White identity politics was central to the development of the American state, and informed all dominant conceptions of the nation, as seen from its immigration history and naturalisation laws. This helped establish, in turn, elaborate systems of difference based on race, gender and class interrelations, designed to maintain political domination. The American Dream promising equality was eventually fulfilled through the struggles of minority constituencies, especially by the Asian Americans. This paper explores the shaping of the Asian American identity, an invention that was tied to the state project of racial formation.
