Question: How might an approach foregrounding race and racialization help you to read the post-Katrina situation in New Orleans and the resulting cooperation between the Vietnamese American and African American communities there studied by Eric Tang?

PROMPTS:

1. Please explain critical refugee studies as you understand it from lecture, Malki, and/or Lipman. Does this understanding allow you to analyze Freeman’s “10 Indochinese Days” selection that includes Freeman’s short introduction and Captain Hung’s first-hand account? ALTERNATIVELY, you could substitute Freeman & Hung with another narrative about refugees and their conditions or politics. Preview your authors and your analytical argument in your intro paragraph. Explain features in critical refugee studies in the first part of the body of your essay before you apply them to your reading of the Freeman-Hung interview OR another selection of your choice.

Content Elements for Self-Evaluation: Explanations of critical refugee studies from range of: refugee as a state of loss and statelessness is a result of historical management of refugees and the establishment of an order of nation states after WWII (Malki), refugee as site of knowledge about refugees (Malki) and reaction to refugees, the refugee camp as carceral space fitting into larger policy formation (Malki, Lipman). You do not have to hit all those, and may include other dimensions. Freeman’s introduction to Captain Hung’s story replicates the well-worn idea that refugees lost everything. He uses it to explain away the validity of Captain Hung’s emotional politics. You may elect to apply a critical refugee lens to another narrative about refugees and/or their politics (from newspaper accounts or elsewhere).

2. How might an approach foregrounding race and racialization help you to read the post-Katrina situation in New Orleans and the resulting cooperation between the Vietnamese American and African American communities there studied by Eric Tang? ALTERNATIVELY, you could analyze the situation of youths studied by Kevin Lam, OR the nail salon context studied by Kimberly Hoang. Preview race and racialization from 2 authors in your introduction together with a preview of your analysis of one of the three situations above. Explain race/racialization approach by at least 2 authors (Ong, Ngin&Torres, Hoang, etc.) in the body of your essay, and support your analysis of the selected situation.

Content Elements for Self-Evaluation: Explanations of race and racializations can come from lecture (slides posted on course website/any 2 authors (Ngin&Torres, Eric Tang, Kevin Lam, Kimberly Hoang), and may focus on the racial division of labor (Ngin &Torres), or history of racism in US that ultimately becomes basis of cooperation between VietAms and AfrAms in New Orleans after Katrina, or how history of American racism places groups in relation to one another in racial triangulation playing out in the nail salon context between owners, clients, and workers (Hoang), or how racism criminalizes youths (Lam).

3. How can we use critical refugee studies and/or critical race studies to understand deportation and communities’ responses to deportation? Please explain what you find useful in one of the readings on refugees (i.e. Liisa Malki or Lipman ), and/or in the readings on race (Ngin and Torres, Lam, Tang, Crenshaw), and/or the lecture materials (Wynter, Omi and Winant, etc. ) to help us make sense of deportation practices and community responses covered in the deportation readings (i.e. Soo Ah Kwon, Katya Cengel, SEARAC, or A. Do & M. O’Toole).

Content Elements for Self-Evaluation: You should state argument about how you find critical refugee studies and/or race add to our understanding of deportation practices and community responses. You should mention which author/reading provides the theoretical context (critical refugee studies or critical race).

You should explain the critical refugee study framework and/or critical race framework that you find useful in thinking about deportation (Malki and/or Lipman for crit refugee studies; and/or Ngin&Torres, Lam, Tang, Crenshaw, and/or Wynter, Omi & Winant for critical race in lecture ).

You should then demonstrate how the above apply to their understanding of the actual practices of deportation and community responses from the more empirical works like Kwon, Cengel, SEARAC, and Do&O’Toole.