Hi, Christina here! There has been much to process in the aftermath of the Atlanta mass shooting in which six Asian women were killed. In pre-pandemic times, the typical way of talking about Asian-Americans was to label us as ‘invisible’ but COVID-19 has certainly made us hyper-visible, a prime target for frustration and rage at how the pandemic has upended every aspect of life. In this episode, I try to dig a bit deeper on how the term ‘Asian-American’ came out of a time of political turmoil to create solidarity and has since then devolved into a hollow identity usually revolving around food, boba tea, pop culture and entertainment, and little else.
I also get into the specific experience of being Chinese-American and how anti-China rhetoric (as displayed in the Trump administration’s haphazard usage of ‘China virus’ and ‘Wuhan flu’) and long-existing Sinophobia play out into a larger xenophobia and hatred of all (East, Southeast) Asians.
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Some other thoughts that didn’t make it into the episode:
The lack of expertise (linguistic, cultural, etc.) that US media has in covering Asian-American issues, as evidenced by the very slow nature in gathering the names and stories of the victims. Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo was providing more of the updates, as they had Korean reporters on the ground. When US media was ready to publish the victims’ names, they reported the Korean names when they were incomplete (treating their names as a first and middle name, when in reality the two names are the first name - ex. Yong A. Yue instead of Yong Ae Yue). There was a tweet going on equating it to someone releasing Taylor Swift’s name as Tay L. Swift. It may not seem like much, but it reads as disrespectful to the victims’ families.
The gross language used in the obituaries of the victims that strips them of their own individuality and vibrancy. Consistently, the most pervasive descriptors were “hardworking” and “successful,” as if they didn’t have other traits worthy of being mentioned. Is the value of immigrants in this country only in how “American” they become, in how well they assimilate into society? Who are they outside of their labor and whatever they ‘contribute’ to society in a material sense? Secondary to those descriptors were those like ‘compassionate’ or ‘giving’ or something along the lines of always cooking for others and providing food and nourishment. Again, I must ask, is the value of immigrants in what we receive from them? They give and give and give, pleading to be accepted, and we take and take and take, until every bit of their humanity is taken away.
Xiaojie Tan’s story of immigrating from China only really begins after a white man whisks her away from ‘the communist country.’ (Would you describe the US so narrowly as ‘the capitalist country’? What was the intention behind including the white man saying ‘he was taken by her beauty’? Why are we seeing her through his gaze? )
The son of Hyun Jung Grant being questioned, inappropriately, about whether his mother engaged in illegal sexual activities (I mean, who cares? Would that change public perception of her? Would her obituary be less positive towards her if so?).
The fascination (and often times, over-romanticization) of ‘America’ that prompts immigrants to come to the US (specifically, those who are able to choose to come here). The joy and gratitude of being in the US preceding any of the rampant abuse, racism, or economic toil, which sometimes blossoms into a zealous patriotism. (For example, the coinage of the term ‘beaconism’ that explains Chinese immigrants’ loyalty to Trump.) This is a much larger topic that I could expand into talking about Minari’s portrayal of ‘the American dream’ and Oscar frontrunner Chloé Zhao being drawn to the American West which led to Nomadland, but that is for another day.
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Some additional readings and links that have helped inform my own thinking during a time of deep disorientation:
Cathy Park Hong in The Atlantic on why this wave of anti-Asian racism feels different. She’s most known for her book Minor Feelings which has somehow become The Book About the Asian-American Experience… which I’m not sure how to feel about. Her writing has honestly been very clarifying for me, but some of it still feels a bit like an introductory course on Asian-America for the freshman undergrad, if you get what I mean.
Time to Say Goodbye podcast episode from fellow Asian-Americans that offered some thoughts on the problems of using ‘hate crimes’ as a classification (that ends up advocating for a stronger carceral state), and also the necessity of moving away from PMC (professional-managerial class) thinking towards one that understands how class and immigration status increases vulnerability.
This article on the different paths of immigrants that pushes against the narrative of Asian-Americans as a monolith, showing how the ‘American pursuit’ of wealth and power runs up against politics — a very thorny issue that desperately needs to be explored more (especially among the increasingly conservative factions of Vietnamese and Chinese that voted for Trump in 2020).
This article written before the Atlanta shooting happened, but rightfully critiques the way we consume Asian culture and food without much thought about the Asian people producing that culture and food. One of my favorite lines:
The efforts to save Chinatowns through their restaurants and this year of violence against Chinese and other Asian people are symptoms of the same problem: a relationship mediated through consumption, without quite knowing what to do with the people behind those goods, who are imperiled by the physical threat of assaults, as well as longstanding threats like poverty and displacement. Americans may love Chinese food, but they don’t love the people who make it. They treat Chinatowns like playgrounds, their residents like backdrops for photos. They reach for the products of Chinese labor and with the same hands knock them down on the street.
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Also in this episode, Anurag talks about how he thinks his years growing up in India were very different to kids who grow up in the US in one big way, and about ghost forests, a climate change phenomenon leading to stretches of dead coastal forests.
Anti-Asian violence, teen depression, and ghost forests