May 23, 2026 • 55 mins
Friend of the show Sonam Vashi stops by to delve into the history and future of what it means to be Asian-American in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
That's welcome to stuff I never told you production by
her Radio, and today we are bringing back a classic
episode that I did without Samantha. It was pre Samantha's
time with friend of the show Sanombashi, and it was
(00:31):
a huge ask at this point when Sonom came on.
That was when Sminty was looking for a new host
to accompany me, and it was honestly one of the
most stressful work periods of my life because I was
trying to keep everything moving and bringing in all these different.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
People and this was a huge ask. I don't think
it was my idea.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think Sonom and I talked about it, but the
idea of covering Asian American identity and history in the
United States is a huge topic and that is what
we landed on, and a lot of what we talk
about in this episode we have talked about in episodes
(01:20):
that you and I have done together, Samantha, and some
of it has evolved, Like I remember talking about music specifically,
and you and I have talked about music specifically, so
that there are things that certainly have changed since we
recorded this. I will say for me personally, I was
(01:41):
still finding my footing at this time because it was
a very chaotic. It's a chaotic space to be in
when you don't know who's going to be hosting with you.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Great, you think great, you really carry the show and
is survival.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
She really close a touch and go? You did great?
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It was it was a panicky time for me, That's
what I'll say. But I had wonderful people like Sonem
who came in and who brought these these topics that
were so complex and did such a great job. So
please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
(02:27):
you're listening to stuff I've never told you. For this episode,
we are joined by Sonom Vashi. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and
what you do totally.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I am a freelance journalist in Atlanta, and I write
about all kinds of things here, like crime or housing
sometimes right, which is what I'm here to talk about today,
because I'm Asian American. My parents were immigrants from India,
and I thought it'd be a great idea for the
show to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, and I very much agreed when we first You're
a bit of a name around town.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
At least for me.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I'm always looking for a cool ladies in Atlanta I
can hook up with, not in that way, talked too,
and I had heard from a bunch of friends that
you were someone that I should talk to. And then
when I reached out to you, you had all of
these ideas and I was like, everyone, everyone, everyone, I
want to talk about all of those things, but this,
I think this is a great one. I think it's
(03:36):
something that is missing from our massive archive. And I'm
so happy that have you here today to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so we're going to be looking into questions of
Asian American identity, what that means and how it's changed.
And this means we're going to be talking about some history,
some stereotypes, media representation in politics. It's kind of a
lot to cover, but we're gonna cover it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
We're gonna do it before we dive in. Though.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Here's a number for you for you listeners to show
where we are. There are nineteen point five million Asian
Americans in the United States, and that is six percent
of the population and it's.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Also the fastest growing minority group in the country for now.
Recent movies and shows like Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh
off the Boat have given Asian Americans a lot more
visibility in mainstream culture in the last few years too.
And like many racial groups, they're extremely diverse and have
different histories. You know, for example, what a lot of
people think about when they think of Asian Americans as
(04:41):
people who recently immigrated to the United States, maybe only
in the last few decades, but other Asian American groups
have been here for centuries.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes, And that is a good segue to talk about
some history. So I, as listeners of the show probably know,
I'm a huge and of talking about history. I love history,
and I think it's important to better understand the factors
that play in this conversation around Asian American identity, and
history does play a significant role in shaping our ideas
(05:12):
around identity. And when we're talking about Asian immigration to
the United States, the history is typically broken down into
two main waves, which when you first start explaining this
to me, I was like, I thought we were talking
about the first and second wave of feminism, But there
are two main waves of Asian American Asian immigration to
(05:32):
the United States.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Lots of way, it's just a lot of ocean imagery.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I do like ocean imagery calms me down when I'm
trying to sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I have a white noise machine. Ocean waves. Wow wow. Indeed,
so the history is obviously going to be very condensed.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
But here we go. Here's some basics. If we look
at the first wave, some of the first Asians to
come to America were Filipino sailors toward the end of
the fifteen hundreds, and half died on the journey. Of
those that survived, most did not want to make the
return trip over the Pacific. I wouldn't either, so they stayed.
(06:14):
If we jump ahead, more Asian immigrants arrived in the
seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds, and many instances fleeing from
poor situations as a result of colonialism. But often what
they escaped to was indentured servitude on tobacco and sugar
plantations in the British West Indies, Hawaii, and the southern
United States. They were tricked and lied to to make
(06:36):
these dangerous journeys and then take on these difficult, often
dangerous jobs for five years before they gained freedom. These
indentured laborers, called coolies, were mostly men, but some women
were hired, mostly as a way to keep the men
from outright revolting because there were no women. After these
five years were up, many stayed either out of shame
(06:58):
at their earnings or because they had married a local
who could not or would not make the journey back.
And speaking of difficult jobs, if we look at the
gold Rush in California, a lot of Asian immigrants, particularly
Chinese immigrants, found employment working on the construction of railroads
in that state. As more and more arrived, they were
harshly discriminated against, called swine rats or beast and sidebar
(07:24):
that I found super interesting, but there's no time to
include it in this episode.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
During this time, laundry.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Was very expensive in San Francisco, so much so that
it was cheaper to send your clothes to Honolulu to
get them washed.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Chinese immigrants saw an opportunity and they went for it,
and this was an industry that they were allowed to
have success in, not so for other industries. As a
result of the influx of Chinese immigrants and fears of
that the cheap labor force that they provided two less
than scrupulous employers, fears that this labor force was undercutting
(08:01):
the wage of white Americans. The Supreme Court passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act in eighteen eighty two, which prohibited low
skilled and family immigration from that country. This law wasn't
repealed until nineteen forty three and is, in the words
of Jiangfan, the only federal law ever to exclude a
group of people by nationality. Some of this might sound
(08:24):
disturbingly familiar. As part of this law, the government deployed
quote Chinese catchers to the Mexican US border, and the
Secretary of Labor said of the issue, not even a
Chinese wall.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Would stop immigrants from China.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That is so wild it is it's disturbingly familiar. In
eighteen seventy one, the largest mass lunching in American history
took place in Los Angeles, when a mob of five
hundred murdered seventeen Chinese men, and a couple of years later,
in eighteen ninety five, Kaiser Wilhelm awoke from a bad
(08:59):
dream and then obviously requested a painting be done depicting
the archangel Michael terrorized by a vicious mob of Easterners,
perfectly exemplifying the Yellow peril as it was called. And
we've spoken before about how in Western society Asian men
and Eastern culture at large was and often is portrayed
(09:22):
as effeminate aka weaker. Take this quote from the president
of the American Federation of Labor at the time. From
the fact that Chinese people lived in America meet versus Rice,
American manhood versus Asiatic hoolism, you can see the sentiment
swell in times of perceived economic threat by an Asian
(09:43):
country or countries, like during the eighties with Japan's technological prowess.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
If you watch pretty much.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Any eighties romantic comedy, you'll know what I'm talking about.
And I also side note on the other show that
I do, which is all about food and drink Saver,
we did an episode on tea and I ran across
an idea that I didn't more into, but I would
love to. But the work I was reading the author
(10:10):
suggested that the reason tea is feminized as more of
something that lady like tea time is because it came
from the East, as opposed to coffee, which was more like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Man gender drinks. You can't not gender anything in the
entire history of the world. We have to gender everything.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I want to do a whole mini series whiskey beer.
Lighter drinks are for women, Darker drinks are for men.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Wine. Future research required.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Chinese immigrants were the largest group of Asian immigrants at
the time, and thus perceived as the most threatening. But
this was not the only group of Asian immigrants arriving
to the United States, and not, of course, unfortunately, the
only one to be negatively stereotyped. The United States Immigration
Commission deemed Indians as the quote least desirable race of
(11:09):
immigrants in nineteen eleven, after the editor of Washington's Bellingham
Reveal called Hindu's quote repulsive in appearance and discussing in
their manners, the town mobbed together to quote drive out
the Hindus over the course of a night in nineteen
oh seven, and they were successful. Around this time, we
start seeing some laws and policy relevant to this conversation
(11:33):
popping up across the country. There was the California Alien
Land Law of nineteen thirteen, which was designed to prevent
Asians from competing with white businesses and farms.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And there's my favorite slash most terrifying Supreme Court ruling
in nineteen twenty three that define what race it is basically,
and limited who could become a naturalized citizen, which is
where an Indian seekh man named Buggetsingh Pinned, who had
served in the US Army during World War One, wanted
to become a citizen. So he tried and failed, and
(12:05):
his case reached the Supreme Court, which had decided in
another case that being white met being Caucasian. So mister
Tind argued that he too was Caucasian because he was Aryan,
because Arians had conquered India and then fifteen hundreds, and
since he belonged to a high cast in India. But
the Supreme Court decided that, given the common understanding of
race in the United States, couldn't be white because there
(12:27):
had been too much quote unquote racial mixing between different
people in India. So what that meant was that South
Asians could become naturalized citizens for a few decades after that.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, And I think I mentioned to you earlier because
my brain is strange sometimes, but I was somehow I've
become an expert on spam. Don't ask me how what
this has happened. And one of the reasons that spam
(12:59):
is so popular in Hawaii and other parts of South Asia.
Is because of World War Two, but also laws like
this where there was a law put in place that
Japanese fishermen couldn't Basically it didn't say this, but it
was to limit the competition with American fishermen that they
(13:21):
couldn't they could only fish within like a mile radius
or something. And that is why that spam is so
popular in Hawaii, for instance, spam asuvie. And also it
is an interesting culmination of different ingredients because there was
all this spam from World War two that was on
(13:43):
the island and all of these immigrants who were there
as well, and the cuisine kind of adopted spam in
a way that is very delicious. And when a lot
of people I know, including me for a long time,
just loot of spams like this growth like it comes
out in the shape.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You even have like a solid liquid.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Exactly, You've got a lot of questions about what's going on,
what should I do with it? But it has really
been adopted in the cuisine there, and I would put
forth that it is pretty good.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
All right, I'm going to go look up some spam
recipes after this.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh you should if I can convert one person. I
don't know why. I don't know how this has happened.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
We'll open the trendy spam restaurant. It'll be great.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, don't even joke about it.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I would do it. I would do it in I Heartpete.
