a

Gilmore’s question of “innocence”

a

Gilmore’s concept of losing “life time”

a

Examples from Gilmore of alternatives to the carceral state

a

Prison industrial complex as more than just prisons

a

Abolition

a

The difference between reformist an abolitionist reforms

a

Examples of reformist

a

Examples Abolitionist reforms

a

Carceral feminism as a response to domestic violence

a

Abolition feminism

a

Mutual aid as an abolitionist possibility

a