Author Archives: Yili Chen

According to Rachel Rubin’s article, “Cyberspace Y2K: Giant Robots, Asian Punks”, Rubin wrote about how Asian Americans broke “the Asian American image”, such as “submissive woman or de-sexed man”(pg 11), by using “zines”. Asian Americans young people, in particular women, had found in zines to be great for self-expression and self-definition.(pg 1)

“Asian American identity is a deliberate and motivated thing: experiential rather than biological, grounded in the present as much as or more than in the past” (pg 5). According to Iijima, Asian American cyberzine writers, whose families were immigrants, they could use the invention of the Internet as a opportunity to make people aware of their culture and history. “Zine production, with its anti-professional stance and its edgy aesthetic, would snowball at precisely this cultural moment.”(pg 14) The Asian American image would be changed by the following mainstream media such as Jackie Chan Films, Pokemon, and Hello Kitty and print and cyberzines.(pg 14)

Cyberzines are electronic zines that are more efficient than normal zines. Normal zines are photo-copied and hand distributed, which takes more time to publish than cyberzine. Normal zines are hand-published, so they are limited by the number of physical copies. However, cyberzines’s “potential audience is practically limitless.”(pg 12) This makes the Internet a efficient and economic way to break stereotypes.

Internet is the efficient way to distribute cyberzines. People send both satirical and serious messages through social media platforms such a YouTube and Instagram to change cultural images. For example, the YouTuber David So uses his popular YouTube channel to create a strong Asian American image.

According to Sarah Moon Casinelli’s article, “If we are Asian, then are we funny?,” Casinelli analysed the critique of Margaret Cho about her leading role of the first Asian American drama, “All-American Girl.” Casinelli deeply discussed on “All-American Girl” was not an “authentic” portrayal of an Asian American family. Casinelli believed that Cho’s critique of her role as Margaret Kim can let us think about the successes and failures of the show and the future Asian American sitcoms.

Firstly, a criticism of Casinelli about the show was that the familial portrayals “did not ring true as an ‘authentic’ Asian- American family. Casinelli stated that the show was “attempt to create “authentic Asianness,” means the audience is not given enough non-racial material to create a relationship with the characters”(pg 132). “The show seemed to overemphasize the characters’ Asian marking the Asian face, body, and family structure as decidedly uncanny. When the show was in a decline and receiving harsh criticism from all sides, the remedy was to repackage the product in efforts to normalize the Asian ethnic identity and appease viewers” (pg 132). The show failed in its portrayal of  both the Asian and American aspects. “It is as though the show’s producers and writers were asking for critics and audience members to look for and point out the troubling aspects of both American and Asian authenticity within the show” (pg 134).

Another criticism was that the show was lack of genuineness. This led to a failure to properly distinguish impostor and impersonate. “The audience sees her as an Asian impostor, then it’s possible that Margaret Kim can be regarded an American impostor as well” (pg  136). Lacking a proper distinguish between the impostor and impersonate, Cho’s “damaging attempts to impersonate a subservient, traditional Korean girl”  (pg 137) further skewed from an authentic attempt to understand the balance behind the  “constructed nature of Asian American identities” (pg 137).

Cassinelli seemed to believe “All-American Girl” may have been the only  Asian Americans had at a prime time sitcom. However, “Fresh Off the Boat” was going to have fifth season this upcoming October. Both showed the stereotype of Asian descent in the US, but I thought “Fresh Off the Boat” was more successful. It was reminding the Asian descents to aware of their “foreignness.

In John Fong’s article “Beyond Finishing the Game: A Look at Asian American Grassroots Outreach”, Fong told us about the difficulty of making films about Asian American in America. Lacking of money was the main barrier of making Asian American film. The Asian American filmmaker attract Asian American grassroots to overcome this obstacle.

In Fong’s article, he wrote “long been the biggest challenge in Asian American cinema has been one of access- finding a way for the film that is being made (and we know that they are being made, and are good!) to reach the eyeballs of the people (who we know will want to see them, as evidenced by the long lines at any of the fine Asian American film festivals out there).”(page.5) These Asian American filmmakers didn’t have enough budget to advertise their films, which made their films have less audience than the Hollywood film.(page.5)

Aggressive grassroots strategy was an effective approach to attract Asian American audience. Fong stated that grassroots was a “community-focused marketing”(page.3) and it has been the “de facto marketing approach to reach Asian American audiences, a no-frills, low budget strategy that can be more effective than billboards of tv commercials” (page.3). As Fong mentioned about, grassroots strategy was a labor-intensive way of marketing. “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.”(page.4) This approach was not perfect, but it did help the Asian American films to be viewed by more people than before.

