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"ASIAN-AMERICAN WOMEN & MEN" (YEN LE ESPIRITU).
Term Paper ID:25621
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Essay Subject:
Reviews work on employment experiences & opportunities of Asian-Amer. women.... More...
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5 Pages / 1125 Words
1 sources, 17 Citations,
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Paper Abstract:
Reviews work on employment experiences & opportunities of Asian-Amer. women.
Paper Introduction:
The purpose of this research is to examine changes in American immigration patterns of Asian American women after World War II. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the shift in Asian immigration to the U.S. toward predominance of women occurred and then to discuss, with reference to Espiritu’s Asian American Women and Men, effects that these immigrant women have had on the general structure of Asian immigration to the U.S. and on the relationship between immigrant Asian men and women in particular.
What Espiritu describes as “engendered” structures of relationships between Asian men and women in the U.S. and of the relationship between the dominant culture and Asian women is the focus of her analysis of the impact of the predominance of Asian women over Asian men as immigrants to the U.S. in recent years. She c
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Equally important: The economic structure of the U.S. Espiritu cites figures showing theunderemployment status of many Asian immigrant and American-born women,attributing that lower status to sexism and racism (68-9). . as a wholesince 1965 has shifted away from basic heavy-industrial manufacturingindustries and toward information- and service-based industries. But leaving aside the issue ofunderemployment or misemployment of highly educated Asian immigrant womenvis-ŕ-vis the American labor market as a whole, Espiritu says that highlyeducated Asian women immigrants "need not rely exclusively on theirhusbands [who may also be misemployed owing to structural employmentdiscrimination] for economic survival" (69). The most material options seem available to Asian immigrant women whocan be categorized as highly educated. One aspect of this is the measurableimpact that Asian Americans as a group have had on the technologicalstructure of the U.S.; Asian-origin scientists and engineers accounted forup to seven percent of the American technology labor pool even thoughAsians accounted for only three percent of the American population as awhole (Espiritu 66). By culturalcustom and practice, then, Asian immigrant women in family-owned businessesremain subservient to the men (often husbands) who are the owner-managersof a business. Espiritu (81) cites the convenient fiction that women insuch positions, who must work a "double day," in business and at home, arecontributing to family well-being, thus "stabiliz[ing] patriarchalideology." Asian immigrant women in the entrepreneurial class seem thusuniquely oppressed by customary male domestic privilege, whileentrepreneurial males may have unique access to women's labor on the joband at home. . as familydependents of Asian immigrant men and entering the American work forcealmost exclusively as unskilled labor in the "secondary sector" ofemployment (63), after 1965 they could enter on their own account "fromheterogeneous backgrounds and . However, Asian women doctorsand other college-educated Asian women appear to be economicallymarginalized relative to white men. From all the foregoing it can be inferred that the need andopportunity for women in general to staff jobs associated with the growthof these industries--together with employers' perceived need andopportunity to staff such jobs with women--can be interpreted as a factorthat helps explain why Asian women have come to the U.S. As a group, women in entrepreneurial Asian American families appear tohave received the least material and social benefits associated in popularimagination with self-employment and financial independence. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997. toward predominance of women occurred andthen to discuss, with reference to Espiritu's Asian American Women and Men,effects that these immigrant women have had on the general structure ofAsian immigration to the U.S. She sees differences inthe American experience for women in each of these three categories. and of the relationship between thedominant culture and Asian women is the focus of her analysis of the impactof the predominance of Asian women over Asian men as immigrants to the U.S.in recent years. Shifts in American political and economic culture in the last part ofthe twentieth century appear to have enabled analysis of the status ofAsian women immigrants in terms of specific economic categories. But inthe background of all Asian women's immigrant experience of America,whatever the socioeconomic category, are the facts of American immigrationpolicy since 1965, when the Immigration