ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses traditional human rights research and paradigms and questions the applicability of a universal human rights paradigm to a world of sovereign states, problematizes whether human rights exist for the stateless or those without a nation or citizenship, and examines the role of "Asian values", including Confucianism, in the evolution of human rights in the diaspora. It then talks about human rights issues in Asia and Asian America from the past and present and the human rights violations that continue across the globe. Limitations of the human rights discourse in its application to Asia and Asian America and frame a critical discussion of what the human rights paradigm can learn from scholarship in Asia, Asian America, and the interstices of states, in order to better enrich human rights research and the reality of human rights for all. Research and work on human rights in Asian America often adopt the form of civil rights and social justice.
