Asian American identity

I'm continuing the theme from the last post about Asian American identity because it's something I've been mulling over lately. In many ways, I feel like I'm back at Asian American Studies 101: What does it mean to be an Asian American? Who IS an Asian American? What is Asian American identity?

I'm actually looking for something beyond the basic answers of ethnic ancestry, phenotype, oppositional identity, social constructedness, political solidarity.

Or perhaps I'm looking for more nuanced discussions of these topics.

I remember having a very lively discussion with a friend in grad school--a woman who came to the U.S. from Hong Kong at the age of 7, who spoke fluent Cantonese and English and had lived a majority of her life in the U.S. and who felt the category of Asian American was odd and counterintuitive. Why should she share an identity with a Japanese American? These two countries, Japan and China, have been at war and in conflict over the course of several centuries. And what affiliation would a person with Pakistani ancestors have in common with a Filipino person? Interestingly enough, my friend actually developed an Asian American identity (or perhaps more specifically Chinese American identity) when she moved back to the West Coast from the East Coast.

I rebutted every one of her challenges, talking about Vincent Chin and civil rights and the Asian American studies movement and how Asian Americans get lumped as perpetual foreigners, regardless of their length of stay or perfect English--that there was a way we get perceived by others--that in fact, this threat to our individuality (ironically enough) is what pushed Asian Americans to band together into a political group, in solidarity with one another and with other minoritized groups of the 1960s (American Indians, Chicano, Gay and Lesbians, and of course African Americans) to fight for civil liberties and social justice.

So I guess my question is: Can you be an Asian American person without having an oppositional identity--without your identity being political--without any notion of essentialism? Can you be Asian American in any positive (as in affirming) way without devolving into cultural nationalism?

To put it another way, is the day when Asian American literature dissolves a good day because it will mean that Asian American literature is now American literature--is seen as being on par and indistinguishable from American literature and the expanded American canon, which includes John Steinbeck, Nella Larsen, Leslie Marmon Silko, Rudolfo Anaya and Sui Sin Far? (by the way, I don't think I'll see this day in my lifetime, but you can always project).

I guess what I'm wondering is what is the efficacy of an Asian American identity beyond political solidarity? And rather than saying just beyond political solidarity, perhaps this is more than enough...perhaps the fact that it is first and foremost a political identity because it is a racial identity is the key point and that I should stop being so concerned about the scope of Asian American collectivities beyond political concerns. That inherently Asian American as a category is political and its power lies in precisely this fact--that there are challenges and limitations, no doubt, but that a political identity that is centrally an oppositional identity--one that focuses on social justice, is perhaps the way to best understand what it means to be Asian American.