Queer/Trans K’s

Model Minority

Reject the myth of the model minority – it’s particularly harmful to Asian queers because of how homogenizing it is – only an intersectional approach can solve

Sapinoso 2009

(Joyleen Valero (JV), PhD in Philosophy, University of Maryland, “FROM “QUARE” TO “KWEER”:TOWARDS A QUEER ASIAN AMERICAN CRITIQUE” http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/9567/Sapinoso_umd_0117E_10599.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y - KSA)

A third way in which to reconsider immigration through a kweer lens and make queer Asian American subjects and subjectivities central is by challenging the myth of the model minority and its connections to sexuality and immigration. Though Asians have not always been welcomed as immigrants into the U.S., since changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965 the percentage of Asian Americans who are foreign-born in comparison to the total population of Asian Americans has increased dramatically. According to the 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics by region, it is people from Asia and North America that have consistently accounted for the two largest groups of people obtaining legal permanent 226 resident status from 1998 to 2007 (12). While about half of the people from North American obtaining legal permanent resident status are born in Mexico, the representation of Mexican immigrants as undocumented continues. In contrast, representations of Asian immigrants often tend to reflect model minority stereotypes that portray Asian Americans as particularly high achieving in education, working at good jobs, earning a good living, and who through their hard work have achieved “the American dream,” also setting an example, a model, that other minorities should follow. In keeping with this stereotype, Asian immigrants are often imagined and portrayed as successful doctors, engineers, and other professionals even though, as Claire Jean Kim points out, statistics reveal that “Asian immigration to the U.S. is distinctively bifurcated: many Asian immigrants are poor and unskilled and end up at the margins of the low-wage service economy, but many others are highly educated, skilled, and affluent” (23).128 The echoing of model minority stereotypes in representations of Asian immigrants homogenizes Asian immigrants and prevents the experiences of immigrants from distinct Asian communities and countries from emerging.129 Moreover, the predominance of the myth of the model minority in Asian immigration overshadows the experiences of a large portion of Asian immigrants who have struggled to immigrate, and continue to struggle living in the U.S. In these ways, the immigration discourses that do focus on Asians (instead of the more usual focus on Latinos) become narrow and do not fully allow for the 128 For example, according to the 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, even though in 2007 the number of Asians immigrating to the U.S. based on employment-based preferences outnumbered those coming from any other one region, even both Europe and North America, the number of asylees and refugees from Asian countries was also higher than the number from any other region (27). 129 For a more in-depth discussion of the model minority stereotype, see Stacey J. Lee’s Unraveling the “Model Minority” Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth. 227 consideration of the diverse range of Asian American subjects and subjectivities, including those who are queer. When it comes to queer Asian Americans in particular, the effects of the model minority myth on their experiences of immigration are significant. To begin with, the model minority myth assumes heterosexuality. Although heterosexuality is not usually named explicitly in most definitions of model minority, it is specifically the assimilation into dominant white heterosexual middle-class culture that images of the model minority myth idealize. In addition, the overwhelming representation of homosexuality as a white, American phenomenon succeeds in distancing Asian American immigrants from queerness even more. In both these cases, there is little space for imagining the existence of a queer Asian American immigrant. The model minority myth and its underlying compulsory heterosexuality and the underlying racism of stereotypes of queers as white can become internalized, and affect queer Asian American immigrants on a more pernicious level, especially for those whom maintaining strong ties to racial and ethnic communities are a high priority. For example, countless stories in Russell Leong’s anthology, Asian American Sexualities: Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience, express the difficultly of coming out because of tensions within both queer communities (around race and immigration), and Asian American communities (around sexuality) and the constant feeling of needing to have to choose one over the other.130 In the face of this false dilemma of having to choose, a kweer approach invested in an identity politics that allows for 130 See for example: Dana Y. Takagi “Maiden Voyage”; Martin F. Manalansan, IV “Searching for Community: Filipino Gay Men in New York City”; Cristy Chung, Aly Kim, Zoon Nguyen, and Trinity Ordona, with Arlene Stein “In Our Own Way: A Roundtable Discussion”; and Gayatri Gopinath “Funny Boys and Girls: Notes on a Queer South Asian Planet.” 228 intersectionality is useful in fighting against the homogenizing force of the model minority myth and re-asserting an attention to differences among Asian American immigrants, as well as among queer community members.

Nuclear War

Current IR theories are not enough to understand why actors go to war

Wilcox, 2014

(August 5, Lauren, Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge, Deputy Director of the Centre for Gender Studies PhD in Political Science, University of Minnesota, “Embodied Subjectivities in International Relations” http://www.e-ir.info/2014/08/05/embodied-subjectivities-in-international-relations/ - KSA)

The body or, rather, the embodiment of the subject is often an ‘absent presence’ in International Relations (and in social and political theory, more generally). In my forthcoming book, Bodies of Violence: Theorizing Embodied Subjects in International Relations,I argue that theories of war and violence in IR depend on assumptions about the relationship between bodies, subjectivity, and violence that are often more implicit than explicit. There is no singular theoretical apparatus or philosophy for theorizing the subject as corporeal or embodied; contemporary social and political theorists as diverse as Michel Foucault, Elaine Scarry, Franz Fanon, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, and Iris Marion Young have all dealt with this topic at length. However, as feminist scholars have been at the forefront of theorizing the subject and, in particular, the embodiment of the subject as a site of political struggle, this essay will focus on feminist theorization and particularly the work of Judith Butler. In her highly influential “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals” (1987), Carol Cohn evocatively describes the disembodied ways in which nuclear strategists talked about the possibilities and outcomes of nuclear war. Cohn notes not only that bodily violence is invisible in discourses of nuclear war, but contemplation of such violence is necessarily impossible within the strategic discourse of the nuclear strategists. What’s more, Cohn talks about her experience as a participant observer learning to think and speak like a defense intellectual: “The experience of mastering the words infuses your relation to the material. You can get so good at manipulating the words that it almost feels as though the whole thing is under control” (Cohn 1987, 704). Her critique of the disembodied nature of theory, her emphasis on her own experience as an embodied individual in this space, and the connection between disembodiment and control are three features that contribute to making Cohn’s piece a classic in the field, but also speak to key themes of feminists in their insistence on taking seriously what it means to be a subject that is embodied.