Please be seated. Thank you Alexis for that wonderful introduction and thank you Reverend Squire and the Vestry for allowing me to speak today.
(pull mic down) Sorry, I have to pull this mic down, I’m a short Asian girl and my small eyes can’t really see my speech on the podium.
It’s funny.
It’s funny how, because I’m Asian, I’m essentially “allowed” to make this joke. I am permitted to propagate a stereotype that may or may not describe me because this stereotype pertains to a group that I actually belong to. I can crack Asian jokes to my Asian friends. Heck, I can even say it to my friends who are not Asian.
If you know me well enough, you would probably know how often I use self-deprecating humor. To this day, several members of my freshman year Swanson advisory still make fun of me for practically rejoicing when I saw that we had rice for one of our meals during Outward Bound. I really missed rice back then, okay? Many people would assume or assert that I should be offended when it’s brought up, but for some reason I’m really not. I actually laugh too.
Why do I do this? Believe me, I want to appreciate and celebrate my uniqueness as an Asian American individual, but I have to admit that the way I do it is hypocritical. Maybe I do it for easy laughs because when we were kids we got accustomed to the fact that the funny person was “cool”.
But if I look harder at exactly why I make fun of myself, I find that I am innately insecure about who I am. I don’t want others to point out my “differences” or so called “uniqueness” by just pointing out something they think generalizes me based on the color of my skin. I think that, because of these reasons, I feel compelled to preemptively joke about my race.
Not only is self-deprecating humor extremely cathartic for me, but with it I am also able to come to terms with my insecurities by turning them into my own punch lines on my own terms and in my own ways before someone else turns me into theirs. If a white person makes a racist joke about me it takes on a whole new meaning because of that difference in power dynamic. That's why I personally feel more comfortable joking about my own demographic….it suddenly becomes an even playing field.
Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that I should probably stop telling self-racist jokes because, at the end of the day, I’m being racist.
I’m sending the wrong message to myself. I’m horrifically getting used to the fact that my race is something that I could mock.
But most importantly, I’m sending the wrong message to everyone else. The message that if I can make fun of my race, so can you.
And the truth is, I feel conflicted. On the one hand, I know racism exists, whether I like it or not. However, making racist jokes, even if they aren’t intended to be, sends the message that it’s not such a big deal when it really is.
I understand that being racist doesn’t mean that you are a racist—you could say that maybe I’m being too sensitive. A racist joke may just be a joke but it is heard by both non-racist and racist people alike. Sometimes the intent of the joke is obvious and sometimes it isn’t. But the same original, harmless joke can distort into something hateful in the hands of someone truly racist. Jokes, in the hands of a clumsy person who doesn’t truly understand what he or she might be saying, are offensive.
Making jokes about my race doesn’t mean I am comfortable in the face of racism. It’s just that laughing about it myself helps me circumvent that pit in my stomach whenever someone else, whether they intend to or not, points out my race. I empower myself by making fun of myself before anyone else can. Humor is a cathartic getaway from feeling antagonized and demoralized. But it’s a short term solution.
As a young child, I didn’t really grasp the concept of race or skin color. However, when growing up, and I hope I can speak for most Asian-Americans here, you start to notice some things.
You start to realize that wearing shoes in the house is not the worst thing you could do and not everyone ate rice for every meal. You notice that not every grocery store carries Pocky. You also realize that it’s not that common to call everyone who’s older than you Uncle or Aunt and that when some people speak slowly to you, it’s not because they’re trying to be articulate, but it’s because they think you don’t understand English…as if speaking English slowly to a non-English speaking person helps anyways.
I remember sitting in one of my middle school classes; we had spent weeks on how blacks and whites are portrayed in the media. As my teacher went on, I sat there wondering when she was going to bring up Asians, Hispanics, or Middle Easterners. When I started to learn about the Civil Rights movement, I wondered what happened to Asians during that time. It wasn’t out of spite or anything, I was just curious. What about other minority groups?
Now, I understand why the discussion on race tends to be about blacks and whites. America’s darkest days were about slavery and the civil rights movement. There’s undoubtedly a lot to be said about the resilient nature of the African-American people. Schools teach us to never forget where America came from and, from the mistakes of our past, we can learn justice and tolerance. However, even to this day, as sad as it is, we still struggle with racism among white and black people.
But if race is such a huge topic in American studies, why is it that we only briefly touch upon things like the Asian & Chinese Exclusion Acts in my classes or Japanese Internment camps?
Being Asian-American has always been a difficult part of me. Don’t get me wrong…I am proud of my heritage and how far my parents have come, but I had a hard time feeling as if I belonged somewhere especially since I have experienced first hand racism.
Over winter break, I went on a cruise with my family for my mom’s high school reunion. Before stepping on the boat, I already started to feel second-hand embarrassment that I would be traveling on a boat with 40+ Chinese people, many of whom did not speak English well or at all.
When our boat docked at the Cayman Islands, our humongous group boarded a bus that we thought was going to the turtle farm but, surprise surprise, it wasn’t actually going there. I remember seeing left and right members of my group exclaiming questions in Chinese, searching for answers, while those who could actually speak English were both trying to find out what was going on and trying to relax their confused friends. It was chaotic.
There were other people on that bus, specifically one man who sat in the chair across from me and who looked like he was about to blow up. As the noise that we were making began to build, he stood up and yelled, “This is NOT going to the turtle farm. Why are your people always so stupid? Shouldn’t you be smarter than this? Get off the bus!!”
We got really quiet, and needless to say, we got off the bus. I could hear some people laughing as we stepped off the vehicle in our walk of shame.
