Luka Loncar
Senior Thesis | 2024
Asian
American Silence: Appealing to Whiteness
Luka Loncar
Within the United States, over the past few decades, Asian Americans have progressively lost recognition as people of color. More often now, they are commonly regarded within American culture as White, or at least much closer to Whiteness than other racial groups in the US. As a result of the model minority myth, this difference is most prominently on display in the classroom. In the eyes of many, “Asian Americans made it.” However, if the widespread display of Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic’s outset points to anything, it is that fear, violence, and anger towards Asian Americans have not dissipated: Asian Americans are still people of color and are still targets of racism. Not being able to recognize and act on this fact means holding back the US from progressing toward the inclusive and equitable
nation of immigrants it sets itself to be. To make progress towards fair treatment and understanding towards Asian Americans, we must recognize the silence among Asian Americans–what has caused their eventual lack of recognition as people of color–and how the US has encouraged their silence.
Commonly, when people discuss systems of oppression, they utilize a single-axis framework because of its simplicity, which makes it problematic. Under a single-axis framework of intersectionality, an individual or group is regarded as an unblended collection of the systems of oppression they inhabit rather than a combination of them. For example, to analyze the systems of oppression that Asian Americans experience, one would determine all the ways how Asians are oppressed–let's call this set A; next one would determine all the ways immigrants are oppressed–and call this set B; and then they would conclude that the oppression that Asian immigrants experience is the set of both A and B. The single-axis framework examines an individual’s
social life, race, gender, class, and anything else in isolation and cannot consider how each aspect of one’s identity can interact.
The core issue with a single-axis framework of intersectionality is that it oversimplifies human experiences and leaves out all nuances of how different groups can experience oppressive structures differently. Because this framework relies entirely on collection rather than combination, experiences unique to Asian immigrants are entirely overlooked: a single-axis framework would not be able to recognize how a White immigrant’s experience moving into a White majority community differs from an Asian immigrant's experience moving into a White majority community. A single-axis framework is just too simplistic.
Another problem with a single-axis framework of oppression is that it must assume a norm from which everything deviates. Without operating with the assumption of the “mythical norm,” a single-axis framework has no baseline from which to
make comparisons. For instance, if Asian oppression and the oppression of women are different axes that must be regarded individually under this framework, then either or both Asianness and womanhood cannot be a part of the assumed norm. In general, within American society, the mythical norm refers to a White, cis, American-born, able-bodied man. So, to analyze Asian oppression in this framework, one is looking at the treatment of an Asian, cis, American-born, able-bodied man since one can only consider a single axis at a time. Similarly, to analyze the oppression of immigrants, one would have to examine the experience of a White, cis, immigrant, able-bodied man. Imagine if one wanted to examine the oppression of Asian immigrants, one would have to look at the overlap of the treatment of an Asian, cis, Americanborn, able-bodied man and the treatment of a White, cis, immigrant, able-bodied man. As a result of this absurdity, singleaxis thinking is ineffective.
Instead of a single-axis framework, one can utilize an intersectional account of intersectionality. Unlike the former, an intersectional framework recognizes how an individual’s unique social, cultural, and political situatedness overlap and combine, creating unique and oftentimes exaggerated instances of marginalization–like how being an Asian immigrant in a white majority community differs from being a White immigrant. American Civil Rights advocate Cimberle Krenshaw coined the term “The Traffic of Intersectionality” (TOI) to capture how being marginalized by multiple oppressive structures feels like standing in the middle of an intersection and being threatened by traffic from all directions1 . Due to the many oppressive structures Asian Americans inhabit and a single-axis framework’s inability to capture the impact of these many oppressive structures, moving forward, this paper will utilize an intersectional account of identity.
1 Crenshaw, 141.
Before Asian immigration, due to the US’s settler-colonial history and reliance on slave labor, racism polarized America.
