Re/naming queer Asian America: Toward a queer-raciolinguistic perspective for education policy analysis

Asian American subjects represent the fastest-growing racialized demographic group in the United States, including in K-12 schools. At the same time, young people are sustainably self-identifying as queer (conceived broadly) at higher rates than previously recorded and/or sufficiently appreciated. These anticipated and observed demographic changes, one might think, would warrant targeted academic and political investments in service of queer Asian American subjects and subjectivities. Yet, these bodies remain woefully understudied in education, humanities, and social science research—while policymakers’ and analysts’ apparent embodiments (knowingly and otherwise) of racism, xenophobia, and cisheterosexism reduce and/or neglect queer Asian American subjects and subjectivities in education policymaking and accompanying analyses. These are the primary issues I center on in this dissertation study. More specifically, I lay the conceptual groundwork for queer-raciolinguistics, a novel theoretical framework that education policy scholars and advocates can use to better understand the material realities facing contemporary queer Asian American young people and other queer subjects of color. I then apply this framework to a political discourse analysis of California’s Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act—ultimately arguing that lawmakers succeeded in overcoming considerable obstacles when attempting to support some socio-politically marginalized subjects, but they very well may have further cemented the already mountainous ontological and epistemological divides between queerness and race and ethnicity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Masamitsu, Taylor

Contributors dc:contributor

• Pak, Yoon K
• Bracamontes, Damian V
• Rodriguez, Gabriel
• Hale, Jon

• education policy
• critical social theory
• queer Asian America

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Taylor Masamitsu

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129366

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129366