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Item CREATION OF THE YELLOW PERIL: A STUDY OF AMERICA’S EARLY CHINESE IMMIGRANTS(2005-12-15T18:51:08Z) Leong Kappel, PatriciaPoster Session-Lured to Gum San (“The Gold Mountain”) by the discovery of gold in California in 1848, thousands of Chinese men left their families and a homeland, wrought with drought, floods, famine, and rebellion. Unlike most European immigrants before them, the early Chinese had no intention of building a new life in America; instead, they were intent upon securing their fortunes and returning home to their families. However, racism, nativism, and exclusion distinguished the experience of these Chinese immigrants from that of their European counterparts, and altered the course of their lives. Competition for gold was only one reason why the welcome extended the Chinese was short-lived. As the flow of Chinese immigrants increased, their numbers magnified their racial and cultural differences in a society grown increasingly intolerant and suspicious of foreigners. Their non-assimilation into a non-receptive culture fueled xenophobic fears that were exacerbated by the "contrary" presence exhibited by the Chinese in their appearance, dress, speech, and customs. In the Chinatowns, opium dens and prostitution flourished from the trade of the majority male population, whose bachelor life was imposed by restrictive, discriminatory immigration practices that kept wives and families from entering the United States. However, the White perception of Chinese immorality and criminality was ignited, and it intensified the collusive work of nativists and U.S. labor to take action against the influx of these “wage-busting” immigrants. As a result, educational, economic, social, and political barriers were erected, many by U.S. legislation, which included the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, naming the Chinese as the only people in United States history to be specifically barred from American emigration. This societal banishment of the Chinese created insulated and isolated communities. In these Chinatowns, the Chinese found refuge from murder and persecution through benevolent associations, similar to those formed around clans in China. With help from outside groups like the Methodist Mission House and the YWCA, the Six Companies, later known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), provided a link to homeland and eventually to the White culture. The CCBA became a social, economic, and political force, which strengthened and established stability in this Confucian-based culture. Through the efforts of the CCBA and the assistance of sympathetic outside supporters, the Chinese survived the oppression of a hostile host culture and transitioned into American society to become a "model minority." Though both voluntary and involuntary isolation inhibited the assimilation and acculturation of the Chinese into the American mainstream, in time, education facilitated mutual acceptance. Formal educational institutions had shunned the Chinese, but they acquired the key to assimilation---language---from service organizations like the YMCA, the church, and their own Chinese benevolent societies. How the early American Chinese responded to and survived racism and discrimination is a study that merits greater illumination in our nation’s history. Moreover, the study of the Chinese experience unveils the important role of education in this people’s American history, a role largely absent from the literature on adult education. This omission in the history of adult education deprives practitioners of a perspective that could inform practice that serves ethnic and cultural minorities. Therefore, the American experiences of cultures like the Chinese mandate closer examination by adult education for their potential contributions to the understanding and knowledge of the education and learning of diverse peoples.Item An Interactive Approach To Economic Development Among African American Former Welfare Recipients: Shattering The Myth Of The Work-First Approach(Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, 2003) Alfred, Mary V.This study explored the experiences of African American women as they transition from welfare to work and the barriers and challenges that impede their move to a position of economic selfsufficiency. The study found three systems of barriers to impede the women's progress. These include W-2 systems barriers, workplace barriers, and personal barriers. Removing the barriers must first be addressed before families can become self-sufficient.Item THE INTERPRETATION OF INFORMATION AND THE BIAS OF EDUCATORS IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH(2005-12-15T18:50:31Z) Gittens, GarthPoster Session-The physical enslavement of the Africans and African Americans necessitated, to a certain degree, the control of their worldview. Chains about the body were unable to quench the inborn desire for liberty and autonomy. The propaganda of African “mental” inferiority, though it was proffered on every front, outlived its validity. Slaves proved themselves to be intellectually equal and in some cases superior to whites. Therefore, educative methods were employed for the purpose of controlling their reality. Religion and spirituality, as witnessed by the presence of the conjurer, was fundamental to the slaves’ way of life. Religion gave adequate access and Christianity, with its proselyting ethos, provided a complementary motif for the indoctrination of slaves. Therefore, the education of adults for the purpose of establishing a Caucasianized worldview, not only for slaves, but also for masters, and the Old Southern community at large, came tinted in