All right, But going back to depressing laws. A year later,
in nineteen twenty four, an American policy was passed with
the goal of quote preserving the idea of American homoganity
that pretty much disallowed non whites from immigrating to the
United States.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All immigration from Asia.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Was outlawed with the creation of the Asiatic Bard Zone.
And this was of course swiftly followed by the internment
of Japanese Americans during and after World War Two.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And about one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans were
interned during that time, which is a really substantial number
even for now.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, And this was followed by the second wave of
Asian immigration to the United States.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
The Cold War.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We have to talk about the Cold War in this
conversation shifted American focus and fears elsewhere, especially for Asian
nations not viewed as threats. The Civil rights movement led
to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing nineteen sixty five's Immigration
and Nationality Act, which got rid of racial quotas and
made room for skills and family based immigration. However, we
(15:41):
should keep in mind this wasn't done with Asians in mind,
but rather vocal and annoyed Northern Europeans. This act, of course,
impacted the type of immigrants that came to the United
States and made way for some stereotypes that were going
to get into later. Whatever the case, Asians immigrated to
(16:02):
the United States all the same, resulting in the second
wave of Asian immigrants, and in the mind of Erica Lee,
author of the Making of Asian America, a history creating
two often discordant Asian Americas. After the events at Tenaman Square,
the US enacted the Chinese Student Protection Act in nineteen
ninety two, and that meant that fifty five thousand Green
(16:22):
cards were given to Chinese immigrants, which also contributed to
this whole second wave. And that more or less brings
us to today, to these discordant Asian Americas and to
questions around identity and stereotypes. But first it brings us
to a quick break forward from our sponsor, and we're back.
(16:55):
Thank you sponsor. So another piece of this conversation is stereotypes,
where they come from, how they shape how we view
people and ourselves and our identity, and how they impact
everything on a societal level. And I know we've talked
about it before, but policies get made, laws get enacted
(17:15):
based on representation, what we see in the media, and stereotypes.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
One of the first ones that we wanted to talk
about was the model minority.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I think that's like the most pervasive one for sure,
in a variety of different ways. You know, it's not
just like this is like a term that was coined
that means that Asians often pointed to as being the
group that's seemingly high performing academically and socioeconomically. And so
you hear, you know, the smart Asian, the doctor or
engineer Asian, these sorts of things that sound like really
(17:50):
good and positive stereotypes, but it's often used to deny
the existence of structural racism among not only Asian Americans
but also other non white people. And it's it's really
harmful for that reason. I think, you know, most often
it's easy to imply either explicitly or implicitly that black
and Hispanic people are not working hard, because if you
(18:10):
know Asian Americans can do so well, then clearly other
groups are not working that hard. But you know, add
that to the tiger mom stereotype that Asian parents are
stricter than other parents or make their kids work harder,
and you get this myth of Asian exceptionalism. And that's
not supported by the disaggregated data that you look at.
So you know, if you control for education, that Asian
(18:32):
wage gap advantage disappears. Asian Americans are the most economically
divided racial group in the country, so you know, Asians
overall rank as the highest running group, but if you
break that out by ethnicity, it shows a wide range
of incomes, and for example, Chinese Americans have a very
high income overall, but the top earners are really shrouding
(18:53):
the fact that there is a high rate of poverty
among Chinese Americans. And you know, depending on the different ethnicity,
it can depend on the reasons different immigrant groups came
to the United States in the first place. Now this
is true for every racial group. You can disaggregate Hispanics,
black people, white people and show differences based on ethnicity,
but it's just so staggering among Asians. So, you know,
(19:14):
seventy five percent of Anian Americans, many who came under
the H and B visa program as highly schooled workers,
have a college degree. But that's only true for a
third of Vietnamese Americans, many who came as refugees from
the Vietnam War, and more than one in three Bermese
Americans and Boutanese Americans are in poverty. And even those
who are successful, particularly those who came as highly schooled workers,
(19:36):
face stomach racism. I think you were talking about the
bamboo ceiling, right.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, I found that term when I was reading
about Fortune and there are five hundred talk companies, only
three percent of those are run by Asians.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And it's really interesting that you see this discrimination even
at the highest level, because there's also evidence of discrimination
and hiring practices. So researchers at Ryerson University in the
University of Toronto found that job applicants with Chinese, Indian,
or Pakistani sounding names were twenty eight percent less likely
to get called back for an interview, and that's something
(20:09):
that also affects other non minorities too.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, is this this model minority thing. Is that
something that you experienced personally, Oh, totally.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean I think there's definitely like a sense that
if you're doing well in school in you're Asian, it's
just like because you're Asian, And I mean I think
there's a lot of different things going on there. Maybe
you know, there's a stereotype, for example, of Indian Americans particularly,
but Asian Americans generally doing really well in spelling bees.
I don't know if you've ever watched the National Spelling Bee,
but there's always just like a very cute Asian kid
(20:42):
who wins miss of the time, and like I definitely
was also in the spelling Bee. So like some stereotypes
may be true, but clearly like that's not what happened.
You know, my dad was an immigrant under this like
HMNB visa program, and so that's a very different than
being an immigrant under different types of circumstances. And I
think success and is definitely driven by a lot of
(21:05):
these different histories.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, I've been speaking a lot to two friends of
mine because I recently did an episode around first first
generation immigrants and just hearing this pressure that they felt
to represent their country and their religion. I kind of
pushed them to do things, and they felt that they
(21:30):
had to perform at a level that was really high,
and that their parents would push them to do that
as well, because it was like, we're representing our whole
country totally, totally.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I mean, you know, there's this really great piece that
was published recently in BuzzFeed about immigrant debt and this
idea that like, you, like so many people who are
first generation Americans feel indebted to the sacrifices that their
parents made coming to this country in the first place,
and you know, offending everything, coming without you know, money
(22:05):
or knowing anyone and just making this really difficult journey,
and then like that their kids are just like, okay, well,
like how do I honor a sacrifice even though I
don't want to, you know, do the job that my
parents want me to do, or like do you know,
go into academia or go into being a doctor or whatever,
like I want to be like a journalist, bum like myself,
(22:26):
or you know, I think there's this like definite pressure
that comes with wanting to acknowledge and and honor your parents. Uh,
and you know, being the only one in a classroom
or workplace that looks like you. I think definitely contributes
to that.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, do you mind if I ask how your parents
look that you're going to be journal there's.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Still the soul dealing with it, like several years after
the fact, but I think they've we've we've reached a
a h what's what's the word deton esecially because in freelance,
they they just think like that. For a while, they
thought I was unemployed and I was like, no, no, no,
I'm just like very employed and just like by a
lot of different people, and they're like, you don't go
(23:10):
into an office, what are you doing every day?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I think it's a big ski.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I don't know what they think I'm doing for money,
but they they've definitely approached it with suspicion.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I my parents still tell people like, I'm
basically I'm not sure what she does.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm very honoring to hear that.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Something else we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Is exoticizing, our fetishizing of Asian women, because I would
wager that when I say fetish, two things come to mind.
One is foot fetish and the other is Asian fetish.
Asian woman fetish.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, it is a huge part of being Asian American
and women or women presenting in this country. And I
think there is you know, particularly with Asian women with
East and Southeast Asian heritage. I think our fetishizers being
you know, submissive, it's extremely sexual, or other stereotypes that
(24:17):
are really damaging. And again, like being fetishized might so
much a good thing, but I think for most women,
like we know it's not and you know it can
single how Asian and and other non white women are
otherised and stereotyped and are just seen as this like
object or thing or non human entity.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, because it's really dehumanizing. I have I have a
friend who is online dating and she is Asian, and
she tells me that she has a couple of.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Rules, and one is if someone asked her where are
you from? But where really where are you from, She's
immediately like nope, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah. And another is that it's not really a rule,
but she just is.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Very nervous about people, particularly white men, who it seems
that they've just dated Asian women.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh totally.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, that's a huge red flag. I mean, particularly with
white men too. I would say, like when I've dated
white men in the past, it's been like, have you
only dated Asian women? Because that's a huge problem, But
also am I the only like non white person you've
ever dated, because it's also a problem. I don't want
to be either the two things you have had like
one like past that like okay, let's this makes me
feel better, Like I'm not like the first one, but
(25:40):
I'm also not like the eighth one.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Exactly. You get a balance. You gotta find that balance, right.
I love hearing people's personal dating rules, and I I
would love to do a whole episode that's just like
tell me your dating rules and why.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
That'd be great, I.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Think be fascinating.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
But this whole fetishizing of Asian women is colloquially called
yellow fever and also rice queens, when queer men fetishize
Asian men, and we see this everywhere in our culture.
It was even a bit in one of comedian Amy
Schumer's stand up routines.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
She said, quote, I can't compete with.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
An Asian chick because, punchline, they have small vaginas. That's
how omnipresent this fetish is in our culture.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It is a joke.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, and it's hammered home in all types of media.
I mean, if you ever watched anime or manga, which
like most women in there are even hyper sexualized, and
that's often that's from an Asian country Japan. You know,
there are a lot of things contributing to this and
it has real world effects. A study conducted by the
dating app Are You Interested? Found that Asian women were
(26:49):
the most desirable group, not just among white men, but
all men except for Asian men. Interesting, yeah, I think
the city found that like almost every group preferred different races,
but for some reason, Asian women were the most desirable.
But the study I think you found was less than rigorous.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Right, yeah, And they were also findings from Okay Cupid.
A sociologist sociologist named Kevin Lewis, and he found that
all groups preferred to strike up a conversation with someone
of their own race, all except Asian women again preferred
messaging white men. A Psychology Today article looking at this
(27:27):
phenomenon found that a lot of non Asian men held
a belief about Asian women that they are submissive, particularly
when it comes to sex. As one respondent put it, quote,
wemen want a princess in public and a whore in
the bedroom, simple as that.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
They're just not asking a lot, right, they just want
princess public.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And the great words of Usher a freaking is sheees.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Lady in the streets for the bed.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh yeah, it's not even Usher, it's somebody else, but
it's an Usher song.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I don't know much about culture.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I want to say it's Little John's first, so that
I could be If I'm wrong on that, it'll be
very embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
We'll flag that to come back for correction.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And there are centuries of history and culture that have
gone into the construction of the stereotype, starting with the
opening of trade between Asia and Europe. So art depicting
gisha's made its way to Europe that would then be
highly sexualized for the Western male. And I was reading
(28:33):
an essay about this, and I think it is worth
bringing up. Just remember that the Western mail at this
time was living in a very repressive sexually culture. You
know women as well, like they all, everyone was.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Openly express sexual desire. It was very frowned upon. You
would go to hell, like it was writing, like we
laugh about it now, but yeah, women didn't show their ankles.
