ASAM 71 Midterm Study Guide PDF

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Summary

● Polly Bemis ○ A portrait of her converting to a Christian because her right hand is on a Bible ○ But it was confirmed that the Bible was a prop because real Bibles were expensive. Used to make her look majestic. ○ She was famous for being a “Chinese American” that became successful but she wasn’t ...

Description

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Polly Bemis ○ A portrait of her converting to a Christian because her right hand is on a Bible ○ But it was confirmed that the Bible was a prop because real Bibles were expensive. Used to make her look majestic. ○ She was famous for being a “Chinese American” that became successful but she wasn’t actually Chinese, she was from the Mongol tribe. ○ Counterdisciplinarity: combination of religious studies and Asian American studies, and discovering new information ■ refused to accept the regimes of discipline ■ Bible represents sacredness, but in here it represents hierarchy, elite ■ Chinese American makes her sound more “Asian” than being a Mongol

Two types of definitions of religion use by scholars ● 1. Functional (A & B): religion as instrumental, doing something for someone ○ Positive ■ Rituals: culturally patterned interactions ■ Forces, beings, spirits, gods, goddess: culturally postulated superhuman beings ■ The west view religion as an institution that gives people comfort and satisfaction ■ Religion has a functional purpose that gives people a reason to live and what is going to happen in the afterlife (Durkheim) ○ Negative ■ Marx: Religion helps people ignore the real troubles in life ● Religion is an illusion for the true suffering that workers experience within corporations ● The church is aligned with the government so the church encourages people to work hard because it will benefit their afterlife. But in reality, if people work hard, the government benefits ■ Freud: Believing in a certain religion is like having the mindset of a child that arose from the Oedipus Complex ● The Oedipus Complex makes you want to kill your father and desire your mother → Wanting to kill your father stirs guilt in you → creating a “father figure” religion ● This “god” that people believe in started off with an unconscious memory someone had of killing his father through the Oedipus Complex → leads to guilt and worshipping a “father” figure ● Religion is a mass neurosis ● 2. Substantive: considered about what religion actually is ○ Otto ■ appraise the universe: grasp the entity and what it means to being a part of the world

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Das Heilige: the idea of the holy ● the holy is the thing that science couldn't grasp, completely different from us Das Ganz Andere: wholly other, completely different the otherness is Numinous Mysterium Tremendum Et Fascinans : this unknown thing is awesome because we can't measure it or touch it or understand it with science. We are compelled to try to understand what it is and wired to connect with it Ahnung : to understand religion, you have to rely on intuition

■ Eliade ■ Homo religiosus : when you strip away modern technology, we were connected to this “unknown thing” but we lost that ability to connect ■ Quality of religion cannot be derived from other subjects ● Religion is Sui Generis  (self created, originated from itself) ● Science is a limited human activity Hierophany: the appearance of the hierarchy to give you a mission or direction, the hierophany is different depending on specific culture and time period

4 C’s of Religion ● Creed: statement that describes the systematic set of beliefs ○ Ex: Apostle’s Creed (Christianity) ● Cultus: practicing rituals ○ Ex: praying, burning incense, singing songs ● Code: rules and expectations ○ Ex: Bible ● Community: body of believers ○ A church *Humans are wired to behave a certain way in front of sacred ●

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American Civil Religion, Bellah ○ American participate in a “religion” as a community of Americans ■ Religions help instill in citizens the idea of civil responsibility ■ Creed (Constitution), cultus (voting) ○ Religion only has a ceremonial and political significance in the society ○ Civil religion serves to mobilize support for the attainment of national goals Chosenness- American exceptionalism: Believed America was born with the relation between God so they have the freedom to do what they want as the chosen country ○ Covenant: the gods will do stuff for us, if we do stuff for them Error of American Exceptionalism ○ Americans aren’t really chosen because other people don’t envy the lives Americans live and we make mistakes ○ Ex: Vietnam War ○ Fei, Ghosts vs Superman

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Chinese people grew up with ghosts and appreciate and understand their ancestors ■ American’s regard for tradition is to a greater or lesser extent conscious, intellectual, and artificial because Americans do not have ghosts ■ Tradition is concrete when it is a part of life, sacred, something to be feared and loved, then it takes the form of a ghost ● God is the representation of social cohesion (Durkheim) ■ Superman represents actual capabilities or future potentials, while ghosts symbolize beliefs in and reverence for the accumulated past Americans have the ability to fail too