Racism and White supremacist ideologies were ways many Americans were able to justify and come to terms with the oppression and inhuman treatment of Black and Native Americans through seeing them as sub-human and, therefore, worthy of degradation and cruel treatment. America’s history of oppression and othering of non-White groups is important when discussing the history and experience of Asian Americans because racist ideologies extended beyond their original intent and seeped into how White Americans–the majority–viewed other racialized identities; anyone or group who deviates is inherently lesser. When Asian communities found themselves in this mess, America’s political climate left Asian immigrants to find themselves in a space between the lower bound of Blackness and the upper bound of Whiteness. These immigrants quickly learned that standing out and being recognized as different meant distancing themselves
from Whiteness, thus bringing them closer to the undesirable position of Blackness. Common strategies emerged for Asians to narrow their proximity to Whiteness and pass within the majority and often involved underrepresenting one’s Asian identity, adopting American cultural norms, and operating under silence. Understanding how people navigated this gray space by narrowing their own proximity to Whiteness and the consequences of this pursuit is essential to understanding the Asian American experience as a whole.
A case that displays the United States’ quality of being conditionally welcoming is early Chinese American immigrants. During the mid-19th century, America had a high demand for cheap–and consequently, exploitative–labor, which prompted a boom of Chinese labor immigration to the US. The most important use of this new workforce was its massive contribution to constructing America’s first transcontinental railroad. The Chinese immigrants, who traveled to the US in hopes of greater economic
prosperity and a higher quality of life, working on the railroad quickly discovered its immensely brutal and not infrequently lethal–due to poor health and safety regulations–nature. The leading cause of death and injury for these workers was the use of explosives to clear tunnels through mountains and uneven terrain for train tracks. As a result of poor equipment quality, inadequate shelter, and weather protection, many Chinese laborers died during the winters from the cold and avalanches. Over the course of the intercontinental railroad’s construction, over 1,200 Chinese workers died. On average, every three miles of constructed train track cost the lives of two Chinese workers.2
Not only were Chinese workers regarded as disposable during the railroad’s construction, but they were not given recognition for their work and sacrifice. After the railroad's completion, during the ceremony for the driving of the golden 2 University of Houston, “Chinese Immigrants and the Building of the Transcontinental Railroad.”
spike at the Promontory Summit, celebrating the railroad’s coastto-coast competition, only White workers were permitted to take part in the commemorative photo, which would be spread through newspapers across the country, thus hiding almost all Chinese contribution from the public.3 The omission of Chinese laborers in the photograph and celebratory narratives not only denied them acknowledgement for their hard work and sacrifice–that they very much deserved–but also perpetuated an exclusionary view of American history that overlooks non-White contributions and achievements.
3 Breaking Ground. PBS. (2020)
Despite the value the Chinese immigrant workforce provided America, they were no longer welcome once their presence became problematic. The Chinese Exclusion Act highlighted how Chinese immigrants were conditionally welcome and was the first time in US history that lawmakers explicitly banned an entire ethnic group from entering the country. The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that it “shall not be lawful for any
4 “Last Spike.” (1869).
Chinese laborer to come [to the US].”5 A contributing factor to the negative perception of Chinese immigrants was that they were regarded as a threat to the White American workforce. The low cost of employing Chinese laborers–due to them often being paid unlivable wages and unsafe working conditions–undermined White wage standards and threatened White employment opportunities.
In addition to being regarded as a threat to White American job security, Professor Catherine Lee, in her paper “Where the Danger Lies,” outlines how Chinese immigrants were regarded as threats to American social norms. In her writing, Lee points to the limited job opportunities for Chinese immigrant women, which forced many into prostitution to make a living, as the cause of Chinese fetishization. As a result of White America’s exoticized view of Chinese immigrants, American media and public discourse often depicted Chinese women as the embodiment of deviance and promiscuity. This and fears regarding job security caused White
5 Chinese Exclusion Act. (1882).
Americans to desire a halt to Chinese immigration, since these immigrants were a “threat [to] their vision of nationhood.”
America rewarded Chinese immigrants who quietly and unproblematically did their work and punished those who stood out. The case of the Chinese immigrants highlights how NonWhite groups are only welcome in the US so long as they are seen as useful; lawmakers and enforcement will not hesitate to act if a group is seen as anything else.
