Don T. Nakanishi

Seeking Convergence in Race Relations Research

Research on American race relations is at a critical divide. After a decade or more of collectively debunking demeaning myths and stereotypes about minority life, as well as challenging an array of earlier, order-based theories such as assimilation, the field has come to reflect a rich mosaic of new paradigmatic tendencies and goals. Race, which has always been a fuzzy concept, can no longer be analyzed on its own slippery terms. Instead, it now must be conjugated with often equally muddy notions of class and gender. Psychology and sociology, which previously could claim almost exclusive title to the domain of intergroup relations research, have had to give substantive ground to other methodological and analytical approaches. Recent contributions from disciplines as old as economics, history, literature, and political science, or seemingly new like ethnic studies or policy studies, have clearly led to a more provocatively pluralistic field of inquiry. And finally, among other major changes, research on American race relations has begun to reflect, slowly but nonetheless to a greater extent than it did before, the multiracial reality of America’s past, present, and future. New research on Chicanos, American Indians, and Asian Pacific Americans have not supplanted, nor have they sought to supplant, the long tradition of scholarship on blacks. But they have provided added credence to viewing persistent societal conditions of poverty, discrimination, prejudice, and powerlessness from multiple vantage points of group experiences. These contributions on other nonwhite populations have augmented the research agenda on American race relations by demonstrating the continued importance of issues dealing with language, immigration, and land ownership. They have also underscored the need for new visions, interpretations, and conceptualizations of America’s multiracial experience.

Amerasia Journal@45: More Than a Soliloquy

The issue marks the 45th anniversary of Amerasia Journal. Don T. Nakanishi, one of the founders of Amerasia Journal, remarks on the history of the journal; there is also a reprint of an essay that describes the history of the journal, particularly its early days. Longtime editor Russell Leong commemorates the occasion with original artwork.

In Search of a New Paradigm: Minorities in the Context of International Politics

Don Nakanishi performs the service of providing us with a clear-cut concept of the minority in international politics, which encompasses race and ethnicity. He also develops for us a method analysis as well as discussing the problems of content and structure for teaching courses in this field.

L. Ling-chi Wang: The Quintessential Scholar-Activist

The following remarks were presented by Prof. Don T. Nakanishi, Director of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, on the occasion of Prof. L. Ling-chi Wangs retirement dinner, San Francisco, May 12, 2006. They have been edited for publication and are followed by comments by Russell C. Leong, Amerasia Journal editor and an adjunct UCLA English professor.

Transforming Asian Pacific America: The Challenges of Growth and Diversity

The concept of Asian Pacific panethnicity is examined in the light of the growing numbers and diversity of the population in the 1990s. The term “Asian American” originated in the civil rights period of the 1960s to help unify Asian groups in the common struggle against negative stereotypes and discrimination. Revised immigration laws, new immigrant groups and continued hostility have brought new challenges, and it is argued that Asian Pacific Americans as a group can provide important leadership for the U.S.‘s transformation to a more truly multicultural society.