Summer Research Reports: Evan Sakuma on Triggered Identities
BCNM is thrilled to support our students in their summer research. Read about Evan Sakuma on Triggered Identities!
Over the course of the Summer BCNM has provided me with the necessary resources to be able to work towards my dissertation research through monetary means alongside funding an undergraduate researcher. Although the latter was meant to solely be an aid to my research project, “Triggered Identities: Unpacking the Online Persona of Asian American Gun Enthusiasts on Social Media,” BCNM’s generous resources allowed me to double the opportunity as a type of holistic research boot camp that made room for archival/new media/field research and collaborative writing with my undergraduate researcher, Lauren Chang, and I, which we are submitting to an upcoming special issue of Amerasia Journal on “Anti-Asian Violence: Origins and Trajectories” to hopeful be published as co-writers.
Our research investigated the online behaviors of Asian American Instagram personalities who actively promote and reinforce their identity in connection with firearms. By analyzing their posts, captions, and engagement patterns, the study sought to understand the motivations behind this intersection of cultural identity and gun culture. The project also took an archival lens to look at Asian American gun violence across U.S. history and the role of historical imagery involving Asians with firearms. We hoped to draw a clear lineage that influences current perceptions of Asian American radicality and the relationship between firearms, power, capital, and the upholding of whiteness.
Capping off the summer research was fieldwork at the 50th anniversary of The Original Fort Worth Gun Show in Texas. This event, occurring during a particularly politically charged moment, was an invaluable opportunity to gather data on the textures and atmospheres surrounding gun culture in the United States. Unfortunately, Lauren was unable to attend, but I proceeded to collect testimonials, observe advertisements, and analyze lobbying efforts, which will all inform our ongoing research and writing.
Each month, we focused on different aspects of the research project, ensuring that Lauren gained a comprehensive understanding of both the theoretical and practical components of the research:
• May-June: We focused on archival research, examining historic representations of Asian/Asian-American and diasporic gunmen, and analyzing various news outlet coverage. Our weekly meetings allowed us to identify patterns, coincidences, and throughlines in the data.
• July: We shifted our attention to social media as a new media archival source. This phase included exploring public forums on Reddit and experimenting with social media algorithms on Instagram and TikTok to generate content related to gun culture and incel communities. Lauren played a key role in monitoring and cataloging this data, helping us understand how these platforms contribute to the contemporary discourse around guns and identity.
• August: Our focus turned to analyzing the data we had collected in May, June, and July. We met up each week to discuss the data we had engaged with as well as using the ricochet of our own jarred emotions to map an affect of difference– an approach that informed the development of a new theoretical concept we call the “Yellow Imperil.” This term reinterprets the stereotypical "Yellow Peril" by proposing that some Asian American men, socialized by American technologies and cultural standards, become a danger to their own communities by upholding white-centric ideals of masculinity. The gun, in this framework, acts as a prosthetic that reinforces their American identity, with their masculinity being called into question without it.
Huge thanks again to BCNM and all of BCNM’s donors who make research like this possible. This summer's research has provided critical insights into the complex relationships between cultural identity, social media, and gun culture among Asian American communities. It also has provided me with the opportunity to testrun a generative collaboration format of mentorship that I thought was really successful and one I hope to use again to provide young potential researchers with valuable, result-driven experiences in academia.