In contrast to the Chinese, Japanese immigrants had more opportunities to assimilate into American culture. During the early 20th century, there was a significant cultural movement among Japanese immigrant parents to accept and blend American cultural norms with Japanese traditions in their childrens’ upbringings in hopes of integrating into American society. The Japanese parent/immigrant generation is referred to as the “Issei,” which in Japanese means “first generation,” and the “Nisei” means second generation. The Nisei participated in both Japanese and White
culture, celebrating traditional Japanese holidays at home while also accepting American customs while at school or in public.6
This culturally combined approach seemingly worked well, allowing the Nisei the best of both worlds; however, White Americans’ acceptance of them into American culture proved fickle.
Despite many Japanese families adopting American culture and, for the most part, blending in, America’s conflict with Japan during WWII caused anti-Japanese paranoia to flood the minds of White Americans. Practically overnight, the once-accepted Japanese-American community was othered and regarded as a threat. Consequently, lawmakers passed Public Proclamation No. 4, which authorized the unjustified incarceration of approximately 112,000 Japanese Americans.7 Ironically, while this incarceration occurred, countless Japanese American soldiers fought overseas to
6 A Question of Loyalty. PBS. (2020)
7 “Japanese-American Incarceration during World War II,” National Archives and Records Administration.
protect the country that failed to see them as “real Americans.”
Regardless of Japanese immigrant and American-born efforts to fit in with White norms, US lawmaking and enforcement could not see past their Japanese visage to recognize and provide them with the same treatment as White Americans. This unacceptable treatment set the precedent that Asian communities can only approach and get close to Whiteness but that they will never be White since their welcoming is only honorary. Avoiding detection as different was essential to surviving in the US.
As American military power and global influence increased, the requirement of appealing to White ideals was no longer bound within the United States. An example is the American involvement in the Korean War, which redefined what it means to be a Korean. The Korean War was a conflict between the North, communist and Chinese-aided, and the South, democratic and American-aided Korea. American involvement in the Korean War began not due to immediate concern about Korean citizens’
well-being but due to anxieties within the US due to the international rise of communist practices resulting in the Red Scare. This period is characterized by an extensive state of anxiety and hysteria fueled by perceived threats posed by communists, socialists, or anarchists–basically anything non-capitalist–which resulted in raids and arrests of thousands of suspected anticapitalists, which was massively supported by Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism, as it is now known, resulted in the destruction of livelihood for many as a result of almost entirely unfounded accusations and extended beyond the scope of cutting out communism to excluding anyone who did not fit American norms, such as the queer community. This fear was not only domestic due, but due to the “domino effect” theory, many Americans believed that if one nation went communist, all surrounding nations would as well. On this, President Truman stated, in Presidential Proclamation 2915, that if the US did not engage in the Korean War, “[Americans] would no longer enjoy
[many] freedoms and rights which are part of [the American] way of life.”8 Communism was the focus of the Korean War, and Korean citizens just happened to be there. Due to America’s lack of care towards Korean well-being, damage to Koreans and Korean infrastructure was immense. Throughout the war, there were approximately three million Korean casualties, in 70 percent of which were civilians; if one includes the number of separated families to the number of casualties, this total goes to 10 million. Another staggering statistic states that 43 percent of the Korean peninsula was directly affected by the war.9 Korean politician and diplomat Hanh-Been Lee, describing the effect the war had on Koreans, stated that “for a time, the refugees and war-torn people had neither a past to escape to nor a future to aspire to; they came to be completely isolated within the immediate present. They were extremely anxious and
8 Presidential Proclamation 2914, President Harry Truman. December 16, 1950.
9 Koh, B. C. (1993).
lonely.”10 American policy and policy trampled over the Korean peninsula, destroying anything in its path in the name of stopping communism in Korea.
After the war, the US took South Korea’s broken state as an opportunity to cement its capitalist system and impose American values, rewriting various aspects of South Korea’s identity. Eui Hang Shin, in their article “Effects of the Korean War on Social Structures of the Republic of Korea,” highlights that a significant change following the war was the institution of the draft for all males over eighteen years old, which resulted in South Korea maintaining approximately 650,000 active duty personnel. Shin also calls the South Korean army the “most well-supported, Americanized institution in Korean society following the Korean War.”11 In addition to reshaping the military's role in the life of South Koreans, the American intervention and the imposition of
