As the Leaves Turn Gold: Asian Americans and Experiences of Aging

181 Pages·2012·0.66 MB·English

by  Bandana Purkayastha

As the Leaves
Turn Gold
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Diversity and Aging
Series Editor
Toni Calasanti
Virginia Tech
The elder population is not only growing in size, but also becoming more
diverse—including differences in gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexual-
ity—and the experiences of aging people can vary dramatically. Books in
this series explore this diversity, focusing on the ways that these social
inequalities, along with ageism, shape experiences of growing old. The se-
ries will illustrate the challenges and opportunities that diversity and aging
present for society, both now and in the future.
Facing Age: Women Growing Older in Anti-Aging Culture
Laura Hurd Clarke
As the Leaves Turn Gold: Asian Americans and Aging
Bandana Purkayastha, Miho Iwata, Shweta Majumdar, Ranita Ray, and
Trisha Tiamzon
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As the Leaves
Turn Gold
Asian Americans and
Experiences of Aging
Bandana Purkayastha, Miho Iwata,
Shweta Majumdar Adur, Ranita Ray,
and Trisha Tiamzon
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2012 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
As the leaves turn gold : Asian Americans and experiences of aging / Bandana
Purkayastha ... [et al.].
p. cm. — (Diversity and aging)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-0911-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0913-8
(electronic)
1. Older Asian Americans. 2. Older Asian Americans—Social conditions. 3.
Aging—United States. I. Purkayastha, Bandana, 1956–
HQ1064.U5A757 2012
305.2608995'073—dc23
2012017125
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
2 Whose Lives? Whose Voices? Methodological Choices for
Studying Asian Americans and Aging 21
3 The Life Course Within and Beyond Families 43
4 Care Work Within and Beyond Families 67
5 Constructing New Lives 89
6 Citizenship and Aging 113
7 Conclusion 139
Notes 151
References 159
Index 167
About the Authors 171
v
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Acknowledgments
We are deeply grateful to everyone who shared their lives with us and to all
those who made this book possible.
We cannot acknowledge any of the participants by their actual names
because we have to maintain confidentiality; we hope we have adequately
reflected your experiences. Many of you shared your life with us amid great
challenges. As one of us noted:
I conducted my interviews during the northeastern winter of 2010–2011, and
as many meteorologists pointed out, it was one of the harshest winters that
the Northeast had seen. The snow that was cleared from the ground made ten-
foot-high fortresses that lined arterial roads of the city for days. On some days
when we had scheduled the interviews, rain mixed with snow to make travel
particularly difficult. Yet on each of these days the elderly interviewees left the
comforts of their homes to make their way to the community center to keep
their promise. Even on occasions when I offered to reschedule out of concern
for their welfare, they insisted that they would be fine. It was no small feat by
any means as many did not own personal means of transportation and the
snow and black ice outside were not particularly kind.
To these seniors and everyone else who shared their lives, our heartfelt
gratitude.
We also acknowledge the significant help we received from Mr. Kun
Chang, the director of an Asian American senior center. Mr. Chang ex-
plained the diverse histories of Chinese immigration and the ways in which
Chinatowns were built and divided through periods of social upheaval
and urban renewal and displacements. He also provided us with many of
vii
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viii Acknowledgments
the initial documents from different Asian American organizations on ag-
ing. We thank Ms. Lili Mei for painstakingly arranging every detail of the
Chinese interviews and for helping to conduct and translate the interviews.
Without Ms. Mei we would not have been able to reach many Chinese
American participants. We also thank Aspen Chen at the University of Con-
necticut for making the promotional materials—flyers and handouts—pro-
vided to Chinese American senior centers to recruit interviewees.
We thank all of our friends and contacts who made it easier for us to
reach out to Cambodian American, Chinese American, Filipino American,
Indian American, and Japanese American participants. We are particularly
grateful to Ms. Fe De Los Santos of the Asian American Studies Institute,
University of Connecticut, and to Dr. Tun in Washington, DC, for introduc-
ing us to key participants. Stacey Somsichack Phengvath in Washington,
DC, played a significant role in the development of this book—thank you!
We are grateful to Erika Lorenzana Del Villar, who helped us bring our dif-
ferent voices and styles together.
This book would not have been possible without Toni Calasanti, series
editor and colleague at Virginia Tech, who encouraged us to write this book.
Sarah Stanton, our acquisitions editor at Rowman & Littlefield, made our
lives easier in many ways. We truly enjoyed working with each other, so
each of us thanks the four other people on the team. Last but not least, we
thank our families and friends who supported us throughout this multiyear
endeavor.
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1
Introduction
My parents were immigrants from Japan, and the whole life cycle for
my parents and for ourselves completely changed because, immediately
after the war, we were thrown into camp for three years. And that was
obviously the defining life experience for both my parents and myself. My
father and mother lost everything in camp. And so the children, all three
of us, left the camp first, and then we got my parents to live with us in
Boston. So there really was no way that I can compare my life situation
to my parents, because they had to go through three years of internment.
And in essence try to just live after the camp. And so, really, the compari-
son is not quite comparable. (Japanese American male)
Around 1980s we started planning to go back to India. You have a way
of life, what is important, a worldview, and you can’t change, at least it
didn’t change for us. The more you read the more you see the disparity.
So, we moved back; my husband has a green card so we live there nine
months and live here three months. General expectations of aging here
is that they [senior citizens] become social burden. We left at that point
and I am not an ordinary retired person; I am still working. But this
country is for the young and rich and not for the old and aging. (Indian
American female)
Here [the United States] is better. Don’t want to go live in Cambodia.
Peace, I need peace. (Cambodian American female)
When I moved here [after retirement], we have, I think 40 percent
Filipinos in this community. So I kinda like it, you know. So I adapted
1
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