- In the article “News Coverage” by Paul Niwa, the author gives a clear illustration about the lack of representation among certain media outlets. Whether its radio, newspapers, or TV newsrooms the lack of representation of Asian Americans is obvious through the statistics represented by Niwa. Niwa suggests and argues through his data the means of changing the representation in mainstream news. He shows this but not without certain repercussions that follow in fighting the problem of representation.
- One reason Niwa argues why Asian Americans lack such integration among media outlets is because of the lack of trust the mainstream media has on them. Mainstream media see Asian American news as not a profitable source. This mistrust in the community forces Asian American newspaper to be heavily reliant on “less sophisticated local advertisers” rather than “high paying national advertisers” (pg.668) These ads whose income help continue to life of Asian American newspaper has a direct affect to the number of Asian reporters on the field. The general effect of this is the Asian reporters are then left to work for big news companies rather than small independent ones. Working for such a big news outlet hinders Asian reporters from advancing to higher position. As one can see this cause and effect situation stems in part from a lack of trust in Asian American newspaper. In the latter part of the article Niwa brings in AAJA and their influence. The AAJA who set up programs like ELP help “train midlevel newsroom managers” (pg.667) Furthermore, many more Asian Americans become more appealing to mainstream media’s requirements and standards. And through his statistics shows an increase in the number of Asians moving up although the overall number is small like TV workers being at a “2 percent in 2000.” (Pg.667) In the end, Niwa introduced “missing” Asian American coverage. For the example the lack of Vietnamese coverage of those affected by hurricane Katrina, where most of the focus was on a population minority of whites. Niwa exclaims that these obstacles are counteracted through the use of the internet by Asian Americans. By using it they are able to spread rapidly, and self-reliantly with a voice, important topics to discuss, while having the ability to tear down the stereotypes. Using such methods to spread the word and in giving value to Asian American news. And with AAJA to speed up the process Asians can a slow increase of them participating in the different news sources.
- Key concepts by Niwa include “missing” Asian American coverage. “Missing” Asian American coverage based on Niwa is the lack of any representation of Asian or Asian American communities that have been affected one way or the other and have not been proportionally represented regardless if they are/aren’t the population majority. All the focus goes away from the Asians to “real” Americans.
- Based on a previous documentary of the LA riots, the cover of the riots shows a similar problem of representation of Asian American reporters. When diversified reporters were sent in to report on the riots in order to protect the lives of white lives, a small surge of color reporters and in respect a small surge in Asian American reporters came from the outcome. But this was a problematic outcome. The documentary made it clear that before the riots had time to develop, in the headquarters of newspapers the main body of reporters were whites. Only when the riots got going did Asian Reporters and their representation of them among the workforce became clear. The news business only gave Asian American reporters the representation they needed because they were viewed as disposable sources if anything were to happen to them while getting information about the riots. Although too late to apologize for such treatment, the hard work that Asian reporters brought was acknowledged. This would in the future slowly change the way representation in the work force is and put more value these reporters have. For there to be equality and fair representation one must learn the lessons from the cruel forces applied on color and Asian American reporters.
- In article “Cyberspace Y2K: Giant Robots, Asian Punks” by the author Rachel Rubin, the piece dives into the effects of zines and the influence it has had on Asian Americans and Asians. In order to see the effects Rachel ponders on four fundamental questions to get the answer. Questions such as “Who is Asian American on the Internet?”, “Where did cyberculture come from?”, “Where did zines come from?”, and “Why Asian Americans? Why zines? serve to bring light on the piece’s topic. On top of that Rachel’s ability to answer these questions brings forth the fact the Asian and Asian American communities and the social ability to define them has proven to be difficult. This is due to the plethora of different “Asians” and how each identify themselves with respect to their acceptance of being an immigrant of the U.S.