10 Hahn-Been Lee, Korea. 11 Eui Hang Shin, 140.
American values also redefined Korean beauty standards. A crucial instance of the shift is the imported preference for double eyelids, a Western trait, over Korea's natural single eyelids, caused by surgeon D.H. Millard’s introduction of blepharoplasty to make Korean prostitutes more attractive to American soldiers.12
Blending in through silence was no longer the most prominent method of reaping the benefits that come from narrowing one’s proximity to Whiteness; appealing to the oppressor was now just as important. America inflicted irreparable damage to the Korean peninsula, destabilizing the psychology of its inhabitants, restructuring the South Korean state to align with America’s vision, and imposing an unnaturally achievable beauty standard, all under the guise of aid against communism. The benefits of accepting and appealing to American standards are no longer bound to the United States; however, they come at a cost.
12 Davis, “Stanford Scholar Traces the Roots of South Korea’s Cosmetic Surgery Surge.”
Korean-American poet Cathy Park Hong, in her book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, explores the underdiscussed adverse effects of the cost of utilizing silence to blend–to narrow one’s proximity to whiteness–in which the American norm has on the public perception of the Asian American community.13 Minor Feelings’ structure is unique to Hong’s other works because of its structure as a collection of essays, as opposed to poetry, which she usually writes and is trained in. Minor Feelings is structured as a collection of seven essays that, when understood together, create a memoir of Hong’s experiences as an Asian American along with the experiences and understandings she wants the reader to understand about what it means to be an Asian American. Through this blend of argumentative and poetic writing, Hong discusses the often overlooked nuances within the Asian American TOI, focusing on what she calls “minor feelings.” In short, minor feelings are
13 Hong, Minor Feelings.
negative emotions caused by one’s TOI that build up due to neglect; the individual ends up subconsciously denying the existence of minor feelings in hopes of pretending everything is ok so that they can live “as normal.” Hong further elaborates on how minor feelings stem from the dissonance between personal experiences of racial discrimination and the societal denial of such experiences, that they are “making something out of nothing.”14
Through a discussion of Asian American history, American media, her own experiences, and the experiences of prominent Asian American figures, Hong prompts the reader to recognize aspects of the Asian American experience that would otherwise be brushed off.
A central idea within Hong’s writing is how the use of silence causes Asian Americans to disappear, creating the quiet and non-confrontational Asian stereotype. Consequently, Hong
14 Ibid, 55.
points out that “Asians lack presence.”15 Furthermore, Hong–in a self-deprecating manner–remarks that “[Asians] don’t even have enough presence to be considered real minorities, [Asians are] not racial enough to be token.”16 Silence, which once provided safety to Asian Americans by minimizing their racial differences from Whiteness, backfired, causing Asians to fly under the radar so well that they are no longer recognized as “real minorities,” as Hong puts it. The same silence that once allowed Asian Americans safety by narrowing their proximity to Whiteness now prevents other racial groups, along with Asian Americans themselves, from addressing lasting issues regarding the Asian American TOI.
Capturing how this lack of recognition impacts the individual, Hong writes that Asians are “so post-racial [that] [they’re] silicon.”17 Throughout Hong’s life, she shares that when she discusses issues regarding her TOI, people do not hesitate to argue
15 Ibid, 7.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
that her race is “besides the point” because Asians are practically “next in line to be White.” Whenever prompted by these dehumanizing comments, Hong cannot help but think that “Asians are next in line to disappear.”18 Silence did not and will never bring Asians the same privileges that White Americans enjoy, and silence only resulted in a lack of recognition for the injustices Asian Americans face.
Not only does silence occur outside of the Asian-American community, but inside as well. Hong discusses this issue by recounting her childhood experience of growing up a daughter to Korean immigrant parents. Notably, she brings up how members of her family frequently avoided painful topics, stating that “speak[ing] of pain would not only retraumatize [her] but traumatize everyone [she] loves,” as if their words were “poison that will infect others.”19 This treatment of their TOI resulted in
18 Ibid, 35.
19 Ibid, 157.
sweeping problems under the rug and pretending that everything was alright, leaving Hong, an individual, to grapple with her racialized identity on her own, without knowing if her feelings were valid or if others could relate. Discussing silence’s adverse effects on the Asian American community, Hong describes it as a sort of feedback loop: over time, “silence collects, becomes amplified, takes on a life outside our intentions in that silence can get misread as indifference, or avoidance, or even shame, and eventually this silence passes over into forgetting.”20 Forgetting means letting issues persist, without address and without recognition that they exist; forgetting means accepting issues as the “the way things are,” eliminating any chance at change.
