Review of Assimilation and the gendered color line: Hmong case studies of hip-hop and import racing
Author(s):
Sharma, Nitasha
Format:
Book review
Citation:
American Journal Of Sociology, Volume 119, Issue 4 (2014-01). pp. 1193-1196.
Language:
English
Abstract:
Reviews the book, Assimilation and the Gendered Color Line: Hmong Case Studies of Hip-Hop and Import Racing by Pao Lee Vue (2012). The book is a welcome contribution to studies of assimilation, popular culture, and the field of Southeast Asian American studies. This qualitative sociological account details how young Hmong men in the upper Midwest of the United States negotiate racialization through two subcultural forms: import-car racing and hip-hop music. Through interviews, participant observation, and insider ethnography, we see how these youth “do race” as they attempt to locate themselves as second-generation immigrants in America. Expressing varying levels of racial consciousness, Vue’s interviewees negotiate their racialization as model minority Asian Americans, “blackened” nonwhites, and “deviant” Hmong men. This book provides the voices of an underrepresented population and analyzes the role of subcultural practices import car racing and hip-hop in the development of American identities. I recommend that undergraduates, scholars, and lay people interested in Asian American studies and cultural studies read this book in conjunction with other scholarship on Southeast Asians in the United States and hiphop that would provide a greater context for the Hmong experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)