Author Archives: Rey Luo

The main thesis of this article is that Asian Americans are considered to achieve many economic successes than any other racial minority but are still fighting for the alien perceptions in the U.S. This not only happens in the communities but also at workplaces.

“Racial Formation” is a term used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by social economic, and political forces. And the concept of race is mentioned in this article as “a central and even desirable factor in American life” (page 74). Comics are both visual and textual, important for expressing concerns with race and racism; also render the experience of time, which can be used to explore the problem of change over time.

Many Asian American graphic writers have created racial characters in their works but Yang’s “American Born Chinese” was the best amongst all in terms of difficulty of understanding, mix of genres, and presentation of racial problems in the U.S. as the author mentioned “Yang’s work stands out for his willingness to bend the conventions of genre storytelling to contribute to his realist aspirations” (page 76). “American Born Chinese” is composed of three parts, all of which are related in terms of racial presentations. In the third part of ABC, the Asian character is depicted with small eyes with a queue, buckteeth and accented English, who is very intelligent and liked by teachers. He is not welcomed in his school just as the Monkey King in the first part is not welcomed by the immortals. This symbolizes the position of the Asian American community in the U.S.: not being accepted as part of the nation. And the portray of Danny and Jin symbolizes the Asian Americans who pretend to be who they aren’t to be socially accepted and lose their own identity in the end. Wei-Chen on the other hand is portraited as the other side of Asian American with the terms “organic Asian American pop-cultural innovation” (83) and “Asian American masculinity” (84) with the import car scene. Along with some ideas fighting against the cultural stereotypes in the U.S. and some representations of the stereotypes, the author suggests that as Asian American community continues existing and growing in the U.S., one shall not forget his identity or lose his conscience and one should keep fighting to represent his culture and change people’s perceptions as well as the social situations not only in daily life but also at workplaces.

– Xiangtian Rey Luo

This article argues that the first comedy on screen with all Asian American cast in the U.S. put too much emphasis into the racial identity and ethnic authenticity rather than focusing on a specific comedic form. For example, the show kind of overemphasized the Asian characteristics through the mark of face, body, and family structure.

One of the examples is the “adversarial relationship” the protagonist has with the mother character. Most of the jokes are produced around the clashing between the daughter and the mother, where “these adversarial jokes between the two characters are generational conflicts of culture and assimilation” (pg. 132) Those jokes are created from the old Asian American stereotypes which doesn’t help represent the Asian American community in the U.S., neither is it interesting for the audience. The jokes are said to be too obvious and stale without enough non-racial materials for audience to relate to, therefore, is mocking its Asian audience and antagonizing its non-Asian ones. One of the jokes used in the show was Yoko Ono, which was said to be a “too-commonly-known” reference in the racial jokes.

Authenticity by definition means the quality of being real, original, and genuine, but here, it has very little to do with historical or cultural accuracy due to the purpose of the show. So, is this show played to show how foreign Asians are still although they were born in the U.S. or to actually entertain people as a comedy? “As echoed by Tina Chen, ‘one of the defining characteristics of the public identity Asian Americans have been assigned is that of perpetual foreignness’” (pg. 135). To achieve the perfect main Asian role, Cho, the protagonist, was pressured to lose a lot of weight through some unhealthy work of extreme exercise, starvation, and diet pills over the course of the season. Furthermore, the show, intended to portray many stereotypical Asian characteristics, did not do it all the way, because the main character, Margaret, in the show was portrayed against the image of model minority (what Asian American community is known for): obedience, self-control, individualism, and loyalty. She, instead, was portrayed as rebellious, Americanized free spirit, and such.

The name of the show of course created a lot of controversies by putting Asian cast for a name “All-American Girl”, but at least it helped to put Asian Americans out there on screen to make people more aware of the situation of Asian Americans in the U.S. society.

