Asian Stereotypes Throughout History

Doing some quick research on Asian stereotypes for class, I thought I'd share the preliminary draft with you. It's supposed to eventually be a slideshow essay, after I tweak it. More to come (including the model minority stereotype, later).

"The Yellow Terror In All His Glory", 1899 editorial cartoon

1. THE YELLOW PERIL

Unsurprisingly, the first image Americans had of Asians was as a threat: a “yellow peril.”
The term refers to two attitudes: racism and fear, reducing Asians to their skin color and demonizing them as wage-stealers. “Yellow peril” originated in the in the late 19th century when Chinese laborers immigrated to various Western countries, especially the United States, and later when Japanese immigrated in the mid-twentieth century.

The fear of the Chinese peaked in the 19th century, resulting in lynchings and eventually the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which reduced Chinese immigration from 30,000 per year to just 105. Australia and Canada had similar fears and enacted similar immigration exclusion acts.

2. BAD ASIAN MAN: wicked genius, predator of white females



As the Yellow Peril became a common theme in 19th century fiction, British writer Sax Rohmer personified the fear into a physical villain, the character Fu Manchu. Film, television, radio, comic strips, and comic books featured the stereotype for over 90 years and Fu Manchu became an archetype of evil criminal genius.

In the meantime, during World War II, xenophobists portrayed Asian men as predators and killers of white women. No surprise there; anyone can take a look at black history to find the parallels.


3. GOOD ASIAN MAN: effeminate, harmless



However, there were other less obvious stereotypes. Media portrayed Asian men as either threatening or as bumbling and effeminate. Charlie Chan, a popular fictional detective by author Earl Derr Biggers, appeared in over 10 novels and 40 American films from thet 1920s to the 1980s. Chan, as a portly man who "walked with the light dainty step of a woman," as Biggs described him, spoke with broken English and acted extremely polite and apologetic. A white actor always played Charlie Chan, but an Asian actor, Key Luke, did play his “number one son”.
There have been controversies over the “yellowface” aspect of whites playing the character of Charlie Chan, but on the other hand, others argued that at least Asian men were now appearing in mainstream American entertainment media. Key Luke, for one, defended the portrayal of Charlie Chan: "Demeaning to the race? My God! You've got a Chinese hero!"


4. ASIAN WOMAN: Dragon Lady



Asian women faced a similar set of extreme stereotypes. They were often seen as hypersexual, aggressive, and cunning. “Dragon Lady,” popularized by Milton Caniff in his 1934 comic strip Terry and the Pirates, came to mean a domineering or tyrannical woman, or a seductive and treacherous woman (especially an Asian one). Any strong-illed Asian woman was immediately seen as a Dragon Lady, be it early Asian American actress Anna May Wong, who was typecast into these roles, or Madame Chang Kai Shek, a political power in her own right, who not only acted as her husband’s (the leader of the Kuomintang party) secretary, translator, and advisor, but also regularly traveled abroad to build up China’s image and legacy, eventually becoming the first Chinese national and second woman to address the U.S. Congress.

Nowadays, we can see this emerging as a fetish in objectifying Asian women, in Asian Halloween costumes and ethnic pornography. Current actresses like Lucy Liu perpetuate the Dragon Lady stereotype in their dominatrix roles in television and film.

5. ASIAN WOMAN: China Dolls and Geisha Girls


At the other extreme, Asian women were portrayed as submissive, docile, and obedient. While we can trace this submissiveness to historical realities of Confucian hierarchies in Chinese culture and in other Asian cultures, perpetuating this image turns Asian women into a stereotype. Elaine Kim, a UC Berkeley professor of Asian American studies, has argued that the stereotype of Asian women as submissive sex objects has impeded women's economic mobility and has fostered increased demand in mail-order brides.

More thoughts on Gender Bias & Violence Against Women

I was re-reading and thinking again about the article on Korea's shifting preference for male children (two posts ago), and found myself more and more outraged by the part about abortion and violence against women.

I was particularly disturbed by the Population Fund's warning in a report that the "rampant tinkering with nature’s probabilities in Asia could eventually lead to increased sexual violence and trafficking of women as a generation of boys finds marriage prospects severely limited."

That sounds like some horrible science fiction story; the sad thing is that it could be reality if countries don't change. It makes me so angry that these traditions could "so devalue daughters that mothers would often apologize for giving birth to a girl," that children would be aborted simply for being female, that women around the world are subject to sexual violence and abuse simply by being born into a patriarchal, oppressive society. Imagine the psychological damage these women must endure, those who were somehow allowed to live...that there are still honor killings and genital mutilations in this world...It sickens me.

I remember reading an article that Asian women have a suicide rate twice the national average in the U.K.; that a woman tried to run away from an arranged marriage, because her husband was abusive, but her uncle threatened to kill her if she did not obey. I've read on the American Psychological Association site that "Asian Americans who are born in the United States have a higher risk of committing or being a victim of domestic violence" and that "friends and family may actively urge women to keep quiet."

When will this abuse towards women end? I can see now why Iris Chang was so overwhelmed by the dark subject matter of her research, on atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, and am deeply saddened that the disturbing nature of her work left her weak and may have contributed to her depression and suicide.

I'm not sure what I can do, what one person can do—but everyone in America should be be aware of these atrocities and work to prevent them at home and abroad. Not that the United States is perfect—far from it—which is why we need to appreciate what we have and not take we have for granted.

I shudder to think what I—already quite traditional and conservative among Asian American women—might have been like growing up under a less open environment than this.

Minority vote

Although I'm not really into politics, I try to keep abreast of the news (shoot, I should go get an absentee ballot). I just read an interesting AP article on the importance of the minority vote in the Democratic race for president:

Voters in both groups are energized: Blacks by the early successes of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Latinos by the intense, sometimes xenophobic debate over immigration. But it's far from clear how those influences will play off each other.
When South Carolina Democrats hold their primary on Jan. 26 -- the state GOP contest is Jan. 19 -- the choices of substantial numbers of black voters will be tallied for the first time in this election.

It's pretty interesting to see how the Latino and black vote may determine which Democratic candidate goes further. But then, what about the Asian vote? Guess we're since we're the smallest minority group, (Latinos at 15%, blacks at 13.4%, and Asians/mixed at 5%) we still have to wait to have influence.

80/20, a nonpartisan group political action committee working to ensure equal opportunity for Asian Americans, was against Obama because of his lack of support for 80/20's questionnaire (on how he would support Asian American equality). I saw this posted on a blog called hsuperpolitical while browsing around (see the entery 1.4.08):

80-20, the group headed up by former Delaware Lt. Gov. S.B. Woo, has come out actively against Sen. Barack Obama, calling for all concerned with the status of Asian Americans to vote for Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards or Gravel in the Democratic Primaries.

Which brings to mind the question: who would you rather vote for, as a minority? How much do you consider race, and how much do you consider the party values and track record of the candidate? Then again, you can never know what candidate will really do until they are in office.

It's also interesting to read that, duh, "the conventional wisdom has been that as the nation's population moves toward a minority majority, its political complexion will become more Democratic. Or, as Grofman puts it, the 'browning of America will result in the bluing.' "

I generally agree with this, but there are caveats. It may be balanced by the religious or more affluent minorities who will vote Republican; for example, the article mentioned many Latinos identifying themselves as white and thus helped George W. Bush win with their Republican votes. And, as the article showed, minorities still lag behind whites in registering to vote. I think now because the country isn't doing well, and because of all these immigration debates, minorities will use their vote this year.