- To get an idea of the composition of the Asian population in the U.S. and to answer her first question Rachel looks into the history of Asian immigrants to provide a basis on their identity. Laws like the Hart-Cellar Act, Chinese Exclusion Act, etc. had a vast impact of determine who came in and who didn’t. For the example Hart-Cellar Act “liberaliz[ed]…the quota system” (pg.3) that brought a new wave of Asian immigrants both low- and greatly-skilled. This mixed the Asian population greatly further. Going on to Rachel’s second question, her process of showing how the internet was create by the military and then later put on public hands foreshadows the intents of zines from Asian American communities. The idea that zines/ezines like the internet are free to portray anything or anyone shows that they are not subjected to any competition. “Everybody just sort to pitches in, and somehow the thing evolves on its own, and somehow turns out workable” (pg.7) Although Rachel shows how the internet has come to sexualize and take on Asian personas to reinforce Asian stereotypes, her conclusion that zines’ ability to work free from the marketplace allows Asian writes to set their own image and give way to defining what it is to be Asian American. Her third and last question restates how zines came to be. It shows how zines are a form of rebellion from the underground works and a movement further sped up by the punk D.I.Y. Why it had to be Asians was a fortunate timing where Americans began taking a huge interest in Asian products like Jackie Chan movies, Japanese animation and so on. The timing proved for the best as signs of Asians being able to tear down harming stereotypes were beginning to show up. Signs like “positive representations for Filipinas on the Internet” (Pg12) were seen and praised by Asian college students and many others. Rachel’s constant show of history and facts of zines and e-zines proved very influential and useful in helping the Asian population further define who they are and rebel, all while resisting the growing harm of others stereotyping them.
- In an attempt to provide a basic definition of what it means to be Asian American Rachel quotes another that Asian American is defined as “Asian ancestry/American struggle”. (pg.2) Rachel recognizes that the definition is very broad, and it ought to be because federal census and other sources are constantly changing the ethnic groups by definition.
“’New’ Asians’”: “came from South Korea, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia.” (pg.4) Rachels choice to introduce this term was for the purpose to illustrate that Asians though a broad term was a one point very specific to only consist of Chinese and Japanese. This reiterates her problem that Asians lack power to identify themselves without the use zines.
Zines the main topic of Rachel’s article originated from fanzines and not from magazines. That being beside the point zines are an uncheck power for Asian communities to rebel against stereotypes and give voice to those who wish to set their own image of themselves without any pressure of others like the marketplace and profits.
- In modern day internet the zines of the past have evolved to a more worldwide platform. Social media platforms like Instagram and especially YouTube are the evolved versions of zines/ezines. On here there are endless of videos and pictures of Asians and Asian communities fighting for equality and pushing for reform of the stereotypes they are bounded to. But with great push for advancement there is also great resistant. There are also videos and pictures making fun of what is means to be Asian, such as makeup videos that force Asian women to look a certain way. Though an upset it is, these modern zines face the same challenges as zines in the past. But in equal or greater, zines make great progress in helping change the Asian image and definition.
- In the article “Apu’s Brown Voice: Cultural Inflection and South Asian Accents” the author, Shilpa Dave, sets a keen focus on the influence of a special kind of accent. Going in more detail, Dave accentuates the importance and mixed repercussions of using a “brown voice”. Such a unique accented voice, commonly associated with South Asians, Indians to be exact, was popularized by the animated TV show The Simpsons. Dave goes on to show and argue that though “brown voice” does not hold any significant weight of negative connotations, the accent categorizes Indians and those alike as foreign and places them under an unfair hierarchal pyramid. Dave’s main argument is that “brown voice”/accents bring a new perspective on how race is perceived, one that has the potential to immobilize people like Indians from fighting back the damaging model minority ideology.
