One of the legacies of the Asian American experience in the U.S. is the formation of distinctive ethnic neighborhoods. The Chinese formed Chinatowns to defend themselves against racial violence and legal discrimination throughout the West. For similar reasons, Japanese and Filipinos created their own ethnic enclaves. These communities also became the sites for resistance and the struggle for social justice. The authors discuss the resistance of Asian Americans to the perceived destruction of their historical communities, and the influence of ethnic enclaves on Asian American movements for social justice.

Key words: ethnic enclaves, social justice, Asian-American movements

This article explores the contradictory and paradoxical claims of Los Angeles' multiculturalist discourse in racially differentiating Asian and Latino immigrant populations from each other and fully enfranchised citizens. The author analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992 to define how interracial relations are interpreted, imagined, and diagnosed. The author uses the term multiculturalist nostalgia to describe an imagined time before immigrants when social relations were defined solely by black and white citizens.

Key words: multiculturalism, Los Angeles riots, black/white binary

This essay examines the role of race, place, and space on the emergence of Japanese American radicalism in the early to mid-1960s. Drawing from Morris and Braine's theorizing on the relationship among physical segregation, control of segregated spaces, and the development of an oppositional consciousness, the author discusses the ways in which the World War II concentration camps and postwar residential segregation fostered the political development of "pre-Movement" Japanese American activists, or those whose activism emerged in the years preceding the advent of the Asian American Movement. The author argues that contrary to the mainstream narrative of Japanese American passivity, the forced segregation of incarceration also facilitated the development of an "oppositional culture" and protest activities inside the concentration camps.

Key words: Japanese American radicalism, oppositional consciousness, Japanese American concentration camps, physical segregation, Black communities, Asian American Movement of the 1960s

In 1970, more than 31 Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) teenagers in Los Angeles County died from barbiturate overdoses, and a sobering two-thirds of those deaths were Japanese American young women. This article examines the grass-roots political work of Sansei women and men who confronted the epidemic by launching an anti-drug offensive that addressed the immediate and practical needs of their community. By creating networks that bridged ethnic, racial, generational, and neighborhood divisions, these activists fostered a transformative praxis that linked self-help to community self-determination.

Key words: community study, Sansei teenagers, anti-drug offensive, self-determination

The author discusses community activism among teenage second-generation Laotian women involved in a leadership development and community organizing program established by the Asian Pacific Environmental Network in northern California's Contra Costa County. Using qualitative data, the author examines the young women's involvement in a campaign to improve academic counseling services in their high school. The author also analyzes the strategies and practices that arise from the young women's struggle for social justice to document the generation of new social capital that encourages community involvement in solving the social problems faced by young Laotians and other youth of color.

Key words: Laotian women, leadership development, community organizing, second-generation Laotians, youth of color, women, community activism, social capital, education, citizenship

This article explores the forms of political activism among Muslim women of South Asian descent in the post-September 11 era. An ethnographic study of two religious student associations in New York shows a rising trend of "identity movements" centering on the religious dress code of veiling. The women's narratives discussed in this article illustrate the ways in which socially persecuted young women after September 11 use their practice of the headscarf (or hijab) as a major political tool to fight anti-Islamic sentiment in local and global contexts. The author offers two theoretical views regarding South Asian women's activism: (1) the cultural "difference" and "disadvantage" that Asian women bear could be also seen as a source of group mobility, strength, and resiliency for their political activism; and (2) women's religious identity might play a increasingly significant role in boundary formation associated with South Asian women as social and political attention to Muslims and the Islamic faith increases in the future.

Key words: Muslim women, identity movement, anti-Islamic sentiment, political activism

Drawing from the immigration narratives retold by children of immigrants, the author argues that the model minority myth not only plays an ongoing role in perpetuating the foreigner status of Asian Americans, but also limits the avenues for progressive social change among the second generation. The model minority myth promotes a national ideology of meritocracy and equality. It does not imply full citizenship rights, but rather differential inclusion afforded to minorities who "behave" and stay in their designated social space. As a result, the model minority myth reinforces established inequities and places second-generation Asian Americans in a precarious position in which they must constantly prove their worth as "real" Americans, regardless of their legal citizenship status.

Key words: model minority myth, second generation, citizenship

Asian/Pacific Islander Americans (APIAs) have been marginalized since arriving on U.S. shores over a century ago. This study analyzes the racial ideologies surrounding APIAs in prime-time television. By examining one of the most widely consumed media of popular culture, this article empirically demonstrates how APIAs continue to be marginalized and stereotyped in prime-time television.

Key words: Asian/Pacific Islander Americans, minority media, model minority