In week five we considered the history, meanings, and problematic applications o

In week five we considered the history, meanings, and problematic applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This allowed us to better understand AI as an extreme form of techno-utopianism inflected by military and corporate interests. In contrast, for week six we considered alternative ways technology can be thought of and used. This exploration demonstrated that the designs of Silicon Valley are far from the only options we have for incorporating technology into our lives in meaningful ways. Now it is time to compare and contrast these opposing visions and models for action.
You will compose a paper of at least two pages, double-spaced, in which you put forward an argument explicitly comparing one specific AI system, practice, or application with one specific alternative vision, system, or practice involving the use of digital technology. Your argument must additionally address one of the following: race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and/or class. Your argument should clearly articulate the ideological or conceptual viewpoint underlying each side of your comparison and explain how both the AI and alternative form relate to your chosen identity category (see above). You are expected to define any conceptual terminology that you introduce. Your paper should also draw on and analyze specific content from available sources to substantiate your argument. You are expected to draw on at least one source pertaining to week five (AI) and one source pertaining to week six (Alternative Visions and Practices).
You should express your reactions to and questions about the unit. You are required to include your opinions and state whether you agreed or disagreed with specific authors or projects and why.
You may draw on assigned readings, course lectures, and relevant outside sources. Please note that not all sources are necessary useful or relevant for a given argument. As such, you should be discerning in your choice of sources.
Outside sources
If you wish, you may use relevant outside sources to develop and bolster your argument. In general, it is best to stick to published sources, such as articles or books, as these offer far more reliable information and claims. Your argument will only ever be as good as the sources you rely upon. You may use article databases accessible through the UC Library such as JSTOR and Project Muse. Please visit the following webpage for guidance on finding and access article databases: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/finding-databases-and-articles.
The following sources are relevant for this assignment and available online through the UC library:
Adam, Alison. Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine. London: Routledge, 1998. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/s4lks2/cdi_informaworld_taylorfrancisbooks_9780203005057
Brock, André L. Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures. New York: New York University Press, 2020. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991053815979706532
Broussard, Meredith. Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2018. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991046309189706532
Coeckelbergh, Mark. AI Ethics. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma9914557809906531
Crawford, Kate. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991085918089206532
De Kosnik, Abigail, and Keith Feldman. Identity: Hashtagging Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Nation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991085919043306532
Jackson, Sarah J., Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles. #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2020. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991056758389706532
Katz, Yarden. Artificial Whiteness: Politics and Ideology in Artificial Intelligence. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991056760789706532
Lai, James S. (James Siu-Fong). Asian American Connective Action in the Age of Social Media : Civic Engagement, Contested Issues, and Emerging Identities. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2022. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991085995656106532
Lavender, Isiah. Afrofuturism Rising: the Literary Prehistory of a Movement. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2019. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991053692639706532
Noble, Safiya Umoja, and Brendesha M Tynes. The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online. 1st, New ed. Vol. 105. New York: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 2016. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/s4lks2/cdi_uclouvain_repository_oai_dial_uclouvain_be_ebook_118467
Roh, David S., Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu. Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media. Ed. David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2015. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991012697339706532
Russell, Stuart J. (Stuart Jonathan). Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. New York, New York?: Viking, 2019. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991051917839706532
Steele, Catherine Knight. Digital Black Feminism. New York: New York University Press, 2021. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991035407063904701
Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism: the World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. First edition. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2013. https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991037222239706532
Rubric
Unit Synthesis Paper Rubric
Unit Synthesis Paper Rubric
Criteria Ratings Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomePaper Argument
Paper offers a clearly articulated argument in the form of a specific thesis statement and develops this argument in a coherent and persuasive manner over the course of the paper. This argument will be evaluated and graded on the basis of its clarity, persuasiveness, logic, and overall sophistication.
30 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
30 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeEngagement with Course Material
Paper draws effectively upon available course material, including course readings, course lectures, and supplemental course material. Mastery of course material is demonstrated through the thoughtful deployment of quotes, analytical discussion of course concepts, and effective application of the concepts to the evidence provided.
30 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
30 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeEngagement with Issues of Identity
Paper meaningfully engages with issues and evidence pertaining to at least one of the following: race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and/or class. Meaningful engagement is demonstrated through the articulation of a well-reasoned and argued definition and deployment of key terminology, as well as thoughtful reflection on available examples and evidence.
