Content Warning: Anti-Asian bias
Celebrity Pop Quiz
Dear <<First Name>>,
Quick … how many Americans are in this picture?
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Here they are with their nationalities and birthplaces, per wikipedia. Extra credit if you knew everyone's names!
- Lucy Liu - American (born Jackson Heights, NY)
- Jude Law - English (born London, United Kingdom)
- Randall Park - American (born Los Angeles, CA)
- Gal Gadot - Israeli (born Petah Tikva, Israel)
- Awkwafina - American (born Stony Brook, NY)
- Marion Cotillard - French (born Paris, France)
- George Takei - American (born Los Angeles, CA)
Did you spot the four born-and-raised Americans?
Or, did you get tripped up in the America = White stereotype, like me?
American = White?
Professors Thierry Devos and Mahzarin Banaji used images similar to these in their “American = White” studies. Study participants categorized celebrities as American or Foreign at rapid speed. Even when the Asian-Americans were n-th generation-U.S. citizens and the White-Europeans were not, an "American = White" implicit association emerged. Notably, this is not how study participants responded when given time to formulate an explicit, more deliberative response.
Dr. Banaji often refers to our implicit associations as the thumbprints of the culture around us. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about that American = White fingerprint, in light of the spike in bias, hate, and violence against the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI, often referred to as Asian-American) communities during the pandemic.
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Thumbprints everywhere
America=White thumbprints are not limited to celebrity pop quizzes. They are in our minds and in the world around us. Here are seven examples, which are particularly relevant now to Asian-Americans of East Asian descent:
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1. The increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans
I wrote the first draft of this newsletter in early March, before the tragic, anti-Asian, misogynistic mass shooting in Atlanta. I find their stories to be so relatable, like my family and yours. I hope you will join me in remembering them and if needed, learning how to pronounce their names.
Sadly, they are not the first victims of anti-Asian violence. A recent Stop AAPI Hate coalition report finds thousands of incidents of verbal harassment and physical assaults in the past year, with the reported number representing only a fraction of those which occur. These findings led the coalition's co-founder Dr. Russell Jeung to say, "There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, but not for AAPIs." In another study, Asians and Asian-Americans reported an almost 30% increase in discrimination since the pandemic.
In addition to the actual harm to the victims, there has been a massive increase in the traumatization and fear affecting the daily movements of Asian-Americans. Multiple people I know - and I promise you, multiple people you know - have made changes in their daily routines and movements to accommodate this current reality. In light of what happened in Atlanta, these fears only grow.
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2. The use of the terms “China virus” and “Kung Flu”
The language describing COVID-19 has been racialized and weaponized. A series of recent laboratory studies found that when COVID-19 is framed as associated with China, versus framed neutrally, it led to a) increased negative attitudes toward Asian-Americans, b) beliefs that resources should be prioritized for “Americans” over immigrants, and c) general xenophobia. Another study found that actual online and offline expressions of anti-Asian hate increased when the former president associated China and COVID-19. And, the slurs are not even accurate, as studies have shown that the epicenter of the virus in New York in 2020 came from transmission between the United States and Europe, not China. Language, and facts, matter.
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3. The hypersexualization of women and asexualization of men of Asian descent
I was today years old when I learned that these sexual stereotypes came from specific actions in the past. I found this twitter primer and this New York times article to be useful overviews of the sex worker industry and its contribution to these stereotypes. I also appreciated Franchesca Ramsey's overview of the history of sexual stereotypes and how they diverge for Asian men and women in this excellent five minute episode of MTV decoded. Bottom line: these widespread stereotypes are not accidental, accurate, funny, or harmless.
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4. The model minority stereotype
The “model minority” stereotype is a good example of how “positive” stereotypes do harm, by typecasting a large group of people onto a narrow pedestal, even though many do not fit there. Many Asian-Americans defy the stereotype as it relates to education and income; Asian-Americans are more likely to live in poverty than non-Hispanic Whites in America.
The stereotype is wrong for many reasons, one of which is the different types of immigration that led to a group's arrival in the United States. One's path arriving as a refugee versus on an educational visa versus on a work visa focused on specific occupations. These first hand accounts illustrate some of the damage which results and this paper shows how the stereotype contributes to discrimination against the supposed “model minority.”
5. The question “where are you really from?"
It does not matter how many days or generations your family has been in the United States and how “Joisey” your accent is. If you are non-white - and particularly if you appear to be of Asian descent - this question is as predictable as fireworks on the 4th of July. The “perpetual foreigner” status for some Americans but not all underlies this question.
Check out this moving video compilation from CNN, as well as comedian Natasha Vasandani’s hysterical reenactment of a job interview and photographer Christopher Huang’s five favorite answers to the question. I like the advice of this Harvard Business Review piece: ask ourselves what are we really asking, and saying, with this question.
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6. Our short memory about the incarceration of families like yours and mine
Los Angeles-born-and-raised George Takei (the actor and activist from the original cast of Star Trek) was imprisoned at the age of 4. Four years old. He, his parents, and 120,000 Japanese-Americans were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Our government forced them to leave their homes, bank accounts, schools, and jobs to be placed behind barbed wire and armed guards far from home without cause or due process. Though we were at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy, the vast majority of those imprisoned were of Japanese descent.
Take a moment to process this happening to your family. These are not America=White fingerprints of a long-ago era. My guess: most readers of this newsletter are between zero and two degrees of separation from someone or the child of someone who was behind that barbed wire. And, these fingerprints persist even in Congress today. This is not ancient history and this is not hypothetical.