Types of Anti-Asian Laws ● Exclusion: laws passed to prohibit the entry of Asians ○ 1790 Naturalization Act: Good character, 2 years residency, free white ○ Emergency Quota Act of 1921: limits immigration to 3% of nation of origin as counted in the 1910 census ○ Immigrant Act of 1924: limits 2% of nation of original as counted in 1890 census ● Caste: local policies that keep Asians from moving freely ○ 1890 Bingham Ordinance: created a certain space specifically for a group of people to live in ○ Ex: boats that looked Chinese weren’t allowed because they wanted to keep them out of the fishing industry ● Harassment: ridiculous laws ○ McCreary Amendment 1983: Chinese in the United States were required to have identity papers on them at all times ■ The only other group of people that took use of this technology were criminals *When there is a need for cheap labor, the immigration laws are weak, but when there is a low demand, the laws are strict *The first Chinese temple was built in the specific location they were allowed to be in, so that the Chinese could bury the dead. ○ The Chinese were not allowed to be buried in public cemeteries. ●

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Will Herberg, Protestant Catholic - Jew (idea of Conformity) ○ In order to be an American, you have to be a Protestant, Catholic, or a Jew ○ It was important to be seen going to church or a temple because it was a cultural thing to fit in ○ Religion has became a social club ○ Said to have fun in your church but also to not forget that these religions have power Antonio Gramsci: tried to organize industrialized workers who were being underpaid and didn’t get benefits and start a revolution but failed because the workers were content with their situation because they were distracted by the popular entertainments

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Cultural Hegemony: you can coerce people by instilling in their minds certain values and ideas that they accept as good ■ People were fooled to think their life was okay because of all the entertainments ● Ex: democracy is the best kind of government system

Models and Types of Race/Ethnicity Models ● 1. Prescriptive type ○ Assimilation Model: A + B + C = A (A is the dominant race) ■ Race Relations Cycle, Robert Park ● Different groups come into contact → conflict/competition → accomodation (people start finding their niche in society and accommodating by giving up their own culture) → assimilation (fold into dominant society) ● Process is progressive and irreversible ○ Melting Pot Model: A + B + C = D ■ Everyone gains some and lose some ■ “America is God’s crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming” - Israel Zangwill ○ Cultural Pluralism Model: A + B + C = A + B + C ■ We are allowed and encouraged to hold onto our culture and customs ■ People can participate in the dominant culture but there is also room for people to practice their own original culture ● Horace Kallen - the Assimilation Model was too democratic ■ “Multiculturalism” - pretends everybody wants to be recognized, but some people just want to be let alone ● 2. Descriptive Type ○ Internal Colonialism Model: the US democratic system is divided into different groups

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Ethnic Immigrants

Colonized Minorities

Entry

Free

Unfree

Labor

Free/Upward

Unfree/Caste

Culture

Ability to keep/nurture

Prohibition against culture

○ Entry - entry point determines how you live life ○ Labor - limited in what kind of job depending on where you live and your race ○ Culture 3. Constructive Type

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Racial Formation Theory: the meaning of race is defined and contested throughout society, in both collective action and personal practice. In the process, racial categories are formed, transformed, destroyed, and reformed ■ Race is a socially constructed idea and it is not biological. Ideas of race are contested by society and it is malleable Ex: Susie Guillory Phipps ■ Got a passport in Louisiana because she wanted to go out of the country ■ On the passport, she was labeled colored even though she was white ■ State of Louisiana Rule: 1/32 Negro blood makes you colored ■ The One Drop Rule: If you have some sort of African blood in you, you’re considered colored California Civil Code, Section 60 ■ 1880: all marriage of white persons with negroes or mulattoes are illegal and void ■ 1905: all marriage of white persons with negroes, Mongolians o  r mulattoes are illegal and void (Mongolians refer to people from Asia) ■ 1933: all marriages of a white persons with negroes, Mongolians, and members of the Malay race , or mulattoes are illegal and void Ex: Timothy Yatko ■ He represented a typical image of a filipino in his 20’s and married a white women at a baptist church in SD ■ California vs Yatko ● His wife suddenly left him saying she didn’t like him anymore → Yatko saw his wife having an affair with a guy and stabs the guy → the wife disappears → Yatko surrendered himself ● Mrs. Yatko was required to testify against her husband ● The counsel for the state contended that such marriage was null and void from the beginning because he was Filipino, but there was no racial classification for Filipinos at that time in California ○ He was considered a Malay geographically but labeled Mongolian ● Concluded that his marriage was considered void What race are Filipinos? ■ California vs Yatko: Filipino are Mongolians ■ Stella Robinson vs Le Lampton: Filipinos are Mongolians ● Her mom sued her daughter because she didn’t want her daughter to marry a Filipino ■ Roldan vs LA County ● Roldan wanted to marry a Caucasian descent women but was refused because he was Filipino ○ But Section 60 only included Mongolians, were filipino Mongolians?

