Invisible Politcs | Michelle Tan

Invisible Politics

By Michelle Tan

The Asian American community is often regarded as apolitical. It’s ironic that, with the recent exception of Andrew Yang, the most political visibility Asian Americans seem to have is this paradoxical situation: a “visible” complaint from the “invisibility” we have in politics. Even in popular media, such as movies, television, novels and comics, Asian Americans are seldom seen. Instead, we are portrayed as an overall generalization of “just Asian”; our American side is invisible because we do not fight for it nearly enough. I say we, because I am also at fault. I am one of those apolitical Asians who cannot be bothered to learn politics, American or otherwise, but still demand to be seen. Yet, there is a reason for our invisibility and apoliticism.

How can Americans ask us to be political when it is politics that have killed our Asian relatives? This demand that we step up and come into sight is based on the ignorance of the unseen trauma that we have. We may be apolitical Americans, but our Asian history is haunted by politics that go unseen in this country. Given the history of conflict in Asia, our Asian parents and grandparents were forced to see the atrocities that come out from politics. So many families and friends were separated and killed because of the politics of other countries being forced upon Asia: the Korean and Vietnamese peninsulas are obvious examples of this; the circles of influences in and colonization of China, the Philippines, India, Cambodia and Laos; even Japanese occupation of fellow Asian countries.

We see the lingering of these traumas in our older generations in how our parents talk about not having enough food as children; how they’re glad that they can provide for us, the new generation of children. We see it in how our grandparents will not talk about losing their parents, their children; how they can’t talk about the wars and camps they’ve lived in. How can we bear to be political when we can barely even acknowledge our own pain? The scars from the past are not left in the past; no, they live on in our survivors and in our generation, in our affected motherlands today and in our American apoliticism.

This is, however, not an excuse to be apolitical. This is an explanation as to why the majority of the Asian American community are. But in order for us to break free of this, we must take the initiative and acknowledge

our trauma. We know of it, but we don’t want to see it. We want to pretend that if it’s invisible, it won’t hurt us. We want to pretend that if we are invisible, WE won’t be hurt.

But that’s not helping and that’s not working. Now, more than ever before, we Asian Americans must face our invisibility and see ourselves for who we are. For if we stay invisible, we won’t ever be able to bring justice to our family nor to ourselves. To this day, so little is recorded of Japanese American internment camps or of Chinese and Korean railroad workers, who were some of our earliest Asian Americans. Later on in American history, Asian Americans were yet again ignored until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which finally made it legal for Asians to immigrate to America, though it wasn’t enacted until 1968. Being invisible for so long has let our American history be erased. Our fear of getting hurt again has turned into this shield of invisibility, but now Asian Americans run the risk of never being seen. “But in order for us to break free of this, we must take the initiative and acknowledge our trauma.”

Photo from The Atlantic