Asian American Folklore Overview

Study Notes

Asian American Folklore: A Complex Category

The category of Asian American folklore is broad and encompassing various ethnicities, cultural expressions, and even those associated with Asian American communities.
Examples include Hmong reverse appliqués, Korean tacos, Thai New Year's rituals, and customized cars.
This diversity makes defining and studying it challenging.

Researchers and Their Motivations

Fariha Khan, Margaret Magat, and Juwen Zhang are researchers interested in Asian American folklore.
They collaborated on a session at the American Folklore Society (AFS) meeting in 2014, exploring the theoretical framework of diasporic identity and other frameworks for understanding Asian American folklore.
Their collective goal is to develop theoretical ideas to study Asian American folklore within the context of American culture, history, and everyday life without reinforcing ethnic stereotypes.
Their work previously concentrated on specific communities (e.g., Chinese, Filipino, Bangladeshi American).

Upcoming Journal of American Folklore (JAF) Publication

A special issue of the JAF, “New Perspectives on the Studies of Asian American Folklores,” is slated for 2015.
The issue aims to promote folkloristics research on Asian Americans.
It features an introduction, various articles, and contributions from multiple authors, employing fieldwork examples.

Frameworks for Studying Asian American Folklore

Interdisciplinary frameworks: Including historical and sociological studies of race, to understand who expresses Asian American identity, and how. The role of race-based stereotypes is also considered.
Transnationalism: The influence of multiple countries on communities (e.g., Philippines, America, Italy) is considered.
Third space: Homi Bhabha's concept of a space where identities are negotiated, contested, and performed. This is explored by examining the experiences of Filipinos/Filipinas during the Philippine-American war.
Folkloric identity: A concept proposed by Juwen Zhang—examining the continuity of traditions, considering migration, absorption, and the evolution of practices across different cultures. This concept challenges the traditional focus on "ethnic groups" to study traditions.

The Concept of "Third Culture"

Intersection of experience and folklore: The third culture is where individual experience, sociopolitical discourses, and folklore intersect.
Shifting ethnic identity: Examples include examining shifts in South Asian American identity after 9/11; and examining the historical context of "boondocks" as a site of resistance and negotiation of identity.
Emerging generational identities: Exploring the interaction of traditions and formation of cross-cultural identities in new generations, distinguishing markers of generational identities versus cultural and ethnic ones.

"Transnational Asia/Pacific" Name Change

The recent renaming reflects a desire to connect folklorists studying Asian and Pacific communities.
The change aims to be inclusive of Pacific Islanders in addition to Asian Americans.
Researchers note the importance of transnational experiences, emphasizing the influence of migration on Asian American identity.

Value of the "Asian American" Category

The breadth of the category can be a pitfall but is also valuable.
Asian Americans share a history of discrimination and racialization that connects their identities.
Examining the relationships between these shared experiences offers a framework for their work as folklorists.

"Folkloric Identity" and challenges to traditional frameworks.

The concept moves away from traditional ethnic identity to focusing on the continuity of folklore practices.
It rejects the ethnic identities to examine traditions independent of the racial/ethnic group that practices them.
Current models of "race" and "ethnicity" in folklore studies should be reexamined.
A shift in approach is required to study the diverse cultural traditions of human beings across generations, focusing on traditions first.

Description

Explore the complexity and diversity of Asian American folklore, including various cultural expressions from different ethnicities. This quiz highlights the contributions of researchers like Fariha Khan, Margaret Magat, and Juwen Zhang, who aim to study these traditions within the broader context of American culture while avoiding ethnic stereotypes. Test your knowledge on this rich and multifaceted subject.