Pawan Dhingra - Asian America

A global political economy perspective often is combined with other ones. For instance, global dynamics connect to racial formation processes. In such cases, analysts frame international relations within a global power inequality, with developed nations utilizing immigrants from developing nations to their advantage (Parreñas 2001). Yet more recently, scholars have come to analyze immigrants’ transnational lives within an overall assimilation paradigm. Immigrants’ commitments abroad need not detract from their general integration within the United States (Levitt and Waters 2002). Transnational individuals can follow both homeland and US politics, for instance. Experiences in the homeland can give individuals the cultural tools, such as pride in their background, to help them feel supported when in the United States (Smith 2006). So, while transnationalism and globalization are receiving increasing attention, what they mean for immigrant groups is not settled.

A single case illuminates how different theories lead to distinct conclusions. Asian-American women have been closely associated with garment manufacturing in New York City and Los Angeles. Perspectives emphasizing assimilation explain the large number of immigrant minority women working the production line as due to their typically low human capital (i.e. lack of advanced education or English-language skills). They do not have the capacity to perform many other jobs in that geographic area. Also, their network ties lead them to the industry. From an assimilationist perspective, consideration is placed on whether workers gradually move out of these jobs or not as dependent on their education, skills, family needs, co-ethnic resources, and so on. For instance, many garment workers learn about these jobs through relatives and friends, and they prefer these jobs because the work schedules suit their needs as mothers (Chin 2005). For such persons, the industry works relatively well, even if it does not pay much. Unfair exploitation of the women may take place, but they can leave these jobs as they accrue more education or skills. They face no inherent marginalization.

More critical scholars such as those who adopt a racial formation and/or global economic perspective differ in their thinking of this trend. Their question is why are Asian-American women seen as “natural” fits for such manufacturing jobs within a racial capitalism that utilizes different groups of people for different parts of the production process? How do impressions of women shape how they are treated on the job? Why is migration structured around women’s supposedly nimble fingers? Global manufacturing firms and general consumers depend on these women to produce cheap goods. People’s gender and nationality sharply guide their job prospects, which means that people are not treated equally based on skills but instead face unequal options. Moving out of a gendered job sector is rare. From such a critical perspective, attention is paid to the injustices workers must resist and to the effect of work on power relations within their families (Su and Martorell 2002). In other words, one comes to different conclusions on these immigrant women’s adaptation depending on one’s perspective and therefore which information one prioritizes. In reality, garment workers experience aspects from both types of perspectives, and their lives are more fully understood as such. We attend to multiple perspectives in this book as we discuss social trends.

Social scientists utilize two general types of methods in studying a population: quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods refer to data-collection procedures that capture respondents’ opinions and both demographic and socioeconomic conditions through numerical measurements. Surveys are the most common type of instrument within quantitative methods. The most popular national survey is the US Census (including its American Community Survey). This method captures a wide range of information on numerous people. The questions are descriptive in nature. For instance, if one was interested in what enabled poor refugees to become middle class once in the United States, one could survey hundreds of refugees, both poor and middle class. Included in the survey could be questions on respondents’ education level, English abilities, career background, number of siblings, and other variables that might influence mobility. From there, researchers using statistical procedures could determine which variable, such as English-language ability, most impacted mobility.

Yet still unresolved from this survey would be why or how these variables influenced mobility. Surveys and quantitative methods generally cannot probe into respondents’ reasons for their actions to learn why individuals act as they do. What is it about one’s career background, for instance, that leads to different mobility patterns? Qualitative methods are best suited for these latter kinds of questions.

Qualitative methods refer to a mode of investigation meant to assess people’s reasoning and motivations for action, that is, how they feel and think about their lives. Common techniques include in-depth interviews and observations of human behavior (i.e. ethnography). Qualitative methods can answer “why” and “how” people behave, whereas quantitative methods address “what” people do, “how much” they do it, and “with what consequence.”

Like quantitative methods, the qualitative approach also has its drawbacks. Interviewing or observing others in depth is very time consuming. For instance, some ethnographers spend years in “the field,” that is, within a single community learning about its members’ way of life. Such an approach prevents learning about a large number of people, as surveys allow. Instead, qualitative methods enable a “case study.” Case studies refer to the study of a single group or individual who is thought to be representative of a broader phenomenon or population. For instance, for the study of mobility among refugees, one could find a group of middle-class refugees and poor refugees of the same ethnicity and living in the same city. Interviews and observations with fifty individuals from each class group would provide detailed information, such as about how they perceive the job market, how their lives abroad influence their job aspirations, and the like. Even as this method targets a small number of refugees, it would offer insight into how socioeconomic class affects the refugee experience and vice versa. Such a study, combined with the quantitative approach, would create a robust set of findings. Given the pros and cons to quantitative and qualitative methods, the best research strategy incorporates both types.

The theoretical perspectives frequently – not always – map onto particular methodologies. The various assimilation/incorporation paradigms often use quantitative methods. Because the theories concern how much a group is like or unlike the majority or other minorities, statistical evidence is most useful. In order to ascertain how individuals understand their background and what meaning race and other social categories have for people, it is best to utilize qualitative methods. This is most typical of the racialized minority approach. Having said that, scholarship increasingly uses a heterogeneity of methods and perspectives.

The goal of this book is to demonstrate how Asian Americans inform broader topics that impact them, other Americans, and diasporic communities generally. It brings together the various theoretical perspectives when possible. In the process, the book advances the conversation on the direction of studying Asian Americans rather than just summarizes it. Throughout the book, we are especially concerned with the ways Asian Americans negotiate with institutions, given the kinds of inequalities they experience and the sorts of identities they possess.