- Dave states that The Simpsons show, due to the fact that it is animated, is subjected to different standards when it comes to racial grouping or ridiculing races like South Asians. Dave suggests that Apu is a great example of this. Apu’s appearance is fictional and a concept conceived by the producers. The audience is then left to focus solely on Apu’s voice. It is therefore evident that the force connecting the “brown voice” and South Asians is the “anonymity that allows Hank Azaria to voice the character of Apu” without ever being known or identified. (pg.322) By not being known one can use the “brown voice” as a playful joke rather than appearing racist if someone famous were to mimic the same accent. And because Apu’s “brown voice” is the main star of the audience’s attention it leads to the preconceived notions and image of what it is means to be South Asian. The “Indian accents imply a model minority…” that promotes “the image of entrepreneurs, computer engineers, and successful immigrants in general” (pg.318) Such actions can hinder the South Asian population from being anything other than these concepts. They like our study is other Asian communities are prevented from advancing in society or tormented by the standards placed for them to fulfill. For Dave’s continuing argument of unfair hierarchal placement, this idea comes from the understanding that the accent is a mix of “perfect English” and the unnatural stresses Indians put on English words. In is not so much that South Asian’s don’t know how to speak English but more rather how it is received. And how it is received and understood plays a major role on how it “will always be read as foreign and the racial hierarchies of the United States will remain intact” (pg.327) Being perceived as foreign and yet also intellectually advanced creates the strain and tear that clumps all South Asians into one group. This results in what Dave claims the uncertainty of what South Asians identify as and lack of movement to diversify the population from a single representational voice like Apu’s.
- The main topic Dave explores is the use of “Brown Voice” to show a phenomenon on how accents serve as a bridge to connect race and the perception of a race. Dave describes the term as “the act of speaking in the Indian English accent associated with South Asian nationals and immigrants.” (pg.317)
When Dave claims that “brown voice” has a way of installing a singular image that applies to all South Asians, he realizes that the accent is only attributes to South Asians and not their colonizer, the English, or their counterparts other Asians. This raises the question, what are South Asians? Dave defines South Asians as a group who identify as “Indian or Pakistani or Sri Lankan” who hold a “Caucasian and…Asian American…” inclusion status. (pg.327)
- In Dave’s article, the author sees that animated shows like The Simpsons give way to a new tolerance of racialization. Animations are less likely to be deemed racists as people who voice characters go unknown. In “How Good It Is to Be a Monkey: Comics, Racial Formation, and American Born Chinese” by Min Hyoung Song carries a similar idea. Song sees that comics, a subgenre and relative of animation, uses its image-based medium to portray and stress certain aspects of race. Song unlike Dave has found that the image itself in comics rather than voice can influence the perceptions of different races. Examples like Gordon Yamamoto and American Born Chineseshow how comics reinforce and illustrate the image of Asian Americans. Comics as Song states also provides a new tolerance of racialization as graphic artists use the “tension between realism and genre fiction” to create a mix feeling about the work of stereotyping (pg.76) American Born Chinese does just that, where Chin-Kee embodies the set stereotypes of Asians and Jin Wang provides a window to self-reflection. The comic was about a Monkey King coming down to earth to meet Wei-Chen and his son’s friend Jin after Chen failed to resist the evils of human behavior. The monkey is used to describe Asians as a way to say that Asians are so low in class they are not considers humans but rather dirty animals. And Jin is used to reflect one’s self-hatred of Asians. These ideas can only be portrayed through comics and its mode of graphics. Such a unique form of media provides a graphic narrative as Apu’s “brown voice” does through anonymity.
- In the article “If we are Asian, then are we funny?” by Sarah Moon Cassinelli, the paper goes in detail and depth about the experiences the TV show “All-American Girl”, where Cho herself starred in, brought. Cho’s experience during her time in “All-American Girl” was terrifying and unstable. It was so rocky that Cho was compelled to share her story about it in her memoir I’m the One that I want to describe the stereotypes and actions the show reinforced and pushed on her to follow. This was not originally the show’s intent—as Cho defended at one point— as the audience pressured the show to change to a more ‘authentic’ version. Margaret questioned who really was the racist one, the one who reinforced the Asian stereotypes or the audience who requested it. Her clear answer and argument were, “the real racism is wrapped up in the audience’s expectation of an ‘authentic’ Asian American family” and causes harm. (pg. 132) Sarah argues the same as she defends Cho’s side. She analyzes and pinpoints the examples and key ideas in Cho’s memoir to show and make us understand the dangerous effects and harm of stereotype aggression.
