Blog Post 4: Cyberspace, Y2K: Giant Robots, Asian Punks

Posted on September 3, 2018 by by | Leave a comment
  1. In ‘Cyberspace, Y2K: Giant Robots, Asian Punks’, Rubin chronicles and analyzes young Asian Americans’ utilization of zines (as both creators and consumers) and their aesthetic/characteristics to fight against racism/stereotypes while reclaiming the term ‘Asian American’. She frames her argument in the historical context of early anti-immigration laws passed against Asians, political activism in the mid-late 1900s, development of the Internet, and the infiltration of Asian culture into American mainstream at the turn of the 21st century.
  2. Rubin references the Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1924 Quota Act to show how “Asian immigration was linked to restriction and racial anxiety” since long ago (pg 3). The War Brides Act, while seemingly a step in the right direction, is (according to Rubin) actually just a different way for the majority to establish a “domestic imperialism” over Asians (pg 3). Rubin says the fact that (cyber)zines are “de-centered, anarchic, independent, outsider and democratic” allowed self-expression to go “against the ‘polite Asian’ stereotype” (among others, such as specific stereotypes about Asian women) (pg 21, pg 16). With the seemingly limitless audience the Internet provided and the popularization of Asian culture in America, zine publishing became an important tool for young Asian Americans to navigate their “Asian ancestry/American struggle” (pg 2).
  3. (1) zine: short for fanzine, which originated in the 1930’s as self-published cheap periodicals (mostly of the sci-fi genre); common characteristics include being self-produced, grassroots distribution, passion>profit, ‘down with big business’ attitude, openness, contrasting/unpolished aesthetic                                                              (2) pastiche: artistic style of taking pieces of existing works from various sources and incorporating them into a new piece (like a collage)                                                                                                           (3) postmodernism: art concept that stressed “lack of certainty about meaning, elevation of the popular, and continuous recontextualization of pre-existing material” (pg 9)
  4. The history of Asian American zines seems to directly contradict the history of Asian Americans in the film industry in a two major ways. The fact that the Internet is a democratic, free space is opposite that of the hierarchical and racially exclusive nature of the major motion film industry (this also explains why Asian Americans are disproportionally so popular on online platforms like Youtube while still struggling for representation in films and TV). Also, while the unpolished, amateurish style of early Asian American films didn’t do many favors for its creators, Rubin attests that a similar aesthetic is one reason why zines served as an ideal platform for Asian Americans.
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