So this new this art is coming in that isn't
so covering up and hot, shying away from the human body.
(29:14):
And then if we move away, I'll move forward a
little bit to eighteen eighty seven, French author Pierre Loti
pens Madame quisanthem and it really can't be understated the
impact this had on shaping how Westerners viewed Asian women,
and specifically Japanese women. In Loti's lifetime, it was reprinted
(29:36):
over two hundred times and translated into every European language.
It follows a naval officer who takes a temporary wife
while stationed in Japan, one that is doll like and
a lot of the words that are used to describe
this character are small, dainty words that I would associate
(29:56):
with being submissive. And if this story sounds familiar, it
could be because it is generally accepted to have inspired
the opera Madama Butterfly, first performed in nineteen oh four,
very similar story. It follows an American officer who takes
a temporary wife all in Japan, but then leaves her
behind to marry a white American woman at the end
(30:17):
of his service, but not before his temporary Japanese wife
sacrifices her religion, her family, her son, and then takes
her own life all for this man who left her.
And if you haven't seen Madama Butterfly, but that story
still sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the reworked version that
(30:38):
takes place in Vietnam, Miss Saigon, which since its premiere
in nineteen eighty nine has been performed all over the
world and still turns a prophet. Now there is this
kind of compliment to the Madama Butterfly stereotype archetype, and
that is the Dragon Lady, which kind of emerged, you know,
(31:00):
nineteen nineties, two thousands, I would say it became popularized.
But this is kind of the sexy assassin who can
do martial arts but essentially still is very one dimensional,
very uh stereotyped character.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
We're talking like kill Bill style, Yes, maybe Charlie's Angels,
Lucy Luce.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, oh, Rush Hour too.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Oh yeah, Oh man, I can't believe.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
I'm so glad you knew it.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Oh. I've seen the movie maybe one hundred times. The
first one I've seen like maybe fifty, but like the
second one one hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Do you really want to?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Man?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
A classic?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
We're dustined to be friends the US's The US armies
presidence throughout Asia during and after World War two and
the Korean War and the Vietnam War cemented this sexualized
perception of Asian women. So called juicy bars and brothels
established themselves around military camps with an exclusive US soldier clientele.
(32:02):
For a lot of these men that this was their
first exposure to Asian women and it was through sex workers.
And the aftermath of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, a
lot of Asian women and children were airlifted out and
brought to the United States, giving rise to a savior
narrative and it started appearing in our media.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, and many Asian American men, you know, kind of
we talked about earlier with Tea, and they've had the
opposite experience. They're often desexualized, not seen as masculine, and
they're going back to this feminate history and it's an
awful dehumanizing stereotype that's still perpetuated. I have, you know,
plenty of straight male friends who are Asian American who
(32:42):
have said that, like they're dating, particularly women the interracial sphere,
like without outside of Asian women have had a stereotype
lopped against them or even with Asian women sometimes, and
like it's just been really disheartening for a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And it doesn't help that in our media we see
these these representations everywhere there, these stereotypes are reinforced and
perhaps even solidified and through like the Tiger Mom, Model Minority, Madama, Butterfly,
Dragon Lady.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And that's what.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Little representation there is anyway, because there isn't much. Asian
Americans make up only one percent of Hollywood's leading roles.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, and examples that were there were usually like Tokens
or about you know, very very good but like kind
of sometimes stereotypical stories about the Vietnam War, or of
course George T. K Asulu in Star Trek. But in
recent years the good things that Asian American visibility has increased.
I think recently, you know, living like Sandra Oh became
(33:47):
the first Asian American to when the lead actress Golden Globe.
Plus there's the mega hit from last year, Crazy Rich Asians,
and it's become so popular both as a rom com
and as just the first movie to have an all
Asian cast in almost twenty twenty three years, and it
definitely represented just a small slice of Asian America, obviously
(34:09):
the crazy rich kind with generational wealth and economic privilege.
Very few brown or doctor skinned faces in that movie too.
But it opened the door for more movies about the
Asian American experience. And you know it's important to create
as author and Pulter Prize winner Via tan When has
written about narrative plenitude, the idea that we need more
(34:30):
stories about Asian Americans and about other marginalized groups so
that one story doesn't carry the burden of representing every experience.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yes, and this is a big pet fave of mine
because every time a story comes out that is all
mostly Asian cast, and everyone's.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Like, will it make money? Because that's going to determine
if we make anymore. Right and yet, I mean movies
that are bad, that have a usually white male.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Lead but don't make any money, they don't get the
same pressure like they're just gonna be made. There's not
so much writing on them. Why can't we have bad
movies for everybody?
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Right, good movies for everybody too, But bad.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Movies like no, absolutely, I mean, I mean platitude doesn't
mean that they're all like amazing pulz Rice winners for sure, exactly. Yeah.
And you know, speaking of probably like bad examples, probably
one of the other you know, well known Asian American
characters that we would go and risk that mentioning is
a poo, the lovable convenience store clerk on The Simpsons,
(35:36):
who was recently removed from the show after comedian Hary
Condoboulu made a documentary call the Problem with a Poo
And the problem is that a poo's stereotypically thick Indian accent,
which I will not do. I thought about it is
voiced by non South Asian Hanka's area At, one of
the show's creators, who also voices a lot of other characters,
(35:58):
and who Condebolu says, this is a quote from kind
of Bell sounds like a white guy doing an impression
of a white guy making fun of my father. It's
really accurate. And you know, some South Asians aren't offended
by a poo, but it's not hard to see the
soft racism, which is you know, just been described, particularly
(36:18):
while by New Yorker writer Juasu, who says that even
though the Simpsons might not have wanted to offend with
a poo, it's still collapsing an entire ethnic group, and
two exaggerated characteristics like a silly accent or some missive
slogan like think you come again, And that's I think
in and of itself is particularly problematic.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, I remember when all of this was kind of happening.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
It was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I haven't seen the show since Sense of Who left,
so I'd be interested to check out what's going on
there now.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, I can't believe it's still in the air. I
don't mean that negatively. I know it's like, wow, it's been.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Like a million years, the longest run show ever. I mean,
I love the sibstence. It's getting me wrong. And you know,
I think I remember like seeing a poo as a
kid and being like, well, yeah, like you know, poo
is like a touchdown that you can refer to, like yeah, yeah,
like you know, you you talk to like kids and
they'd be like, like, where's India and you'd be like,
like a poo, you know, like just like a pooh
like your reference point. But the double edged sword in
(37:25):
some cases it is.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah again, maybe it would be it'd be nice to
have more representation that you could point to instead of just.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, we can dream.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Something else that you you brought to my attention is
kind of within this world of hip hop that there
is kind of an interesting exchange between Asian American or
just Asian and hip hop.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, oh totally. I mean it's there's a few different
groups that I've been coming out. I think there's like
the rap label eighty eight rising, a lot lots of
people who are who are Asian American are Asian who
are who are forming hip hop groups or other acts.
And K pop has been borrowing a lot from uh,
from hip hop as well, just in terms of like
(38:15):
meats that the like a lot of different parts of
the act. And and it is this like really interesting
exchange that you were saying, because you know, I think
that hip hop has obviously drawn from a lot of
different sources, but it's so firmly rooted in the black community,
and so there are so like so many important complex
questions about some of these numer groups which have sometimes
(38:38):
been accused of appropriating Black culture or sometimes even ignoring
some of the anti black racist comments from their fans.
And and you know, Asian Americans have certainly benefited from
the work of black and brown activists and the civil
rights movements of those activists in this country. And there's
still a lot of work that the Asian American community
at large has to do when it comes to interracial interactions.
(39:00):
Particularly you know, anti blackness is really prominent in many
different Asian American communities, and there's you know, even this
issue of colorism and racism within the Asian American community.
I mean you could just if you go inside a
i mean almost any Asian American store, whether it's Filipino,
whether it's Indian, whether it's Chinese, and you go to
the like skincare aisle, you will see like skin lightning creams.
(39:23):
The one in the Indian store is called fair and Lovely.
Trusts me, there's nothing fair and lovely about it. Like
it is literally like a bleaching cream, and people use
it because they want their skin to appear lighter, because
being dark skinned, especially for women of course, is just
seen as this really bad thing. You seem as less attractive.
And you know, we could talk for like a million
years about where that comes from and why. But like,
(39:47):
you know, the odd distinctions between white Asians and brown Asians,
even within the Asian American community. But like this is
just something that like exists in our home countries, but
it is also something that exists in the Asian American experience.
It's still that I think needs to be talked about
a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah, and as as is clear, I am not too
big in tipop culture, but we did talk about when
we're preparing for this, like John Lee from Nick Camnage
and Katie Perry when she did that kind of gasha.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, so lots of like weird Definitely stereotypical things that
you see in pop culture are kind of like sometimes
given a past, sometimes not like that. I definitely deserve
to also be talked about when it comes to like
(40:42):
anti Asian or stereotypical bias.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, for sure, there's a lot to go into there,
and we still have some more in this episode. But
first we have a quick break forward from our sponsor
(41:07):
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So taking all of this,
all of these history, these stereotypes, it plays into the
question of the Asian American identity. Nowadays, some folks are
rejecting the label Asian American in favor of something more specific,
But this label was introduced. When it was introduced, it
(41:28):
was meant to foster unity. It was coined by historian
and activists ugi Igioka in nineteen sixty eight. He was
partly inspired by the success of the Black Panther movement,
and he hoped it would help to combat direct discrimination
that had been aimed at Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans.