Christian hue. The most imminent schema of this systematic indoctrination as it related to slavery was to convince slaves, masters and the society at large that ignominious practice of slavery was not only justifiable but also necessary. Thus the conflation of Christianity and educating the adult slave fostered a perfect model for the extension of the Southern Aristocracy. Paradoxically, this very conflation violated, what some thought to be the fundamental tenets of Biblical philosophy. Emancipatory meanings and conclusions emerged from the study of the Christian documents. Many slaves, and some whites, saw the God of the Bible as the God of the oppressed not the God of the oppressor. Whites fought along side blacks with the Bible as the magnum opus for slave liberation. A subtle and deliberate process of reinterpretation and reeducation within the context of Christianity took place in the slave community. The Christian religion and education was again conflated but this time for the purpose of liberation. The quintessential question therefore is: how were Christianity and adult education used as methods for perpetuating the philosophy of white supremacy, by extension black bondage and oppression in the Antebellum South, while simultaneously providing an avenue for liberation? The Bible was the direct source of educational influence. To the aristocracy, and those sympathetic to the doctrine of race-based classism, the Bible justified the cognitively dissident concept of human-chattel. To most slave-preachers, abolitionist, and those sympathetic to the plight and posterity of African and African American peoples in the United States, the Bible propagated the liberation of slaves. In some cases, the Biblical bias was markedly subservient to the educative predisposition of its interpreters. Each group of educators found in the Bible, information that was pliable enough to be molded to suit their societal allegiance, and out of those discolorations they presented their theme as the ultimate law of Deity. Hence, on the one hand the Bible and Christianity was used to substantiate and prolong slavery and on the other its ethos was the liberation of enslaved peoples.Item THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE: DISABILITY, DIVERSITY, AND ISSUES OF POWER IN ADULT EDUCATION(2005-10-14T19:07:52Z) Rocco, TonetteThis essay explores the location of disability in adult education by critiquing the research on power, privilege, and diversity through a critical disability theory lens. The essay includes a definition of critical disability theory, a discussion of power, privilege, and diversity in adult education, followed by an examination of three issues: function, minority group status, and language, voice and visibility. Persons with disabilities are marginalized, the intent of reasonable accommodation is misunderstood, and the existence of the minority group—people with disabilities—in adult education is barely acknowledged. Disability is often forgotten, overlooked, or dismissed by adult education as too special a category (Berube, 1998). And yet a simple car accident can make any of us a person with a disability. As we live longer, it becomes increasingly likely that we may experience disability becoming a member of this minority group. Disability rights activists refer to this phenomenon as temporarily able-bodied (TAB). The term TAB “breaks down the separateness of ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Zola, 1993, p. 171) emphasizing instead a continuum of experience. Disability is a fluid concept subject to methodological bias, the distortion of cultural bias, and a specific context. “Disability identification is a judgment on the human condition, and its statistical summary represents more than a simple enumeration of those who are disabled and those who are not” (Fujiura & Rutkowski-Kmitta, 2001, p. 69). At what point does a physical anomaly become a disability and who decides--the individual or society--when one is a person with a disability and a member of that particular minority group? Due to medical advances, there are growing numbers of the “well” disabled who are demanding access to opportunities for education and training, work, and leisure. A person with a chronic or degenerative condition may still have the capacity to perform work tasks and may wish to engage in formal learning activities. The purpose of this paper is to critique the research on power, privilege, and diversity through a critical disability theory lens. The discussion will include first, a definition of critical disability theory, second, a discussion of power, privilege, and diversity in adult education, followed by an examination of three issues: function, minority group status, and language, voice and visibility.Item Learning Her Way In: The Life History Of A Latina Adult Educator(Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, 2003) Hatcher, Denise L.This paper explores the various learning experiences of a bilingual and bicultural woman of Mexican heritage. The data collection and data analysis were performed with the intent of creating a life history and allowing recurrent themes to emerge. These three recurrent themes were identified as interplay among learning, survival, and spirituality; health, health care, and parish nursing; and multiple and competing contexts. The essential structure that connected all of the recurrent themes was the participant’s learning and the impacts that it had on her lived experiences. In this way, Monica and her life history are the story of a Latina who has learned her own way into a second culture.Item LOCATING ASIAN AMERICANS IN ADULT EDUCATION DISCOURSE(2005-12-15T18:49:57Z) Cabasa-Hess, Virginia