Abstract
While much work on the assimilation of immigrants in the United States typically connects assimilation with immigrants’ eventual outcomes, Pao Lee Vue argues in Assimilation and the Gendered Color Line that it is how culture is used that ultimately determines upward or downward mobility. Although the book’s research draws on Hmong Americans in the Upper Midwest, Vue concisely contextualizes and places his work within the larger theoretical framework of immigration and theories of assimilation before delving into the specifics of his qualitative research on the Hmong youth population. Since the Hmong migratory trajectory to the United States is unique among Asian groups, Vue also stresses the differences between racial and ethnic identities and how these are appropriated differently by Hmong Americans in different circumstances. For instance, through Vue’s interviews with Hmong youth (or the “second generation”), the book notes that those engaged in the hip-hop scene identify more with their Hmong ethnicity compared to those engaged in import racing—the drag racing of imported cars versus domestic cars—who may identify more along racial lines of Asian American, and explores the reasons why this is the case. Chapter One introduces the broader theoretical concepts of the book. Chapter Two lays out Vue’s research methodology. Chapters Three and Four examine the import racing subculture, while Chapters Five and Six focus on Hmong hip-hop. Chapter Seven concludes with Vue’s main argument that the cultural experiences of the second generation of Hmong Americans is reflective of racial and ethnic identities and boundaries (and intersects with gender, class, and sexuality) to fit within the framework of segmented assimilation theory.
Scholars and students of Asian American studies will certainly find this book interesting, although academics studying race, immigration, and assimilation will also be interested in the broader implications of this book. Vue contributes to the immigration literature by taking a qualitative approach to how the second-generation of more recent waves of immigrants to the United States (i.e., the Hmong) navigate the American racial landscape.