Reacting to Racism (Lisa Leong)

Max Karson of Colorado University has given up on racial tolerance. Karson wrote a controversial column for the campus paper titled “If it’s war the Asians want…It’s war they’ll get,” in which he outlines an attack on the souls of Asian people. The self-called “No more ‘Mr. Pretend-I’m-not-Racist,’” says that “tolerance” and “cultural sensitivity” are over (his scare quotes, not mine). Karson declares a race war: “They hate us all… It’s time we started hating them back.”

I’ve been trying to stomach this racist hate speech for three weeks, during which my reaction has become more complex.

“I’m offended!” was my instinctual reaction. When I read Karson’s misguided satire about identifying Asians by asking us to do calculus in our heads, training us to read facial expressions, and punishing us for not speaking English, my thought process was “racist, racist, and more racist.” Here are the old anti-Asian stereotypes — that we are all math nerds, that we are inscrutable, that none of us can speak English, et cetera. By the way, if an Asian person can do math and has less than perfect English, that’s not a reason to attack.

Not only does Karson generalize all Asians, but his gross generalization is the basis for his violent hatred of Asians and need to “attack their souls.” Karson’s plan of attack has the ring of Nazi rhetoric. He invites his volunteers to “hunt” down Asians, round them up with nets, and throw them into a “reformation” program that tortures them until the “Asian spirit is broken.”

Karson claims that his exaggerated column is a piece of satire because he wants to say, “Hey, it’s a joke.” But the only person who would find this funny is a white supremacist. Maybe that’s close to who Karson is, considering he was arrested for making threatening comments about being “angry enough to kill people” during a class discussion of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung Hui. It seems that Karson takes his own satire quite literally.

Feeling offended is a combination of disgust and outrage. I am disgusted that such an ignorant piece of journalism went to print. I am outraged by the “apology” delivered by the editors of the CU Campus Press. Their apology is half-hearted: “We apologize for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.” I wish the editors would have just taken a bite of humble pie and said, “We made a mistake.” There’s a difference between saying “Sorry to anyone who might have been offended” and “Sorry for being offensive.” The first is phony, the second is genuine. Campus Press offered a fake apology, the same way Karson’s column is fake satire. To read a real apology, see the public statement from G.P. “Bud” Peterson, Chancellor of CU.

Another side of my reaction was a lack of surprise. I’m not surprised that someone declared “War on Asians” because I’m no longer surprised that racism exists. In 2006, there was a similarly anti-Asian “satire” in my own school’s paper The Daily Bruin. The article “A Modest Proposal for an Immodest Proposition” was also controversial and inspired complaint letters. Again at CU’s Campus Press, Lauren E. Geary wrote a racist column against Hispanics called “No Hablo Ingles.” All these racist articles represent more than a recent trend of on-campus racism; they are the present form of a history of racism in America.

My final reaction is resolve, that feeling of “I’m not gonna give up.” There’s racism and ignorance in the world of journalism, but I’ll take that as a reason to keep writing. Karson publicized what a lot of people think about Asian people, but most people know better to keep it to themselves and not act on their resentment toward Asians. We need to keep fighting the good fight, not a war against Asians or whites or any group, but a struggle to end ignorance so there will be less people who think the way Karson does.

Every act of oppression is met with a resistance movement. Students at CU rallied against the Campus Press’ infamous hate speech columns by Karson and Geary. The Asian American Journalists Association and numerous Asian American bloggers helped mobilize the outcry against Karson’s column. Protests can bring change: Karson has been suspended from Campus Press.

Who’s laughing now?

(Lisa Leong) Assimilated Beauty

“That’s colonialism all over your face!”

The quote is from one of favorite Asian American Studies professors on eyelid surgery, nose bridge implants, and any other kind of cosmetic surgery that transforms Asians physical features into more Caucasian ones. She meant that there is one standard of beauty—the Western one—that gets imprinted on our faces, our bodies, and our senses of self.

It’s easy to see that the Western ideal of blond-haired, blue-eyed, All-American (or Ayran, if you’re more sinister) beauty is the dominant standard. Look no further than the all-present world of popular media. Advertisements, TV, and movies glorify beautiful faces, but these beautiful faces don’t look anything like me—or you, probably. Every billboard says, “This is Beauty, and you are not quite it. Envy my bag, my hair, my look and my, uh, eyelids.”

Racialized plastic surgery is a popular topic on talk shows like Tyra and Montel. They raise the question: does eyelid surgery erase or enhance race? The audience nods along in agreement that eyelid surgery is a way for Asians to conform to white prettiness. The plastic surgeon and his patients say that they are just enhancing Asian looks. I may not have big, round eyes, but I can see perfectly well what’s going on here.