Over time, silence even occurs within the individual. If society denies one’s TOI, if one’s community avoids discussing issues, and if one’s own family pretends that everything is okay, Hong writes that it causes one to question one's own sanity by prompting
20 Ibid, 165.
the individual to question their own experiences and emotions, and making them start to believe that they are genuinely “making something out of nothing.” Hong describes the emotions caused by internalizing silences as follows:
It’s like being ghosted, I suppose, where, deprived of all social cues, I have no relational gauge for my own behavior. I ransack my mind for what I could have done, could have said. I stop trusting what I see, what I hear. My ego is in free fall while my superego is boundless, railing that my existence is not enough never enough so I become compulsive in my efforts to do better, be better, blindly following this country’s gospel of self-interest, proving my individual worth by expanding my net worth until I vanish.
21
Through Hong's poetic writing, she captures her own internal turmoil and disorientation, to which many others can relate. Hong starts by comparing her feelings to “being ghosted,” which is the act of an individual ignoring someone’s texts and calls, effectively pretending that a person does not exist. This comparison is interesting because when one is ghosted, they have little to no
21 Ibid, 35.
information about why they are being ignored, which Hong establishes again when she says that she has no “relational gauge.”
To go back to the idea of being ghosted, the lack of information prompts the affected individual to a relentless selfexamination of everything that they could have possibly done wrong, a helpless and painfully self-conscious experience which Hong signals again when she uses the phrase “ransack[ing] [her] mind.” And the result of these feelings and behaviors is “becom[ing] compulsive [...] to do [and] be better,” thus becoming the model minority, which Hong equates to “vanish[ing]” due to giving up one’s identity in hopes of becoming the embodiment of success. In this passage, Hong's words are compounded, constantly adding weight and new insights without allowing the reader a chance to breathe, giving the reader a glimpse into her mind and the minds of many others. Silence takes an emotional toll.
In addition to discussing how silence negatively affects the Asian American community, it is essential to mention how Asian Americans not just survived but found success under silence. On this, Hong brings up the opening scene of the massively successful film Crazy Rich Asians, directed by Jon M. Chu.22 In this scene, the main character’s family–the Young family–attempted to check into their rooms at a fancy hotel. However, the hotel staff refused them entry on the basis of their–Asian–race, implying that the hotel was too prestigious for them. Consequently, the main character’s mother makes a call to her husband, who then purchases the hotel, an immense display of wealth, which, of course, gives the Young family access to their rooms. The message of this scene is that if Asians are discriminated against, they can maintain silence by outperforming their oppressors to gain power within the capitalist system and let their results speak for themselves, at the cost of enabling the model minority stereotype.
22 Chu, Crazy Rich Asians, 00:51 - 03:36
Hong describes this scene as “capitalism as retribution for racism,” and asks the question, “Who are we when we become better than them in a system that destroyed us?”23 Sure, Asian Americans can work hard within the capitalist system for economic and academic success to acquire status and demand respect, but Hong hints that this does not solve the problem.
No matter how stellar one’s grades are, how prestigious a college one attends, how much money one makes, or one’s occupation, climbing within the capitalist system alone will not solve anything so long as wide-scale silence persists. As discussed with the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese incarceration during WWII, and South Korea during and after the Korean War, silence and appealing to the dominant American culture was vital in finding success. Even in the present day, as Hong showcases in her writing, silence has its benefits–as seen in avoiding instances of retraumatizing loved ones–but operating under silence has its 23 Hong, 183.
costs. Sure, an individual can find personal success within the American system to earn respect, but working hard to gain respect from White Americans does not address the core issue that Asian Americans, by default, are seen as lesser: the reason that they need to work hard to gain respect in the first place. Succeeding in a system that is conditionally welcoming should not mean being defined by obtaining the conditions to be welcomed; rather, it ought to be defined by breaking past the status quo and demanding respect in virtue of being human, not appealing to one’s oppressor. The era of success through appealing to Whiteness must end.
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