Biosecurity in the Global Age or Becoming Asian American

Biosecurity in the Global Age: Biological Weapons, Public Health, and the Rule of Law

Author: David P Fidler

Biosecurity comprehensively analyzes the dramatic transformations that are reshaping how the international community addresses biological weapons and infectious diseases.

The book examines the renewed threat from biological weapons, and explores the new world of biological weapons governance. Gostin and Fidler argue that the arms control approach in the Biological Weapons Convention no longer dominates. Other strategies have emerged to challenge the arms control approach, and the book identifies four important policy trends—the criminalization of biological weapons, regulation of the biological sciences, management of the biodefense imperative, and preparation for biological weapons attack.

The book also explores the challenges to public health resulting from new security threats. The authors look at the linkages between security and public health policy, both at the national and international level. For instance, Gostin and Fidler scrutinize the difficulty of developing policies that improve defenses against both biological weapons and the threat of infectious diseases from new viral strains.

The new worlds of biological weapons and public health governance raise the importance of crafting policy responses informed by the rule of law. Thinking about the rule of law underscores the importance of finding globalized forms of biosecurity governance. The book explores patterns in recent governance initiatives and advocates building a “global biosecurity concert” as a way to address the threats biological weapons and infectious diseases present in the early 21st century.

Book about: Amazing Peace or Skippyjon Jones

Becoming Asian American: Second-Generation Chinese and Korean American Identities

Author: Nazli Kibria

In Becoming Asian American, Nazli Kibria draws upon extensive interviews she conducted with second-generation Chinese and Korean Americans in Boston and Los Angeles who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s to explore the dynamics of race, identity, and adaptation within these communities. Moving beyond the frameworks created to study other racial minorities and ethnic whites, she examines the various strategies used by members of this group to define themselves as both Asian and American.

In her discussions on such topics as childhood, interaction with non-Asian Americans, college, work, and the problems of intermarriage and child-raising, Kibria finds wide discrepancies between the experiences of Asian Americans and those described in studies of other ethnic groups. While these differences help to explain the unusually successful degree of social integration and acceptance into mainstream American society enjoyed by this "model minority," it is an achievement that Kibria's interviewees admit they can never take for granted. Instead, they report that maintaining this acceptance "requires constant effort on their part." Kibria suggests further developments may resolve this situation -- especially the emergence of a new kind of pan--Asian American identity that would complement the Chinese or Korean American identity rather than replace it.

Reed Ueda

Nazli Kibria is one of the outstanding scholars on the sociology of Asian Americans, as well as in the general field of sociology of race and ethnicity. Becoming Asian American greatly advances knowledge of the dynamic interaction of race, ethnicity, and individual identity in American life. Her case studies offer a fresh, solid approach to discovering what it is like for immigrant racial minorities to become American in our time and indicates a great deal about the future of the American nation.

John Lie

Nazli Kibria presents a rich body of interview data on the changing and diverse nature of Asian-American identity, particularly among Chinese and Korean Americans, making a very solid and sustained contribution to the burgeoning literature within Asian-American studies. Through Kibria's wonderful interviews, we hear very interesting meditations on ethnic identity. She also does a good job of raising important sociological questions about race and immigration. This book may very well become a landmark in the field.

What People Are Saying

Reed Ueda
Nazli Kibria is one of the outstanding scholars on the sociology of Asian Americans, as well as in the general field of sociology of race and ethnicity. Becoming Asian American greatly advances knowledge of the dynamic interaction of race, ethnicity, and individual identity in American life. Her case studies offer a fresh, solid approach to discovering what it is like for immigrant racial minorities to become American in our time and indicates a great deal about the future of the American nation. (Reed Ueda, Tufts University)

John Lie
Nazli Kibria presents a rich body of interview data on the changing and diverse nature of Asian-American identity, particularly among Chinese and Korean Americans, making a very solid and sustained contribution to the burgeoning literature within Asian-American studies. Through Kibria's wonderful interviews, we hear very interesting meditations on ethnic identity. She also does a good job of raising important sociological questions about race and immigration. This book may very well become a landmark in the field. (John Lie, University of Michigan)

Table of Contents:

	Preface and Acknowledgments
Ch. 1	Asian Americans and the Puzzle of New Immigrant Integration	1
Ch. 2	Growing up Chinese and American, Korean and American	27
Ch. 3	The Everyday Consequences of Being Asian: Ethnic Options and Ethnic Binds	67
Ch. 4	College and Asian American Identity	102
Ch. 5	The Model Minority at Work	131
Ch. 6	Ethnic Futures: Children and Intermarriage	159
Ch. 7	Becoming Asian American	197
	References	207
	Index	215