Identities on Trial in the United States

Asylum Seekers from Asia

ChorSwang Ngin - Foreword by David W. Haines - Contributions by Joann Yeh

ChorSwang Ngin radically shifts the asylum-seeking narrative by focusing on rarely heard stories of persecution and escape from China and southeast Asia. Identities on Trial in the United States weaves together the cases of a tortured student from a Myanmar prison, an apostate of Islam, several victims of ethnic and sexual violence from Indonesia, and the escape of men and women from China’s draconian one-child policy, among others. Joann Yeh, an immigration attorney and contributor to this work, examines asylum seeking in a Mandarin-speaking Californian community and discuss the failure of the United States' quasi-judicial immigration system, highlighting "asylum lawfare" in courtroom dramas and arguing for an anthropological advantage in asylum preparation. This book is an essential text for policy makers, students, lawyers, activists, and those engaged with migration studies seeking a more just asylum outcome.

Lexington Books

Pages: 266 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-7473-0 • Hardback • August 2018 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7475-4 • Paperback • July 2021 • $41.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-7474-7 • eBook • August 2018 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Series: Crossing Borders in a Global World: Applying Anthropology to Migration, Displacement, and Social Change

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Refugees

Identities on Trial in the United States

Asylum Seekers from Asia

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

ChorSwang Ngin radically shifts the asylum-seeking narrative by focusing on rarely heard stories of persecution and escape from China and southeast Asia. Identities on Trial in the United States weaves together the cases of a tortured student from a Myanmar prison, an apostate of Islam, several victims of ethnic and sexual violence from Indonesia, and the escape of men and women from China’s draconian one-child policy, among others. Joann Yeh, an immigration attorney and contributor to this work, examines asylum seeking in a Mandarin-speaking Californian community and discuss the failure of the United States' quasi-judicial immigration system, highlighting "asylum lawfare" in courtroom dramas and arguing for an anthropological advantage in asylum preparation. This book is an essential text for policy makers, students, lawyers, activists, and those engaged with migration studies seeking a more just asylum outcome.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 266 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4985-7473-0 • Hardback • August 2018 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7475-4 • Paperback • July 2021 • $41.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-7474-7 • eBook • August 2018 • $39.50 • (£30.00)

Series: Crossing Borders in a Global World: Applying Anthropology to Migration, Displacement, and Social Change

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Refugees

Author

ChorSwang Ngin is professor of anthropology at California State University, Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Part I: Persecution on Account of Race and Nationality
Chapter 1: I Don’t Need your Bones to Know your Race
Chapter 2: How Much Chinese Should a Chinese be?
Chapter 3: Racialization and Persecution
Chapter 4: A Student Protester from a Myanmar Prison
Part II: Persecution on Account of Religion
Chapter 5: A Buddhist Monk, a Catholic Woman, a Christian Pastor
Chapter 6: Did Jesus Walk Through a Field of Wheat or A Field of Grass? (Co-authored with Joann Yeh)
Chapter 7: An Apostate from Indonesia: A Convert from Islam to Catholicism
Part III: Persecution on Account of Membership of a Particular Group
Chapter 8: Ethnographic Details as Evidence on Rape and Pregnancy
Chapter 9: Without Evidence and Without Witness
Chapter 10: Dowry Dispute: A Case for the Law Firm of Seyfarth Shaw
Part IV: Persecution on Account of Political Opinion
Chapter 11: A Filial Daughter’s Love of Falun Gong Exercises
Chapter 12: Her Forced Abortion was a Frivolous Claim
Chapter 13: Double Tragedy: Mr. Song’s Humiliation or Embarrassment?
Part V: Law and Anthropology
Chapter 14: Article I Courts in a World of Uncertainties (Co-authored with Joann Yeh)
Chapter 15: An Anthropologist in the Courtroom (Co-authored with Joann Yeh)

Reviews

Identities on Trial in the United States: Asylum Seekers from Asia unravels the tormented stories that lie behind asylum claims in the United States. This fieldwork based book offers a fascinating range of cases that illustrates the dilemmas, conflicts and contradictions of cultural expertise. It poignantly argues against the narrow use of culture for a fair adjudication and makes a convincing case of the involvement of anthropologists in court.
— Livia Holden, University of Oxford

Immigration today is so misrepresented, and the political asylum process so daunting, that a book as readable and scholarly as Identities on Trial in the United States is most welcome. Particularly invaluable are presentations of cases that involve each of the grounds for granting asylum claims – race, nationality, religion, political opinion, and social group membership – for which cultural analyses emerge as crucial for verifying conditions of persecution and credibility of accounts. This promises to be a significant resource for students and professionals involved in human rights, anthropology, migration, current Asian affairs, and law.

— James Loucky, Western Washington University