Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws and Love (Gender Lens Series, Vol. 1) - Softcover

Espiritu, Yen Le

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803972555 ISBN 13: 9780803972551

Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc, 1996

Synopsis

This groundbreaking volume is among the first to explore the Asian-American experience from a gendered perspective. Yen Le Espiritu documents how the historical and contemporary oppression of Asian-Americans has structured gender relationships among them, and has contributed to the creation of social institutions and systems of meaning.

About this title

About the Author

Yen Le Espiritu, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, has written on ethnicity, immigration and race relations. Originally from Vietnam, she is the author of Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities and Filipino American Lives.

Review

Asian American Women and Men by Yen Le Espiritu offers a piercing and sensitive account of the experiences of first- and second-generation Asian American women and men, showing that gender differentiation and disadvantage is not a universal experience but is structured distinctly depending on its intersections with race and class. Drawing heavily on cultural theory, Espiritu exposes the binary oppositions that underlie representations of Asian American gender and sexuality. (Taylor, Verta Signs)

Espiritu examines the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian American women and men--with each other and with the dominant white society--from a gendered perspective. Locating gender in its intersection with race and class, this is one of the few works in ethnic studies or women's/gender studies that actually discusses the matrix of race/gender/class structures of oppression within a specific racial-ethnic community, i.e., Asian Americans, one that is also largely an immigrant community. Espiritu lends support to charges by women of color that traditional feminist theory falsely universalizes the category of 'women,' and overlooks the positions that white men and white women occupy over men of color. She also admits that this work does not disrupt the 'male-centered' framework of Asian American studies. The historical oppression of Asian Americans is explored along material and cultural lines, e.g., the formal and informal labor markets, including prostitution; family and small businesses; Japanese American internment; marriage and family; refugee resettlement; racist stereotyping. Theoretically, Espiritu advances the concept of 'racialized patriarchy.' She concludes with a call to create an 'imagined community' of cross-gender, cross-cultural, (Hu-DeHart, Evelyn Choice)

Espiritu examines the historical and contemporary experiences of Asian American women and men--with each other and with the dominant white society--from a gendered perspective. Locating gender in its intersection with race and class, this is one of the few works in ethnic studies or women's/gender studies that actually discusses the matrix of race/gender/class structures of oppression within a specific racial-ethnic community, i.e., Asian Americans, one that is also largely an immigrant community. Espiritu lends support to charges by women of color that traditional feminist theory falsely universalizes the category of 'women,' and overlooks the positions that white men and white women occupy over men of color. She also admits that this work does not disrupt the 'male-centered' framework of Asian American studies. The historical oppression of Asian Americans is explored along material and cultural lines, e.g., the formal and informal labor markets, including prostitution; family and small businesses; Japanese American internment; marriage and family; refugee resettlement; racist stereotyping. Theoretically, Espiritu advances the concept of 'racialized patriarchy.' She concludes with a call to create an 'imagined community' of cross-gender, cross-cultural, and cross-class coalitions bound together by the common struggle against all pervasive forms of structured domination. (Hu-DeHart, Evelyn Choice)

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0803972555
• ISBN 13: 9780803972551
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160