Does "Asian American" denote an ethnic or racial identification? Is a 
person of mixed ancestry, the child of Euro- and Asian American parents,
 Asian American? What does it mean to refer to first generation Hmong 
refugees and fifth generation Chinese Americans both as Asian American? In Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation State,
 Robert Chang examines the current discourse on race and law and the 
implications of postmodern theory and affirmative action-all of which 
have largely excluded Asian Americans-in order to develop a theory of 
critical Asian American legal studies. Demonstrating that the 
ongoing debate surrounding multiculturalism and immigration in the U.S. 
is really a struggle over the meaning of "America," Chang reveals how 
the construction of Asian American-ness has become a necessary component
 in stabilizing a national American identity-- a fact Chang criticizes 
as harmful to Asian Americans. Defining the many "borders" that operate 
in positive and negative ways to construct America as we know it, Chang 
analyzes the position of Asian Americans within America's black/white 
racial paradigm, how "the family" operates as a stand-in for race and 
nation, and how the figure of the immigrant embodies a central 
contradiction in allegories of America. "Has profound political implications for race relations in the new century" —Michigan Law Review, May 2001

Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation-State PDF

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