Announcements  Papers due today!  Readings posted for Thurs 2/16  2/28 – Community Event Reflection beginning of lecture!  3/1 – description of creative project to TAs!  3/13 – Creative project due!

Lecture #9: Yellow Power The I-Hotel & the Asian American Movement

Ethnicity& Panethnicity  WWII = era of ethnic disidentification  Ex: Advance in Filipino and Chinese access to citizenship at expense of Japanese internment  Post-WWII conditions allows for shift from ethnic disidentification to panethnicity  Ethnicity vs panethnicity  Categorization and self-identification  “panethnic unity is forged primarily through the symbolic reinterpretation of a group’s common history, particularly when this history involves racial subjugation. Even when those in subordinate positions do not initially regard themselves as being alike, ‘a sense of identity gradually emerges from a recognition of their common fate’” (Espiritu 9)

Watershed of WWII  Previous moments of panethnic labor movements  Ex: 1920 Filipino & Japanese labor strike in Hawaii  Pre-war barriers to panethnicity:  Lack of common language  Political memories and outlook of homeland  Post-war factors for panethnicity:  Growth of second generations  English develops as common language  Advances in civil rights  Ex: easing of housing restrictions leads to more interaction amongst ethnicities  National difference recedes because of shared experiences in US  Influence of feminist and anti-war protests and example of Black Power and pan-African movements  Critical mass of politicized, middle class, college students

The Asian American Movement  Defined by 1968 SFSU/UC Berkeley strikes for ethnic studies  Key characteristics of movement:  Coalitional politics  Broad criticism of multiple vectors of oppression  Recognition of domestic and international connections  international vs internal colonization  Primarily middle class, college-aged, second generation, suburban movement  From recouping of term “oriental” to Yellow Power to Asian American alliances  Politics of identity versus identity based on politics

 The International Hotel:  Low-income, single occupancy, hotel rooms in the heart of San Francisco Manilatown  Adjacent to Chinatown and Little Italy – in what is now the San Francisco Financial District  1968 – development of financial district begins; Manilatown has been mostly overtaken  Resistance to demolishing of I-Hotel fueled by intergenerational, cross-racial, pan-ethnic alliances  Demonstrates the broad concerns of the Asian American movement beyond college campuses

Questions to consider:  How does the documentary depict the tension between a politics of identity versus an identity based on politics?  How does the documentary consider the connection between politics and culture through the poetry of Al Robles?  How does the film demonstrate the battle against the “four prisons” that Glenn Omatsu discusses in his essay?  Is the Asian American movement “dead”? Are coalitional mass movements like the protest against the I-Hotel still possible? Why or why not?