30 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
30 pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeCitation Consistency and Style
Paper properly and consistently cites sources according to one of the standard style guides (MLA, APA, Chicago).
10 pts
Full Marks
0 pts
No Marks
10 pts
Total Points: 100
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Lecture Video
Hello, and welcome. Today’s lecture is entitled Asian-American Connective Action— Combating Stereotypes, Digital Activism, and Political Polarization. How have anti-Asian stereotypes affected perceptions of Asian-Americans and Asian-American political participation? What is connective action and how have Asian-Americans used it to achieve political goals? And third, how has connective action revealed divisions in the Asian-American community and what can we learn from these divisions about the use of social media for political action? Here are some sources for today’s lecture, largely the same. The only new addition is Techno Orientalism— Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media, an edited volume, which I’ll be drawing on for the first part of the lecture. Many of the discursive structures and representational schemes that encode meanings about group identity and worth as people have deep historical roots. Postcolonial theorist and professor of literature Edward Said identifies and analyzes one such long standing and pervasive representational scheme in his book Orientalism, published 1978. “The Orient,” Said argues, “is a durable discursive construction that serves as a foil for the Occident, or the West, to define itself. At the same time, the Orient collapses together nations, cultures, histories, and identities for much of the non-Western world so that neat binary oppositions can be drawn with the West.” For example, Henry David Thoreau wrote this in 1849. “Behold the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental. The former has nothing to do within this world. The latter is full of activity. The one looks in the sun till his eyes are put out. The other follows him prone in his westward course.” This painting by Wilhelm von Kaulbach is an early example of Orientalism within Western culture depicting the differences here between the East and the West. Some of the binary oppositions of Orientalism include associating the Occident with activity, masculinity, the mind, history, reason or logos, the human, and the good. By contrast then, the Orient is associated with the opposites of these things, such as passivity, femininity, the body, eternity or timelessness, desire or pathos, inhumanity, and evil. Because the binary oppositions that Orientalist discourses deploy are so broad, so flexible, and so pervasive, they come to be accepted by many simply as a form of knowledge. Orientalist representations often permeate policymaking and political discourse, as we can see from examples old and new. Going all the way back to the 19th century here, we have a combination of a capitalist product and an anti-Chinese political sentiment. Moving forward until the 1940s, we see again a form of Orientalism and dehumanization used against the Japanese enemy. And it’s notable that the forms of dehumanization and representations of Japan during World War II were far worse and far more dehumanizing than representations of Germans or Italians. And very recently, we have attributions of COVID-19 to China, for example, President Donald Trump calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus, even though he attempted to explain that this was not intended to be racist. Orientalist discourses serve as an endless repertoire of essentialist binary representations to be used by Hollywood and other Western media producers to produce narratives, characters, and visual tropes. Going back to the 1960s, we see the use of Orientalism in Sax Rohmer’s The Mask of Fu Manchu or in Bond movies, such as You Only Live Twice, and even very recently in films, such as Ex Machina, starring Sonoya Mizuno as a robot and Oscar Isaac as her creator. This is a form of what’s called techno-Orientalism. Techno-Orientalism constitutes a new or newer form of Orientalism, arising from the conditions of globalized information capitalism. Techno-Orientalism, according to the editors of the eponymous book of that name, is the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in cultural productions and political discourse. Techno-Orientalist discourses have become part of the West’s project of securing dominance as architects of the future, a project that requires configurations of the East as the very technology with which to shape it. Techno-Orientalism comes in several varieties. The first is the Japanese variety, where Japan is depicted as innovative, futuristic, and corporate. The second is the Chinese variety, where China is depicted as a place of productivity, a human factory, although one that is overseen by an authoritarian state. And the third variety would be India, where India and Indians are depicted as imitative, in some way a simulation of the West, and therefore raises the specter of the doppelganger. In techno-Orientalist representations, Asiatic bodies function as gatekeepers, facilitators, and purveyors of technology. Yet techno-Orientalist narratives also posit that only a Western-coded subject can truly realize liberal humanism. All forms of techno-Orientalism involve othering and dehumanization. But each form reacts to specific Western anxieties and concerns related to particular moments or patterns in the globalization of trade labor and technology. Techno-Orientalism underlies the unequal labor practices of Silicon