Professor Park
Spring 2008
This class meets in 1430 South Hall, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 9 to 10 am. Professor Park's office hours are from 10 to noon on Wednesdays, in 5050 HSSB. His e-mail address is jswpark@asamst.ucsb.edu.
For a copy of the syllabus, please click here.
PLEASE NOTE THAT ON FRIDAY, MAY 30, GARY COLEMNAR WILL MEET THE CLASS IN ROOM 1414C IN THE MAIN LIBRARY AT 9 am. FOR A SCREENING OF "SENTENCED HOME," A RECENT DOCUMENTARY ABOUT DEPORTATION LAW AND ITS IMPACT ON THREE YOUNG MEN AND THEIR FAMILIES.
Readings for the course include the following:
I. Asian Immigrants and American Law
In re Ah Yup, 1 F. Cas. 223 (C.C., D. California, 1878).
Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 (1893).
In re Charr, 273 F. 207 (D.C., W.D. Missouri, 1921).
United States v. Cartozian, 6 F.2d 919 (D. Or. 1925).
II. Race, History, and Reparations
Tetsuden Kashima, Japanese American Internees Return, 1945-1955: Readjustment
and Social Amnesia, 41 PHYLON 107 (1980).
Keith Aoki, No Right to Own Land?: The Early 20th Century ‘Alien Land
Laws’ as a Prelude to Internment, 40 B.C. L. REV. 37 (1998).
Jerry Kang, Denying Prejudice: Internment, Redress, and Denial, 51 UCLA L.
REV. 933 (2004).
Thomas McCarthy, On the Morality
and Politics of Reparations for Slavery, POL. THEORY (2004).
III. Living with Multiracial Realities
Marta Tienda, Demography and the Social Contract, DEMOGRAPHY (2002).
Charles Hirschman, Immigration and the American Century, DEMOGRAPHY (2005).
Jennifer Lee and Frank Bean, Reinventing the Color Line, SOCIAL FORCES (2007).
V. Race, Law, and Culture, II
Deidre Evans-Pritchard and Alison Dundes Renteln, The Interpretation and Distortion
of Culture: A Hmong ‘Marriage by Capture’ Case in Fresno, California,
4 S. CAL. INTERDIS. L. J. 1 (1994).
Leti Volpp, (Mis)Identifying Culture: Asian Women and the ‘Cultural Defense,’ 17
HARV. WOMEN’S L. J. 57 (1994).
Neal Gordon, The Implications of Memetics for the Cultural Defense, DUKE L.J.
(2001).
VI. The Migration of the Highly-Skilled
Thomas Espenshade, High-End
Immigrants and the Shortage of Skilled Labor, 20
POPUL. RES. & POL. REV. 135 (2001).
Min Zhou and Mingang Yang, Community Transformation and the Formation of Ethnic
Capital, J. CHIN. OVERSEAS (2005).
VII. The Structure of Opportunity
Paul Wong, Chienping Lai, Richard Nagasawa, and Tieming Lin, Asian Americans
as a Model Minority: Self-Perception and the Perceptions by Other Racial Groups,
SOC. PERSPECT. (1998).
Robert Haveman and Thomas Smeeding, The Role of Higher Education in Social
Mobility, FUTURE OF CHILDREN (2006).
VIII. Near the Bottom, I
Bill Ong Hing, The Immigrant as
Criminal, 9 HASTINGS WOMEN’S L. J. 79
(1998).
Kenneth Figueroa, Immigrants and the Civil Rights Regime: Parens Patriae Standing,
Foreign Governments and Protection from Private Discrimination, COLUMBIA L.
REV. (2002).
Shirley Lung, Exploiting the Joint
Employer Doctrine: Providing a Break for Sweatshop Garment Workers, 34 LOY.
U. CHI. L. J. 291 (2003).
IX. Near the Bottom, II
Cleo Kung, Supporting the Snakeheads: Human Smuggling from China and the 1996
Amendment to the U.S. Statutory Definition of ‘Refugee,’ J. CRIM.
L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1271 (2000).
Kristen Lindee, Love, Honor, or Control: Domestic Violence, Trafficking, and
the Question of How to Regulate the Mail-Order Bride Industry, COLUMBIA J.
