ARTICLE:
Foreword: We Have Arrived, We Have Not Arrived
Eric K. Yamamoto *
* Professor of Law,
SUMMARY:
...
In the following two articles, Professors Chew and Yen explain empirical
studies revealing previously unexplored patterns in the hiring and retention of
Asian American law faculty. ... My goal
is to frame salient questions about Asian American law professor hiring and
retention raised by the data collected, organized and insightfully presented by
Professors Chew and Yen. ... Asian
Americans comprise approximately three percent of the population and
three-and-a-half percent of law school student bodies. Yet, a 1990 study by the
Law School Admissions Service found that Asian Americans comprise only
nine-tenths of one percent (0.9 %) of law faculties. ... Asian American law professor applicants were
the one exception. ... At still another
school, a previously almost all white and male faculty hires several women and
people of color, including an Asian American. ... This depiction is then lifted up as proof
that minorities do not need affirmative action, that people of color can find a
place in society if they stop complaining and really try - much to the
frustration and anger of many Asian Americans, African Americans, Native
Americans and Latinos. ... Are these
conflicting social images of Asian Americans replicated within the legal
academy? If so, to what extent? And with what effect upon Asian Americans and
other professors of color? Consider the response of one Asian American law
professor to Professor Chew's survey: ...
TEXT:
Introduction
In the following two
articles, Professors Chew and Yen explain empirical studies revealing
previously unexplored patterns in the hiring and retention of Asian American
law faculty. Their findings announce both the arrival and struggle of Asian
Americans as law professors. I cannot in this brief introduction do justice to
the complexity of this subject, and I will at times generalize broadly. I also
acknowledge a likely divergence of views. My goal is to frame salient questions
about Asian American law professor hiring and retention raised by the data
collected, organized and insightfully presented by Professors Chew and Yen.
The mere existence of
these studies in some measure proclaims the arrival of Asian Americans in the
legal teaching profession. A population of Asian American legal scholars large
enough to form the basis of meaningful studies signals our growing impact on
law teaching and scholarship. Professor Chew learned that Asian American law
professors possess extremely high qualifications in terms of academic
credentials such as participation on law review, judicial clerkships, and
interdisciplinary graduate degrees. Yet, she also discovered the small overall
numbers of Asian American faculty and the channeling of many of those faculty
into a narrow range of specialties. Professor Yen found that Asian American
candidates for faculty positions were hired at a lower rate than African
American or Latino candidates. Taken together, their studies paint a poignant
picture: As members of the legal academy, "we have arrived, we have not
arrived."
ARTICLE:
Asian Americans in the
Pat K. Chew *
* Professor of Law,
SUMMARY:
...
Although scholars have researched law faculty in general, and some
underrepresented groups in particular, Asian American law faculty as a group
have been overlooked until now. ...
While scholars have studied law school faculty in various ways, none
have dealt specifically with Asian American law faculty. ... About 25% of all Asian American law faculty
are foreign educated and presumably have grown up in a foreign country.
... This decline in the representation
of foreign educated Asian American law faculty likely will be exacerbated
since, as a group, these faculty are older, more senior, and approaching retirement.
... This decline in the representation
of foreign educated Asian American law faculty raises important issues.
... Like other faculty groups, a
significant percentage of Asian American law faculty (24%) attended either
TEXT:
Although scholars have
researched law faculty in general, and some underrepresented groups in
particular, Asian American law faculty as a group have been overlooked until
now. In this Article, the author argues that the increasing numbers of Asian
Americans in legal academia make it both more important and more feasible to
study the background characteristics of Asian American law faculty. She
explores the demographic, educational, and employment patterns of Asian
American law faculty, and she includes reflective comments of other Asian
American law faculty to give voice to the faculty represented among the data.
Her research reveals that Asian American law faculty tend to be as
"qualified" or even "overqualified" when compared to other
faculty, yet underrepresented in comparison to the relatively high number of
Asian American law students who form the available labor pool. She speculates
that discrimination may account for this underrepresentation, and for the
channeling of Asian American law faculty into a limited number of subject
areas, as well as the apparent gender bias which disfavors Asian American women
in law faculty hiring and promotion.
Introduction
At a recent gathering
of Asian American law professors we asked, "Who are we? How do others
perceive us? What was our life as an Asian American law student and now as a
law professor like?" These inquiries prompted thoughts and reflections in
all of us. Our voices, however, "spoke" differently. Some were
intentionally quiet, there to listen. Others were formulating their thoughts
carefully, anticipating an opportunity to speak. Still others jumped in at
once, creating a conversational traffic jam.
