by Yoonmee Chang

About Yoonmee Chang

Yoonmee Chang is Associate Professor of English at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Writing the Ghetto: Class, Authorship, and the Asian American Enclave (2010). Chang’s current research focuses on North Korea and disability studies; she also writes poetry.

Enclave

book Keywords for Asian American Studies

“Enclave” when used in the context of Asian American studies is shorthand for “ethnic enclave.” The enclave as such is, broadly, a geographically distinct cluster point for a racial or ethnic group. The enclave’s political and economic structures become associated with ethnicity. In some cases, they can be accurately characterized as indigenous to, or at least historically embedded within, an ethnic group. In other cases, political and economic practices that look ethnicity based are adaptations with no inherent relationship to race and culture.