- As Sarah backs up Cho, she, through her analysis, shines light on 3 of many effects from the audience demanding stereotypes shown. Previously quoted, the audience was not satisfied with the content of the “All-American Girl” show. It first led to a change in the show. Rather than broadcasting the “immature, overgrown, oversize”, and “stale” (pg. 131) jokes the show first started with, the show moved to a “more formulaic sitcom structure” (pg.131-132) that focused on the Asian family. This succeeded only on its emphasis on generation clashing—between the old Asian and new Asian. Sarah states that such clashing creates conflict in culture and assimilation. It forces Asians to choose whether to hold their original culture or move on to an Americanize one. The final result is a race left fragmented and limited in figuring out how to relate to the show’s characters as it only shows uncomfortable stereotypes.
A second effect of the show changing took a toll on Cho and her appearance. Sarah highlights how producers of the show asked Cho to change her appearance by losing weight with no exception by saying, “I don’t care what you have to do. We have two weeks before we shoot the pilot”. (pg.134) This action besides its influence in racial representation makes a person’s Asian-ness “alienable” as a result make it seem “somehow fixable.” (pg.134) The idea that one’s looks can be manipulated only feeds into the fear in Asians regardless of culture differences or generational timing. It continues the action of treating Asians as shallow characters. Leaving the question, “How were we going to portray ourselves [authentic Asians]?” (pg.135)
The last effect deals with a notion that seems to conflict with itself. Request for Cho to act as a traditional Korean girl ends in failure as people accuse her for being a fake American and Asian imposture. Cho acting a “rebellious, American persona” (pg.139) daughter proved controversial when the audience stepped in and proclaimed “She’s not Asian enough! She’s not Asian enough!” (pg.140) This obviously states Cho wasn’t acting Asian enough. This in a way portrays Cho as a fake imposture perpetuating the long history of adding more and more stereotypes to the race just to make Asians appear more Asian. But sooner or later being ‘more Asian’ will be normalized and defeat the goal of becoming more of a thing and thus hurting Asians’ image once again.
- “Old Asian culture” and “New Asian American Culture” (Pg. 132): Sarah realizes that the new requested stereotypes for the show hindered the goal for Asian representation to improve. One factor that hurt the Asian image is the use of simultaneous presentation of Old Asian Culture and New Asian American Culture, where old Asian culture “maintains traditional Asian mannerisms” (pg.132) and the latter, is assimilated into Americanized attitudes. These generation gaps clash and hurts the Asian image.