Act of that year "equalizedimmigration rights for all nationalities" (61). Works CitedEspiritu, Yen Le. on the so-calleddisadvantaged economic sector--i.e., the working class or the class ofworking poor--can be seen partly in the fact that fully nine-tenths of thepopulation of this class are immigrants and not American born. Asian women, particularly Filipinas, are highlyvisible as nurses, for reasons above cited. In particular, the 1965 act"allowed women to enter the United States as occupational immigrants" (63).Whereas formerly Asian women might have entered the U.S. and on the relationship between immigrantAsian men and women in particular. She connects this fact toevidence that in two-income households with highly educated Asian women,household duties are more likely to be shared by male and female than inworking-poor and entrepreneurial households. Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love. Domestic duties are largely unsharedby entrepreneurial husbands: "It is unpaid female labor that enables thefamily store to stay open for as long as 14 hours a day, and on weekends,without having to hire additional workers" (Espiritu 79). She constructs her discussion around three economicsectors into which immigration patterns of Asian women fall: highlyeducated, disadvantaged, and entrepreneurial (62). But Espiritu says thatas a group disadvantaged women have channeled their priorities toward"rais[ing] the family's living standards and not as the path to fulfillmentor even upward mobility idealized by the white feminist movement" (77). In other words, the everydaysocioeconomic reality of Asian immigrant women can be taken as an index ofthe effect the women's very presence in the U.S. Within thissector, which comprises the secondary (i.e., unskilled or semiskilled)labor market, immigrant women have more job options than immigrant menbecause in the American industrial base as it is now configured there is agreater call for the kinds of unskilled labor associated with "women's"work in a manner consistent with the "increased 'racialized feminization oflabor' in the global restructuring of capitalism" (Espiritu 74) in the lastpart of the twentieth century. The Gender Lens Series. Thus disadvantaged Asian immigrant women mayfind employment in garment- and computer-assembly businesses, whereas theirhusbands may not necessarily find employment as unskilled/semiskilledlaborers or as agricultural workers. In thissector, comprising mainly marginal retail or service shops rather thanprofessionalized small businesses, women may put in "double days" (81),functioning as full-time (often unpaid) workers in a family business by dayand as full-time homemaker by night. A forceful index of the American industrialbase's increasing reliance on Asian and other immigrant labor can be seenin the Immigration Nurses Act of 1989, which "offered permanent residencyto foreign nurses who had lived and worked in the United States in therecent past" (64). The impact of Asian women's immigration to the U.S. What Espiritu describes as "engendered" structures of relationshipsbetween Asian men and women in the U.S. It is not clearwhy Espiritu fails to mention language barriers that might contribute tounderemployment of immigrant professionals, though she does refer to astudy of racial and gender employment discrimination among college-educatedKorean women that also includes reference to "strict licensing proceduresfor foreign-educated professionals" (68). Asian womenappear to have been a significant part of the work force staffing jobsavailable in these industries, particularly health care. Such measures can be seen as nothing less than anacknowledgment of a labor shortage among American-born nurses. in recent years,and more than this, why there are more women than men on the Asianimmigration roster. In thisregard, Espiritu cites "the growth of female-intensive industries in theUnited States, particularly in service, health care, microelectronics, andapparel manufacturing" (63). a wide range of occupational fields"(63). The planof the research will be to set forth the context in which the shift inAsian immigration to the U.S. Thus the ironic impact of family-business ownership on AsianAmerican women is that it provides them the least benefit while exactingfrom them the most effort. The impact is observed where womenbring in more household income than men--thus fostering pressure onpatriarchal traditions and male (and family) well-being, as well asinstances divorce and spousal abuse (Espiritu 75). The purpose of this research is to examine changes in Americanimmigration patterns of Asian American women after World War II. What ismost startling in Espiritu's analysis is the correlation between economiccategory and the status, priorities, and experience of Asian immigrantwomen vis-ŕ-vis Asian immigrant men. has had on their ownexperience and on the experience of and structure of Asian immigrants as awhole and as family configurations.
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