Spring 2025 | R | 3:30 – 6:15PM | Professor Jilene Chua
Spring 2025 – Jilene Chua
| Day | Start | Stop | Bld | Room |
| R | 3:30pm | 6:15pm | CAS | 312 |
How does capitalism condition the bonds, structures, or feelings in Asian immigrant and diasporic families? This seminar investigates this question beginning in 1882, with the paper sons and daughters that arose from the Chinese Exclusion Act, and ending in the present day. While paper children—individuals who purchased identity papers that allowed them to enter the U.S. as the child of Chinese merchants—migrated to the U.S. for economic opportunity, the cultural phenomenon of “tiger parenting” arose amidst a competitive educational system that provided access to social and economic mobility. Individuals from both situations responded to U.S. labor demands, but at different times in history. We will explore how patterns of empire, war, and immigration lead to new family formations and how they adapt to this trauma with interdisciplinary texts ranging from history, literature, psychology, and sociology. Through sources like memoirs, scholarly works, literature, and film, we will discuss dynamics such as intergenerational trauma, sexuality, and childhood. Students will learn methods of close reading, cultural analysis, and will formulate their own research proposal that investigates the cultures of Asian American family formations. BU Hub Areas (Effective Spring 2025): Social Inquiry I, The Individual in Community, Oral and/or Signed Communication.