These girls feel really bad about themselves. Liz and Keyounga (guests on Tyra and Montel) both say they were “the only Asian girl at school” and remember being called “chink.” They have memories of face-to-face racism. I can sympathize with that. Eyelid surgery is not simply a matter of wannabe white, it’s also about trying to remedy their experiences of racism.

The crease, that coveted fold, is such a small thing, but it has come to mean so much. This is because the eye is the quintessential sign of Asian difference. The “Asian” eye is the focus point of racial taunting, like “slant-eyed” you-know-whats and “ching chong” jokes with the accompanying hand gesture. Going into surgery, Keyounga says, “Maybe I won’t get called chink anymore.”

Plastic surgery offers a way to hide those physical features that have been denigrated. Getting new eyelids or a new nose is a form of racial covering. The term is Kenji Yoshino’s, who explains that to cover is to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream. And covering is something everyone does because behaving mainstream is a social necessity. (I’m not a plagiarizer, so you can read this on page ix of his book Covering).

So, in effect all this westernizing plastic surgery is a form of assimilation. You can swim in the mainstream instead of upstream by transforming your appearance. The slanted monolid eye is the marker of Asian difference, so changing it brings you closer to sameness. Does it really?

Liz and Keyounga are aware that plastic surgery doesn’t make them look white. “I’m still Asian,” says Liz, but she doesn’t seem too happy about it. Eyelid surgery patients are probably not trying to pass as white, but they are at least trying to appear part white. They come out of surgery Eurasian, with a few European features like a “tall” nose or slighter bigger eyes added to their generally Asian faces. It’s a double-bind of wanting to be Asian, but not too Asian. In other words, wanting to be different and the same as “everybody else.”

Getting cosmetic surgery is a personal choice, but even our most personal choices are influenced by dominant culture. Internalizing western notions about what is beautiful (and what is ugly) happens almost subconsciously. Knowing that Western beauty is dominant, has helped me question its standardization. I guess that means I won’t be getting my face “colonized” any time soon.

Lisa Leong is a senior at UCLA majoring in Art History. She also studies French and Asian American Studies. Lisa writes for the online magazine Asia Pacific Arts.

(Patrick Lee) Pop Culture and Asian Beauty

I just walked out of my basic drawing class on Monday nights, and after having spent a few hours working on portraits, I felt I knew fairly well the common aspects of the human face. If you imagine the face as an oval, the eyes are about halfway down from the top; the nose and mouth are spaced evenly in the half below the eyes. The top of the ears usually protrude from the same level as the eyes, and the tips of the mouth are directly below the irises of the eyes. But, as my professor said quite emphatically, “These are just basic guidelines, because everyone differs slightly.”

From the artists’ standpoint, the individual diversity creates for a broader range of nuances that require attention to detail and skill to portray. But from the viewpoint of Asian Americans, plastic surgery seems to be an increasingly popular option for fitting oneself to an ‘ideal’ image.

According to statistics cited by Michelle Man in an article (published in BN Magazine and New American Media), minorities went under the knife 2.3 million times in 2005, 65% more frequently than only a year before. Asian Americans specifically saw a 58% jump, accounting for over 400,000 procedures in 2005.

More interesting is the type of surgeries most popular among Asian Americans: rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, and breast augmentation. For the United States as a whole, liposuction, breast augmentation, and eyelid surgery are the most common. Although the category “eyelid surgery” does not distinguish between the procedure for making “Asian eyes” bigger and other, more common anti-aging procedures, the sheer increase in plastic surgery’s popularity among Asian Americans raises questions about the cultural norms being perpetuated by the media and advertisements. A quick look through any fashion catalog will yield few, if any, Asian American models posing for photos: the blond hair, blue eyes standard seems inextricably linked to the pop culture image of America.

As a result, whether or not Asian Americans are flocking to the plastic surgeon for typical procedures or for “de-Asianing” procedures should not be the point of focus: what should be the point of discussion are the cultural forces that are contributing to racialized standards of beauty and, inevitably, happiness. Popular culture permeates everyone’s lives everyday in the form of thousands and thousands of advertisements, and although it might seem to be a futile attempt to try and counteract such a potent force, the good news is that there are many points of intervention.

The impetus for action, however, depends on the individuals detrimentally affected by the current thread of American culture: advertising executives are driven by the profit-maximizing motive, and are not soon to take into consideration racial or ethnic issues unless they promise economic gain. As a result, grassroots-level action is the tipping factor that could have the potential for long-term and far-reaching change. Regardless, intervention on an individual level – talking to a friend or peer considering plastic surgery for the wrong reasons – is never to be underestimated, either.

(Cathy Diep) From the Once Naïve 15 Year-Old Who Knew Nothing

When I was in ninth grade, I joined a culture club at my high school because everyone else did. Sometimes I believed the real reason why students join is to be part of a social connection that brought us all together. But, other times, I know that this social connection we are a part of comes down to one common goal: promoting better understanding and closer ties between and among various sub-components within the Asian culture.