While scholars have
studied law school faculty in various ways, none have dealt specifically with
Asian American law faculty. Typically, the professorate has been researched
more generally. Examples are Donna Fossum's extensive study of the law teaching
profession published in 1980, and more recently, Robert Borthwick and Jordan
Schau's 1991 survey of law professors based on information found in the
Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Directory of Law Teachers. In the
last decade, scholarship also has emerged on women and minority law faculty.
This research reveals that not all law faculty have the same educational or
career experiences. Both personal stories and empirical evidence suggest, for
instance, that women and minority faculty have endured subtle and overt
disparate treatment in hiring and promotion, resulting in arduous professional
challenges.
Why there is an
absence of research on Asian American law faculty in particular is unclear.
Various explanations for the paucity of research are possible. Specific
information on Asian Americans is not always readily accessible. In addition,
the small number of Asian Americans in a larger study of minority faculty makes
meaningful analysis of Asian Americans difficult. Finally, there may be a
certain indifference or lack of urgency about studying Asian Americans because
of a societal perception that they are unlikely to face problems unique from
the general population. In that sense, they are deemed less worthy of study.
Furthermore, the group most likely to question and investigate that societal
perception, Asian American law scholars themselves, have been small in number.
But presently, the
increasing number of Asian Americans in the legal academy make it both more
feasible and increasingly important to study Asian American faculty as a
distinct group. Scholarship also is emerging which challenges the assumption
that Asian Americans are not distinguishable from the population in general.
Rather, it posits that Asian Americans, including Asian American law faculty,
have particular experiences and valuable perspectives distinct from both the
population in general and from other minority individuals.
This Article,
following this emerging view, studies the demographic characteristics,
educational background, post-law-school experiences, and teaching careers of
Asian American law professors. While exploring the group as a whole, it also
considers in particular the profiles of Asian American women faculty, foreign
educated Asian American faculty, and the most recent Asian Americans to enter
law school teaching. In addition, this Article includes reflective comments of
Asian American law professors on a range of timely and important topics. Their
thoughts and emotions are juxtaposed with the more empirical and quantitative
descriptions of the group. Their voices are a diverse mixture of thoughtful
insights, some of which articulate angry, frustrated, or confused feelings.
They are not necessarily representative, but they are illustrative of the
feelings of some Asian American law professors. Thus, this work begins the
process of understanding the unique and rich identity of this group.
ARTICLE:
A Statistical Analysis of Asian Americans and the Affirmative Action Hiring
of
Alfred C. Yen *
* Associate Professor of Law,
SUMMARY:
...
Law schools have long implemented affirmative action faculty hiring
practices to remedy past discrimination, increase diversity, and provide role
models for students of color. ... Each
of these reasons supports the affirmative action hiring of Asian American law
professors. ... One would therefore
think that law schools would include Asian Americans in their affirmative
action hiring efforts. ... A number of
Asian American law professors doubt whether law schools are truly committed to
the affirmative action hiring of Asian Americans. ... This Article provides information which helps
answer the question of how law schools perceive and treat Asian Americans by
studying the hiring of new law school faculty from 1990-91 to 1992-93, a period
during which law schools openly practiced affirmative action hiring. ... Affirmative action is not necessary to help
people of color because Asian Americans do well without significant affirmative
action benefits. They then argue that
affirmative action which excludes Asian Americans unfairly benefits other
people of color over qualified Asian Americans. ... The argument exploits the non-white version
of Asian American identity to "prove" that people of color can
succeed without affirmative action. ...
Thus, affirmative action helps Asian Americans even if they do not
benefit as much as other people of color. ...
TEXT:
Law schools have long
implemented affirmative action faculty hiring practices to remedy past
discrimination, increase diversity, and provide role models for students of
color. However, there is a growing sense among the relatively few Asian
American law faculty that Asian Americans are not included in affirmative
action hiring efforts. The author compares the hiring rates of Asian American,
African American, Latino, and white law faculty candidates to test the
hypothesis that Asian Americans are not included in affirmative action hiring
programs. The author concludes that the pattern of law faculty hiring is
consistent with affirmative action policies which exclude Asian Americans.
Introduction
A recurring theme in
legal scholarship about Asian Americans is the ambiguous nature of Asian
American racial identity. Asian Americans are clearly persons of color, but
sometimes they are treated as white. Asian Americans are considered free from
racial discrimination and more economically successful than whites when the
opposite is true. Asian Americans receive both admiration and vilification
because of stereotypes about their diligence, family values, and thrift.
