In this essay, I would like
to revisit the concept of narcissism to understand the concept of "Asians
in the Military." When I say Asians in the military, I include of course
the Asian American soldier. For instance, a Hawaiian-born, Vietnam War veteran,
Japanese American Gen. Eric Shinseki, is currently heading the department of
Veterans Affairs (Shigekuni paras. 11-12). Shinseki had three uncles who served
in the famous all Japanese American 442nd regiment during World War
II. But the familiar multicultural narrative about diversity in the armed
forces is not the sole focus of my talk today.
Because of US involvement
in the Philippines, Japan, the Korean peninsula, the Cold War with China,
southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now most recently, the international
trade in surrogate mothers and their babies in India, it is impossible to
demarcate Asian Americans as separate from Asia. The theaters of contact
between Asians and Americans are so fraught with organized conflict and systems
of economic as well as military coercion, that Asian Americanness is
necessarily a pan-global experience. Similarly, it is difficult to define who
is in the military and who is outside it. Some civilians are "in the
military" because they are within the parameters of the reality that
military discourse has drawn, through violence and through
"post-violence," that is to say, cultural gestures that are not
violent in themselves but prolong aggression.