When Japanese Americans were in prison dufter World War Two,
(41:51):
some Chinese Americans carried signs or were buttons to signify
that they were not Japanese American, but Chinese American. This
unification under one label might offer protection.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
That was the thought.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Asian American was also a way to ditch derogatory terms
given by society in a way to self define. And
then we come to the murder of a Chinese American,
Vincent Chin in nineteen eighty two, and this murder increased
the feeling that there needed to be a coalition. Chin
was beaten to death by white auto workers unhappy with
(42:23):
competition from Japanese auto companies.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah and his killers were sentenced to probation and fined
two thousand dollars. And when that happened, protesters Martian cities
across the country, giving rise to this new Pian Asian
identity and unity that was forged by the realization that
of Chin, who was the son of Chinese immigrants, could
be killed because of Japanese auto imports. Maybe being Asian
(42:50):
American and being able to be mistaken for other groups
by white people and other Americans had consequences, and that
kind of misconception shapes the racial experiences of so many
Asian Americans. I mean, if you look at the experiences
of Sick Americans who follow a South Asian religion that's
distinct from Hinduism and Islam, there is a long history
(43:13):
of hate crimes against Stick Americans the United States, often
because white racists are mistaking them from Muslims or otherwise
demonizing their faith. But this idea that Asian American is
such a huge over a large category. It is that
way sometimes because if I'm able to be mistaken for
someone else, that means that I already have a vested
(43:35):
interest in how the other group gets treated. And I
think that's how this kind of unity gets formed.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, and it was meant to be that way. But
if we look at.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
South Asians, Asian Americans has frequently left out people from
South Asia, or at least in the minds of people
who might use that term. So that comes to the
question of who gets the label of Asian American. As
the author of this Washington Post piece, Sonya Raw points out,
when describing actors John Cho or Constance Wu, the media
(44:14):
typically uses Asian Americans, whereas actors like Mindy Kaling or
Azizan Sorry are described differently.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, and the term Asian American also includes Pacific Islanders
sometimes or native Hawaiians, and many Central Asians like people
from Kazakhstan or Afghanistan, and Southwest Asians like people from
parts of the Middle East. So it for this huge
group of people with so many different histories and languages
and cultures that you know, don't have representation in so
(44:41):
many places. And you see many people refer to themselves
by their ethnicity rather than by Asian Americans. So I
will call myself Anian American most of the time, not
Asian American, because I mean, what does that even mean?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Sometimes right exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And another another piece of this conversation and kind of
this fragmentation of the Asian American identity is affirmative action,
which has been in the news a lot lately, and
August twenty eighteen, the Department of Justice came out on
the side of a group of Asian students that were
suing Harvard for racial discrimination during the admissions process. So
(45:18):
Harvard University for our international listeners. From the student's legal filing,
the process quote significantly disadvantages Asian American applicants compared to
applicants of other racial groups. Worth pointing out the person
who leads the organization suing Harvard, Edward Blum, has multiple
similar lawsuits against other schools, but on behalf of white
(45:41):
students and just a really quick aside, really really really quick.
The term affirmative action first appeared in terms of a
US policy in nineteen thirty five with the National Labor
Relations Act. This act primarily allowed workers to unionize freely
and without fear. If an employer was found in non
(46:01):
compliance firing an employee o reunionizing, the employee would be
rehired and or be otherwise compensated via affirmative action. President
FDR's Secretary of the Interior extended it, establishing a fixed
percentage of African American employees for the Public Works Administration.
A lot of local institutions refused to obey JFK's executive
(46:24):
ordered ten nine to five demanded government contractors quote take
affirmative action to achieve non discrimination. Affirmative action was meant
to acknowledge how the inequalities and injustices of the past
still existed and continued to impact the prospects of African Americans.
In nineteen sixty seven, it was also used as an
(46:45):
argument to ban discrimination on the basis of sex. In
nineteen seventy eight, the Supreme Court here's the first case
of reverse discrimination made by a white man who believed
he would have gotten into his university of choice if
he had been a minority.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
The case.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
In the nineties, Californians past California Civil Rights Initiative are
Prop two nine. This initiative did away with affirmative action
in the realm of education. It passed in nineteen ninety six,
and between nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety eight, admissions
to Berkeley and UCLA dropped by fifty nine percent for
African Americans. Several other states follow suit, but two more
(47:24):
cases brought to the Supreme.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Court have lost. Okay back to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
This was the culmination of a couple of grievances this lawsuit.
Harvard's own internal research division found that if the only
factor considered was academic performance, forty three percent of the
admitted class would be Asian. Now, if you introduce other
consideration like athletics, legacies, extracurriculars, the number goes down to
(47:52):
twenty six percent. When you add in demographics, the number
drops to eighteen percent.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
And we should add that this particular lawsuit, which was
filed by a Chinese American, has in particularly gotten a
lot of support from Chinese American advocates and media and
just across the country for many people who feel similarly
to the plaintiff.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Related have been a handful of lawsuits that have aligned
white people and a specific group of Asian Americans. Two
twenty eighteen lawsuits against Google alleged that the white male
plaintiffs were being illegally discriminated against due to hiring quotas
that favor females and non favored minorities. Both lawsuits included
(48:34):
Caucasian and Asian males as those being discriminated against.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Yeah, but there's definitely a reality of proxipanity to whiteness
that's going on here. That many Asians have benefitted from,
and it's something that many other non white people, particularly
those who identify as black, can't benefit from.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
And this isn't the first time a minority has been
grouped together with the majority, in this case white people.
Sociologists all this whitening. The term comes to us partly
courtesy of a Portuguese phrase out of Brazil quote money whitens.
Previous groups that were once considered as non white include
(49:12):
the Irish and the Italians. And this involves a certain
level of a rasure and cultural assimilation.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
And this affirmative action issue has really, you know, I
think split the Asian American community of this country in
so many different ways. And it's really important to note
that a majority of Asian Americans support affirmative action. It
has benefitted so many of Asian Americans' lives. The research
group AAPI Data the stands for Asian American Pacific Islander Data,
(49:43):
which is one of the few that to segregate data
based on ethnicity. They found that a majority of most
Asian ethnic groups support affirmative action, from eighty four percent
support among Indian Americans the sixty four percent support among
Chinese Americans and you know, there's lot of differences within
those groups. So you know, less than half of Vietnamese Americans,
(50:05):
by contrasts, support affirmative action, and that's tied to the
fact that many American Vietnamese Americans lean Republican, which is
also influenced by a history with communism and the Vietnam War.
That's not unlike that of many Cuban Americans. So you know,
again really important to remember that Asian Americans aren't a
monolith both economically and politically.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
And the GOP has come out on the side of
Asian Americans in the effort while Asian Americans like Chinese Americans,
particularly in this case of this Harvard lawsuit, in the
effort to end affirmative action for as you can imagine,
the GOP has a different entirely political reasons, using the
concerns of Asian Americans to help white Americans. The Republican
(50:51):
Party is courting Asian Americans, and.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
You know, Asian Americans largely vote Democratic, with some notable
exceptions which include Vietna Mes and Filipinos.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
And several articles I read have advised the Democratic Party
to sound the alarm over this, to really pay attention
to this issue.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, and you know, many Asian Americans in different parts
of the country have been politically apathetic in some places,
you know, a lower than average turnout rates than compared
with other minority groups. And the continuing evolution of Asian
American political identity is definitely something to watch out for,
I think as time goes on, and you know, I
(51:31):
think the most important thing to remember out of all
of this that we've talked about over the last hour
or so is that Asian American identities extremely complicated and
something that is still under construction, especially as our population
grows and we become more visible in mainstream society and
as things like affirmative action really take you know, have
(51:55):
us take stock of what it is that we believe
and what our histories are in this country. And there's
not one prevailing narrative that explains what being Asian American is.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Absolutely and as I was discussing with you when we
were planning this, and as I kind of alluded to
at the top, we don't learn about this stuff in
the United States. A lot of this history was new
to me and we just don't have this background, and
it is so important when understanding where people come from
(52:29):
and where they're going, and when we're talking about these
two discordant Asian Americas, to me, it sounds like it
is one the first wave has all this history, and
then the second wave kind of doesn't get taught that
when they're already in the United States, so they had
a different experience, and to know all that stuff is
(52:51):
good for all of us. I'm a big proponent, if
you didn't know, I'm a big proponent of education and
listening to other people and learning from other people's experiences.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
So this has been really valuable for me as well.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we got
to do this and that you came on. Do you
have any recommended reading from from Asian women or Asian
people Asian American people.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
Yeah, totally. I you know, one of the books that
we mentioned earlier, I think is something that we turned
to when we were reading this episode, The Making of
Asian America, which is booked by Erica Lee. It came
out a couple of years ago. It is very long
and very detailed, but I think it does give a
great overview of how Asian Americans came to this country,
why we're here all that stuff, and you know, of course,
(53:42):
like pop culture, we would be remiss if we didn't
like throw shout outs to I think some of the
famous Asian Americans out there. You know, from a Pirna Nonchala,
who's like a hilarious comedian you should totally follow her
on Twitter, to Asofmanvi, to Constance Woo, the actress in
Crazy Witch Asians and Fresh off the Boat. And you
(54:04):
know Hiro Murai who directed Atlanta the TV show, and
who's just like a really wonderful artist and does a
lot of music videos. Asian Americans all over the creative spheres.
Watch out, yeah, nineteen.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, watch out and support support their work. And speaking
of where could the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (54:31):
You will find me online in the digital nightmare we
call the Internet. Yes, you can find my work at
Sonanbashi dot com or I write around Atlanta. If you
live around here, please hit me up to say hey,
and I may say hey back for sure.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Oh a steady maybe I like that.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
Definite, definite. I'll hit you back in like three to
five days.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Perfect. I love it.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thank you so much much for joining us. I hope
that you'll come back. This was such a delight having you.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I totally will and for you listeners. If you would
like to reach out to us, you can. Our email
is mom Stuff atstuffworks dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Instagram at
stuff We've.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Never Told You.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Thanks as always to our producer Andrew Howard, and thanks
to you for listening.