Valley that we have already discussed, including racialized divisions of labor, outsourcing, offshoring, and labor feminization. We should also recall Lisa Nakamura’s critiques of racial tourism and racial passing in online spaces. Techno-Orientalism first appeared in California during the 19th century. For example, California Senator John Miller pushing the anti-Chinese Chinese Exclusion Act, which was passed the following year, 1882, had this to say, “Chinese laborers of today are machine-like, of obtuse nerve, but little affected by heat or cold, wiry, sinewy, with muscles of iron. They are automatic engines of flesh and blood. They are patient, stolid, unemotional, and herd together like beasts.” So we see here both a representation of Chinese laborers as non-individual. They are a mass. And yet they are like technology in a way. They are incredibly productive, and yet they do not have a personality. They do not have emotions. Western coverage of the Russo-Japanese war, the first war to feature a major modern Asian power defeating a major modern Western power, featured numerous techno-Orientalist depictions of Japanese troops, suggesting that Japan presented a new and much more dangerous version of yellow peril. In this Cassell’s History of the Russo-Japanese War, we see a depiction of Japanese troops forming a human pyramid at Port Arthur to get over a wall. McClernand and another article on “Japanese Calm” from Living Age, 1906 and 1905 respectively, claimed that “Japanese had superhuman robotic control of emotions and pain, a clockwork precision in military organization and a serene Japanese calm with which they greeted war news.” Such blatantly racializing accounts fed fictional representations, such as Banzai!, the Japanese invasion, and the coming conflict of nations or the Japanese-American war. These all came out shortly after the Russo-Japanese War, long before World War II. And yet they featured new forms of high tech warfare, supposed Japanese treachery, and the development of super weapons, for example, one that is used to finally end the battle with Japan. US radio shows from the 1920s through the 1940s, such as Fu Manchu, Captain Midnight, Jungle Jim, and many productions of “The Mercury Theatre on the Air” routinely presented the Asian other as a feminized, yet dangerous menace that only a hyper-masculine American hero could face. One of these radio shows and also comic book series entitled Terry and the Pirates featured Terry’s nemesis, the hypersexualized alternatively Japanese and sometimes Chinese dragon lady, who would routinely steal technologies from the West and put them to use against the interests of the West. One thing we can see from this example, and from many others, is that the nationality of the villainous Asian other could easily change. During World War II, Japanese presented the greatest threat. During the Korean War, the enemy suddenly changed from Japan to China and North Korea. And then again, during the Vietnam War, the enemy suddenly became Vietnamese. In 1982, as Silicon Valley was waging its war against Japanese chip makers, 27-year-old Chinese-American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two white Detroit autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, who mistakenly believed Chin to be Japanese and, thus, they claimed was a threat to their jobs. Popular cyberpunk fiction from the same time period, such as the film Blade Runner and the novel Neuromancer, perpetuated an extended techno-Orientalist stereotypes into the digital age by depicting Asian-inflected futures to be negotiated by individualist Western male subjects who were capable of hacking the system. Orientalism and techno-Orientalism continue to shape perceptions of Asians and Asian-Americans of all nationalities. James Lai, professor of Ethnic Studies at Santa Clara University, identifies two other common coexisting stereotypes of Asian-Americans that correspond to Orientalism and techno-Orientalism respectively, the forever foreigner and the model minority. “The forever foreigner,” Lai writes, “is rooted in the historical treatment of Asian cheap laborers as being from an undesirable foreign culture, which made them incapable of becoming part of the US citizenry through immigration and citizenship, rendering this racial group as apolitical in American politics.” We can see an example of the forever foreigner stereotype used to justify Japanese internment, the internment of over 125,000 American citizens and legal residents simply because they had Japanese ancestry. Notably, this was not done to German Americans or Italian Americans during World War II. On January 9, 1966, in the same edition of The New York Times that featured a front page headline titled, “Biggest Attack of Vietnam War,” that made clear America’s South Vietnamese allies were not to be trusted. And we can see that at the bottom of this portion I’ve selected, “Start of Operation Withheld from South Vietnamese to Bar a Leak to Foe.” In the same edition of The New York Times, Professor William Petersen of the UC Berkeley Sociology Department created the model minority stereotype in a story titled “Success Story– Japanese-American Style.” Petersen wrote, “By any criterion of good citizenship that we choose, the Japanese-Americans are better than any other group in our society, including native born whites.” Petersen’s lengthy article claimed that Japanese-Americans were better educated, less prone to committing crimes, and showed entrepreneurial initiative, all despite facing discrimination. Petersen also claimed that the Japanese-American example reflected negatively on other ethnic minorities, in