“Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans”: A Conversation with Professor David L. Eng, Professor Yingyi Ma, and Sue-Jin Green

This discussion with David Eng, Yingyi Ma, and Sue-Jin Green focuses on Eng’s co-authored book with psychotherapist Shinhee Han, Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans (Duke University Press, 2019). The book examines a series of case histories that illustrate the social and psychic predicaments of Asian American students from Generation X to Generation Y. Combining critical race theory with psychoanalytic thought and clinical practice, the project develop the concepts of “racial melancholia” and “racial dissociation” to investigate changing forms of loss associated with immigration, displacement, diaspora, and assimilation. The conversation will address address a range of psychic difficulties associated with the model minority stereotype, including depression, suicide, and panic attacks, as well as a set of broader social issues connected to histories of transnational adoption, parachute children, the politics of coming out, and colorblind discourse in the U.S.