Authentic is a word explored in great detailed by Sarah. Authentic is used to distinguish the false stereotypes attributed to and expected from Asians. It is used to show the real Asians and not the made-up views of ‘everyone looks like Yoko Ono’, beauty maintenance, and other views other races believe to be authentic or true to Asian people. (pg.134)
Impersonation and imposture: These words are closely tied to being authentic. In a way, they also help calm the waters and navigate through the terrain where Asian personalities and Asian stereotypes clash and mix. Sarah clearly defines these two words. She states, “Imposture strives to effect a seamless and convincing counterfeit for the purposes of deceptions, [whereas] impersonation…[is]… adopted by a performer in question to articulate an identity comprehensible to the public.” (pg. 137)
- This article very much relates to another article written by Ballve and others called “Asian English-language publications” Ch4. Readers of newspaper and magazines, especially readers from Asia, requested news in their own language. But most importantly, they requested news from their homeland which helped bridge together the Asian community and inter- and intranational issues. Examples like the Wen Ho Lee case— an Asian accused of espionage— and the Soon Jan Du case, where Du accused and shot an African American for stealing orange juice, gave way to a change in Asian representation. This resulted in riots and chaos, setting the new stereotype that Asians are “cold-hearted, even racist, entrepreneurs” (pg.50) One can see that a request for ‘real Asian news’ from Asian homelands got the ball rolling to display a wider range of news leading to stereotype aggression. The same thing can be seen during the 9/11 event, where authentic Asian news was perceived to not include people from Pakistan. This internationally broadcasted event struck fear into Muslims, casting them as extreme foreigners and viewed as dangerous people. “Why are you washing the community’s dirty linen in public?” is one of many questions asked by Pakistanis whom were insulted by such a publicized event. (pg.52) The event distorted their authentic way of being to become an Asian race of bad reputation, if at all recognized as Asians. One can see that requesting anything authentic whether its tv content or news in this case can being harmful. It brings harm due to the fact the such life events or entertainment sources are naïve or obsessed with a generally accepted ‘authentic’, stereotypes rather than acknowledging the true, real and authentic representations of Asians.
- In the article, “Beyond Finishing The Game: A Look At Asian American Grassroots Outreach” by author John Fong, the main problem/question articulated is how do Asian American films make their way to success, despite all the obstacles. John makes it very clear that access is the biggest challenged faced upon Asian American films. To be more specific, “finding a way for the films that are being made…to reach the eye balls of people.” is something that was overcome by John’s main argument. (Pg. 3) His main argument was that a sense of community, a bit of old-school, innovative distribution methods, and a period of change has brought the Asian American film industry to an exponential growth track.
- In the article, John states that “companies…are reluctant to invest dollars in releasing a film in a marker that they don’t know much about”. (Pg.3) But later on, he acknowledged the fact that community was a “tool and resource” to work around this obstacle. (pg.3) This argument holds strong merit due to the notion that members of the film helped spread the word of their film to an audience the film was already intended for. This compatibility in return helped spread the word to an appealed crowd. Second, the use of an old-school method, previously used by African American, helped solidify trust into the Asian American film industry. This method used something called mail newsletters that “would alert folks to when Asian American films were opening in theaters”. (pg.5) This proved to be successful as it not only helped Asian American films make more profit, but it elongated the number of weeks that those films stayed in the box office. And lastly, as John’s argument claims, a period of change, a change in which how Asian American films were viewed, continue the down bringing of long standing societal rejection of this these films. Films like Better Luck Tomorrow and The Debut led the way and created paths that “many other films… would follow.” (Pg.7) These films popularized the Asian American films in addition to laying the groundworks on approaches films’ ads and promotions are spread.
- One of John’s keywords is “grassroots.” Whether it’s used to describe communities or “aggressive…strategies” the word holds more meaning than its definition: the most basic level of an activity. To John grassroots means that Asian American movies don’t need the exclusive opportunities other films receive. It means that the most basic tools like email newsletter and a deep connection among its community is just as effective or even more effective than other means of ads and promotions money can buy. It comes back to the idea that less is more. A second keyword is community. Like previously said, John goes back to the core fundamentals to which community is one of them. Community is a bondage of people that support one another and held together by common things. By understanding this John is able to see that Asian American films can succeed with a strong community and even serve as a platform to reach for more success.
- John shows how Asian American films struggled and later succeeded. He along the way introduces films like Better Luck Tomorrow that serves as an example to illustrate the influence and paths created for Asian American filmmakers. This is related to the article “Of Myths and Men: Better Luck Tomorrow and the Mainstreaming of Asian American Cinema” by Margaret Hillenbrand where the author goes more in depth with the film Better Luck Tomorrowand its struggles in the industry. Margaret tells how Asian American films suffered. One reason being that its content would often not sync up with the expectations of the profitable-making movie companies’ ideas. These companies that distributed movies expected films that reaffirmed the stereotypes of Asian Americans. This inevitably put Asian filmmakers in a place where they either have to make films acceptable to the companies or make films with low grossing income. Margaret reveals how Better Luck Tomorrow got around this. The film used parody to show the confirming stereotypes of the time but the parody itself presented the stereotypes as less truthful. This allowed Asian American films to overcome the struggle of being rejected, as both John and Margaret acknowledged in their article, and to continue the process of the growing acceptance of these kinds of films.
