A JewAsian July 4thPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Family/Parenting, Identity Development/Psychology, Judaism, Media Archive, Religion, United States on 2016-07-22 15:03Z by Steven |
The ProsenPeople: Exploring the world of Jewish Literature
Jewish Book Council
2016-07-22
Helen Kiyong Kim, Associate Professor of Sociology
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
Noah Samuel Leavitt, Associate Dean of Students
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
Earlier this week, Helen Kiyong Kim and Noah Leavitt determined the three takeaways on raising Jewish-Asian families worth sharing from their research for their coauthored book JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America’s Newest Jews. They are blogging for Jewish Book Council all week as part of the Visiting Scribe series here on The ProsenPeople.
The publication of JewAsian, coming just prior to the 4th of July holiday, provides a unique lens through which to observe the United States and try to learn about the state of our nation in 2016. Indeed, the way that young mixed-race Jews think about themselves allows us to make larger observations about our society.
On one hand, we are in the hot season of a mean-spirited presidential campaign in which race and diversity are focal points for voters’ anger and activism. On the other, on this final Independence Day during the administration of America’s first mixed-race President, the multicultural cast of Hamilton is on magazine covers and red carpet runways, challenging us to think in new ways about our nation’s founding story and current identity. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the University of Texas affirmative action admission plan reminds us that we cannot avoid taking race into consideration when we attempt to describe America.
Writing JewAsian helped us confront the central role that race plays for the young people at the center of our investigation. Like our nation, our mixed-race Jewish interviewees feel both the stress and the optimism of their complex identities…
Read the entire article here.