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
That's welcome to stuff I never told you production by
her Radio, and today we are bringing back a classic
episode that I did without Samantha. It was pre Samantha's
time with friend of the show Sanombashi, and it was
(00:31):
a huge ask at this point when Sonom came on.
That was when Sminty was looking for a new host
to accompany me, and it was honestly one of the
most stressful work periods of my life because I was
trying to keep everything moving and bringing in all these different.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
People and this was a huge ask. I don't think
it was my idea.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think Sonom and I talked about it, but the
idea of covering Asian American identity and history in the
United States is a huge topic and that is what
we landed on, and a lot of what we talk
about in this episode we have talked about in episodes
(01:20):
that you and I have done together, Samantha, and some
of it has evolved, Like I remember talking about music specifically,
and you and I have talked about music specifically, so
that there are things that certainly have changed since we
recorded this. I will say for me personally, I was
(01:41):
still finding my footing at this time because it was
a very chaotic. It's a chaotic space to be in
when you don't know who's going to be hosting with you.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Great, you think great, you really carry the show and
is survival.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
She really close a touch and go? You did great?
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It was it was a panicky time for me, That's
what I'll say. But I had wonderful people like Sonem
who came in and who brought these these topics that
were so complex and did such a great job. So
please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
(02:27):
you're listening to stuff I've never told you. For this episode,
we are joined by Sonom Vashi. Thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and
what you do totally.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I am a freelance journalist in Atlanta, and I write
about all kinds of things here, like crime or housing
sometimes right, which is what I'm here to talk about today,
because I'm Asian American. My parents were immigrants from India,
and I thought it'd be a great idea for the
show to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, and I very much agreed when we first You're
a bit of a name around town.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
At least for me.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I'm always looking for a cool ladies in Atlanta I
can hook up with, not in that way, talked too,
and I had heard from a bunch of friends that
you were someone that I should talk to. And then
when I reached out to you, you had all of
these ideas and I was like, everyone, everyone, everyone, I
want to talk about all of those things, but this,
I think this is a great one. I think it's
(03:36):
something that is missing from our massive archive. And I'm
so happy that have you here today to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And so we're going to be looking into questions of
Asian American identity, what that means and how it's changed.
And this means we're going to be talking about some history,
some stereotypes, media representation in politics. It's kind of a
lot to cover, but we're gonna cover it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
We're gonna do it before we dive in. Though.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Here's a number for you for you listeners to show
where we are. There are nineteen point five million Asian
Americans in the United States, and that is six percent
of the population and it's.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Also the fastest growing minority group in the country for now.
Recent movies and shows like Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh
off the Boat have given Asian Americans a lot more
visibility in mainstream culture in the last few years too.
And like many racial groups, they're extremely diverse and have
different histories. You know, for example, what a lot of
people think about when they think of Asian Americans as
(04:41):
people who recently immigrated to the United States, maybe only
in the last few decades, but other Asian American groups
have been here for centuries.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes, And that is a good segue to talk about
some history. So I, as listeners of the show probably know,
I'm a huge and of talking about history. I love history,
and I think it's important to better understand the factors
that play in this conversation around Asian American identity, and
history does play a significant role in shaping our ideas
(05:12):
around identity. And when we're talking about Asian immigration to
the United States, the history is typically broken down into
two main waves, which when you first start explaining this
to me, I was like, I thought we were talking
about the first and second wave of feminism, But there
are two main waves of Asian American Asian immigration to
(05:32):
the United States.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Lots of way, it's just a lot of ocean imagery.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I do like ocean imagery calms me down when I'm
trying to sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I have a white noise machine. Ocean waves. Wow wow. Indeed,
so the history is obviously going to be very condensed.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
But here we go. Here's some basics. If we look
at the first wave, some of the first Asians to
come to America were Filipino sailors toward the end of
the fifteen hundreds, and half died on the journey. Of
those that survived, most did not want to make the
return trip over the Pacific. I wouldn't either, so they stayed.
(06:14):
If we jump ahead, more Asian immigrants arrived in the
seventeen hundreds and eighteen hundreds, and many instances fleeing from
poor situations as a result of colonialism. But often what
they escaped to was indentured servitude on tobacco and sugar
plantations in the British West Indies, Hawaii, and the southern
United States. They were tricked and lied to to make
(06:36):
these dangerous journeys and then take on these difficult, often
dangerous jobs for five years before they gained freedom. These
indentured laborers, called coolies, were mostly men, but some women
were hired, mostly as a way to keep the men
from outright revolting because there were no women. After these
five years were up, many stayed either out of shame
(06:58):
at their earnings or because they had married a local
who could not or would not make the journey back.
And speaking of difficult jobs, if we look at the
gold Rush in California, a lot of Asian immigrants, particularly
Chinese immigrants, found employment working on the construction of railroads
in that state. As more and more arrived, they were
harshly discriminated against, called swine rats or beast and sidebar
(07:24):
that I found super interesting, but there's no time to
include it in this episode.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
During this time, laundry.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Was very expensive in San Francisco, so much so that
it was cheaper to send your clothes to Honolulu to
get them washed.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
That blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Chinese immigrants saw an opportunity and they went for it,
and this was an industry that they were allowed to
have success in, not so for other industries. As a
result of the influx of Chinese immigrants and fears of
that the cheap labor force that they provided two less
than scrupulous employers, fears that this labor force was undercutting
(08:01):
the wage of white Americans. The Supreme Court passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act in eighteen eighty two, which prohibited low
skilled and family immigration from that country. This law wasn't
repealed until nineteen forty three and is, in the words
of Jiangfan, the only federal law ever to exclude a
group of people by nationality. Some of this might sound
(08:24):
disturbingly familiar. As part of this law, the government deployed
quote Chinese catchers to the Mexican US border, and the
Secretary of Labor said of the issue, not even a
Chinese wall.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Would stop immigrants from China.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
That is so wild it is it's disturbingly familiar. In
eighteen seventy one, the largest mass lunching in American history
took place in Los Angeles, when a mob of five
hundred murdered seventeen Chinese men, and a couple of years later,
in eighteen ninety five, Kaiser Wilhelm awoke from a bad
(08:59):
dream and then obviously requested a painting be done depicting
the archangel Michael terrorized by a vicious mob of Easterners,
perfectly exemplifying the Yellow peril as it was called. And
we've spoken before about how in Western society Asian men
and Eastern culture at large was and often is portrayed
(09:22):
as effeminate aka weaker. Take this quote from the president
of the American Federation of Labor at the time. From
the fact that Chinese people lived in America meet versus Rice,
American manhood versus Asiatic hoolism, you can see the sentiment
swell in times of perceived economic threat by an Asian
(09:43):
country or countries, like during the eighties with Japan's technological prowess.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
If you watch pretty much.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Any eighties romantic comedy, you'll know what I'm talking about.
And I also side note on the other show that
I do, which is all about food and drink Saver,
we did an episode on tea and I ran across
an idea that I didn't more into, but I would
love to. But the work I was reading the author
(10:10):
suggested that the reason tea is feminized as more of
something that lady like tea time is because it came
from the East, as opposed to coffee, which was more like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Man gender drinks. You can't not gender anything in the
entire history of the world. We have to gender everything.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
I want to do a whole mini series whiskey beer.
Lighter drinks are for women, Darker drinks are for men.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Wine. Future research required.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Chinese immigrants were the largest group of Asian immigrants at
the time, and thus perceived as the most threatening. But
this was not the only group of Asian immigrants arriving
to the United States, and not, of course, unfortunately, the
only one to be negatively stereotyped. The United States Immigration
Commission deemed Indians as the quote least desirable race of
(11:09):
immigrants in nineteen eleven, after the editor of Washington's Bellingham
Reveal called Hindu's quote repulsive in appearance and discussing in
their manners, the town mobbed together to quote drive out
the Hindus over the course of a night in nineteen
oh seven, and they were successful. Around this time, we
start seeing some laws and policy relevant to this conversation
(11:33):
popping up across the country. There was the California Alien
Land Law of nineteen thirteen, which was designed to prevent
Asians from competing with white businesses and farms.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And there's my favorite slash most terrifying Supreme Court ruling
in nineteen twenty three that define what race it is basically,
and limited who could become a naturalized citizen, which is
where an Indian seekh man named Buggetsingh Pinned, who had
served in the US Army during World War One, wanted
to become a citizen. So he tried and failed, and
(12:05):
his case reached the Supreme Court, which had decided in
another case that being white met being Caucasian. So mister
Tind argued that he too was Caucasian because he was Aryan,
because Arians had conquered India and then fifteen hundreds, and
since he belonged to a high cast in India. But
the Supreme Court decided that, given the common understanding of
race in the United States, couldn't be white because there
(12:27):
had been too much quote unquote racial mixing between different
people in India. So what that meant was that South
Asians could become naturalized citizens for a few decades after that.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, And I think I mentioned to you earlier because
my brain is strange sometimes, but I was somehow I've
become an expert on spam. Don't ask me how what
this has happened. And one of the reasons that spam
(12:59):
is so popular in Hawaii and other parts of South Asia.
Is because of World War Two, but also laws like
this where there was a law put in place that
Japanese fishermen couldn't Basically it didn't say this, but it
was to limit the competition with American fishermen that they
(13:21):
couldn't they could only fish within like a mile radius
or something. And that is why that spam is so
popular in Hawaii, for instance, spam asuvie. And also it
is an interesting culmination of different ingredients because there was
all this spam from World War two that was on
(13:43):
the island and all of these immigrants who were there
as well, and the cuisine kind of adopted spam in
a way that is very delicious. And when a lot
of people I know, including me for a long time,
just loot of spams like this growth like it comes
out in the shape.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
You even have like a solid liquid.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Exactly, You've got a lot of questions about what's going on,
what should I do with it? But it has really
been adopted in the cuisine there, and I would put
forth that it is pretty good.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
All right, I'm going to go look up some spam
recipes after this.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh you should if I can convert one person. I
don't know why. I don't know how this has happened.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
We'll open the trendy spam restaurant. It'll be great.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, don't even joke about it.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I would do it. I would do it in I Heartpete.
