Lowe and Karup article

In Heterogeniety, Hybridity, Multiplicity, Lowe (1996) suggests that we think of the Asian American identity as more fluid, unstable, and constantly changing. In describing racial formation, I related it to other racial groups who were fit into different categories as well depending on the historical discourse, policies/laws, and climate (e.g., Hispanics being considered "White" at one point in history) (p. 65). I agree that adopting a more intersectional approach allows people to view the experiences of Asian Americans in consideration to their gender, history of colonization or displacement, age, region, and wave of immigration. Isolating these factors may simply reinforce existing inequalities affecting the Asian American community. For instance, Filipino Americans during the 1930's when there was growing hostility against "Brown Asians" and fear of them "stealing" White women from White men had significantly different experiences of current Filipino Americans in contemporary society; and of course, even within the second generation of Filipino Americans, there are still varying experiences in America. The author gives a comparable example when speaking of Connie and Lisa - two Chinese-identified women in the same generation. Both express concerns of not being Chinese enough, which relates to the concept of authenticity. This intersectional approach additionally allows us to stray away from binary ways of thinking about racial groups and "other"ing groups as mentioned in the text. The risk of doing so merely reinforces existing hierarchal structures in our society and clusters the experiences of Asian Americans rather than acknowledging within-group differences.