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Politics in an American Lifeboat: The Case of Laotian Immigrants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

John C. Harles
John C. Harles
Affiliation:
John C. Harles is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Political Science, Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania 17027, USA.
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Extract

He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labor and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , December 1991 , pp. 419 - 441
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 de Crèvecouer, J. Hector St. John, Letters From an American Farmer (1782; rpt. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1912), 43.Google Scholar

2 Quoted in Steinberg, Stephen, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America (New York: Atheneium, 1981), 12.Google Scholar

3 The majority of all Laotian refugees have been resettled in the United States – more than 175,000 by the end of fiscal year 1987: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1989 (Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1989), 11Google Scholar. The U.S. State Department acknowledges ethnic distinctives among refugees from Laos, though collapses them into just two categories. Of the influx, approximately thirty-eight percent are “highland” Lao, the largest component being Hmong tribesmen. The remaining sixty-two percent are classified as “lowland” or ethnic Lao. Gordon, Linda, “Southeast Asian Refugee Migration to the United States,”Google Scholar paper presented for the Conference on Asia-Pacific Immigration to the United States, 20–25 September, East-West Population Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii, 7. It is the political orientations of this latter contingent, historically the politically and culturally dominant group in Laos, that the present essay will explore.

4 On qualitative methodology in general, and on the intensive approach in particular, see John, and Lofland, Lyn H., Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Analysis, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1984)Google Scholar. For more detailed information on the construction of the present research project, see Harles, John C., “Politics in the Lifeboat: Immigrants and the American Democratic Order” (D.Phil, diss., Oxford University, 1988), 328–37Google Scholar. The interview sessions took place during the summer of 1986. In an effort to keep the Laotians' testimony more representative than exhaustive, only nineteen of the thirty individuals interviewed are cited in the following essay. So that the reader might be able to associate particular respondents with their basic social characteristics, a biographical schedule has been included in an appendix. After each quotation recounting immigrant testimony in the text, a respondent number appears in parentheses. By referring to the same respondent number in the schedule, it is possible to formulate a demographic sketch of the author of the quotation without betraying the promise of anonymity.

5 For a discussion of the political institutions of Laos, both before and after the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, see Stuart-Fox, Martin, Laos: Politics, Economics, Society (London: Frances Pinter, 1986)Google Scholar; also Gunn, Geoffrey C., “Theravadins and Commissars: The State and National Identity in Laos,” in Stuart-Fox, Martin, ed., Contemporary Laos: Studies in the Politics and Society of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), 76–100.Google Scholar

6 On the approach of traditional democratic theory to the matter of immigration, see Harles, , 11–54.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965)Google Scholar; Devine, Daniel J., The Political Culture of the United States: The Influence of Member Values on Regime Maintenance (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972)Google Scholar; Abramowitz, Alan I., “The United States: Political Culture Under Stress,” in Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980)Google Scholar; Huntington, Samuel, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert and Zaller, John, The American Ethos: Public Attitudes to Capitalism and Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bellah, Robert et al. , Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).Google Scholar

8 At issue for numerous students of intellectual history is the influence of classical republican thought on American political ideology, particularly during the period of the founding and a few decades after. See Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Wood, Gordon S., The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1776 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1969).Google Scholar

9 See, for example, de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (1835, 1840; rpt. New York: Vintage, 1945), 1, 456Google Scholar; Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth, 2 vols. (London: MacMillan, 1895), 2, 284Google Scholar; Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944), 3Google Scholar; Laski, Harold, The American Democracy: A Commentary and Interpretation (New York: Viking, 1948), 50Google Scholar; Boorstin, Daniel, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 1–33Google Scholar; Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Thought Since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consent (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).Google Scholar

10 United States Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1989 (Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing Office, 1988), 9.Google Scholar

11 See, for instance, Gleason, Philip, “American Identity and Americanization,” Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980), 32.Google Scholar

12 Bryce, , II, 367–68.Google Scholar

13 Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961), 318.Google Scholar

14 Huntington, , 230–31.Google Scholar

15 “Seminar” – the name that the Lao People's Democratic Republic gave to reeducation/labor camps.

16 By contrast, the absence of cultural impediments helps explain the political participation of the Irish, the outstanding exception to the rule of immigrant passivity. On this theme see, Levine, Edward M., The Irish and Irish Politicians (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966)Google Scholar; also Shannon, William V., The American Irish (New York: MacMillan, 1963).Google Scholar

17 On the political consequences of ethnic nationalism, see Jones, Maldwyn A., The Old World Ties of American Ethnic Groups (London: H. K. Lewis, 1976)Google Scholar; Brown, Thomas N., Irish-American Nationalism, 1870–1890 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Kantowicz, Edward T., Polish-American Politics in Chicago, 1888–1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 38, 169Google Scholar; Rogg, Eleanor M., The Assimilation of Cuban Exiles: The Role of Community and Class (New York: Aberdeen Press, 1974), 41Google Scholar; Boswell, Thomas D. and Curtis, James R., The Cuban-American Experience: Culture, Images and Perspectives (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Alanheld, 1984), 171.Google Scholar

18 Similar observations have been made with respect to recent Mexican immigrants. See, for example, Skerry, Peter, “The Ambiguity of Mexican-American Politics,” in Glazer, Nathan, ed., Clamor at the Gates: The New American Immigration (San Francisco: ICS, 1985), 241–56.Google Scholar