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"Perhaps the Japanese Are to Be Thanked?" Asia, Asian Americans, and the Construction of Black California

"Perhaps the Japanese Are to Be Thanked?" Asia, Asian Americans, and the Construction of Black... positions 11:1 Spring 2003 expressing admiration for the many friendships maintained even as the area’s once sizeable Japanese American population gave way. Citing the easy humor passing back and forth between patrons, the reporters hastily appointed Holiday Bowl an exceptional instance of racial harmony in a city torn by the memory of black/Asian violence.1 The conceptual limits of such evaluations recall Lisa Lowe’s critique of contemporary multiculturalism in Los Angeles, for the struggle to preserve the Holiday Bowl captures more than can be conveyed in quips about sukiyaki with grits. In a town where the reification of decontextualized ethnicity (Food! Festivals!) undergirds municipal cultural policy, where any census tract with a black plurality is “South Central,” and where eastside signals less a location than a language, it is important to regard the Holiday Bowl not as a fragmentary instance of interracial cooperation, but as part of an ongoing process of interethnic communication and community formation which challenges conventional ideas about the boundaries of ethnicity and the history of the region. Indeed, at a time when the horrific violence of 1992 dominates the study of African American/Asian American interactions, and when observers continue to take the notion of Los http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions asia critique Duke University Press

"Perhaps the Japanese Are to Be Thanked?" Asia, Asian Americans, and the Construction of Black California

Widener, Daniel
positions asia critique , Volume 11 (1) – Mar 1, 2003
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2003 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-11-1-135
Publisher site
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Abstract

positions 11:1 Spring 2003 expressing admiration for the many friendships maintained even as the area’s once sizeable Japanese American population gave way. Citing the easy humor passing back and forth between patrons, the reporters hastily appointed Holiday Bowl an exceptional instance of racial harmony in a city torn by the memory of black/Asian violence.1 The conceptual limits of such evaluations recall Lisa Lowe’s critique of contemporary multiculturalism in Los Angeles, for the struggle to preserve the Holiday Bowl captures more than can be conveyed in quips about sukiyaki with grits. In a town where the reification of decontextualized ethnicity (Food! Festivals!) undergirds municipal cultural policy, where any census tract with a black plurality is “South Central,” and where eastside signals less a location than a language, it is important to regard the Holiday Bowl not as a fragmentary instance of interracial cooperation, but as part of an ongoing process of interethnic communication and community formation which challenges conventional ideas about the boundaries of ethnicity and the history of the region. Indeed, at a time when the horrific violence of 1992 dominates the study of African American/Asian American interactions, and when observers continue to take the notion of Los

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positions asia critique – Duke University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2003

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