Buddha is hiding: refugees, citizenship, the new America

355 Pages·2003·2.17 MB·English

by  Ong, Aihwa

Buddha Is Hiding
CALIFORNIA SERIES IN PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY
The California Series in Public Anthropology emphasizes the anthropologist’s role
as an engaged intellectual. It continues anthropology’s commitment to being an
ethnographic witness, to describing, in human terms, how life is lived beyond the
borders of many readers’ experiences. But it also adds a commitment, through
ethnography, to reframing the terms of public debate—transforming received, ac-
cepted understandings of social issues with new insights, new framings.
Series Editor: Robert Borofsky (Hawaii Pacific University)
Contributing Editors: Philippe Bourgois (UC San Francisco),
Paul Farmer (Partners in Health), Rayna Rapp (New York University),
and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (UC Berkeley)
University of California Press Editor: Naomi Schneider
1. Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death,
by Margaret Lock
2. Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel,
by Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh
3. Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide,
edited by Alexander Laban Hinton
4. Pathologies ofPower: Structural Violence and the Assault
on Health and Human Rights,by Paul Farmer
5. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America,
by Aihwa Ong
Buddha Is Hiding
Refugees, Citizenship, the New America
Aihwa Ong
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ong, Aihwa.
Buddha is hiding : refugees, citizenship, the new America /
Aihwa Ong.
p. cm.—(California series in public anthropology ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-520-22998-3(cloth : alk. paper)—isbn0-520-23824-9
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Cambodian Americans—California—Oakland—Social
conditions. 2. Cambodian Americans—California—Oakland—
Ethnic identity. 3. Cambodian Americans—Civil rights—
California—Oakland. 4. Refugees—California—Oakland—
Social conditions. 5. Refugees—Civil rights—California—
Oakland. 6. Citizenship—Social aspects—United States—Case
studies. 7. Oakland (Calif.)—Social conditions. 8. Oakland
(Calif.)—Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series.
f869.o2b83 2003
305.895'93079466—dc21 2003001857
Manufactured in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally
chlorine-free (tcf). It meets the minimum requirements of
ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).
For Bob

contents
list of illustrations /
ix
acknowledgments /
xi
prologue /
xiii
/
Introduction: Government and Citizenship 1
part i. in pol pot time
/
1. Land of No More Hope 25
/
2. A Hilton in the Border Zone 48
part ii. governing through freedom
/
3. The Refugee as an Ethical Figure 69
/
4. Refugee Medicine: Attracting and Deflecting the Gaze 91
/
5. Keeping the House from Burning Down 122
/
6. Refugee Love as Feminist Compassion 142
/
7. Rescuing the Children 168
part iii. church and marketplace
/
8. The Ambivalence of Salvation 195
/
9. Guns, Gangs, and Doughnut Kings 229
part iv. reconfigurations of citizenship
/
10. Asian Immigrants as the New Westerners? 253
/
Afterword: Assemblages of Human Needs 275
notes /
287
index /
323

illustrations
1. An idealized image of Cambodia before Pol Pot time on currency
/
outlawed in 1975 30
2. Angkor Wat depicted on an old banknote no longer in
/
circulation 31
/
3. Card to indicate the daily schedule for taking medicine 111
/
4. Learning the facts of life the multicultural way 116
5. “You or someone you know may live in a home where domestic
/
violence is a problem” 157
/
6. Children in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district 174
/
7. Little girls must stay close to their mothers 179
8. The Mormon Church is a kind of promised land: the Church of Jesus
/
Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Oakland, California 196
/
9. Plaster Buddhas manufactured in the California farm country 216
10. The Venerable Dharmawara Mahathera (with sunglasses) and a fellow
/
monk, California 217
/
11. Randy Yu’s doughnut shop, also serving designer coffee 242
ix