As an Asian American
law professor, I have often been curious about how the ambiguities of Asian
American racial identity play out in the legal academy, especially when it
comes to the hiring of new faculty. Law schools happily list Asian Americans
among faculty of color, but do they really perceive Asian Americans as people
of color?
For years, law schools
have engaged in purposeful affirmative action hiring to increase the number of
people of color on their faculties. The stated reasons for this include
remedial action for underrepresentation, remedial action for discrimination
against persons of color diversity,and the provision of role models to students
of color. Each of these reasons supports the affirmative action hiring of Asian
American law professors. Asian Americans have been the victims of social
discrimination by others, including universities. Asian Americans bring new and
important scholarly interests to the academy, especially their interest in
Asian American issues. Finally, Asian American law professors act as role
models for a rapidly increasing Asian American student body. One would
therefore think that law schools would include Asian Americans in their
affirmative action hiring efforts. Yet, in 1990, the year immediately before
the period under study, Asian Americans comprised 2.9% of the American
population in 1990, but only 1.4% of all law faculty.
A number of Asian
American law professors doubt whether law schools are truly committed to the
affirmative action hiring of Asian Americans. Anecdotally, they report that
their schools apply affirmative action to African American and Latino
candidates, but treat Asian Americans as if they were white. The schools then
list Asian Americans as people of color when reporting hiring statistics. Of
course, these reports may represent nothing more than a few isolated instances,
and law schools would probably deny consciously or unconsciously excluding
Asian Americans from affirmative action hiring. Nevertheless, the omission of
Asian Americans from affirmative action in other university contexts makes the
suspicions of Asian American law professors quite plausible.
This Article provides
information which helps answer the question of how law schools perceive and
treat Asian Americans by studying the hiring of new law school faculty from
1990-91 to 1992-93, a period during which law schools openly practiced
affirmative action hiring. In particular, the Article compares the success
rates of whites, Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos to test the
hypothesis that American law schools have excluded Asian Americans from
affirmative action hiring efforts. The logic behind this comparison is simple.
If law schools practiced affirmative action, one would expect the favored
groups to experience higher success rates than omitted groups.
Until recently, it
would have been extremely difficult to conduct this type of study because no
one kept information about unsuccessful applicants for law faculty positions.
Accordingly, studies about law professor hiring have been forced to analyze
only those who successfully found positions. While this sort of study certainly
provides insight about law school hiring practices, it does not allow a direct
measurement of how race is related to the likelihood of finding a law faculty
position. However, the Association of American Law Schools now keeps information
on large numbers of applicants for law professor positions. This information
includes racial and ethnic identification, so it is now possible to test the
relationship between race and success. As this Article shall show, the overall
pattern of law school faculty hiring is consistent with an affirmative action
policy which excludes Asian Americans.
ARTICLE:
Reconstruction and Racial Nativism: Chinese Immigrants and the Debates on
the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and Civil Rights Laws
John Hayakawa Torok *
* Law clerk to the Honorable Ronald L. Ellis,
United States Magistrate Judge, S.D.N.Y. B.A. 1987, University of California,
Santa Cruz; J.D. 1991, City University of New York School of Law; LL.M. 1995,
New York University School of Law. The research for this Article was supported
by a 1992-1993 Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship from the Center for Studies of
Ethnicity and Race in
SUMMARY:
...
The author shows that the ubiquitous perception of Asian Americans as
intrinsically foreign and unassimilable, and their perceived threat to American
institutions and society informed the Congressional debates on the
Reconstruction amendments and the subsequent Supreme Court decisions. ... For this reason, Asian Americans are often
not recognized as "American." Being positioned as "foreign"
is something that Asian Americans, even to the fifth generation in this
country, constantly face. ...
"Chinese" is often used as shorthand to represent heterogenous
Asian groups. ... Part I of this Article
provides background on (a) the historiography of Reconstruction scholarship and
its relationship to racial history, (b) a historiography of the definition of
racial nativism particularly with respect to Asian Americans, and (c) the
state-level legal-historical background for the later federal legislative
exclusion of Chinese immigrants. ... B. Asian Americans and Racial Nativism ...
