Reproducing Asian American Studies: Rethinking Asian Exclusion as Reproductive Exclusion

Abstract

Reproductive exclusion refers both to the policing of borders based on acceptable forms of reproduction, and the policing of reproduction of those already within these borders. Building on the contributions of Asian American feminist scholarship, reproductive exclusion serves as an analytic to foreground the status of Asian Americans as the first group to be formally excluded from immigration based on race. It brings reproductive politics more centrally into Asian American Studies, and highlights the defining critiques of Asian American studies regarding race, gender, sexuality, immigration, citizenship, war, empire, and diasporic and transnational processes in debates regarding reproductive politics.