GENDER & L. (2007).
X. Removed
Seth Mydans, Dead End for Cambodians Who Grew So American, N.Y. TIMES (Aug.
9, 2002); Christine McConville, Cambodians Fear Deportation Plan, BOST. GLOBE
(Nov. 14, 2002); Teresa Watanabe, Cambodians Fear Possible Deportation, L.A.
TIMES (Feb. 21, 2003); and Richard Paddock,
Cambodia’s Black Sheep
Return to Fold, L.A. TIMES (Mar. 28, 2003).
My-Thuan Tran and Christopher Goffard, A Jolt in New Vietnam Pact, L.A. TIMES
(Jan. 24, 2008).
Study Questions for the First Midterm
The first midterm will covers parts I-III of the syllabus, and lectures through April 21.
1. Please explain why Ah Yup is denied the privilege of passing into American citizenship in 1878. Why is Cartozian successful in 1925? Please explain and compare these cases.
2. What is the legal difference between deportation and exclusion, especially as it appears in Fong Yue Ting in 1893. Please explain the essential differences between the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions in that case, and please explain why this case is so important in understanding the legal status of Asians in the United States after 1895.
3. How are the Alien Land Laws a "prelude" to Japanese American internment, according to Professor Keith Aoki? Please explain the essence of his argument.
4. Please explain the basic recommendations published by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, originally formed in 1979. How did Congress act on these recommendations, and how does subsequent legislation represent a political compromise over the problem of compensation and reparations for Japanese American internment?
5. Please explain how the Immigration Act of 1965 fundamentally changed the racial composition of the United States.
Study Questions for the Second Midterm
The second midterm will covers parts IV-VII of the syllabus, and lectures through
May 16. The exam will be on May 28.
1. Please explain how conceptions of health and disease are “culturally imbedded,” according to several scholars of race and culture. Also, please explain how Lia Lee’s parents explained her illness, compared to the explanations offered by her physicians.
2. How is the concept of “mens rea” essential in determining the degree of guilt for a defendant accused of a criminal act? How might a person’s culture and cultural background be relevant to determine his or her “mens rea”?
3. According to Professor Leti Volpp, how does the use of the “cultural defense” in criminal trials lead toward (mis)identifying a person’s culture or cultural background? Please explain the structure of her argument.
4. Please explain two major laws since 1965 that have increased the numbers of skilled workers who may lawfully migrate to the United States.
5. According to Professors Haveman and Sneeding, why is higher education now so closely related to social mobility? Also, how are disparities in higher education likely to have a racially-disparate impacts on social mobility among different racial groups in the United States?
Study Questions for the Final Exam
The final exam is from 8 to 11 on Wednesday, June 11. It covers everything in the class, so please review everything.
1. According to Kenneth Figueroa, in his article about civil rights and immigrants
in the United States, how might foreign governments influence the behavior
of American institutions toward non-citizens?
2. Please explain how at least three rules since 1980 have increased the number of persons deported from the United States after 1998.
3. What is a “snakehead,” and how are such persons implicated in the rising numbers of undocumented persons in the United States? What are some federal rules that govern what snakeheads do?
4. According to Kristen Lindee, what are some of the legal issues facing non-citizen women married to American citizens? What are some of the difficulties inherent in efforts to regulate this type of marriage?
5. Please explain the “joint employer doctrine.” How is this doctrine helpful in determining criminal and civil liabilities against companies in the garment industry, or in other industries that rely on low-wage labor?
6. Please explain how immigration rules might enhance economic inequalities between Asian Americans and other racial groups, given contemporary immigration trends.
7. Professor Bill Hing has argued that in many respects, immigrants are framed as “criminals” in need of social control. What are the central aspects of his argument?
8. Many scholars have argued that race as a category is no longer compelling as an explanation for social inequality. Others argue that race remains an important factor in determining and shaping social inequality. Based on the experiences of Asian Americans since 1965, which of these arguments seems most persuasive?
9. Many scholars have criticized American legal and government institutions
for being too rigid toward persons of different cultural backgrounds; others
have
claimed that these institutions have been too lenient. Please explain how materials
presented in this class might lend support to both positions.