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7. Controversy about the Golden Globes and Oscars
Minari, a film in both Korean and English, is both wonderful and now, controversial. This film, featuring an American cast, filmed on American location, set in an American context, and telling the most American story possible, was required to be in the Foreign Language category rather Best Picture at the Golden Globes. Meanwhile, past movies such as Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, which featured significant percentages of non-English (German, French) content, was in the Best Film category. The movie's star, Steven Yeun (who also stars in the Walking Dead), reacted, "An Asian American experience often times carries with it an unAmericanness or an outside perspective, and never encapsulated as part of Americana."
The rules for the Golden Globes are different than the Oscars, where Minari is nominated for six awards, including Best Picture. I'll have my eye on how it does ... and on how people are describing this American-as-fireworks-on-July-Fourth non-foreign film.
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Remember the celebrity pop quiz?
Remember the celebrity pop quiz? I got tripped up and maybe you did, too.
That's the challenge. We do not always notice the fingerprints of our culture, or think of them as problematic, or realize they are related … or realize that they are our own.
We can help fight anti-Asian bias by donating to gofundme campaigns related to the Atlanta shootings and learning about / supporting the work of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Hate is a Virus, and Stop AAPI Hate.
We can also get better at noticing the bias -- the American = White fingerprints -- by being intentional in what we read, watch, listen to, and follow. There is so much amazing content from Asian-American voices to entertain and/or educate across genres. Here are some ideas for you to pick and choose from ... and I welcome your additional suggestions!
Amazing content possibilities
1. Watch Minari, and enjoy the amazing performances from Steven Yeun (the first Asian-American nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award) and the rest of the fantastic cast.
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2. Read George Takei’s beautiful graphic memoir about his childhood experience in the internment camps They Called Us Enemy and watch his fantastic Broadway musical Allegiance (which recently started streaming online) with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo.
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3. Subscribe to Jay Kuo’s patreon page to read his page-turning (not-yet-published) manuscript for MA IN ALL CAPS, his family history spanning six generations from turn of the 20th century China to modern day America.
4. Enjoy the shows at Theater Mu, a theater which centers Asian-American voices (they are currently streaming live performances).
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5. Watch Parasite, the movie which made history as the first non-English film to win the 2020 Academy Award for Best Picture.
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6. Watch the spectacular PBS film series Asian Americans, and learn more about the history, identity, beauty, and challenges surrounding the Asian American experience as well as other PBS programming.
7. Subscribe to Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu’s A Broad and Ample Road newsletter and read Michelle’s honest and powerful book Reading With Patrick.
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8. Read Interior Chinatown, the clever, funny, thought-provoking book by Charles Yu which won the prestigious 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.
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9. Read Pinups by Yi Shun Lai, a reflective, funny memoir about finding one’s space in the outdoors, as well as her newsletter about food, Reads and Eats.
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10. Read Edge by Professor Laura Huang and subscribe to the Edge Newsletter. Using stories and studies, she guides us on how to translate disadvantages into our “edge.”
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11. Watch Wind and Float, two short films from Pixar as part of the SparkShorts project. These seven minute films will sweep you away with their artistry and make you feel all your feelings.
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12. Follow the #StopAsianHate and #StopAAPIHate hashtag, as well as scholars who share important work in this area (lots of suggestions in these threads here and here), on social media to expand the voices and perspectives in your timeline.
13. Check out the new Asian Enough podcast, in which celebrities talk about what their identity means to them and their "Bad Asian Confessions." I'm looking forward to this one.
14. Read Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong. This collection looks excellent and is on my read-soon list.
15. Last by not least, check out this awesome Golden Globe acceptance speech by Minari director/writer Lee Isaac Chung with a cameo from his adorable daughter. You're welcome :-)
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Let’s keep growing
I hope you'll try one or two of the ideas above and let me know what other ideas you have, by clicking the email button below. On my end, I will keep sending you bite-sized, evidence-based, action-oriented tips on the last Sunday of each month (check out past issues here). Please feel free to forward, post, tweet as much as you like - links are below.
Thanks for growing with me,
From last month: Last month, I stated that 1 out of 4 women and 1 out of 38 men are victims of sexual violence according to the CDC. I should have written that 1 out of 5 women and 1 out of 38 men have experienced “completed or attempted rape” according to the CDC. However, sexual violence is a broad umbrella that includes sexual assault, sexual coercion, non contact acts such as catcalling, and any act not considered criminal by law that are harmful and traumatic. Therefore, sexual violence is harder to measure, and very likely to have higher numbers of occurrences than what I shared.
Artwork credits from top: Katie Sutton (logo), Jeana Marinelli (books), Evelyn Parker (photo montage), Harvard Crimson (What is Your Race?), Chieh Huang (Protest, Learn Their Names), NYT (Scenes of Mourning and Defiance), CDC (Graphic of Covid-19 Virus), MTV (The Weird History of Asian Sex Stereotypes), CNN (Where Are You Really From?), IDW (They Called Us Enemy), @FranklinLeonard on Twitter (Minari), @danieldaekim on Twitter (Minari), NBC (Minari Golden Globes), A24 (Minari film poster), Jay Kuo, Lorenzo Thione, Marc Acito ("Allegiance"), Theatre Mu, ABC (Parasite), Random House Publishing Group (Reading with Patrick), Pantheon books (Interior Chinatown), Little Bound Books (Pin Ups), Portfolio (Edge), pixarpost.com ("Wind")
Special thanks: I am indebted to Evelyn Parker for volunteering their time, thoughtfulness, and talent as an editor, visual designer and alt text writer. Special thanks to Julia Lee Cunningham for helpful conversations and articles, and to Lindsay Melki and Gina Sipley for reaching out with resources. Ongoing gratitude to Belinda Li and Katie Sutton for such careful and caring research, design, and promotion of this newsletter.
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