particular African-Americans. We can see from this caption just one of many examples in this multiple page article, which ran for about 10 pages, descriiption of the wife of a prosperous businessman and active clubwoman and Brownie leader, Miss George T. Aratani is a second generation Japanese-American or Nisei. Her garden overlooks a lake in the Hollywood Hills. And then above violinist, Roy Tanabe, 27, belongs to the third generation, the Sansei. He is the first Japanese to play with a major American Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphony. This is very much the construction of the model minority stereotype, and notably, it’s being used here as a model purportedly for other ethnic minorities to follow. Later that same year, the model minority stereotype was expanded to include Chinese-Americans. A US News and World Report story entitled success story of one minority in the US claimed that, “At a time when Americans are awash in worries over the plight of racial minorities, one such minority, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese-Americans, is winning wealth and respect by dint of its own hard work. In any Chinatown from San Francisco to New York, you discover youngsters at grips with their studies. Crime and delinquency are found to be rather minor in scope. Still being taught in Chinatown is the old idea that people should depend on their own efforts, not a welfare check in order to reach America’s promised land.” These are choice words and they’re being used then to undermine the Civil Rights movement that was taking place at exactly this time. The model minority stereotype was quite clearly crafted by white elites as a means of driving a racial wedge between Asian-Americans and other minorities precisely at a time that African-Americans and Latinx Americans were organizing for civil rights and racial justice. And as we can see on this cover of Time Magazine from 1987, the model minority stereotype was durable. It continued to be applied over and over again. James Lai draws on models created by political science scholars, such as Claire Jean Kim’s racial triangulation model, shown to the left, and Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn’s contemporary shape of American racial hierarchy model to the right, to show the racializing intent and effect of the forever foreigner and model minority stereotypes. Within this racial hierarchy, Asian-Americans are placed above other ethnic minorities, although still below white Americans. Many Asian-Americans refused both the forever foreigner and the model minority stereotypes by organizing in solidarity with Civil Rights, Black and Brown power, and anti-war movements in the 1960s. The Asian-American Political Alliance, AAPA, was founded at 2005 Hurst Avenue in Berkeley, California by Yuji Ishioka and Emma Gee in May 1968. The organization supported the Black Panthers and played a crucial role in the creation of ethnic studies departments at UC Berkeley and SF State. We can see an AAPA member Richard Aoki at a Free Huey– this is Huey Newton demonstration in Oakland, California. And notably, he’s turned the popular stereotype of yellow peril against its normal usage, which is a denigration of Asian-Americans. And here it is. Yellow peril supports Black Power, suggesting that these stereotypes can be reappropriated and challenged in new and creative ways. Richard Aoki was later found to be an FBI informant. Asian-American political participation grew and complexified considerably after the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965, which opened immigration from 25 Asian nations with a widely varying selection of socioeconomic situations. Beginning in 1992, Asian-Americans began a shift toward a progressive stance on issues with support for Democratic Party presidential candidates changing from only 31% in 1992 to 73% in 2012, reflecting the large amount of foreign born working class immigrants who gradually identified with the Democratic Party platform. Nevertheless, among highly educated, affluent Asian immigrants, especially from China and India, a countervailing conservative trend has emerged. As James Lai documents, this has led to a significant schism between progressive Asian-Americans who support panethnic and multiracial coalitions and issues and the conservative Asian-American immigrant groups who organize around issues specific to their community. To better understand how both progressive and conservative Asian-American activists organize and craft political messaging, James Lai developed a model of Asian-American connective action. “Connective action,” he writes, “takes place when two or more people in conjunction cross the private and public boundary with the goal of seeking a public good.” Connective action involves three components– first, the ease of transforming private discourse to public discourse through social media platforms and smartphones, second, the absence of a central organization, third, the internet serving as a vehicle for crossing public and private boundaries. We can distinguish connective action from collective action insofar as no formal organizational structures are required in connective action. Whereas in collective action, we see the presence of formal organization. Because it accounts for a wider variety of connective and discursive activities, connective action is broader than hashtag activism, which we’ve previously covered and which centers on the use of hashtags and thus pretty much only social media platforms that use hashtags. We could say that hashtag activism is one component of connective action. The particular features of Asian-American