All right, But going back to depressing laws. A year later,
in nineteen twenty four, an American policy was passed with
the goal of quote preserving the idea of American homoganity
that pretty much disallowed non whites from immigrating to the
United States.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
All immigration from Asia.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Was outlawed with the creation of the Asiatic Bard Zone.
And this was of course swiftly followed by the internment
of Japanese Americans during and after World War Two.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And about one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese Americans were
interned during that time, which is a really substantial number
even for now.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, And this was followed by the second wave of
Asian immigration to the United States.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
The Cold War.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We have to talk about the Cold War in this
conversation shifted American focus and fears elsewhere, especially for Asian
nations not viewed as threats. The Civil rights movement led
to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing nineteen sixty five's Immigration
and Nationality Act, which got rid of racial quotas and
made room for skills and family based immigration. However, we
(15:41):
should keep in mind this wasn't done with Asians in mind,
but rather vocal and annoyed Northern Europeans. This act, of course,
impacted the type of immigrants that came to the United
States and made way for some stereotypes that were going
to get into later. Whatever the case, Asians immigrated to
(16:02):
the United States all the same, resulting in the second
wave of Asian immigrants, and in the mind of Erica Lee,
author of the Making of Asian America, a history creating
two often discordant Asian Americas. After the events at Tenaman Square,
the US enacted the Chinese Student Protection Act in nineteen
ninety two, and that meant that fifty five thousand Green
(16:22):
cards were given to Chinese immigrants, which also contributed to
this whole second wave. And that more or less brings
us to today, to these discordant Asian Americas and to
questions around identity and stereotypes. But first it brings us
to a quick break forward from our sponsor, and we're back.
(16:55):
Thank you sponsor. So another piece of this conversation is stereotypes,
where they come from, how they shape how we view
people and ourselves and our identity, and how they impact
everything on a societal level. And I know we've talked
about it before, but policies get made, laws get enacted
(17:15):
based on representation, what we see in the media, and stereotypes.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
One of the first ones that we wanted to talk
about was the model minority.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I think that's like the most pervasive one for sure,
in a variety of different ways. You know, it's not
just like this is like a term that was coined
that means that Asians often pointed to as being the
group that's seemingly high performing academically and socioeconomically. And so
you hear, you know, the smart Asian, the doctor or
engineer Asian, these sorts of things that sound like really
(17:50):
good and positive stereotypes, but it's often used to deny
the existence of structural racism among not only Asian Americans
but also other non white people. And it's it's really
harmful for that reason. I think, you know, most often
it's easy to imply either explicitly or implicitly that black
and Hispanic people are not working hard, because if you
(18:10):
know Asian Americans can do so well, then clearly other
groups are not working that hard. But you know, add
that to the tiger mom stereotype that Asian parents are
stricter than other parents or make their kids work harder,
and you get this myth of Asian exceptionalism. And that's
not supported by the disaggregated data that you look at.
So you know, if you control for education, that Asian
(18:32):
wage gap advantage disappears. Asian Americans are the most economically
divided racial group in the country, so you know, Asians
overall rank as the highest running group, but if you
break that out by ethnicity, it shows a wide range
of incomes, and for example, Chinese Americans have a very
high income overall, but the top earners are really shrouding
(18:53):
the fact that there is a high rate of poverty
among Chinese Americans. And you know, depending on the different ethnicity,
it can depend on the reasons different immigrant groups came
to the United States in the first place. Now this
is true for every racial group. You can disaggregate Hispanics,
black people, white people and show differences based on ethnicity,
but it's just so staggering among Asians. So, you know,
(19:14):
seventy five percent of Anian Americans, many who came under
the H and B visa program as highly schooled workers,
have a college degree. But that's only true for a
third of Vietnamese Americans, many who came as refugees from
the Vietnam War, and more than one in three Bermese
Americans and Boutanese Americans are in poverty. And even those
who are successful, particularly those who came as highly schooled workers,
(19:36):
face stomach racism. I think you were talking about the
bamboo ceiling, right.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, I found that term when I was reading
about Fortune and there are five hundred talk companies, only
three percent of those are run by Asians.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And it's really interesting that you see this discrimination even
at the highest level, because there's also evidence of discrimination
and hiring practices. So researchers at Ryerson University in the
University of Toronto found that job applicants with Chinese, Indian,
or Pakistani sounding names were twenty eight percent less likely
to get called back for an interview, and that's something
(20:09):
that also affects other non minorities too.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, is this this model minority thing. Is that
something that you experienced personally, Oh, totally.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I mean I think there's definitely like a sense that
if you're doing well in school in you're Asian, it's
just like because you're Asian, And I mean I think
there's a lot of different things going on there. Maybe
you know, there's a stereotype, for example, of Indian Americans particularly,
but Asian Americans generally doing really well in spelling bees.
I don't know if you've ever watched the National Spelling Bee,
but there's always just like a very cute Asian kid
(20:42):
who wins miss of the time, and like I definitely
was also in the spelling Bee. So like some stereotypes
may be true, but clearly like that's not what happened.
You know, my dad was an immigrant under this like
HMNB visa program, and so that's a very different than
being an immigrant under different types of circumstances. And I
think success and is definitely driven by a lot of
(21:05):
these different histories.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, I've been speaking a lot to two friends of
mine because I recently did an episode around first first
generation immigrants and just hearing this pressure that they felt
to represent their country and their religion. I kind of
pushed them to do things, and they felt that they
(21:30):
had to perform at a level that was really high,
and that their parents would push them to do that
as well, because it was like, we're representing our whole
country totally, totally.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I mean, you know, there's this really great piece that
was published recently in BuzzFeed about immigrant debt and this
idea that like, you, like so many people who are
first generation Americans feel indebted to the sacrifices that their
parents made coming to this country in the first place,
and you know, offending everything, coming without you know, money
(22:05):
or knowing anyone and just making this really difficult journey,
and then like that their kids are just like, okay, well,
like how do I honor a sacrifice even though I
don't want to, you know, do the job that my
parents want me to do, or like do you know,
go into academia or go into being a doctor or whatever,
like I want to be like a journalist, bum like myself,
(22:26):
or you know, I think there's this like definite pressure
that comes with wanting to acknowledge and and honor your parents. Uh,
and you know, being the only one in a classroom
or workplace that looks like you. I think definitely contributes
to that.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, do you mind if I ask how your parents
look that you're going to be journal there's.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Still the soul dealing with it, like several years after
the fact, but I think they've we've we've reached a
a h what's what's the word deton esecially because in freelance,
they they just think like that. For a while, they
thought I was unemployed and I was like, no, no, no,
I'm just like very employed and just like by a
lot of different people, and they're like, you don't go
(23:10):
into an office, what are you doing every day?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I think it's a big ski.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I don't know what they think I'm doing for money,
but they they've definitely approached it with suspicion.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I my parents still tell people like, I'm
basically I'm not sure what she does.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, exactly. So I'm very honoring to hear that.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Something else we have to talk about.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Is exoticizing, our fetishizing of Asian women, because I would
wager that when I say fetish, two things come to mind.
One is foot fetish and the other is Asian fetish.
Asian woman fetish.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, it is a huge part of being Asian American
and women or women presenting in this country. And I
think there is you know, particularly with Asian women with
East and Southeast Asian heritage. I think our fetishizers being
you know, submissive, it's extremely sexual, or other stereotypes that
(24:17):
are really damaging. And again, like being fetishized might so
much a good thing, but I think for most women,
like we know it's not and you know it can
single how Asian and and other non white women are
otherised and stereotyped and are just seen as this like
object or thing or non human entity.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, because it's really dehumanizing. I have I have a
friend who is online dating and she is Asian, and
she tells me that she has a couple of.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Rules, and one is if someone asked her where are
you from? But where really where are you from, She's
immediately like nope, goodbye.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah. And another is that it's not really a rule,
but she just is.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Very nervous about people, particularly white men, who it seems
that they've just dated Asian women.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh totally.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah, that's a huge red flag. I mean, particularly with
white men too. I would say, like when I've dated
white men in the past, it's been like, have you
only dated Asian women? Because that's a huge problem, But
also am I the only like non white person you've
ever dated, because it's also a problem. I don't want
to be either the two things you have had like
one like past that like okay, let's this makes me
feel better, Like I'm not like the first one, but
(25:40):
I'm also not like the eighth one.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Exactly. You get a balance. You gotta find that balance, right.
I love hearing people's personal dating rules, and I I
would love to do a whole episode that's just like
tell me your dating rules and why.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
That'd be great, I.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Think be fascinating.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
But this whole fetishizing of Asian women is colloquially called
yellow fever and also rice queens, when queer men fetishize
Asian men, and we see this everywhere in our culture.
It was even a bit in one of comedian Amy
Schumer's stand up routines.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
She said, quote, I can't compete with.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
An Asian chick because, punchline, they have small vaginas. That's
how omnipresent this fetish is in our culture.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It is a joke.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, and it's hammered home in all types of media.
I mean, if you ever watched anime or manga, which
like most women in there are even hyper sexualized, and
that's often that's from an Asian country Japan. You know,
there are a lot of things contributing to this and
it has real world effects. A study conducted by the
dating app Are You Interested? Found that Asian women were
(26:49):
the most desirable group, not just among white men, but
all men except for Asian men. Interesting, yeah, I think
the city found that like almost every group preferred different races,
but for some reason, Asian women were the most desirable.
But the study I think you found was less than rigorous.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Right, yeah, And they were also findings from Okay Cupid.
A sociologist sociologist named Kevin Lewis, and he found that
all groups preferred to strike up a conversation with someone
of their own race, all except Asian women again preferred
messaging white men. A Psychology Today article looking at this
(27:27):
phenomenon found that a lot of non Asian men held
a belief about Asian women that they are submissive, particularly
when it comes to sex. As one respondent put it, quote,
wemen want a princess in public and a whore in
the bedroom, simple as that.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
They're just not asking a lot, right, they just want
princess public.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And the great words of Usher a freaking is sheees.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Lady in the streets for the bed.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Oh yeah, it's not even Usher, it's somebody else, but
it's an Usher song.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
I don't know much about culture.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I want to say it's Little John's first, so that
I could be If I'm wrong on that, it'll be
very embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
We'll flag that to come back for correction.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And there are centuries of history and culture that have
gone into the construction of the stereotype, starting with the
opening of trade between Asia and Europe. So art depicting
gisha's made its way to Europe that would then be
highly sexualized for the Western male. And I was reading
(28:33):
an essay about this, and I think it is worth
bringing up. Just remember that the Western mail at this
time was living in a very repressive sexually culture. You
know women as well, like they all, everyone was.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Not allowed to.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Openly express sexual desire. It was very frowned upon. You
would go to hell, like it was writing, like we
laugh about it now, but yeah, women didn't show their ankles.