C. Discriminatory State Regulation of Asian Immigrants ... Historian Sucheng Chan states that
"several hundred Chinese and Japanese and dozens of Asian Indians -
particularly on the Atlantic Coast - obtained citizenship." ... It [was] a watershed in
TEXT:
The Reconstruction
amendments and civil rights law historically have been viewed in the context of
African American emancipation, naturalization, and enfranchisement. However,
Chinese immigrants' presence and the racial nativism they engendered in the
white polity influenced the debates surrounding that legislation and the
attendant Supreme Court decisions. The author shows that the ubiquitous
perception of Asian Americans as intrinsically foreign and unassimilable, and
their perceived threat to American institutions and society informed the
Congressional debates on the Reconstruction amendments and the subsequent
Supreme Court decisions. His exploration of the anti-Chinese rhetoric during
the debates reveals that the deliberate language of the Reconstruction
amendments and civil rights law were directly influenced by these fears. He
concludes by examining the current resurgence of racial nativism in the context
of these historical events.
The Chinese do not
desire to become citizens of this country, and have no knowledge or
appreciation of our institutions. Very few of them learn to speak our language
.... To admit these vast numbers of aliens to citizenship and the ballot would
practically destroy republican institutions on the Pacific coast, for the
Chinese have no comprehension of any form of government but despotism, and have
not the words in their own language to describe intelligibly the principles of
our representative system.
Introduction
This statement from
the 1877 Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese
Immigration reflected widespread perceptions of Chinese immigrants, who were
the principal group of Asian immigrants present in the
The Article will also
explore the limited protection that these constitutional and legal
developments, which preceded the Chinese exclusion acts by several years,
extended to Asian immigrants in the broader context of judicial decisions
concerning citizenship and the citizenship status of Blacks. Historically, the
locus of racially discriminatory law has been the states. For example, the law
of slavery was principally a matter of colonial and then state law. The
Reconstruction amendments created the federal power to police discriminatory
state laws. However, later judicial interpretations limited the reach of that
federal power, making possible the new regime of state discrimination known as
"Jim Crow" laws. Thus federalism and arguments about the scope of
federal power are central to the questions of equal citizenship and minority
rights.
Three important themes
emerge from the debates on the constitutional amendments and civil rights laws.
First, while the discussion on Asian American history at the federal level
often starts with Chinese exclusion in 1882, the presence of Chinese immigrants
affected earlier federal legislation. The deliberate and careful choice of
language in the Reconstruction amendments and laws, regarding words such as
"citizens," "aliens," or "inhabitants," was made
with these immigrants in mind and is particularly significant given the
continuing debate on immigration. Second, contradictory views were held of
Chinese immigrants. On the one hand, they were viewed as racially inferior and
in need of protection. On the other hand, there was a deep fear of granting
them political power as they were seen as threatening white Christian hegemony.
Third, American citizenship was redefined to include persons other than white
men. The congressional debates on citizenship for Blacks included discussions
of Chinese immigrants because they were in the
Congress members'
statements during Reconstruction represent some early articulations of what
legal scholar Neil Gotanda calls the "racial association of Other non-Whites
with foreignness." For this reason, Asian Americans are often not
recognized as "American." Being positioned as "foreign" is
something that Asian Americans, even to the fifth generation in this country,
constantly face. As Gotanda has shown, the "separability of the juridical
categories of "citizen' and "alien' [related to] the parallel
[racialized] social distinction between "American' and "foreign,'
" creating an ideological presumption of "foreignness" based on "Other
non-White" racial status that influenced judicial outcomes in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gotanda illustrates his thesis by
discussing the 1854 People v. Hall and the 1898
In this Article,
"Asian" is used to denote the racial category used in Anglo-American
and European societies to describe persons whose ancestors lived in "
Part I of this Article
provides background on (a) the historiography of Reconstruction scholarship and
its relationship to racial history, (b) a historiography of the definition of
racial nativism particularly with respect to Asian Americans, and (c) the
state-level legal-historical background for the later federal legislative
exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Part II summarizes the congressional debates
on the Reconstruction constitutional amendments and laws, focusing on the
discussion of Chinese immigrants then to show that racial nativist views were
prevalent. Part III examines the Supreme Court decisions which upheld the Chinese
Exclusion Laws to show that racial nativist rationales similar to those
articulated in the earlier congressional debates were a factor in these
decisions as well. I conclude with a brief discussion on the relationship of
the contemporary resurgence of racial nativism to these historical phenomena.
ESSAY:
Passion and the Asian American Legal Scholar
Robert S. Chang *
*
SUMMARY:
...
