Asian American Studies/Psychology: Rediscovering and Renewing the Ties That Bind

Attend the national conferences of the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) and the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) on any given year, and you might notice something odd. Identical constructs, topics, and themes related to Asian Americans’ lives (e.g., identity formation and development, racism and prejudice, immigration and acculturation, family and youth issues) permeate the symposia and discussion panels. And yet interorganizational dialogue, engagement, and conference participation are conspicuously rare or altogether absent. This lack of interdisciplinary exchange extends to both groups’ prominent publication venues as well. Asian American studies scholars are noticeably absent in the Handbook of Asian American Psychology, Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives, Asian American Psychology: The Science of Lives in Context, and the Asian American Journal of Psychology, while Asian American psychologists are practically rendered invisible in Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader, Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, and the Journal of Asian American Studies.¹⁷

This interdisciplinary divide is all the more puzzling considering that both fields share not only common interests but also common roots, common causes, and evidence of professional dialogue and collaboration by their early pioneers and leaders. Both AAPA and AAAS were founded during the 1970s soon after the Third World Liberation Front student strikes at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and UC Berkeley in 1968–69, and the establishment of the first Asian American studies program at SFSU in 1969. In short, both organizations were essentially borne out of the Asian American movement with the common cause of promoting social justice on multiple fronts in the academy and community. This involved, but was not limited to, challenging racial stereotypes by giving voice to and legitimizing diverse Asian American experiences and working with and for Asian American communities to address historical experiences of social marginalization and oppression.

This common history and cause are underscored by early collaborations and dialogue between leading figures in both fields as witnessed in Asian-Americans: Social and Psychological Perspectives.¹⁸ This text gathered Asian American psychologists, historians, literary authors, and community activists to examine pressing Asian American sociopolitical, historical, legal, educational, and mental health issues of their time collectively. For instance, Stanley Sue and Derald Sue, two founders of Asian American psychology, authored individual chapters on Asian Americans in the mental health system and Asian American personality, respectively. In the same book, L. Ling Chi-Wang, a leading pioneer in Asian American studies, discussed the Lau v. Nichols case and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston shared her views on Asian American womanhood in the context of her book Beyond Manzanar. Additional evidence of interdisciplinary dialogue can be found in one of the earliest journal articles in Asian American psychology,¹⁹ which sparked the historically significant debate between its authors and Ben Tong on Chinese American personality and mental health. It is particularly noteworthy that this historical article was published in Amerasia Journal rather than in a professional psychology journal.²⁰

Such compelling evidence of common history, cause, and collaboration and dialogue between Asian American psychology and Asian American studies begs the question “How did our fields move so far apart?” One explanation is that interdisciplinary communication has waned with each field’s considerable growth in scholarship over the past four decades. Advanced knowledge has translated into increased specialization and the proliferation of journals and texts tailored to highly targeted, albeit narrower, audiences. Combine this with publish-or-perish pressures of the academy, which discourage research and publications outside of one’s concentrated area of expertise, and interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration become a challenging, if not risky, proposition.

Interdisciplinary exchange is further complicated by each field’s disparate research methods and analytical frameworks, negative stereotypes of each other’s scholarship, and disciplinary jargon. To date, Asian American psychology researchers are steeped in the language of empiricism and positivist investigative frameworks with a heavy dose of quantitative analyses. In contrast, Asian American studies scholars, particularly those in the humanities, are trained in alternative epistemological frameworks, including interpretivist research approaches and qualitative analyses. The ensuing tension between these different epistemological traditions over what constitutes meaningful examination...