'I claim I am an American, you don't question that'

The United States, as a place where racial amalgamation is going on, continues to adapt to its diverse cultures.

Prof. Evelyn Hu-deHart, the director of the History and Ethnic Studies Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University, Rhode Island, shared her views as an Asian- American in multicultural America with The Jakarta Post's Evi Mariani recently. The following is an excerpt from the discussion:

Question: What is it like to be Asian in America?

Answer: Even though in the U.S. Asian-Americans are a model minority, we still live in a white supremacy society.

So no matter how successful Asians are, they're always going to be subsumed under a white system.

Today, Asians are seen as extremely successful in the U.S., so sometimes people say "What do you mean by Asian are racialized?". People don't believe it. But I always refer to history.

The U.S., which many of us viewed as the freest multicultural country in the world, actually has a history founded on racial exclusion.

The U.S. was founded in 1776, in 1790 a very important law was passed called the U.S. naturalization law.

That naturalization law of 1790 explicitly said that only white immigrants could become citizens of the U.S.

In short, to be Asian in America has a long history that is full of tension, full of negotiations.

Does African-Americans' fight for civil rights have any influence on Asian-American civil rights?

Yes. Asians learn from black Americans and say we need a civil rights movement, we need to organize ourselves.

So, in the 1960s, we created an identity -- Asian-American -- because there were black-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and we say we too are Americans.

First, we have to claim an American identity if we want civil rights and equality before the law.

But we are too small as a separate group. So, better we organize ourselves as a coalition and give ourselves a name: Asian-American. That is the Asian-American civil rights movement.

So far, how has the movement progressed?

One of the movement's results, among other things, was this coalition has extracted from the U.S. government under Reagan a formal apology to the Japanese-Americans and their descendants for wrongful detention in the concentration camp.

This movement has grown because the immigration changes of 1965 brought in many more Asian immigrants, and not just from the usual places, but we now have over 20 different groups from Asia that the U.S. census counts.

Now the Asian-American group is about 4 to 5 percent of the total U.S. population. Still not very big.

How does the U.S. see this?

We have in the U.S. an ambivalent attitude. We fear Asians in Asia because of their growing economic power. We fear Asians in the U.S. because of their disproportionate success particularly in education.

On the one hand they praise us and they understand that the Silicon Valley and the U.S. could have not risen without particularly the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the people of Hong Kong and South Asia, Indians.

Anyway, they recognize this and they call Asian-American the model minority. Model minority means you are still a minority, but you're better than those other minorities, so we're going to give you the good sounding title -- a model minority -- which is actually a very problematic concept.

How is Asian-American identity constructed? Indeed, it is a constructed identity. It's very artificial, very political, and not everybody subscribes to it.

A lot of people don't buy into this unless you are politicized.

How are you politicized? Mainly through the universities. We're not stupid -- those of us who are actively involved in promoting Asian-American human rights and civil rights interests -- we know that those of us who are in the universities have a lot of contact with the younger generation of Asian-American people because they are actively seeking education.

We have a field of studies called Asian-American studies. Again we modeled ourselves after the African-American study program.

Through the studies we give our students a sense of history, a sense of politics, the need to organize and those are the ones who are more likely to accept the Asian-American identity.

So this is a political identity and it only works for those who have political consciousness.

With China becoming more powerful as a competitor of America, will the position of Chinese-Americans become more difficult? Yes. That is something we have to be careful about in the U.S. We watch it very carefully, and that is why I think in the U.S. most Asian-Americans, who are aware of these things, insist on the American side of our identity.

These terminologies become very important. Your identity, your public identity. If you understand these things you don't go around and say I'm Chinese, I'm Asian. I always say "I'm Asian- American". That's my preferred public identity, I don't even say I'm Chinese-American.

Or sometimes, I just say I'm American. In fact that's really what we should be saying. America is officially a multiracial nation.

How do you think a multicultural nation should be? We say we are a multicultural nation, so I don't have to give up my cultural heritage to claim U.S. nationality and citizenship.

That's what multicultural means, that we now insist on assimilation without acculturation, or something like that. I don't have to conform to one model of being American. I can display my Chinese heritage or my Italian heritage.

In New York City, in L.A. too but particularly in New York City, you see it more. We celebrate everybody's heritage. Recently there's Puerto Rican day, there's Trinidad, you name it. Everybody goes out and has a day.

That's what multiculturalism means in America, you don't question my right to claim U.S. citizenship or nationality, I insist on that. But at the same time, America is a multicultural country, it's no longer white European dominant. We all have a right to express ourselves and to be considered equally legitimate as Americans.