Overview
"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."
Full Product Details
Author: ChorSwang Ngin ,
Joann Yeh ,
David W. Haines
Publisher: Lexington Books
Imprint: Lexington Books
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 21.90cm
Weight: 0.494kg
ISBN: 9781498574754
ISBN 10: 1498574750
Pages: 266
Publication Date: 15 July 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
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
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
Author Information
ChorSwang Ngin is professor of anthropology at California State University, Los Angeles.