It is a story about recovery and a sense that to grow up Asian American
in the United States is to grow up as a recovering oriental, a term that
contains within it not only the question, "What are we recovering
from?", but also, "What are we trying to recover?" ... Asian America, then, "is imagined because
[its] members . . . will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or
even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion"; and Asian America "is imagined as a community[] because
... [it is] conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship." ... The contested nature of this terrain can be
seen in the way conservatives have recently embraced the cause of Asian
Americans in their fight to end affirmative action. ... In other contexts, we
are foreigners, and these newfound champions of things Asian American in the
affirmative action context that fight to keep us out in the immigration
context. ...
COMMENT:
Broken Promises: The Status of Expropriated Property in the People's Republic
of
Elaine Sit *
* J.D., Chicago-Kent College of Law; M.A., B.A.,
SUMMARY:
...
There were several attempts at land reform during the dynastic periods
preceding the Communist revolution, but probably none was as traumatic to the
Chinese people as that which took place from World War II through the early
1950s. ... Part I consists of an
overview of the systems of land ownership and management that have existed in
TEXT:
The property rights of
many Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals residing in the
Prologue
My mother loved to
tell tales about the village where my father's family lived and about their
home in the country. Rice fields surrounded the house, which my mother said was
no ordinary house, but an estate, a collection of buildings which several
generations of the extended family occupied in traditional Chinese fashion.
There was also property in
Years later, while
watching television one night, I came across a re-run of the film Dr. Zhivago.
Yuri Zhivago had been conscripted to serve in the army against his will and had
escaped. On foot he stumbled through the misery of a Russian blizzard,
struggling to walk across the steppes to get back to the comfort of his
family's home in
Introduction
In December 1950, President
Truman blocked all assets of the People's Republic of
The half-century of
communist domination in China now overshadows the previous millennia of its
former imperial traditions, but in the context of the nation's historical
memory, the dramatic changes over the last 50 years may someday be a mere
footnote in the story of the Chinese people. There are vast differences between
the
Nearly 2000 years ago,
Whether the abuses
that occurred during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR)
(1966-1976) were more traumatic for the Chinese than the revolution following
World War II is arguable, although the widespread seizures and destruction of
personal property at the hands of the Red Guard did not attract the same degree
of worldwide attention. The Bamboo Curtain that stood between
The status of overseas
Chinese, many of whom are United States citizens, is significant because they
number in the millions, and unlike other groups who were forced to leave their
countries due to "ethnic" or "religious" cleansing or
persecution, many left China voluntarily to escape the corruption and economic
stagnation of the last dynasty. The majority of Chinese immigrating to
Although Chinese
emigration and overseas travel was banned by imperial edict for centuries, the
tidal wave of emigration from
Worker-sojourners from
Some worker-sojourners
became hybrids by maintaining permanent connections to both countries, and by
doing so, achieved unofficial dual-national status. The descendants of those
worker-sojourners therefore occupy a unique position in the reparations program
now in effect in
This Comment argues
that the claims programs instituted by both the
Part I consists of an
overview of the systems of land ownership and management that have existed in
Part II examines the
"claims/assets" problem that resulted from the United States'
blocking of Chinese assets held in American banks following the intervention of
Chinese troops in Korea, and China's taking of property belonging to United
States nationals in response to the blocking of those assets. A discussion of
the resolution of the claims/assets problem under the terms of the People's
Republic of China Claims Agreement of 1979 and its administration by the United
States Foreign Claims Settlement Commission is included to provide a point of
reference for the differences between the solutions devised by the United
States and China to the same problem: how to devise a system of just and
equitable compensation for the taking of private property by a foreign
government. Part II also analyzes the reported claims that were resolved under
the 1979 Claims Agreement and points out how the majority of eligible
Part III presents
policy reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping including developments in
property rights law, such as provisions in the 1982 Constitution of China
pertaining to ownership and inheritability rights to private property and
various regulations promulgated during the 1980s. The policy reforms under Deng
Xiaoping provide a necessary legal basis for the current reparations program,
for absent these legal reforms, in particular the recognition of private
property rights, the government's redress program might not exist.
Finally, in Part IV,
the criteria and methods for filing claims under the ongoing 1982 reparations
program are set out along with the reasons for the program's failure to provide
the meaningful redress that it purports to offer to qualified claimants.
