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Having conceptually accepted Asian Americans as being groups integral to the "folk groups" in American history, culture, and society, and thus their folklores being integral to American public life and folkloristics, we now need to study these distinctive folklores with relevant theories and methods. By looking at the folklore practices of the diverse Chinese American group, this article proposes some perspectives and concepts, with an emphasis on folkloric identity, in the hope that they will be useful in analyzing and interpreting diasporic folklore and identity in general.
Keywords
afs ethnographic thesaurus: identity, group, ethnicity, theory, methodology
Harmonize [with others], but maintain [one's] distinctiveness.
-Confucius (Analects, 551-479 BCE)1
For, in our times, the historical emphasis on the differences between individuals, national and even religious identities must find a re-orientation that emphasizes and cultivates the essential unity of all human identities. By this, I mean the consciousness and ethical responsibility of being one species that must learn to orient its outlook and inventions toward the preservation and enrichment of all life, instead of a deadly extension of senseless, technical perfection and power.
-Erik H. Erikson 1983:403
this study accepts the following ideas as premises: (1) "Folk" is "any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor" (Dundes 1965:2; emphasis in original); (2) "[f]olklore is artistic communication in small groups" (Ben-Amos 1972:12); (3) "[t]he concept of identity has always been central in folklore studies" (Oring 1994:226); and (4) "[d]efining identity through folklore" (Dundes 1983:236) is essential in studying identity. Consequently, it holds these propositions: (1) Folklore is all about identity and thus defines identity; (2) personal and group identity should be defined by folklore-in-practice,2 not by preconceptualizing ethnicity, race, or religion; and, thus, (3) the concept offolkloric identity helps better explain the diversity, creolization, temporality, and fluidity (or dynamics) of individual and group identity.
These folklore-based approaches to identity are intended to contribute to the "paradigm shift" (in Kuhn's sense, [1962] 1970) that moved away from the preconceptualized ethnicity-based approach to group identity (as reinforced in the categorization in the US census). This study hereby suggests perspectives and methods for scrutinizing the processes with which a folk group, like an Asian American group, is increasingly becoming integral to American culture and history, while it...