political participation and media technology usage support the exercise of connected action. Notably, voter turnout among adult citizens is far lower within the Asian-American community than it is with other ethnic groups. For example, African-Americans have the highest voter turnout amongst adult citizens at 66% followed by white Americans at 64%. And Asian-Americans have even less than Latinx Americans, who come in at 48%. Yet, in contrast to this, internet usage amongst Asian-Americans is the highest out of all other competing ethnic groups, at 91%. Asian-American digital media and internet usage also differs considerably by national origin group and ideology. James Lai provides this table of most common smartphone messaging apps broken up by different Asian ethnic groups. And as we can see, Korean-Americans prefer to use KakaoTalk. Japanese-Americans and also some from Taiwan use line. WeChat is used by Asian-Americans from mainland China and Southeast Asia, and WhatsApp is typically used by Indian Americans. Also, whereas progressive Asian-American activists primarily use social media platforms, such as Twitter, and English language websites to organize and articulate political positions, conservative immigrant groups primarily use native language ethnic media, such as Sina Weibo, and smartphone messaging apps, such as WeChat. George Shen and Shannon Peng both relied on WeChat to win 2016 school board elections in New Jersey. And so we can see that WeChat, in circumstances where there is a sizable enough Asian-American or specifically Chinese-American population, has proven incredibly effective at winning political campaigns. Divisions between conservative Chinese immigrants and progressive Asian-Americans supporting panethnic and multiracial coalitions emerged during the 2016 trial of former NYPD officer Peter Liang, who, while on a vertical patrol in a housing unit on November 2014, accidentally shot African-American Akai Gurley but then failed to provide emergency medical support or call an ambulance as Gurley lay dying. Chinese-Americans supporting Liang used WeChat to organize in protest of Liang’s trial, arguing that Liang was being offered up as a racial scapegoat to atone for the wrongdoings of white police officers against African-Americans. Progressive Asian-American activists combating this used Twitter and Facebook groups, such as APIs for Black Lives, to organize counter protests arguing that Liang’s Chinese-American supporters were misguided and that all police officers should be held accountable for their actions. As an example of the conservative standpoint, Xujun Eberlin wrote in a personal blog essay, “Ever since former NYPD policeman Peter Liang’s guilty verdict last Thursday, plans for rallies all over the nation have been developed through grassroots campaigns on WeChat. Watching the efforts in full swing on a cell phone is no less breathtaking than an action movie. All kinds of voices, rational and irrational, calm and angry, fair-minded and extreme, can be heard on the palm-sized screen. What a mass movement.” So we can get a sense from this the real sense of excitement that WeChat and cell phones have made possible, the ability to organize and to discuss together, an example of connective action at work. Kay Yang-Stevens, a member of the Progressive Asian-American Coalition has this to say in contrast. “Support for Liang creates a highly visible spectacle that does more to further harm Black people and our chances of organizing in solidarity with Black people than it does to highlight the ways that Asian-Americans continue to experience racism, oppression, and domination under white supremacy. Simply put, Asian-Americans frustrated with racism should invest energy into supporting Black and Indigenous struggles, not institutions of white power.” The same political division emerged in battles over affirmative action in California. Between 2012 and 2014, conservative Chinese immigrants primarily based in Cupertino and Silicon Valley via the Silicon Valley Chinese Association, SVCA, and in Monterey Park in Southern California, challenged California’s Senate constitutional Amendment SCA V, which would have given California voters the opportunity to strike down the controversial proposition 209, which banned the consideration of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or nationality in public hiring and education. Meanwhile, a 2014 field pole of Asian-American voters in California found that 69% supported affirmative action programs. Many Asian-American state representatives did as well. Affirmative action first appeared in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 requiring government contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. Presidents Johnson and Nixon in 1966 and 1969 respectively, responding to pressure from the Civil Rights Movement, signed further executive orders expanding affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity hiring for government contractors and for government jobs. By 1969, many universities had followed suit by implementing affirmative action in the form of racial quotas. For many top universities, this meant that the number of African-Americans admitted doubled over the course of a year. Affirmative action programs were almost immediately challenged by whites, claiming that these amounted to what they called reverse discrimination. For example, Allan Bakke, a white applicant rejected from the medical school of UC Davis, sued the UC system because 16 of 100 seats in the entering class had been reserved for minorities. Bakke claimed that this was a violation of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided