American born Chinese (ABC) experience in U.S research project

We will engage in a multiple-part project that involves the Asian Pacific American experience in the U.S.  This project utilizes primary documents, field observations and interviews, as well as the use of quantitative U.S. Census data to “triangulate” and reconcile multiple methodologies. 

Part 1: The Archives

Explore the National Archives and locate a military resource document about the Asian/Asian American experience. Review the list of prominent primary source collections below. Start honing in on what you would like to look at and then settle in and examine!

Analyze your chosen source, asking the relevant analytical questions. Remember, depending on the type of source you chose, your analysis questions will be slightly different. See Presnell material for variations. For example,

1. What archive/collection is this document/artifact a part of? What kind of sources, topics, locations and time periods are covered in this archive/collection?
2. What kind of primary source is it?
3. Is it an original source? A copy/facsimile/reprint? A translation? What language is it written in? Published/unpublished?
4. When was it produced? What’s the historical context?
5. Who is the author/creator of the document? What do you know/can you find out about that person/s?
6. Who is the intended audience?
7. What is the main idea? Why do you think the document/artifact was written/created? Has that purpose remained the same or changed over time?
8. Is something or someone missing? Is this intentional/unintentional or perhaps a result of access/time period/perspective of the author? Any implied values, assumptions, biases (gender, racial, ethnic, regional, religious, political) that would be clear to the original audience but not necessarily to the modern researcher? How is the document/artifact a reflection of the time in which it was written?
9. How does this document/artifact compare or contrast with other sources from the period? How is it the same? Different? Unique? (Look at the other items in the collection as well as what else you know.). Is it believable? That is, could it have been created in the time period in it appears to have been created?
10. How you might begin to craft a narrative from this source?

Part 2: Field/Interview

This task is to interview someone of Asian/Asian American descent about their or their family’s immigration experiences to the U.S.  Ideally the interview should be at least 20 minutes long, and you should have enough “data” to work with to write up a short document about your findings.  Come up with a skeleton set of questions you’d like to ask your interviewee about beforehand, keeping in mind the qualitative/ethnographic types of questions:

1. What are the local experiences of people as they engage in their everyday worlds (e.g., classrooms, discourse communities, homes, etc.)?
2. What are their beliefs and worldviews?
3. As a researcher, what is my position relative to my participants and the data I’ve collected?
4. What is important to the members of the community?
5. What other questions can I generate to answer my original question, and how does this influence my data collection and analysis process?
6. Have I attained the proper informed consent in interacting in the social contract I am engaging with?
7. How is this document/artifact important within the lives of my participants?  How is it related to the past, present, and future actions of individuals/groups?
8. What is the material, activity, semiotic, and/or social dimensions of everyday life and its consequences for my participants?
9. In what reciprocal ways do I give back to my participants with my research?
10. How is my research transferrable (as opposed to generalizable)?

If you are uncomfortable with interviewing or are having problems finding an appropriate interviewee, you can go to an Asian American site (e.g., SF or SJ Japantown, Buddhist temples, Chinatown, Little Saigon, Japanese American Museum of San Jose, a JACL meeting, etc.) and do a 30-minute observation and write fieldnotes accordingly. 

Here are some guidelines:

1. Observers try to uncover and record the unspoken common sense assumptions of the group that they are studying. Look for immediate and local meanings that appear to matter to the people you are observing.
2. Field notes should be more than writing; drawing maps and sketching activities is often very useful when trying to remember the details of what you have seen. Include notes about body language, environment, and noise. What is going on around this context that may be shaping it?
3. Reflect on your own actions. Ethnographers alter themselves in order to fit into their contexts as unobtrusive observers and as participant observers. How much do you have to adapt yourself in order to learn about the context and culture that you are studying?
4. Try to find emic categories and terms that the participants themselves use. How do these emic concepts organize the activities that you are observing?
5. Systematically look for discrepant cases or anomalies. If most people seem to be doing an activity the same way, notice who does it differently. What seems to be going on here?
6. Try various kinds of observation. Be a silent observer one time, and talk to people the next.
7. Writing it up: As you are observing, you should take notes (handwritten) and keep these to hand in with the assignment. Feel free to write in whatever language you are most comfortable with. After each period of observation, you should spend at least 15 minutes examining your notes, and then writing at least a paragraph of meta-level observations. In other words, what have you noticed about what you noticed? Go through these steps systematically each time you engage in observation. Include the following:
   1. notes from the field
   2. field notes (meta-level observations) - post-field notes
   3. 2-3 page (double-spaced) narrative on the experience.  It should include any 'findings' that you believe you have found. What did your observation yield? How did these relate to any assumptions you had about the context? What might be the next step in a research project that would carry on with the particular context that you observed? What other methods might you turn to next in order to probe the context further?

Part 3: Quantitative Data Analysis

The U.S. Census is one of the most robust types of quantitative data that is readily available for researchers.  Your task is to explore the 1940s Census (http://www.census.gov/1940census/) or beyond, if you’d like.  You can look at languages spoken, population of Asians/Asian Americans in the U.S., by state, or by county, housing, gender, or any other quantitative type of data that jumps out at you.  How do these numerical data differ than what your interviews or primary sources tell you?  How might they be related?  What strengths do quantitative data serve the researcher?  Report your findings in a chart or some other graphical manner so that we can visually see what you’ve discovered.

Part 4: Writeup and presentation of one aspect of this project to our class

Although you do not have to compose a formal written essay for any part of this assignment, you will need to provide thorough and thoughtful answers to each of the parts (i.e., archival, field/interview, quantitative). 

Aim for 2-4 pp in length for each part. You will need to submit your written assignment (with peer form) Don’t forget to refer to the CMS guide as needed for documentation and style formatting issues.

Everyone will be doing a 3-5-minute oral presentation in Week 5 on ONE part of the project.  Please do not report on all three parts—just the one part that speaks to you the most! You can choose to present using PPT (or some other form of visual aid such as Prezi).  Please prepare for this presentation—it will count towards the final grade of this multi-part project.