-Xiangtian Rey Luo

The main thesis of this article is that with all the challenges present, especially getting out to make people aware of, Asian American films had used grassroots strategy to achieve and succeed. As mentioned in the article by Fong, “the biggest challenge for Asian American cinema has been one of access – finding a way for the films that are being made to reach the eyeballs of people” (page 3). The difficulties include unawareness of Asian American film festivals, companies reluctant to invest due to unfamiliarity, expensive to do marketing and outreach, and insufficient cash reserves for the film production. At that time, grassroots strategy came out to be the perfect solution.

Grassroots strategy is a marketing strategy that relies on as well as focuses on its own community (Asian American community in this case), which came out to be a no-frills, low-budget strategy that can be more effective than billboards or tv commercials. According to the article, the application of this grassroots strategy is “via emails from film directors asking for support, campus visits, connections with community-based organizations, opening night parties, entire screenings bought out by employee groups, street teams, major on-line/social networking pushes and appearances by cast and crew, this labor-intensive approach, while not perfect, has evolved into a useful tool” (page 4).

To further explain the application of the grassroots strategy, the author gives out some examples in the second half of the article. In 2000, film workers created APA First Weekend Club to alert people to watch the first weekend when some Asian American films were released, therefore, to generate box office numbers high enough to ensure a second weekend, and so on. In 2001, the film “The Debut” used self-distribution strategy by utilizing part of a film festival and concentrating on a certain racial group (Filipino American in this case). Some of the methods they used were street rally, mass emailing, and immersed meetings and presentations. In 2002, to effectively market “Better Luck Tomorrow”, the director and other related workers galvanized the sentiments of desire to be part of something, to know who they are and their positions amongst the younger Asian American generation. In 2007, to further push the grassroots strategy, Lin, his crew and the cast all went out to promote the film at the time “Finishing the Game” by visiting campuses and holding events in the Bay Area.

The author’s idea connects very well to the cultural idea that the Asian American films, which represent certain cultures in the US should be promoted amongst the cultural/ethnic groups for faster growth as well as putting cultural awareness into the society.

Xiangtian Rey Luo

The main thesis of this long article is that Asian Americans were both politically silent and ethnically assimilable in the United States society, and therefore, preferred by the Whites, which was humorously introduced by the author through “Whites love us because we are not black” (p.145). It was also clearly stated by the author that as a racial minority, the Asian Americans’ successful ethnic assimilation was from stoic patience, political obedience, and self-improvement, which are explained by the author further in depth later in the text.

The very first racial tension started with the Japanese Americans who became detained because of the attack of the Pearl Harbor during World War II. The use of racial categories by the white Americans result in physical hardship, economic ruin, family disintegration, psychological trauma for many Japanese Americans. One of the example was the racial taxonomy failure that the Life Magazine had published. Another example was the war camps that hosted the Japanese Americans. The Stoic patience and the political obedience kept them silent about the mistreatment and war camp until the 1970s, during which the Asian American movement was emerging. Then everything went towards the Chinese Americans as China became a Communist party in the World War II. Chinese Exclusion Act, FBI raiding Chinatowns to look for spies.

The racial tension became looser because of the political silence and the ethnic assimilation of the Asian Americans. The Chinese Americans were explicitly reported by many US news at the time of being better than the Negroes and other minorities simple because of the high level of ethnic assimilation. Right after WWII, in the 1940s, the United States had passed many immigration laws to countries such as China, India, Japan to allow more legal immigrants, the War Brides Act was also one of the laws, which allowed the soldiers to bring back their foreign spouse and the Asian Americans to reunite with the rest of their family in the United States. At the same time, the United States itself forced many women and minorities out of the workforce due to the influx of male soldiers, which created many nuclear families that boosted the American economy. This then led to international trade with the “Pacific Rim”, building more ties with the Asian countries. Also due to the war, the same genders lived together for a long time which allowed them to explore their sexuality and led to an emergence of homosexuality in the society.

The movie Sayonara was largely connected to the current society the United States had back then. The elements in this movie, as well as in the American society were interracial attraction, transgender representation, which also includes homosexuality, and introduction of more Asian culture. The change of the mindset of the characters implied the hope in social structural change for the ultimate liberty and freedom in the United States had by the people.

By Xiangtian Rey Luo