So this new this art is coming in that isn't
so covering up and hot, shying away from the human body.
(29:14):
And then if we move away, I'll move forward a
little bit to eighteen eighty seven, French author Pierre Loti
pens Madame quisanthem and it really can't be understated the
impact this had on shaping how Westerners viewed Asian women,
and specifically Japanese women. In Loti's lifetime, it was reprinted
(29:36):
over two hundred times and translated into every European language.
It follows a naval officer who takes a temporary wife
while stationed in Japan, one that is doll like and
a lot of the words that are used to describe
this character are small, dainty words that I would associate
(29:56):
with being submissive. And if this story sounds familiar, it
could be because it is generally accepted to have inspired
the opera Madama Butterfly, first performed in nineteen oh four,
very similar story. It follows an American officer who takes
a temporary wife all in Japan, but then leaves her
behind to marry a white American woman at the end
(30:17):
of his service, but not before his temporary Japanese wife
sacrifices her religion, her family, her son, and then takes
her own life all for this man who left her.
And if you haven't seen Madama Butterfly, but that story
still sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the reworked version that
(30:38):
takes place in Vietnam, Miss Saigon, which since its premiere
in nineteen eighty nine has been performed all over the
world and still turns a prophet. Now there is this
kind of compliment to the Madama Butterfly stereotype archetype, and
that is the Dragon Lady, which kind of emerged, you know,
(31:00):
nineteen nineties, two thousands, I would say it became popularized.
But this is kind of the sexy assassin who can
do martial arts but essentially still is very one dimensional,
very uh stereotyped character.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
We're talking like kill Bill style, Yes, maybe Charlie's Angels,
Lucy Luce.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, oh, Rush Hour too.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Oh yeah, Oh man, I can't believe.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
I'm so glad you knew it.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Oh. I've seen the movie maybe one hundred times. The
first one I've seen like maybe fifty, but like the
second one one hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Do you really want to?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Man?
Speaker 3 (31:38):
A classic?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
We're dustined to be friends the US's The US armies
presidence throughout Asia during and after World War two and
the Korean War and the Vietnam War cemented this sexualized
perception of Asian women. So called juicy bars and brothels
established themselves around military camps with an exclusive US soldier clientele.
(32:02):
For a lot of these men that this was their
first exposure to Asian women and it was through sex workers.
And the aftermath of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, a
lot of Asian women and children were airlifted out and
brought to the United States, giving rise to a savior
narrative and it started appearing in our media.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, and many Asian American men, you know, kind of
we talked about earlier with Tea, and they've had the
opposite experience. They're often desexualized, not seen as masculine, and
they're going back to this feminate history and it's an
awful dehumanizing stereotype that's still perpetuated. I have, you know,
plenty of straight male friends who are Asian American who
(32:42):
have said that, like they're dating, particularly women the interracial sphere,
like without outside of Asian women have had a stereotype
lopped against them or even with Asian women sometimes, and
like it's just been really disheartening for a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And it doesn't help that in our media we see
these these representations everywhere there, these stereotypes are reinforced and
perhaps even solidified and through like the Tiger Mom, Model Minority, Madama, Butterfly,
Dragon Lady.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
And that's what.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Little representation there is anyway, because there isn't much. Asian
Americans make up only one percent of Hollywood's leading roles.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, and examples that were there were usually like Tokens
or about you know, very very good but like kind
of sometimes stereotypical stories about the Vietnam War, or of
course George T. K Asulu in Star Trek. But in
recent years the good things that Asian American visibility has increased.
I think recently, you know, living like Sandra Oh became
(33:47):
the first Asian American to when the lead actress Golden Globe.
Plus there's the mega hit from last year, Crazy Rich Asians,
and it's become so popular both as a rom com
and as just the first movie to have an all
Asian cast in almost twenty twenty three years, and it
definitely represented just a small slice of Asian America, obviously
(34:09):
the crazy rich kind with generational wealth and economic privilege.
Very few brown or doctor skinned faces in that movie too.
But it opened the door for more movies about the
Asian American experience. And you know it's important to create
as author and Pulter Prize winner Via tan When has
written about narrative plenitude, the idea that we need more
(34:30):
stories about Asian Americans and about other marginalized groups so
that one story doesn't carry the burden of representing every experience.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yes, and this is a big pet fave of mine
because every time a story comes out that is all
mostly Asian cast, and everyone's.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Like, will it make money? Because that's going to determine
if we make anymore. Right and yet, I mean movies
that are bad, that have a usually white male.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Lead but don't make any money, they don't get the
same pressure like they're just gonna be made. There's not
so much writing on them. Why can't we have bad
movies for everybody?
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Right, good movies for everybody too, But bad.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Movies like no, absolutely, I mean, I mean platitude doesn't
mean that they're all like amazing pulz Rice winners for sure, exactly. Yeah.
And you know, speaking of probably like bad examples, probably
one of the other you know, well known Asian American
characters that we would go and risk that mentioning is
a poo, the lovable convenience store clerk on The Simpsons,
(35:36):
who was recently removed from the show after comedian Hary
Condoboulu made a documentary call the Problem with a Poo
And the problem is that a poo's stereotypically thick Indian accent,
which I will not do. I thought about it is
voiced by non South Asian Hanka's area At, one of
the show's creators, who also voices a lot of other characters,
(35:58):
and who Condebolu says, this is a quote from kind
of Bell sounds like a white guy doing an impression
of a white guy making fun of my father. It's
really accurate. And you know, some South Asians aren't offended
by a poo, but it's not hard to see the
soft racism, which is you know, just been described, particularly
(36:18):
while by New Yorker writer Juasu, who says that even
though the Simpsons might not have wanted to offend with
a poo, it's still collapsing an entire ethnic group, and
two exaggerated characteristics like a silly accent or some missive
slogan like think you come again, And that's I think
in and of itself is particularly problematic.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, I remember when all of this was kind of happening.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
It was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I haven't seen the show since Sense of Who left,
so I'd be interested to check out what's going on
there now.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, I can't believe it's still in the air. I
don't mean that negatively. I know it's like, wow, it's been.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Like a million years, the longest run show ever. I mean,
I love the sibstence. It's getting me wrong. And you know,
I think I remember like seeing a poo as a
kid and being like, well, yeah, like you know, poo
is like a touchdown that you can refer to, like yeah, yeah,
like you know, you you talk to like kids and
they'd be like, like, where's India and you'd be like,
like a poo, you know, like just like a pooh
like your reference point. But the double edged sword in
(37:25):
some cases it is.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah again, maybe it would be it'd be nice to
have more representation that you could point to instead of just.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, we can dream.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Something else that you you brought to my attention is
kind of within this world of hip hop that there
is kind of an interesting exchange between Asian American or
just Asian and hip hop.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, oh totally. I mean it's there's a few different
groups that I've been coming out. I think there's like
the rap label eighty eight rising, a lot lots of
people who are who are Asian American are Asian who
are who are forming hip hop groups or other acts.
And K pop has been borrowing a lot from uh,
from hip hop as well, just in terms of like
(38:15):
meats that the like a lot of different parts of
the act. And and it is this like really interesting
exchange that you were saying, because you know, I think
that hip hop has obviously drawn from a lot of
different sources, but it's so firmly rooted in the black community,
and so there are so like so many important complex
questions about some of these numer groups which have sometimes
(38:38):
been accused of appropriating Black culture or sometimes even ignoring
some of the anti black racist comments from their fans.
And and you know, Asian Americans have certainly benefited from
the work of black and brown activists and the civil
rights movements of those activists in this country. And there's
still a lot of work that the Asian American community
at large has to do when it comes to interracial interactions.
(39:00):
Particularly you know, anti blackness is really prominent in many
different Asian American communities, and there's you know, even this
issue of colorism and racism within the Asian American community.
I mean you could just if you go inside a
i mean almost any Asian American store, whether it's Filipino,
whether it's Indian, whether it's Chinese, and you go to
the like skincare aisle, you will see like skin lightning creams.
(39:23):
The one in the Indian store is called fair and Lovely.
Trusts me, there's nothing fair and lovely about it. Like
it is literally like a bleaching cream, and people use
it because they want their skin to appear lighter, because
being dark skinned, especially for women of course, is just
seen as this really bad thing. You seem as less attractive.
And you know, we could talk for like a million
years about where that comes from and why. But like,
(39:47):
you know, the odd distinctions between white Asians and brown Asians,
even within the Asian American community. But like this is
just something that like exists in our home countries, but
it is also something that exists in the Asian American experience.
It's still that I think needs to be talked about
a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah, and as as is clear, I am not too
big in tipop culture, but we did talk about when
we're preparing for this, like John Lee from Nick Camnage
and Katie Perry when she did that kind of gasha.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, so lots of like weird Definitely stereotypical things that
you see in pop culture are kind of like sometimes
given a past, sometimes not like that. I definitely deserve
to also be talked about when it comes to like
(40:42):
anti Asian or stereotypical bias.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yeah, for sure, there's a lot to go into there,
and we still have some more in this episode. But
first we have a quick break forward from our sponsor
(41:07):
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So taking all of this,
all of these history, these stereotypes, it plays into the
question of the Asian American identity. Nowadays, some folks are
rejecting the label Asian American in favor of something more specific,
But this label was introduced. When it was introduced, it
(41:28):
was meant to foster unity. It was coined by historian
and activists ugi Igioka in nineteen sixty eight. He was
partly inspired by the success of the Black Panther movement,
and he hoped it would help to combat direct discrimination
that had been aimed at Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans.
