美国研究项目华裔美国文化形象

　　Luce Module on American Chinese from the perspectives of Race, ethic and multiculturalism ---Rudolf Lu (Professor, Deputy Director of ACC)

　　---Susan Chen (Associate Professor, Secretary of ACC) ---Jean Ye (Assistant Professor, Coordinator of ACC)

　　American Cultural Center (ACC) at Guangzhou University

　　1. Goals for the Module

　　American Chinese, also known as Chinese Americans or Sino-Americans, are Americans of full or partial Chinese- descent ( wikipedia, 2015, para. 1). American Chinese are composed of the descendants of the early Chinese immigrants, immigrants from Hong Kong (China), Taiwan (China) and other Asian countries and regions, and also the new immigrants from the mainland China. And they are the oldest and largest ethnic group of Asian ancestry in the United States. For Chinese students, to dig the immigration history and past events of American Chinese, to examine what major roles the culture and ethnicity of this group have played and are playing in American Chinese communities, undoubtedly, has special significance as it would make them more aware of their own identity and help to understand the experiences within the larger context of ethnic studies.

　　The purpose of this module is diverse. It is designed

　　★to offer an overview of immigration history of American Chinese;.

　　★to provide a multicultural l perspective of and a new information about American Chinese issues;

　　★to help students to explore the interrelation between race, ethnicity and culture diversity in the field of American Chinese studies and its impact on American Chinese communities;.

　　★to cultivate a comparative way of studies and a kind of critical thinking about two or even more nations;

　　The materials listed here will trigger the reflection of students on the subject in the class, and slide or film strip displayed may help unravel the multiplicity of American Chinese. After completing the module, the students would foster a sense of community engaged with issues of American Chinese history and identity.

　　2. Advice to Teachers

　　A). Basic (mainly for freshman students in Wesleyan College of Guangzhou University for General Education course of “American Civilizations”)

　　With students who have limited knowledge of the history of the Chinese

　　Americans and/or who are not proficient in English. The main goal of instruction is to give the students an overview of the general facts to arouse their interests and encourage the students to conduct further research on the topic.

　　-Pre-class: Instructors Assign required reading.

　　-Class Period I (1.5 hours):

　　A. The instructor gives a short introduction of Edward Said and explains his theory of Orientalism. With the help of the instructor (pictures, extracts of books, paintings, movie clips and music videos, etc.), students share their insights of the stereotypical images of the Oriental (such as personality stereotypes, gender stereotypes and racial stereotypes, etc.)

　　B. The instructor then gives the students an overview of Samuel Huntington's masterpiece Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. The students are encouraged to explore the reasons why civilizations clash based on Huntington and Said’s theories. Finally, the impacts of the remaking of world order on Japan and China will be discussed in class as case studies. f

　　-Class Period II (1.5 hours):

　　A. The instructor presents the basic facts of the Chinese Americans (visuals and charts, etc.) The students are asked to brainstorm about the well-known Chinese Americans they know and share stories of friends and members of their families who live in the US, as lots of Chinese Americans can trace their roots in Guangdong.

　　B. The instructor gives an overview of the images of Chinatown under the background of the three major waves of the Chinese moving to America. The students are encouraged to share their insights on the roles and images of Chinatown based on the reading materials, pictures and movie clips.

　　-Class Period III (1.5 hours):

　　A. The instructor gives a chronological account of the development of the images of Chinese Americans on American Screen by presenting pictures, posters, advertisements, reading materials and movie clips. The students are encouraged to identify and summarize the stereotypical features of the Chinese in Hollywood cinema over different periods of time.

　　B. With the help of the instructor (book excerpts, movies and charts, etc.), the students will have group discussions on the homogenization and diversification of the images of the American Chinese in Hollywood cinema based on Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism.

　　B). Advanced

　　If you teach advanced-level students, you may ask the students to conduct independent research projects on the history of the Chinese Americans. For example, many families in Guangdong have relatives who were the first

　　Chinese immigrants to the US. The Instructor can encourage them to interview their family members and share stories, photos and letters with their classmates.

　　3. Required Reading

　　★ Kim, Elaine. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.（This book focuses on the self-images and social contexts of the nineteenth-century immigrants, their descendants, and the Americanized writers of today. It is an introduction to the literary works of Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, and Korean-Americans）

　　★Terry S Trepper, May Tung，Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values ， Routledge， 2000. (This important book relates personal problems and conditions to specific sources in Chinese and American cultures and the immigration experience, which offers students insight into the dilemma between “self” and “family” that both the younger and older generations must face in American society.).

　　★ Angelo N. Ancheta, Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience, Rutgers University Press, 2006. This influential book examines legal and social theories of racial discrimination, ethnic differences in the Asian American population, nativism, citizenship, language, school desegregation, and affirmative action .With a skillful mixture of legal theories, court cases, historical events, and personal insights, this book brings fresh insights to U.S. civil rights from an Asian American perspective).

　　Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club, Penguin Books, 2006.( This book is widely acclaimed bestseller , which spans two countries and two generations, following a group of Chinese women who meet to play mah jong, invest money and tell the secret stories of their lives).

　　4．Suggested Reading

　　★Documenting the Southeast Asian American Experience, (from http://www.visualhistory

　　This collection contains some 1500 images and 4000 pages of related textual material from the collections of the University of California-Irvine’s Southeast Asian Archive. Images and text focus on post-1975 refugees and immigrants to the United States from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, tracing their departures from their mother country, their stay at refugee camps throughout Asia and their lives in the United States. The site offers information about five Southeast Asian ethnic groups: Cambodians, Laotians, Hmong and lu-Mien,

　　more empathetic and complex picture of New York City's Chinatown.)

　　★Peter Kwong , The New Chinatown. Hill and Wang, 1996 (This is an informed and up-to-date socio-historical study of modern Chinese communities in the United States-and their continuing isolation and disenfranchisement-offers to the consistent misrepresentation of Chinese-American life in the press and in scholarly writings. This book breaks through the myth of the 'model minority' to reveal the character of Chinatown's economic boom, the new sources of conflict and domination it has created, and the recent struggles of the community's workers and political activists.

　　★Jean Yu-Wen, Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader, Rutgers University Press, 2010.

　　6. Questions for Discussion

　　---What strategy or principle should the early Chinese immigrants have adopted to ensure safety, justice and opportunity for themselves?

　　---What is the most important principle for people of different race and cultural background to live together?

　　---How the early American Chinese immigrants’ dreams and reality diverge? ---What’s the historical role of Chinatown in America?

　　---What do you think of evolution and stereotype of Chinese images in America?

　　---How do Chinese-American writers deal with their own identity of the dilemma?

　　---Do you agree that Chinese immigrants cannot get rid of the image of “outsider” and “the weak” while their knowledge about the Chinese civilization is far from enough? Why or why not?