Reviewed in Multicultural Perspectives (Lee, 2016)

Youth Gangs, Racism, and Schooling examines Vietnamese American youth gang formation in Southern California, with an emphasis on the experiences of those heavily involved in the 1990s. Lam traces the genealogy of the Vietnamese American youth gang phenomenon as part of the conflict in Southeast Asia. He describes the consequences of war and migration for youth as well as their racialization as "Asian American" subjects. Grounded in the critical narratives of three gang members, Lam addresses themes of racism, violence, class struggle, style, and schooling in an era of anti-youth legislation in the state and nationally. In this dehumanizing context, Lam frames Vietnamese and Southeast Asian American gang members as post-colonial subjects, offering an alternative analysis toward humanization and decolonization. Reviews: "Youth Gangs, Racism, and Schooling is a pioneering book about the interplay of colonialism, racism, and the production of Vietnamese youth gangs in Southern California. Lam’s narrative is moving, rigorous, and deeply compelling. Weaving his own personal experiences with the poisonous dynamics of American imperialism, diaspora, displacement and the reconfiguration of place and agency, Lam provides a searing commentary on Vietnamese American youth gang subculture, the dynamics of racism, disruption, and poverty that now mark a notable chapter and offshoot of American domestic and foreign policy. The subculture of youth gangs is understood by Lam as a way not only to analyse a politics of disposability and state racism and violence, but also to connect the related matters of empire, immigration, geopolitics, and education. This is a brilliant book which should be required reading by everyone concerned about politics, power, and what it means to take seriously learning from historical memory in order to treat youth in general as part of the project and promise of a radical democracy." - Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, and Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University, Canada "Lam is a new voice in critical education. In this rich account, Lam provides compelling analysis of Vietnamese gang formation in a framework that combines studies of political economy, racialization, and empire. Stuck between model minority and gang-banger status, Vietnamese youth seek meaning as criminalized and perpetual strangers in the US. As Lam shows, they are neither victims of their circumstances nor freely acting subjects. We peer into a world of contradictions where hope resides as a concrete possibility through Lam's retelling of their migration and social struggle." – Zeus Leonardo, Professor and Affiliated Faculty Member of the Critical Theory Designated Emphasis, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, USA http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137475589#otherversion=9781349581382

2015

This entry includes a political and theoretical conceptualization derived from twentieth century Marxist and black radical responses to labor movement complicity in the tenets and legacies of African slave labor, imperialism and nineteenth century scientific racism. Black radicals have attempted to retain a transformative critique of capitalism while questioning “white left” centering of an industrial proletarian class. While differing from stratification approaches which emphasize interplay between race relations and class inequalities, there is considerable overlap in the conceptualization of race as a status category. Both radical critique and stratification theory also influence contemporary identity politics where the concept of intersectionality assumes a central role over any one category of oppression such as race, gender, class, ability, national origin and sexual orientation. Class/race duality is de-emphasized in favor of a critical approach to multi-dimensional oppressions indicative of a hierarchical culture of “white” wealth, power and privilege.

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, 2016

Lam outlines the history of the Vietnamese American youth gang phenomenon as it relates to U.S. imperialism and state sanctioned violence within the backdrop of US occupation in Vietnam and American racism. He describes the formation of Vietnamese American youth gangs in Southern California from 1979-2009, focusing particularly on those involved during the 1990s, as a way to examine how factors such as class, race, citizenship, migration, and laws affect youth Vietnamese refugees. In particular, Lam's project theorizes, through a materialist cultural studies lens, a way to understand youth subcultures, racialized identities, and urban schooling. His study is based on the life narratives from three gang members collected in 2007. Using critical narrative methodology, he engages dialogically in interviews with two Vietnamese/Asian American men (P-Dog and Melo) and one woman (Linh) who at the time at the interviews were in their late 20's and early 30's. He observes how these "subjects want to be in dialogue with the rest of the world." One of Lam's subjects states "No one is looking into our shit!" And "don't understand the roots of it" (p. 85). Thus, his research "looks into" and understands the roots of gang formation through the collective voices of these young Vietnamese. P-Dog, Melo, and Linh were involved between 13 and 19 years old. Considering their ages, which would categorize them as youth or young people, Lam challenges the notion of youth as a "biological state" and borrows Nayak's use of the term where youth is viewed as more as a social and mutable category (p. 85). Additionally, he gives a full view (avoids just www.JSAAEA.org

American Philosophical Quarterly, 2023

The dispute about the role of class in understanding the life situations of people of color has tended to be overpolarized, between a class reductionism and an “it's only race” position. Class processes shape racial groups’ life situations. Race and class are also distinct axes of injustice; but class injustice informs racial injustice. Some aspects of racial injustice can be expressed only in concepts associated with class (e.g., material deprivation, inferior education). But other aspects of racial injustice or other harms, such as racial discrimination or stigma, are not reducible to class concepts and cannot be fully addressed through class-focused policies. Overall, any attempt to fully secure racial justice for a racial group will require a combination of race-focused and class-focused policies. Anti-racist outlooks often neglect or downplay either the normative or the explanatory significance of class, or both—for example, by overlooking or downplaying the dignitary harms...

This paper is an analysis of the relationship between educational experiences, street life, and gang formation for Vietnamese American youth gang members in Southern California. I use critical narrative methodology to center the life and experiences of a Los Angeles area gang member. His narrative substantiates how racism in schools and on the streets works together to impact and inform gang formation. Schools were sites of inter-ethnic conflict and racialized tension, and streets were spaces for contentious interactions with the police. In addition, I place the Vietnamese American youth gang phenomenon in larger historical and political contexts such as California’s anti-youth legislation, representations of Asian American youth, and U.S. geo-politics and imperialism—factors that have serious material and ideological implications and consequences.

The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, 2019

The following chapter aims at a critical comprehension of ethnicity and class through a philosophical approach. Instead of an exhaustive account, this chapter examines only recent portrayals of these notions in philosophy, science, and film. Having this proposition in mind, this chapter follows different stages of critical comprehension concerning these terms. Thus, ethnicity and class are put under a critical lens as scientific categories in general and specifically as categories for human sciences, as associational elements, specifically through a psychoanalytic reading of a recent cultural production, the film Get Out (2017), and finally as a philosophical case study of the Badiouian notion of the generic. Furthermore, this chapter will discuss the need for opening ethnicity and class as categories for thinking to further explorations conditioned by the idea of political procedure.

2011

The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, 2019

The following chapter aims at a critical comprehension of ethnicity and class through a philosophical approach. Instead of an exhaustive account, this chapter examines only recent portrayals of these notions in philosophy, science, and film. Having this proposition in mind, this chapter follows different stages of critical comprehension concerning these terms. Thus, ethnicity and class are put under a critical lens as scientific categories in general and specifically as categories for human sciences, as associational elements, specifically through a psychoanalytic reading of a recent cultural production, the film Get Out (2017), and finally as a philosophical case study of the Badiouian notion of the generic. Furthermore, this chapter will discuss the need for opening ethnicity and class as categories for thinking to further explorations conditioned by the idea of political procedure. The chapter also explores psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic formulations in order to examine subjectivity, ethnicity, and class. This means to discuss their approximations and disparities regarding different theoretical points of view, having Badiou’s communist hypothesis at the horizon of possibility in the name of political creations. Through a critical short-circuit between these various instances, this chapter presents important questions regarding sociability and alterity.

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2014