Right now, I am a twenty year-old Asian American college student who knows very little of her past.

Have I ever thought about taking Asian-American Studies? Yes. Did I pursue it? Unfortunately, no.

My first exposure to Asian American Studies started my freshman year in high school when my culture club took a field trip the UCLA. We did the whole registration, name tags, and waiting in line.

Finally, we were welcomed by current UCLA students talking to us about admissions, required materials, college life, and financial aid. Later, we went to an Asian American Studies seminar where representatives from the department discussed what the major entailed to and its purpose.

Mind you, I was well taken to the major and began researching more and more about it when I got home from the field trip!

I wanted to learn Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. I wanted to travel. I wanted to go to UCLA just for that major!

Then again, I was a naïve 15 year-old who joined a culture club because everyone else did. I did not have a purpose or a goal. Even though I knew little of my country and its past, the thought of it never crossed my mind. I can say without hesitation it was probably a fad I went through. For others, it is possible too. For some, maybe not at all.

Is it important to take Asian-American Studies? As an Asian American, I believe so though we don't necessarily have to pursue a degree in it. If I may recall, an introduction class in Asian-American Studies counts as a part your general education requirements. Something to think about!

If and when I decide to take the course, it has been said to feel uplifting to learn about the difficulties Asian Americans have faced and even more touching to learn about the difficulties they still encounter today.

Hopefully, we can walk away with our own sense of identity on what it means to be an Asian-American. Gender, race, sexuality, and culture have been defined, challenged, and thus, redefined.

Although I have not yet taken an Asian American Studies course, I feel it is not too far along the way until I will be taking one in a couple months.

Five years ago, I would have enrolled in this course for the sake of taking it. Now, there is an appreciation and drive for understanding the history and beautiful culture of Asians in the United States. I am not the 15 year-old I once was. Twenty is the new me!

(Lisa Leong) My People's History

Everything I learned about Asian Americans in my K-12 education can be summed up in one sentence: Chinese laborers built one half of the Transcontinental Railroad. I accepted that that was all there was. Here it was, my people’s greatest and sole contribution to the country: getting exploited.

I remember that the Chinese were good workers willing to risk their lives blowing up mountains to make way for train tracks. Some died from the dynamite blasts. They were well-behaved in contrast to the Irish workers who drank and gambled. Because of their diligence, the Chinese finished their half of the railroad before the Irish.

This is a pretty racist version of history to learn in the fourth grade. While the stereotyping of Irish people is obvious, the depiction of the Chinese laborers seems like a compliment. “Positive” stereotypes are deceptive like that. Good, diligent, and hard-working is the model minority stereotype about Asian Americans, which shades how elementary school kids learn Asian American history. Everyone who goes through the American education system gets the standardized version of U.S. history—from which Asian Americans are largely absent.

Asian American Studies gives the alternative to the standard curriculum. I re-learned about the Transcontinental Railroad in Asian American History class. I think my mouth fell open when the professor cited Ronald Takaki and told us that the Chinese railroad laborers organized a strike in 1867. They demanded the same wages and hours as the Irish laborers. What? I thought they sacrificed their lives setting off dynamite inside mountains so America would be the first to have a transcontinental railroad? Oh, this makes so much more sense.

Recovering this information reversed everything I knew about Asian Americans (my people!) from years of U.S. History—all one sentence of it. They weren’t entirely obedient. They contested their exploitation. The strike wasn’t successful, but they had fought back. I’m addicted to this empowering kind of information. I’ve been taking Asian American Studies for a year, and have had the privilege of getting five hundred thousand more sentences about Asian Americans (rough estimate).

The impact of Asian American Studies can be measured in much more than sentences, though. The Chinese railroad workers’ strike is just one example of how “forgotten” information can change our perceptions. Along with history, Asian American Studies covers literature, art, gender studies, politics, economics, everything we experience. It’s a way of learning about the world and my connection to it. In many ways, I’m learning how to be comfortable in my own skin, and I sense that my classmates feel the same way. There’s a feel-good buzz in Asian American Studies classes.

So when I heard about Harvard’s lack of Asian American Studies, it was kind of a buzzkill. I thought of all the Asian American students at Harvard who don’t get access to a source of empowerment. The students are protesting, rekindling the spirit of the 1980s movement, and asking the university to expand its scope of education. As the classic college institution, Harvard gets the newspaper headline, but Asian American Studies needs to grow everywhere. Half of all Asian American Studies undergraduate programs are in California and there are only two graduate degree programs (San Francisco State University and UCLA). Beyond the university system, I think that Asian American Studies should be more integrated with K-12 education.

