Tensions in the ‘American’ Dream: Asian and Asian American Experiences

October 1, 2018June 1, 2007 By Melanie E. L. Bush and Roderick D. Bush

Events at the turn of the twenty-first century have led to heightened contestation about the meaning and parameters of U.S. nationalism, patriotism and loyalty. This is not merely a philosophical or cultural issue, it is a question about the future of the world system and the U.S. role in it. This presentation will engage this question historically and currently in it its particular relevancy to Asian and Asian American communities in the United States suggesting that there are and have always been “Tensions in the ‘American’ Dream”.

Author Bio

Melanie E. L. Bush

Melanie E. L. Bush, Ph.D., author of Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness , (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc. 2004) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Adelphi University (Garden City, NY). She has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and presented nationally on issues of racial and social justice, U.S. nationalism, academic freedom and education and the common good. She can be reached at melanie.e.l.bush@gmail.com

Roderick D. Bush

Roderick D. Bush, Ph.D., author of We Are Not What We Seem, Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century (NYU Press 1999) and forthcoming The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line (Temple Press 2007) is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology at St. John's University (Jamaica, NY). He has published and presented widely about social movements, world systems and racism and can be reached at bushr@stjohns.edu