I’ve been called other things before….
I’ve been called “oriental”. I was bullied in elementary school for being a “dog-eater”, which I’m not by the way…but nevertheless preferences such as diet are shaped by the culture we grow up in. Here it is common to refer to a dog as man’s best friend, but we should still respect that other cultures do not share
the same traditional views. In fact, in Hinduism, the cow is revered as a sacred animal and eating beef is taboo, yet millions of Hindus comfortably live among us and the 50 billion hamburgers we eat every year.
More often as I grow up, I’ve been consistently reminded that I’m not just another person. I’m an Asian one. And these reminders make me acutely aware of my ethnicity in an uncomfortable way and vulnerable when I’m stereotyped and differentiated.
There is a lot of talk about Chinese-Americans being the model minority, a term cleverly coined to create divisions among colored minorities. The fact is is that everyone is a model minority because everyone contributes to American society. It should never be based on class, income, or the color of your skin. Let's not let resentment, created by a society of white privilege, divide people of color.
There are still times when I forget that I’m a minority in America. I’m not going to lie, I’ve felt flattered before when people I’ve never talked to ask me to be part of their group for a project. But deep down inside I secretly know that many but not all of them only picked me because I was being instantly categorized as the smart one since I was the “Asian kid”. I admittedly appreciated the attention and liked that people immediately thought I was smart.
And as stereotypes go, it could definitely be worse. Asians Americans aren’t assumed to be uneducated, unmotivated, or that dangerous. What’s so bad about being considered smart, law-abiding, studious, and possibly skilled in the martial arts?
While these stereotypes might not cause the same degree of discrimination, prejudice, and actual physical danger that other minority groups face, the very gentility of the prejudice makes it harder for people to take it seriously.
For labels that sound so promising in tone, the “model minority” and “Asian advantage” stereotypes actually render discrimination against Asian-Americans invisible because it ignores the struggles of many Asian nationalities by dividing the races and putting disabling pressure on young people.
The most distressing consequence of the model minority label is its failure to acknowledge socioeconomic and education disparities among the diverse range of communities that are categorized as Asian-American. For example, not all ethnic communities under the Asian-American umbrella term are advantaged. Southeast Asian-Americans drop out of high school at an alarming rate of nearly 40%.
In addition, this Asian-American subgroup, along with Vietnamese-Americans, earn below the national average. Sweeping generalizations of Asian-Americans as the “privileged” and “successful” minority cannot replace unnerving data that bring truth to the inequalities that many Asian-Americans face daily.
Sensationalized articles around the time of the Civil Rights Movement such as Newsweek’s “Success Story: Out-whiting the Whites” and Time Magazine’s “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids” similarly argue: if Asian-Americans can “work hard” and “never complain”, why aren’t other racial groups following suit? This cultural perpetuation of the model minority label operates as a racial wedge that divides Asian-Americans from communities of color and maintains white dominance in leadership and politics via the “bamboo ceiling”, a barrier based on the predisposition that Asians lack communication skills and leadership qualities.
It’s time to acknowledge the truth: the model minority does not exist.
Why aren’t more people talking about this? Well, Asian Americans as people rarely inject themselves in the national conversation about race and identity politics, partly because many Asian cultures emphasize humility and the immigrant desire to fit in and avoid trouble. Although this attitude has been changing as the number of second and third generation Asian-Americans increases, it has long fed another stereotype: that they’re obedient and less likely to fight back, and thereby easier to make fun of.
Thus, there’s less awareness of what is offensive to Asian Americans. This was definitely evident in Chris Rock’s skit at the Oscars where he brought out three Asian kids in tuxedos and wielding briefcases and claimed that they were the best representatives from an accounting firm since they’re so good at math. Moreover, our passiveness does not draw enough attention on issues such as the Peter Liang case, in which an Asian rookie NYPD police officer was convicted of manslaughter for accidentally killing Akai Gurley. However, in previous similar cases where defendants were white police officers, they were not thrown in jail.
I believe that as Americans, we’re still scared to accept difference, even in this day and age. We tell ourselves that we are more tolerant and accepting, looking to how far we have come, but in reality, we’re currently stuck in a rut.
All this is so counter-intuitive. The US prides itself on being a melting pot or a salad bowl (at AP US kids). So why is it that the whole image of the “ideal American” is, dare I say, white? I’m tired of taxi drivers asking where my family is “originally” from. But since I’m Asian my family usually gets the follow up question: “but where are your people from?” and then they go on forever about how much they love China.
But let me ask, if a foreign European were to walk the streets of America how many times would they be stopped or stared at for being “foreign”? How many “Go back to where you came from”s would they hear? Because of who I am I instantly get an extra inquiry: immigrant, foreign, or native?
In the end, I’ve decided that being Asian-American is another race and culture. We are the ignored minority. We currently don’t have a place in middle school textbooks or in sociology. Not enough people walk on eggshells when talking about the Asian race. I am not going to apologize for the scent our food makes when we’re cooking or make fun of the fact that we do get a little overly excited when we interact with our loved ones.
On one side, the Asian culture has taught me to respect authority, to be selfless and to take a holistic approach to life. I have learned to value education and diligence, to be resourceful and never wasteful.
On the other hand, the American culture has taught me independence, consideration for even those I don’t know, the importance of diversity, and the value of having goals in life.
Being Asian-American, is a whole world all in itself. We are a fairly young race, so we’re still figuring things out. I’m just asking for a little acknowledgment from the rest of America.
Complicated? Yes. Controversial? Definitely.
But then again, if everything were black and white, well, I wouldn’t exist.