The current number one movie at Box Office, “Crazy Rich Asians” is a revolution in Hollywood film history because it’s the first movie performed by all Asian American actors. It shows that the traditional Chinese and Asian Americans hold very different values. I believe and hope that the success of this movie can help the future Asian American films achieve greater success.

According to Lisa Sun-hee Park’s “Assimilation,” she used many examples and scholar’s quote to argue against “assimilation”. She said “assimilation is neither simple nor “natural””(17). The term “assimilation” is about a process that the minority people fully understand and integrate the white American society. (14) She believed that the ‘model minority’ myth which was imposed on Asian Americans was untrue.(16)

Park used Du Bois’s opinions to oppose “assimilation”. Du Bois used the physical difference of African Americans and white Americans to claim that racial difference was not the problem. He said “there is no reason why, in the same country and on the same street, two or three great national ideals might not thrive and develop, that men of different races might not strive together for their race ideals as well, perhaps even better, than in isolation”(14). The problem was assumption of racial inferiority, which “marginalized African Americans”(14).

On the other hand, Asian Americans was thought as “model minority” for other minorities in the U.S because people thought Asian Americans were rich, well educated, and can benefit society (16). However, there were many Asian Americans were still suffering discrimination. “The Pew report in question states that Asian Americans have made tremendous progress from a century ago, when most were “low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination”(16).  Therefore, many Asian Americans still lived in poverty and experience intense and direct racism. The privileged Asian Americans, who were not the generation descended from the low-wage labors,  are not the same Asian Americans of a century ago, so they couldn’t stand for all the Asian Americans.

In conclusion, after reading Park’s article, I got better understanding in the assimilation issue of Asian Americans. The “model minority myth” was kind of stereotype to me. For example, in “Slaying the Dragon”,  there were many incorrect representations of Asian Americans. The differences between Japanese and Chinese described on the magazine was not true. Media influenced people’s mind a lot. Therefore, white Americans tend to believe Asian were all like Suzy Wong. Therefore, assimilation did cause many problem. As Park said, “assimilation is neither simple nor “natural”(17).

According to Sylvia Shin Huey Chong’s article, “Orientalism,” Chong believed that Asian Americans had a false impression in America because of the wrong message of massive media. Many Asians were exposed to westerners through many TV shows, which made the term “Oriental” become popular. As Edward Said stated, “‘Orientals’ were Suzie Wong, Charlie Chans, and Fu Manchus— fictional stereotypes connoting exoticism, foreignness, passivity(182)”. However, “‘Asian Americans’ were portrayed as the heterogeneity of Asian American communities, causes, and activities(182)”. Therefore, Said described Orientalism as “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient”(182). Many Asian women were portrayed as passive and exotic people by media to attract westerners without knowing the Asian culture.

“The term ‘oriental’ had the potential to confront a history of exclusion, expulsion, and discrimination by politicizing precisely those groups (182).” As Chong said, Asians were grouped into the ‘orient’ were the minority in America and dealt with “exclusion” and “expulsion” as other ethnic groups. The experience of “exclusion” and “expulsion” let Asians confront the injustices as a minority in America together.

Moreover, Asian Americans used the idea of orientalism to establish their identities in America as other ethnicities such as African Americans, who have gone through prejudices and hardships. “As Asian American studies found a home in the academy, it has often taken the opposite route, eschewing area studies and aligning either with American studies and English departments, or in coalitions with African American, Latino/a, and Native American studies under the umbrella of ethnic studies(183)”. Asian American subjects may even twist commodity Orientalism to their advantage, marketing their goods or products as exotic in an act of “self-Orientalization.” This brings up the idea of self-orientalization, where those of the ‘orient’ would embody the image portrayed of them through art and mass media and use it to their advantage. Even in modern day society we can see “Asian American subjects may even twist commodity orientalism to their advantage, marketing their goods or products as exotic in an act of self-Orientalization(184)”. The abundance of Asian décor seen throughout Asian themed restaurants and stores is not uncommon and is a clever marketing tool to draw in attention from those who are not of Asian descent. Needless to say, that orientalization has allowed Asians to spread knowledge of their cultures through different goods and products. The Forbidden City film discussed the first ‘Oriental’ nightclub in San Francisco and displayed interviews from its customers and workers. It was evident in the film that what attracted Westerners at the time was how different the Asian theme was compared to the typical American nightclub. Also, the passive and cute stereotype given of Asian women through movies time drew in westerners to witness firsthand if the depiction was true. This validates the point that although “Orientalism in Asian American studies often stand as a synonym for ‘racism’,(183)” Asians used orientalism to their advantage when given the chance and even had a great impact socially by giving light of their culture to western culture.

In conclusion, Chong’s article told us how Asians have developed from an enclosed group, ‘Orient” to developing their own identities as Asian Americans.