COMMENT:
Battered Asian American Women: Community Responses from the Battered Women's
Movement and the Asian American Community
Karin Wang *
* Associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP, San
Francisco; B.A. 1992 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; J.D. 1995 Boalt
Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Thank you to Nancy
Lemon and Deeana Jang for their comments and support in writing this paper.
Special thanks to Pie-Yi, Chun and Lynna Wang for their unfailing love and
support.
SUMMARY:
...
The anti-domestic violence movement has made significant progress in the
past twenty years. ... Although battered
women experience universally similar abuse, the needs and concerns of Asian
American domestic violence victims require special attention. Battered Asian
American women are situated differently than other battered women in the
TEXT:
The anti-domestic
violence movement has made significant progress in the past twenty years.
However, these gains largely have not been realized by Asian American women.
The author argues that for Asian American women, domestic violence is
complicated by factors such as language barriers, immigrant status, cultural
differences, and racial discrimination - issues which have not been addressed
by the anti-domestic violence movement. Moreover, the Asian American community,
which does comprehend these complicating factors, has failed to make domestic
violence a priority issue. Thus, the unique needs of battered Asian American
women are often left unanswered. The author critiques both the
"white-centered" domestic violence movement for failing to address
race adequately, and the male-centered Asian American civil rights perspective
for failing to address women's issues adequately. She calls for both groups to
adopt a broader vision that embraces both race and gender.
Introduction
He hit me, held a
knife to my throat, a gun to my head, and choked me with a golf club. My arms,
legs, and body were often covered with bruises. He would kiss them, cry and
say, "Baby, I didn't mean to hit you. I don't know why ... I lost my
temper."
He would
drag me by my hair down the stairs, smash my head into the wall, throw me down
on the floor then kick and hit me all over.... He would spit on me when I got
dressed ..
These brutal
experiences are familiar to many battered women, but these two stories belong
to battered Asian American women. Their stories are unique, not because Asian
American women necessarily experience domestic violence differently from
non-Asian American women, but because the stories of battered Asian American
women are still relatively unheard and unknown. While the movement against
domestic violence has made tremendous gains in the past twenty years, not all
battered women have benefited equally. Women of color have gained less from the
progress of the anti-domestic violence movement, which has been primarily
"white-centered." And within communities of color, including Asian
American communities, domestic violence has yet to become a priority issue.
Although battered
women experience universally similar abuse, the needs and concerns of Asian
American domestic violence victims require special attention. Battered Asian
American women are situated differently than other battered women in the
In this Comment, I
address the social and legal disenfranchisement of battered Asian American
women. In Part I, I examine domestic violence generally and critique the
predominantly "white-centered" domestic violence movement for failing
to address adequately the needs of non-white women - namely, Asian American
women. In Part II, I define the battered Asian American woman and argue that
Asian American women face unique problems as a result of immigration status,
cultural norms, and harmful stereotypes. In Part III, I examine the Asian
American community's male-centered perspective on civil rights issues, and its
subsequent failure to address women's issues. I conclude by arguing that both
the anti-domestic violence movement and the Asian American community must
affirmatively address the needs of battered Asian American women. Because Asian
American women are not "just women" or "just Asian
Americans," both women's rights advocates and Asian civil rights advocates
must move beyond their current limited visions and adopt a new paradigm which
simultaneously embraces race and gender.
White By Law: The Legal Construction of Whiteness.
By Ian Fidencio Haney Lopez.
Reviewed by Frank H. Wu *
* Assistant Professor,
SUMMARY:
...
This essay discusses White By Law in relation to an emerging body of
Asian American legal literature. ... But
this new racial status has only a limited ambit: Asian Americans become white
predominantly for the purpose of attacking affirmative action programs.
... At the
TEXT:
Introduction
Ian Fidencio Haney
Lopez has written a great book. White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race
deserves the highest praise that his colleagues in the academy can give a
scholarly study: sympathetic readers and reviewers may be prompted to say,
"I wish I'd written that."
Haney Lopez's book is
perhaps one of the finest works yet produced by the Critical Race Theory (CRT)
movement. Most importantly, it opens a new set of inquiries for future
research. Like the best theoretical studies, it contains great potential for
practical reform efforts. And like the most persuasive progressive politics, it
is based on compelling evidence.
This essay discusses White By Law in relation to
an emerging body of Asian American legal literature. It consists of three parts.
Part I summarizes the descriptive sections of White By Law. Those chapters
concern late nineteenth and early twentieth century case law interpreting the
term "free white person," which was a pre-requisite status for anyone
wishing to naturalize as a