(Katherine Fan) Asian Americans Are Brainiacs

“Psst,” I slipped Suzanne a note in class. “Give me three Asian American stereotypes, off the top of your head.” She thought for a moment and wrote:

• Math capabilities/very smart
• Timid/softspoken
• Sexually submissive

Her three examples touch upon some of the biggest stereotypes Asian Americans face. Is it true that many students of Asian descent test well academically, especially in the maths/science department? Sometimes, but it’s not because we are inherently smarter. Do Asian Americans tend to “fly under the radar” on various issues? Not necessarily. Are Asian Americans sexually submissive? Probably not any more collectively so than any other race – but that’s how we are portrayed in mainstream media.

Some Asian Americans embrace the many positive stereotypes, perhaps believing that being recognized is better than being ignored. “I never got much teasing in school for being Asian,” a young professional said, “I guess because I am more outgoing than most kids and assimilated really easily. I don’t really think Asian Americans have been persecuted much in America, at least not as much as other minorities. Negative stereotypes are a small price to pay.”

When the topic of Asian American stereotypes came up in a class on Vietnamese American history last week, my [predominantly Asian] classmates had a lot to say. “Once when a girl called me an Oriental, I told her I found that really offensive because it made me sound like an object, not a person,” one girl explained.

“I don’t necessarily see the model minority stereotype as a bad thing,” another girl said, “because I think it’s good that Americans see us as smart or determined.”

Their differing responses are a perfect example of why stereotypes cannot fully categorize the diverse differences within any community. If a group of people who share an ethnic identity cannot agree on how they want to be portrayed, then how can one stereotype possibly encompass all of their differences?

The phrase “model minority” was coined around the time of the Immigration Act of 1965. The concept was used to describe Asian Americans in direct comparison to other minorities, citing the perceived “Asian” qualities of upholding community, economic success and academic achievement. But the term isn’t really a tribute to Asian American success; instead, the stereotype dealt a blow to all minorities, Asians included. Being the “model minority” implies a certain unrealistic standard for Asian Americans to live up to. “By misrepresenting Asian American success as proof that America provides equal opportunities for those who conform and work hard, [the model minority myth] excuses American society from careful scrutiny on issues of race in general, and on the persistence of racism against Asian Americans in particular,” says ModelMinority.com, a site “for Asian American empowerment.”

Speaking out is an effective way to counter stereotypes at a personal level. Most people who sincerely believe in stereotypes do so out of ignorance, not malice. “The girl who called me an Oriental said she didn’t know many Asians, and she was glad I explained the difference because she didn’t mean to offend me,” my classmate said.

(Patrick Lee) Pigeonholed by Race

Two nights ago, I was studying in a friend’s dorm room to get away from the raucous party raging in my common room (a UFC fight was on pay-per-view, and one of my suitemates had gathered a group of friends for an all-night viewing). As I was trudging through Don Quixote, another Korean-American student living in the same entryway wandered in and, off-handedly, remarked “Gosh, you’re so Asian.”

Coming from someone of a similar ethnic and cultural background, I didn’t know what to think or how to respond: immediately forgetting about Don Quixote’s adventures as an errant knight, I tried to understand what he could have meant by such a statement: by seeming to fit the Asian American stereotype of studying all-day long and being bookish, was I less legitimate as a person?

I might have been overreacting, but I think part of my instinct to think these thoughts stemmed from my context: at a university where the student body is extremely diverse – not just in terms of race and ethnicity, but in terms of interests, passions, and talents – I had assumed being ‘typecast’ and judged as one particular stereotype or another would be rare. The fact that another Asian American had judged me on the basis of a shallow and culturally insensitive notion didn’t so much as shock me as confuse me: are such stereotypes so ingrained into our culture that even the people they pigeonhole buy into them?

In other words, I certainly don’t view myself as a token Asian American – whatever that means. Naturally, I would assume that others don’t view me in a stereotypical light, either, but whether his remark was casual or completely serious, the fact that he said it at all makes me wonder what cultural norms we abide by in society. If we’re of a minority ethnic background, do we become more “American” if we buy into stereotypes and pass them off as offhand remarks and jokes? Or should we be actively striving to dismantle them and make it the norm not to judge someone based on superficial expectations? Or, maybe I’m overanalyzing this all and it’s not worth considering, especially given the broad diversity of the United States and its reputation as a diverse cultural haven.

Regardless, the question of identity still remains: it is much easier to accept a standard identity and try and fit the role, but that defeats the purpose of individual existence. The purpose of life’s challenges and obstacles is to help individuals find their identities amidst the context of others – whether in a college setting, at work, or even in one’s family – and develop that notion of self into something one is comfortable with and can call one’s own. If we let casual remarks that buy into stereotypes occur without taking note and starting a dialogue, we risk falling into the trap of buying into them ourselves.

My reaction and the chain of thought it spurred might be overkill, but it’s much better than the alternative of swallowing it without thought or contemplation.