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Common sense that Mongolians are Chinese → Filipinos are not Mongolians but Malays

US vs Thind ■ Thind, Indian blood, gained citizenship in Oregon, but a bill was filed to cancel the certificate because he wasn’t white ■ South Asian and lawyer argued Thind was European in order to comply with the 1790 Naturalization Act, but the court ruled because of “common sense” he was Asian because he looked Asian

Orientalism ● Edward Said: the Orients are constructed by the Western to degrade them ○ By defining the east, it creates discourse with the west and helps the west be everything the east isn’t ○ Orientalists is a term given to the east by the Westerners ○ “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it by teaching it ...Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient” ● Jane Iwamura: Oriental Monk Figure ○ In popular cultures, there are Oriental Monk Figures that are 1) single men, 2) uninterested in marriage, and 3) carry knowledge about Asia ○ The bridge figure t akes the information from these monk figure and spread it to the east ■ Ex: Luke Skywalker and Yoda, kid from Karate Kid ○ Americans are bored with their religious traditions and the Oriental Monk brings new spiritual sustenance ● Oriental/Asian Religions: Shinto, Daoism, Buddhism ● World Religions: Islam, Christianity, Judaism ○ Construction of World Religions have certain criterias: A sacred book and a male founder or reformer Protestantization ● 1. Immigrant Buddhists change forms to look like Protestant Christians to avoid harassment ○ Ex: Large Vietnamese refugee population settle in Oklahoma CIty ■ The Vietnamese mimicked the forms of protestant Christianity to show that they are the same as their neighbors, they are one of them, adaptation and resilient ■ Meetings at 11am on Sunday morning, waited until they got inside to take off their shoes, put pews in the temple, members stood outside the house and speak English ● 2. Constructing “world religion” based on P.C criteria ○ Focus on the individual as the agent of one’s own salvation ○ Focus on doctrine beliefs vs rituals or supernatural or external expression of religion

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*Buddhism was seen as the reformation of the idea of enlightenment coming in the afterlife Resistance to the authority of institution

Transmission Model, Jane Nattier ● Elite, Import (aka Convert Buddhists) ○ Sought out a form of Buddhism from Japan and took the initiative to bring it to them ○ Claims race does not play a role but basically implies rich, white people ○ To be an active member, you need money and life ○ All about the personal life ○ Popular within the European White ○ Obsessed with meditation ● Evangelical, Export ○ Not sought out by people in the US, but is brought here by citizens of other countries who come as missionaries ○ Working, middle class Buddhists can carry out their religious duties without interrupting the pursuit of conventional occupations ○ Love to chant ○ Ex: Soka Gakkai ■ Unattractive to the Elite ■ Believe people need to take care of their material needs first to gain enlightenment ● Ethnic, Baggage (aka Cradle buddhists) ○ Born into the faith of their ancestors ○ Traveled by a foreign born Buddhist to the US ○ With a purpose to pursue economic opportunities and not to spread their religion ○ Tradition connected historically and culturally to Asian immigrant Cambodian Immigrants in Seattle and Long Beach ● Cross Pollination: Cambodian Christians and Buddhists mixed and mingled because they couldn’t choose one religion and didn’t feel the need to choose just one ● Reconstituting Buddhism in their new setting and often mixing it with Christian beliefs ● Parents don’t force kids to choose one religion and are open to explore both religions Two Buddhisms Model, Charles Prebish ● 1. Traditional, conservative form ● 2. Cutting edge, associated with “hipster” ○ Emerge shortly after radical social movements ○ Usually base their attraction on the promise of something new Parallel Congregation, Paul Numrich ● Thai Buddhists in Chicago ● In the morning, the temple is filled with ethnic buddhists and later in the afternoon, it is filled with elite buddhists

