| FEL-268440-20 | Research Programs: Fellowships | Andrea Louie | Chinese American Mothering Across Generations: Toy Len Goon and the Creation and Recirculation of the Model Minority Myth | 6/1/2020 - 5/31/2021 | $60,000.00 | Andrea | | Louie | | | | Michigan State University | East Lansing | MI | 48824-3407 | USA | 2019 | Ethnic Studies | Fellowships | Research Programs | 60000 | 0 | 60000 | 0 | Research
and writing leading to the publication of a biography of Toy Len Goon, the
first Asian-American “Mother of the Year” awardee.
Like my two previous books, this project investigates how “Chineseness” as a cultural, political, and racialized identity is crafted in relation to legislation, discourses of cultural citizenship, and the positioning of Chinese Americans in relation to China. But it differs in a number of ways. First, Toy Len Goon was my maternal grandmother. Second, this is not a traditional anthropological ethnography, but one that integrates archival research with analysis of secondary newspaper and academic sources, and oral histories and interviews. Third, rather than a historical biography, it is more aptly described as an ethnography of the shifting terrain of the model minority discourse during the Cold War, focusing on a family that was at the center of the media attention, and exploring the continuing effects of this discourse as it circulated. I examine how it has been re-narrated to reflect current generations’ desired interpretations of their own history and future trajectory. |