The deceiving lure of East Asian beauty standards

STORY LINDA YUN ILLUSTRATION

ELLA MIZOTA-WANG

Growing up Asian is akin to a frozen lake in the wake of spring. It’s only a matter of time before the first crack turns up. For many Asian Americans, the divide begins where the conversation ends. The junction between Asian and Western beauty forms around where it is mutually beneficial. But for most, it means navigating another pipeline of self-esteem issues.

The interplay between western influences and East Asian beauty standards is often tangled in the messy adolescent search for identity, where the self can never match up. While we are quick to judge ourselves in the mirror, we are not so quick to see beauty as two-sided, and even slower to realize that this struggle for beauty is too often a universal struggle to be less deficient.

As the oldest child, I’m expected to carry the torch, not crumble under it. My parents’ lives resemble an immigrant sob story – notable events including surviving a famine, getting out of poverty, moving to the states, and not worrying about looking FOB. I share with them just one of these accomplishments. For them, aesthetics and the visual appeal were all but replaced with the need for practicality.

HOT CAKES & HOT TAKES

MICHAEL MAYEMURA

Rising from the ashes of tragedy

I struggled to write this column. I stared at the screen for five hours, knowing exactly what I wanted to write, but failing to put those thoughts into words. So, this may be a cop-out of an intro, but it is an intro no-less. Oftentimes, when I struggle to express how I feel, I turn to music. It’s this omnipotent creature that somehow encapsulates everything all at once. So, trailing the Monterey Park mass shooting, I bank on music to unpack my emotions.

Beauty standards are undoubtedly one of the most confusing parts about growing up. For many Asian Americans, that confusion often translated into a lack of identity of what being “attractive” means. We are tethered by blood to spiteful aunties, and also by great expectations to not deviate from mainstream tastes. Tip the scale over one way and you devolve into a stereotype – long straight hair, glasses, and no sex appeal. Tip it the other way and you become a “wannabe white Asian” – an arrogant snob who thinks they are above their own culture. The balance between what is essentially nerd versus self-hatred is not only delicate, but exhausting to keep up with.

Like many first generation Asian American women, my mom has a sizable collection of expensive SPFs sunscreens and colorful parasols. I used to wonder why she seemed to hold her complexion in such high regard, until recently, when I realized that to seem white is to be one step closer to the social statuses reserved for white people.

Beauty is a myriad of subjectives, but East Asian beauty seems to always have a standard. To drift from the standard is often to fall short of the ideal. The Asian American experience is not complete without the merging of different cultures, and that acceptance stems from welcoming both the peaks and valleys.

Growing up in Monterey Park, I was enamored by this mini Chinatown foregoing the tacky architecture, infusing itself instead with this unique latin flare. But tuning into the news and international headlines, I realized that this was not the same Monterey Park that caught their attention. Rather, it was this helpless, quiet town struck with an unforeseen tragedy narrative that truly irked me. And amidst the chaotic broadcasts and echoed newslines was this dreamy-pop beat: Lorde’s “Team.”

I realized that I did not want the beauty and the culture of my hometown to be outshined by this singular tragedy. As insensitive as it sounds, I refused to become another city competing for a love I knew we’d never receive – to be yet another location added to the archives of mass shootings, only to be remembered when the next one unfolds.

I realized that we were the ones who had to live with the aftermath. After all the cameras and politicians vanish, we’d be the ones to pick up the pieces. We were the ones left in the ruins of this palace stuck within my dreams; this shattered sanctuary from a ceaselessly unfamiliar world and a growingly violent America.

I realized that I hated the idea that we had to be strong; that we were resilient; that we were better than this. Afterall, we are not bulletproof – we cannot withstand blow after blow. It is this arrogant strength that led us into this situation and would not shield us from another. It is this notion of resilience that conceals the need to grieve and the need for change. We are tired of getting told to throw our hands up in the air — of apathetic responses to this unnatural disease.

We stand here with shards beneath our feet, realizing that this was not our fault. We realize that we are not immune.

But that does not alter who we are. I reiterate my aversion to our victimhood: Monterey Park deserves so much more than meager pity. We are a glistening gem nestled in the suburbs of East Los Angeles. We are home to a unique Asian-Hispanic fusion – a town of daytime dim sum and nightly taco runs. We are the city built upon the amalgamation of seemingly unrelated groups packed into this small, yet vibrant community. We have always have and will be on each other’s team.