- In the article “Assimilation” by Lisa Sun-Hee Park, the idea of what exactly the word assimilation means comes in to question. Definition as stated by the dictionary is: “take in (information, ideas, or culture) and understanding fully” (pg.14). Park’s unease towards this definition along with other critiques like Du Bois is due to the lack of history the word omits. One key aspect the article articulates very well is within a specific time frame in history where assimilation towards whiteness diminishes the minority groups like Blacks, Latinos, and as accentuated, the Asians. Park’s argument is that assimilation is a problem and does deeper into how big of a problem it is.
- In Park’s article the repetitive question “assimilation into what?” suggest the growing problem that minority groups are in a way being forced to assimilate or begin being just like the whites of America. (pg.16) And although others like Robert E. Park view “assimilation as a solution” (pg.14), Lisa quickly rebuttals that claim. She quickly proves that the behaviors of minority groups give great insight to the downsides of assimilation. For example, the statistic that “37% of all recent Asian-American brides who wed a non-Asian groom” (pg.16) shows the Asian minority trying to assimilate with the whites whether it is in be part of a “white” relationship, get a high education, or be part of a white society/community/neighborhood. Although these benefits for Asian-Americans are good the problem continues as Park suggests these qualities later hurt minorities in the sense of what is called ‘model minority’. Park argues that “model minority does not imply full citizenship rights but, rather, a secondary set of rights reserved for particular minorities who ’behave’ appropriately”. (pg.17) And this is true as Asian-Americans are put into a high pedestal, being praising for their intellect, work ethic, and financial progress up the pyramid of life gained through the assimilation with the whites although this qualities can only be applied to part and not the entire Asian-American population.
- As the article’s title suggests the word assimilation is one key word. The curiosity of what it is serves as the basis to further dig up how this word affects minority people in the different areas of life. The introduction of this words also serves as a path way to bring up the concept of “model minority.” Model minority is the concept that minority groups who satisfy the white-standard requirements of success is a representation of an entire minority group despite it being only applicable to a curtain portion of the minority group.
- In the article “Moving The Image: Asian American Independent filmmaking 1970-1990)” by Renee Tajim, the author mainly portrayed how Asian Americans in the filmmaking industry made a name for themselves through the creation of documentaries and over the course self-improvements in filming techniques. The starting point of the industry for Asians was limited. They faced a small consumer audience and had very different ideas on filmmaking with the mainstream white media. The point here isn’t much about how Asians assimilated with the white customs of filmmaking but much rather how, by not doing so, Asians’ self-charge of the situation lead to a great deal of success. The Asians’ success was due to one the frame works of Asian American cinema: “created by a people bound by 1) race; 2) interlocking cultural and historical relations; 3) a common experience of western domination.” (pg.12) This one key framework Tajim states complements Park’s argument. It shows that through the integration of races not only do filmmakers succeed as the Asian American filmmakers found out, but the idea rises of the possibility that if Asian filmmakers were to assimilate to the mainstream of white filmmaking what struggles would they end up facing? Another quick connection to Tajim’s work is the statement that Asian American filmmakers, though on the rise in the filmmaking industry, struggled to get grants, network access, or even jobs. This reinforces the model minority concept. During the 1980’s some (not most) Asian filmmakers were highly successful and due to this, a high expectation was state to Asian filmmakers, a trait applied to all Asian filmmakers through the use of “model minority.” Asians in a way set the example now but as previously stated Asian filmmaker struggled to get help being treated as secondary class people while whites were easily met with opportunities.