APoster Session-As disparate as their countries of origin and their histories, Asian Americans share a common experience of discrimination, injustice and oppression with other minority groups. In spite of the notable gains and inroads made in bringing the voices of Native, African, Latino Americans and other minority groups of various perspectives and orientations to the center of adult education discourse, Asian Americans, more than a century after they came to work in railroads and sugarcane plantations have yet to find their ‘space’ in the field. There is a need to explore issues that relate to Asian Americans in the broader context of their participation in the mainstream socio-cultural and political processes and in the more specific context of participation in adult learning environments. The “Model Minority” label used to describe the group has pitted them against others especially in the allocation of funds needed to support marginalized ethnic groups. The stereotypic label obscures the presence of Asian Americans who live on the fringes of society: single mothers and fathers, women recruited into prostitution, men and women working in sweatshops, Asians caught in the web of international drug and human trafficking. Asian Americans, who do not fit the label and are ‘less successful’ than their peers could find it difficult to gain access to social and government services. Though the term is used in a positive light, it reinforces the dominant culture’s standards of success. It also prevents the conduct of research and investigations that may be helpful in creating policies that address their needs. Does the “Model Minority” label mean that Asian Americans can be successful so long as they do not question the existing inequalities in the society? Against which and whose standards is success being measured? What strategies of adoption and integration did Asian Americans use to succeed in this society? What did they give up, in return? How has being ‘successful’ in the mainstream society positioned them in relation to other minority groups? The strength of adult education lies in the field’s accommodation of competing interests and voices. The challenge to practitioners is to expand the space further to bring seldom-heard voices to the center, one of them, the Asian American voice.Item Non-Ethnic Minority Acceptance In Adult Education: Practice, Praxis, Or Still Just Theory(Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, 2003) Kvak, JamesThis paper offers the reader an opportunity to better understand the dynamics that occur in adult education classrooms and workshops when sexual orientation is integrated into the subject matter. This issue relates to how learning about sexual orientation can create new knowledge about ourselves, about our differences, about our humanity, and how learning is either created or suppressed in the field of adult education. The paper examines four concerns in relation to sexual orientation: The degree of emotional and physical safety for the gay adult learner in the classroom, the impact of homophobia on both the gay and heterosexual learner and instructor, the freedom and support accorded the adult educator to practice from the reality of their sexual orientation, and the efforts being made by the adult education field to search out and utilize the resources available on this subject-both theoretical and practical.Item REPORT OF RESEARCH: ADULT LEARNING STRATEGIES AND SETTINGS USED TO ACQUIRE SPECIALIZED PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE(2005-10-13T19:49:00Z) Jones, Kevin J.The purpose of this study was to describe the context, setting, and learning strategies employed by both novice and experienced clergy seeking to develop pastoral capabilities. Using a case study method, a thorough description of the learning processes occurring within an organizational social group was described. The case focused on a group of African- American clergy from the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC). The findings confirm that AMEC clergy have identifiable and describable strategies for learning the professional capabilities to pastor, both prior to and during service in the role. Other findings include: • The organizational context defines expectations for AMEC clergy; • Learning strategy is constructed after one’s personal expectations and organizational/local church expectations have been considered; • AMEC clergy develop capabilities in either formal, nonformal, or informal settings; • AMEC clergy learn from personal experiences with people and learning from accomplishments as well as mistakes made. A conclusion drawn from this study is that learners do have individual strategy preferences, but it is the organization that strongly influences the strategy choice. In other words, the learner must modify his or her learning approach to fit the learning approaches valued by the organization.Item University Policies That Increase And/Or Decrease Access For African-American Women Seeking Advanced Degrees(Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, 2003) Bailey-Iddrisu, VannettaThe policies of most universities show a lack of dedication in addressing the needs of their non-traditional graduate students, particularly African-American women seeking advanced degrees. As African-American women return to the academy to pursue doctoral degrees,universities must address the issues facing women in general and African-American women in particular. The double-jeopardy that African-American women encounter in terms of race and sex is viewed by some Black feminists as a reason for conducting research specifically on Black women and their role contributions to American society (Brown, 2001).