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Both groups practice in the same institution but have different practices

Max Muller ● A German theologist and linguist that believed the study of language can unlock secrets of culture and religion ● He went to Paris with Eugene Burnouf and find original Sanskrit text to understand ancient Buddhism ○ East India Company was responsible for collecting these texts and sending it to Europe. The company was the effective capital farm for the European empire. ● Collected these texts and translated it to English so the world has access to the “oriental religions” → Sacred Book of the East (English translation of Asian religious writing) ○ He was responsible for the Western study of Buddhism to become popular Sir William Jones ● Linguistic prodigy who was the first to study Sanskrit ● Sansari Greek and Latin shared a similar root, common ancestor for India and Europe ○ This discovery energized a whole new generation of thinkers who found the relation between India and Europe interesting → found interest in Asia ●

** Religion Wissenschaft: the study of the science of religion ○ The history of the origin of the study of religion connects to the origin of expansionism Eugene Burnouf ● Introduced Muller to the History of Buddhism in India ● True essence of Buddhism lies in the ancient, authentic documents and sources, the rituals and everything that came after were all part of culture and what people made up ● ^Strouse wrote The Life of Jesus, which was the same thing Eugene was doing but for Christianity Francois Bernier’s Racial Classification Theory *first academic race category system ○ First race: Europe, Northern Africa, Middle East, India, parts of Southeast Asia, America ○ Second race: sub Saharan Africa ○ Third race: Japan, China, Indonesia, Philippines, tartars, inner Asia, eastern borderland of Muscovy ○ Fourth race: finlands ●

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Why does Buddhism become popular in the west? ○ Buddhism isn’t this mythical, magical religion but a moral philosophy and the Buddha is a moral philosopher ○ Europeans were attracted to the idea that there is no afterlife, there’s nothing after death (Protestant Idea) Don David Hewavitarne → Anagarika Dharmapala (means homeless protector of Buddhism) ○ Was born into a wealthy, Buddhist family in Islam

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Educated in an English Christian Institution Changed his name as a symbol of rejecting Christianized, American name He wanted to discover his roots as a Buddhist He had an affair with a women from Texas and she recreated the Buddhist nun community ○ Claimed that monks didn’t have to pray for them, but they could just read scripture on their own ○ 1. Buddhism is coexisted with science ○ 2. Evolution is a ever changing system ○ 3. There is a universal sense of tradition DT Suzuki: learned about Asia through Secondary Orientalism by Paul Carus ○ Orientalism: Western construction of what they think is Eastern ■ dressed like an Asian monk, became a major figure in America because of his authenticity ○ Secondary Orientalism: when Asians present authentic Asian traditions they learned, which was heavily influenced by the west, but still thinks it’s authentic ○ Tertiary Orientalism: when Asians assume that ethnically Asian teachers are better than non-Asian teachers about Asian tradition, even though the Asian teachers could be Secondary orientalists. Paul Carus ○ Explored the relationship of science and religion ○ Introduced Eastern traditions to the West

Process Model, Shannon Hickey ● 1. Established Buddhism: at least four generations old ● 2. Offshoot Buddhism: want to have their own interpretations of the texts and traditions ● 3. Transplant: moves into a new area ● 4. New Movement: developed a form of religion that draws from established tradition but is actually new Buddhism’s Two Birthdays ● 1. 1852 - Tien Hou Temple in San Francisco ○ Symbol for the beginning of Asian American Buddhism tradition ○ Earliest known practice of Buddhism by Asians in the United States ○ A Chinese immigrant institution not focused on spreading Buddhism to Americans but for the Chinese community in San Francisco ○ Temple functioned as an institution for ethnic maintenance ● 2. 1893 - World’s Parliament of Religions ○ An event where the organizers of parliaments wanted to bring in representatives of world religions to the American public with the purpose to prove Christianity was the most superior religion but unexpectedly the Buddhist representatives presented well ○ The presentation by the Buddhist gained interest from the Americans

Three Vehicles of Buddhism ● Theravada: based on the teachings of Buddha ● Mahayana: Emphasized universal compassion and selflessness ● Vajrayana: includes spiritual techniques to enhance Buddhist practice Preferences for types of Buddhism by non-Asian Americans ● Meditation fo...