Asian diasporic political identity rejects Americanness and honorary Whiteness as aspirations, and instead centers our anticolonial rage and diasporic ties to one another. At a time when the term “Asian American” is flattening, unstable, and reduced to the politics of representation and inclusion into empire, Asian Diaspora takes up the task of asserting our subjectivity to induce internationalist solidarity with anyone and everyone fighting the US empire, including decolonial movements from Palestine, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawai’i. We expand the boundaries of who belongs to use, as well as our political horizons.
Bianca Mabute-Louie, "Asian Diaspora: Returning to Radical Consciousness" from Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
I refuse to struggle for these institutions to accept me if my acceptance muzzles me from speaking freely about the urgent issues of our day that demand my public advocacy and scholarly attention. I reject inclusion into PWIs as the ultimate, precious thing to protect. I decline to fight for my place in an institution that only uses me to uphold color-blind “diversity” and anti-Black mythologies of achievement. Instead, our community, expansive in its heterogeneity, is the beloved body I protect and struggle with. I don’t know what comes next post–affirmative action, but I implore those of us in these institutions to abandon the aspiration to be seen and beloved by them. These institutions will never love us back.
Bianca Mabute-Louie, "PWI-WAA (Predominantly White Institutions with 'A Lot' of Asians)" from Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
Being part of the Asian Diaspora is to not have a place because of Western imperialism, Orientalism, and capitalism. Instead of trying to claim a place in this genocidal, anti-Black fallacy of a country, what if we created belonging in the diaspora by claiming one another?
Bianca Mabute-Louie, "Introduction" from Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
"Through conversion into Christianity, Native Americans, Africans, and Asians would supposedly become Christianized and Americanized. Minister Josiah Strong, writing for the American Home Missionary Society in 1885, declared that these "feeble" races must "assimilate or die." The notion that America is the spreader of salvation is not exclusive to White Protestant Americans, as non-White Christian converts would also come to view ancestors and unconverted relatives and friends through this violent White Christian gaze: as heathen and needing to be saved and assimilated, Perhaps one of the most dangerous consequences of colonialism, our own communities would come to internalize the fiction that Protestantism was the superior religion of the superior race."
Bianca Mabute-Louie, Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
"Academics often advise PhD students like me to play by the rules, get published in academic journals, and achieve tenure first. Once I do that, then I can write freely, design the studies I want, and push back on disciplinary norms and boundaries. But from what I have seen, this is a process that takes decades, with no promise of tenure. And more often than not, the academic becomes pacified as she waits. We give up so much, not just time and labor, but agency over where we live and how we use our voice, as they dangle the possibility of faculty appointments, awards, validation, and belonging in front of us. They demand our productivity, reward our compliance, and punish us when we challenge the status quo. During the genocide of Palestinians, not a single faculty member at my institution signed on to the open letter of Sociologists in Solidarity with Gaza. I witness too many academics decoupled from the radical politics and aspirations they once might have held because they are afraid to destabilize the institutional power they've sacrificed so much to secure. But is institutional power that traps you into silence actually power at all?"
Bianca Mabute-Louie, Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
Title: Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
Author: Bianca Mabute-Louie
Publication Year: 2025
Publisher: Harper
Genre: nonfiction, essays, memoir
Mabute-Louie joins the ranks of Asian Americans who have written about the Asian American identity in recent years. Alongside books such as Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings and Julia Lee’s Biting the Hand, one can’t help but wonder what makes Unassimilable any different. At least to me, I felt that Mabute-Louie presented the most compelling argument and reflection about this complicated identity that is simultaneously too broad and specific. As opposed to “Asian American,” Mabute-Louie proposes “Asian Diaspora” as an identity, especially as a way to push back against the US legacy of imperialism, colonization, and slavery (which is foundational to how anti-Blackness has continued to this day). I appreciated that she explicitly addressed US imperialism, considering the direct impact it has had on a number of Asian countries and their diasporic communities. Furthermore, Mabute-Louie proposes defying the assimilation narrative to, instead, embrace the unassimilable nature of being Asian in the United States, especially doing so through personal narrative. Something I especially appreciated about this particular approach was how clear Mabute-Louie was about her positionality in Asian American discourse from the get-go, which really helped frame her points in a way that didn’t feel as though she was conflating others’ experiences with her own, but also demonstrating through evidence that her experiences aren’t strictly unique to her either. It was a delicate balance that I thought she managed well. She also repeatedly emphasizes the importance of kinship and solidarity with others (especially Black communities), which she suggests is a crucial component to keep in mind as a part of the Asian diaspora in the United States.
I will say something that didn’t quite work for me in this book isn’t necessarily the ideas but, rather, the execution. The first few chapters were quite strong, but as the book progressed, I felt that it became less cohesive. Upon finishing the book, I couldn’t help but get the impression that these were ideas related to one another through the idea of the unassimilable, but they didn’t relate enough to create a clear throughline. In addition, the book read to me as though Mabute-Louie couldn’t decide what kind of audience she wanted to write to. Some passages read as if they came straight out of a dissertation; others were more conversational in tone, thus, more legible to the average reader. As an academic myself, the academic prose didn’t bother me, but I did find it a bit jarring how she went back and forth between writing styles.
Unassimilable isn’t perfect by any means, but I ultimately felt that Mabute-Louie’s ideas were fresher and had more rationale behind them that presented a new way of thinking about being Asian in the United States. While I would hesitate on using “Asian Diaspora” for myself, I see where she is going with this term, as well as the possibilities of breaking out of current discourse about a complicated identity.
Content Warning: racism; classism; police brutality; homophobia; references to infidelity, death, gun violence, colonization, and pandemic
Given our divergent experiences and politics, our ideologies about race and responses to racism are cacophonous. And yet, in our discordant responses, I posit there can be meaning and beauty in the clamor. Because for many of us, we are seeing and voicing ourselves for the first time. In the racket, we are certainly not silent. We are moving from racially nowhere to everywhere. We may be incongruous, but a cacophony, by definition, is audible. And our noise is evidence that we are coming out of invisibility, on our way to make music and purpose out of what it means to be Asian American. But not all noise is good noise; it is with urgency that we consistently lend our voices to tune the song of Asian America toward one of interracial solidarity and collective freedom, not of Black criminality and carcerality. We keep us safe.
Bianca Mabute-Louie, "Racially Nowhere and Everywhere" from Unassimilable: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