When Japanese Americans were in prison dufter World War Two,
(41:51):
some Chinese Americans carried signs or were buttons to signify
that they were not Japanese American, but Chinese American. This
unification under one label might offer protection.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
That was the thought.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Asian American was also a way to ditch derogatory terms
given by society in a way to self define. And
then we come to the murder of a Chinese American,
Vincent Chin in nineteen eighty two, and this murder increased
the feeling that there needed to be a coalition. Chin
was beaten to death by white auto workers unhappy with
(42:23):
competition from Japanese auto companies.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah and his killers were sentenced to probation and fined
two thousand dollars. And when that happened, protesters Martian cities
across the country, giving rise to this new Pian Asian
identity and unity that was forged by the realization that
of Chin, who was the son of Chinese immigrants, could
be killed because of Japanese auto imports. Maybe being Asian
(42:50):
American and being able to be mistaken for other groups
by white people and other Americans had consequences, and that
kind of misconception shapes the racial experiences of so many
Asian Americans. I mean, if you look at the experiences
of Sick Americans who follow a South Asian religion that's
distinct from Hinduism and Islam, there is a long history
(43:13):
of hate crimes against Stick Americans the United States, often
because white racists are mistaking them from Muslims or otherwise
demonizing their faith. But this idea that Asian American is
such a huge over a large category. It is that
way sometimes because if I'm able to be mistaken for
someone else, that means that I already have a vested
(43:35):
interest in how the other group gets treated. And I
think that's how this kind of unity gets formed.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, and it was meant to be that way. But
if we look at.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
South Asians, Asian Americans has frequently left out people from
South Asia, or at least in the minds of people
who might use that term. So that comes to the
question of who gets the label of Asian American. As
the author of this Washington Post piece, Sonya Raw points out,
when describing actors John Cho or Constance Wu, the media
(44:14):
typically uses Asian Americans, whereas actors like Mindy Kaling or
Azizan Sorry are described differently.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, and the term Asian American also includes Pacific Islanders
sometimes or native Hawaiians, and many Central Asians like people
from Kazakhstan or Afghanistan, and Southwest Asians like people from
parts of the Middle East. So it for this huge
group of people with so many different histories and languages
and cultures that you know, don't have representation in so
(44:41):
many places. And you see many people refer to themselves
by their ethnicity rather than by Asian Americans. So I
will call myself Anian American most of the time, not
Asian American, because I mean, what does that even mean?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Sometimes right exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
And another another piece of this conversation and kind of
this fragmentation of the Asian American identity is affirmative action,
which has been in the news a lot lately, and
August twenty eighteen, the Department of Justice came out on
the side of a group of Asian students that were
suing Harvard for racial discrimination during the admissions process. So
(45:18):
Harvard University for our international listeners. From the student's legal filing,
the process quote significantly disadvantages Asian American applicants compared to
applicants of other racial groups. Worth pointing out the person
who leads the organization suing Harvard, Edward Blum, has multiple
similar lawsuits against other schools, but on behalf of white
(45:41):
students and just a really quick aside, really really really quick.
The term affirmative action first appeared in terms of a
US policy in nineteen thirty five with the National Labor
Relations Act. This act primarily allowed workers to unionize freely
and without fear. If an employer was found in non
(46:01):
compliance firing an employee o reunionizing, the employee would be
rehired and or be otherwise compensated via affirmative action. President
FDR's Secretary of the Interior extended it, establishing a fixed
percentage of African American employees for the Public Works Administration.
A lot of local institutions refused to obey JFK's executive
(46:24):
ordered ten nine to five demanded government contractors quote take
affirmative action to achieve non discrimination. Affirmative action was meant
to acknowledge how the inequalities and injustices of the past
still existed and continued to impact the prospects of African Americans.
In nineteen sixty seven, it was also used as an
(46:45):
argument to ban discrimination on the basis of sex. In
nineteen seventy eight, the Supreme Court here's the first case
of reverse discrimination made by a white man who believed
he would have gotten into his university of choice if
he had been a minority.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
The case.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
In the nineties, Californians past California Civil Rights Initiative are
Prop two nine. This initiative did away with affirmative action
in the realm of education. It passed in nineteen ninety six,
and between nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety eight, admissions
to Berkeley and UCLA dropped by fifty nine percent for
African Americans. Several other states follow suit, but two more
(47:24):
cases brought to the Supreme.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Court have lost. Okay back to Harvard.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
This was the culmination of a couple of grievances this lawsuit.
Harvard's own internal research division found that if the only
factor considered was academic performance, forty three percent of the
admitted class would be Asian. Now, if you introduce other
consideration like athletics, legacies, extracurriculars, the number goes down to
(47:52):
twenty six percent. When you add in demographics, the number
drops to eighteen percent.
Speaker 3 (47:57):
And we should add that this particular lawsuit, which was
filed by a Chinese American, has in particularly gotten a
lot of support from Chinese American advocates and media and
just across the country for many people who feel similarly
to the plaintiff.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Related have been a handful of lawsuits that have aligned
white people and a specific group of Asian Americans. Two
twenty eighteen lawsuits against Google alleged that the white male
plaintiffs were being illegally discriminated against due to hiring quotas
that favor females and non favored minorities. Both lawsuits included
(48:34):
Caucasian and Asian males as those being discriminated against.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Yeah, but there's definitely a reality of proxipanity to whiteness
that's going on here. That many Asians have benefitted from,
and it's something that many other non white people, particularly
those who identify as black, can't benefit from.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
And this isn't the first time a minority has been
grouped together with the majority, in this case white people.
Sociologists all this whitening. The term comes to us partly
courtesy of a Portuguese phrase out of Brazil quote money whitens.
Previous groups that were once considered as non white include
(49:12):
the Irish and the Italians. And this involves a certain
level of a rasure and cultural assimilation.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
And this affirmative action issue has really, you know, I
think split the Asian American community of this country in
so many different ways. And it's really important to note
that a majority of Asian Americans support affirmative action. It
has benefitted so many of Asian Americans' lives. The research
group AAPI Data the stands for Asian American Pacific Islander Data,
(49:43):
which is one of the few that to segregate data
based on ethnicity. They found that a majority of most
Asian ethnic groups support affirmative action, from eighty four percent
support among Indian Americans the sixty four percent support among
Chinese Americans and you know, there's lot of differences within
those groups. So you know, less than half of Vietnamese Americans,
(50:05):
by contrasts, support affirmative action, and that's tied to the
fact that many American Vietnamese Americans lean Republican, which is
also influenced by a history with communism and the Vietnam War.
That's not unlike that of many Cuban Americans. So you know,
again really important to remember that Asian Americans aren't a
monolith both economically and politically.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
And the GOP has come out on the side of
Asian Americans in the effort while Asian Americans like Chinese Americans,
particularly in this case of this Harvard lawsuit, in the
effort to end affirmative action for as you can imagine,
the GOP has a different entirely political reasons, using the
concerns of Asian Americans to help white Americans. The Republican
(50:51):
Party is courting Asian Americans, and.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
You know, Asian Americans largely vote Democratic, with some notable
exceptions which include Vietna Mes and Filipinos.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
And several articles I read have advised the Democratic Party
to sound the alarm over this, to really pay attention
to this issue.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Yeah, and you know, many Asian Americans in different parts
of the country have been politically apathetic in some places,
you know, a lower than average turnout rates than compared
with other minority groups. And the continuing evolution of Asian
American political identity is definitely something to watch out for,
I think as time goes on, and you know, I
(51:31):
think the most important thing to remember out of all
of this that we've talked about over the last hour
or so is that Asian American identities extremely complicated and
something that is still under construction, especially as our population
grows and we become more visible in mainstream society and
as things like affirmative action really take you know, have
(51:55):
us take stock of what it is that we believe
and what our histories are in this country. And there's
not one prevailing narrative that explains what being Asian American is.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Absolutely and as I was discussing with you when we
were planning this, and as I kind of alluded to
at the top, we don't learn about this stuff in
the United States. A lot of this history was new
to me and we just don't have this background, and
it is so important when understanding where people come from
(52:29):
and where they're going, and when we're talking about these
two discordant Asian Americas, to me, it sounds like it
is one the first wave has all this history, and
then the second wave kind of doesn't get taught that
when they're already in the United States, so they had
a different experience, and to know all that stuff is
(52:51):
good for all of us. I'm a big proponent, if
you didn't know, I'm a big proponent of education and
listening to other people and learning from other people's experiences.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
So this has been really valuable for me as well.
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we got
to do this and that you came on. Do you
have any recommended reading from from Asian women or Asian
people Asian American people.
Speaker 3 (53:19):
Yeah, totally. I you know, one of the books that
we mentioned earlier, I think is something that we turned
to when we were reading this episode, The Making of
Asian America, which is booked by Erica Lee. It came
out a couple of years ago. It is very long
and very detailed, but I think it does give a
great overview of how Asian Americans came to this country,
why we're here all that stuff, and you know, of course,
(53:42):
like pop culture, we would be remiss if we didn't
like throw shout outs to I think some of the
famous Asian Americans out there. You know, from a Pirna Nonchala,
who's like a hilarious comedian you should totally follow her
on Twitter, to Asofmanvi, to Constance Woo, the actress in
Crazy Witch Asians and Fresh off the Boat. And you
(54:04):
know Hiro Murai who directed Atlanta the TV show, and
who's just like a really wonderful artist and does a
lot of music videos. Asian Americans all over the creative spheres.
Watch out, yeah, nineteen.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, watch out and support support their work. And speaking
of where could the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (54:31):
You will find me online in the digital nightmare we
call the Internet. Yes, you can find my work at
Sonanbashi dot com or I write around Atlanta. If you
live around here, please hit me up to say hey,
and I may say hey back for sure.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Oh a steady maybe I like that.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
Definite, definite. I'll hit you back in like three to
five days.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Perfect. I love it.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thank you so much much for joining us. I hope
that you'll come back. This was such a delight having you.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I totally will and for you listeners. If you would
like to reach out to us, you can. Our email
is mom Stuff atstuffworks dot com. You can find us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Instagram at
stuff We've.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
Never Told You.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Thanks as always to our producer Andrew Howard, and thanks
to you for listening.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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