in 1978 that the University of California’s use of racial quotas was unconstitutional. Affirmative action swiftly became a polarizing issue. We can see here protests that took place against the Bakke decision. Opponents of affirmative action, emboldened, stepped up their attacks, culminating in California with Proposition 209, which received strong support from Republicans, including a number of Silicon Valley elites. Defenders of affirmative action put together a large multiethnic coalition, but they were unable to defeat Proposition 209, which passed in 1996. This is then the context in which Chinese-American opponents of SCA 5 formed online activist groups, such as Extremely Concerned Californians and United Asian-Americans for Activism. They also created a website Say No to SCA 5, a Facebook page at the same name, an online petition Vote No on SCA 5, and used WeChat to gather supporters and develop effective messaging. An affinity group called No to SCA 5 created and uploaded a video to YouTube that combined Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech with dramatic music and aerial images of UC Berkeley’s Sather Tower, which we call the Campanile. An anti SCA 5 protester can also be heard saying on the video stating, “Asian-Americans are not silent, and we are going to stand up and have our voices be heard.” The video ended with a screenshot of the change.org petition and a final caption, “no on skin color act 5,” just above SVCA for the Silicon Valley Chinese Association. So we can see here how there is a rather incredible appropriation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream,” speech, as well as some of the language that is typically used by progressive Americans here to challenge affirmative action. In addition to this devastatingly effective and sophisticated media strategy, opponents of SCA 5 also used WeChat to guide supporters to public forums and hearings, to target Asian-American legislators, and to conduct cyberbullying campaigns against vocal supporters of the bill. Proponents of affirmative action were caught off guard and the anti-SCA 5 movement was able to successfully prevent the bill from advancing. In 2016, however, progressive Asian-Americans rallied to support California Assembly Bill 1726, which would disaggregate data for Asian-Americans as a block so that individual Asian-American ethnic groups could be better represented, thereby more accurately assuring representation for the purpose of developing health care policy. Seeing this as another attempt to push forward affirmative action, even though it wasn’t quite that, conservative Chinese-Americans once again used online media to challenge AB 1726. 18 Million Rising, a progressive panethnic Asian-American alliance, developed messaging in support of AB 1726, including the hashtag all CA count, and the claim that visibility equals equity, which equals opportunity. Notably, it was Southeast Asian-Americans that strongly rallied in support of AB 1726. This time, the progressives won on messaging. Chinese immigrants were not the only conservative Asian-American group to use connective action in support of political goals. In 2005 and again in 2016, conservative Indian Americans pushed back against the California Curriculum Commission’s attempts to revise history textbooks with the don’t erase India campaign. At issue was a proposed revision that would replace India with South Asian in an effort towards inclusivity for Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans. Other important topics included representations of the caste system, the lowest caste of Dalit or what’s called untouchables, the status of women, and discussions of Hinduism. As James Lai notes, conservative Indian Americans represented by the Vedic Foundation and the Hindu Education Foundation USA are ideologically aligned with the Hindu nationalist movement in India, thus exemplifying a transnational political movement. Conservative Indian Americans based in Santa Clara and Cupertino led the movement using Twitter and Facebook. They were partially successful, though progressive opponents rallied with connective action of their own, notably the hashtags South Asian history for all and don’t erase Dalit, such that the outcome was something of a compromise. India remained and was not replaced with South Asia, but Dalit, the identity and the history, was incorporated into the curriculum. So then some takeaway points. First, Asian-Americans have battled against derogatory stereotypes for over a century and a half. Examples of Asian-American connective action conclusively prove these stereotypes to be false. Second, connective action is used by Asian-Americans across the political spectrum, often leading to battles within the community, as well as achieving visibility and public resources for the community. Third, conservative Asian-American groups are notably well-represented in Silicon Valley, especially Chinese and Indian Americans with high socioeconomic characteristics connected with the tech industry in terms of employment and participation. Fourth, while connective action enables rapid organization and efficacious political participation, it also raises the specter of echo chambers and social silos which can exacerbate extremism and lead to divisive polarization, misinformation, and cyberbullying. It is therefore crucial that open forums, especially online, be constructed to facilitate interaction between opposing ideological groups. This takeaway point applies to connective action within and, of course, beyond the Asian-American community. Thank you so much for your time today. And as always, have a great day.