An Interlocking Panethnicity: The Negotiation of Multiple Identities among Asian American Social Movement Leaders

Abstract

Existing frameworks in social movement research fall short when examining movements that require a simultaneous exercise of multiple identities. In this study, the author investigates Asian American social movement organizations in metropolitan San Francisco and the relationship between single-ethnic and panethnic identities through in-depth interviews with social movement leaders in order to better understand how multiple identities are negotiated. Leaders of panethnic organizations actively and consciously work toward a panethnic movement identity that necessitates the maintenance of single-ethnic identification. Panethnicity and single-ethnicity are conceptualized as interlocking identity structures. The author argues that this new conceptualization of panethnic identity is made necessary as leaders acknowledge and attempt to address the ethnic and class hierarchies that exist within a diverse Asian American population. The findings of interlocking identities point toward a need to broaden current understandings of identity work whereby multiple movement identities are simultaneous and mutually affecting.

“I was discriminated against because I was seen as PRC‐Chinese”: The negotiation between ethnicity and nationalism among Taiwanese migrants in Australia

“…To some degree, this article echoes scholars' arguments that ethnic identity and nationalism can coexist (Itzigsohn & Dore‐Cabral, 2000; Nakano, 2013; Okamoto & Mora, 2014; Võ, 2004), but goes further and argues that individuals keep facing the negotiation between their own identities and the imposed ones when situating in a politicizing context. The meanings of ethnic identity and solidarity for Taiwanese migrants are different and fluid in an immigration context.…”

“…Groups might only maintain ethnic solidarity when they need to protect their common interests. In sum, both ethnic identity and solidarity are situational depending on the contexts (Masuoka, 2008; Nagel, 1994; Nakano, 2013).…”

Social Movements and Bridge Building: Religious and Sexual Identity Conflicts

“…Prodded by insights on intersectionality (see recent reviews and developments by Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013;Chun, Lipsitz, & Shin, 2013;Verloo, 2013), social movement scholars have increasingly sought to understand how activists negotiate overlapping positional and cultural differences in the social world (e.g., Beamish & Luebbers, 2009;Braunstein, Fulton, & Wood, 2014;Brecher & Costello, 1990;Gamson, 1997;Ghaziani, 2011;Lichterman, 1995Lichterman, , 2005Longard, 2013;Mayer, 2009;Nakano, 2013;Reger, Myers, & Einwohner, 2008;Roth, 2003Roth, , 2008Smith, 2002;Snarr, 2009;Swarts, 2011;Wood, Fulton, & Partridge, 2012;Yukich, 2010). One way that social movement scholars have attempted to address this question is through attention to "bridging work" or "bridge building" in social movements, which is a "form of social movement interaction that focuses explicitly on efforts to overcome and negotiate conflicts that result from different collective identities," usually in a way that takes into account the concerns of all actors involved (Roth, 2003, p. 9; see also Beamish & Luebbers, 2009;Braunstein et al, 2014;Brecher & Costello, 1990;Ghaziani, 2011;Lichterman, 2005;Mayer, 2009;Roth, 2008;Smith, 2002;Snarr, 2009;Wood et al, 2012).…”

Diversity, Leadership, and Authenticity in the Undocumented Youth Movement

“…She and others find that the segregation of Asians and experiences of racial discrimination among Latinos as a group encourage panethnic consciousness and raise the frequency of pan-national collective action (Masuoka 2006). Okamoto and Mora (2014) define panethnicity as the “construction of a new categorical boundary through the consolidation of ethnic, tribal, religious, or national groups … maintaining subgroup distinctions while developing a sense of metagroup unity” (221; see also Le Espiritu 1992; Nakano 2013). Groups from different racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to organize across ethnic lines as a panethnic group when experiences of segregation situate them closer to one another than to other racial groups (Ebert and Okamoto 2013; Okamoto 2014).…”

“…. maintaining subgroup distinctions while developing a sense of metagroup unity" (221; see also Le Espiritu 1992;Nakano 2013). Groups from different racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to organize across ethnic lines as a panethnic group when experiences of segregation situate them closer to one another than to other racial groups (Ebert and Okamoto 2013;Okamoto 2014).…”