Asian-Americans Pen Powerful Open Letter to
Their Families About Why Black Lives Matter
By Sarah Harvard, m.mic.com
July 8th, 2016
The Minnesota Police Department identi!ed the o"cer who shot Philando Castile at
a tra"c stop as Jeronimo Yanez on Thursday.
O"cials have not disclosed Yanez's race, but many people on Twitter speculated that
the o"cer was of Asian descent after watching Castile's girlfriend's livestreamed
footage.
Christina Xu, an ethnographer and writer, and other Asian-American activists created
a crowdsourced letter to their families — particularly addressing their elders who
immigrated to the United States — to explain why black lives matter. Xu and others
were afraid that their community would end up rallying in support of the police
o"cer like some did for Peter Liang, an NYPD o"cer who was convicted of
manslaughter for fatally shooting Akai Gurley.
The letter, organized and written in an open Google Doc on Wednesday, features
contributions made by over 40 people from the Asian-American community. There
are now nearly a dozen translations of the letter, including versions in Chinese,
Bengali, Indonesian, Punjabi, Japanese and Urdu among others.
"When someone is walking home and gets shot by a sworn protector of the peace —
even if that o"cer's last name is Liang — that is an assault on all of us, and on all of
our hopes for equality and fairness under the law," the letter said.
You can read the letter in full below:
Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Grandfather, Grandmother:
We need to talk.
You may not have grown up around people who are Black, but I have. Black people
are a fundamental part of my life: they are my friends, my classmates and teammates,
my roommates, my family. Today, I'm scared for them.
This year, the American police have already killed more than 500 people. Of those,
25% have been Black, even though Black people make up only 13% of the population.
Earlier this week in Louisiana, two White police o"cers killed a Black man named
Alton Sterling while he sold CDs on the street. The very next day in Minnesota, a
police o"cer shot and killed a Black man named Philando Castile in his car during a
routine tra"c stop while his girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter looked on.
Overwhelmingly, the police do not face any consequences for ending these lives.
This is a terrifying reality that some of my closest friends live with every day.
Even as we hear about the dangers Black Americans face, our instinct is sometimes to
point at all the ways we are di#erent from them. To shield ourselves from their
reality instead of empathizing. When a policeman shoots a Black person, you might
think it's the victim's fault because you see so many images of them in the media as
thugs and criminals. After all, you might say, we managed to come to America with
nothing and build good lives for ourselves despite discrimination, so why can't they?
I want to share with you how I see things.
It's true that we face discrimination for being Asian in this country. Sometimes
people are rude to us about our accents, or withhold promotions because they don't
think of us as "leadership material." Some of us are told we're terrorists. But for the
most part, nobody thinks "dangerous criminal" when we are walking down the street.
The police do not gun down our children and parents for simply existing.
This is not the case for our Black friends. Many Black people were brought to
America as slaves against their will. For centuries, their communities, families and
bodies were ripped apart for pro!t. Even after slavery, they had to build back their
lives by themselves, with no institutional support — not allowed to vote or own
homes, and constantly under threat of violence that continues to this day.
In !ghting for their own rights, Black activists have led the movement for
opportunities not just for themselves, but for us as well. Many of our friends and
relatives are only able to be in this country because Black activists fought to open up
immigration for Asians in the 1960s. Black people have been beaten, jailed, even killed
!ghting for many of the rights that Asian Americans enjoy today. We owe them so
much in return. We are all !ghting against the same unfair system that prefers we
compete against each other.
When someone is walking home and gets shot by a sworn protector of the peace —
even if that o"cer's last name is Liang — that is an assault on all of us, and on all of
our hopes for equality and fairness under the law.
For all of these reasons, I support the Black Lives Matter movement. Part of that
support means speaking up when I see people in my community — or even my own
family — say or do things that diminish the humanity of Black Americans in this
country. I am telling you this out of love, because I don't want this issue to divide us.
I'm asking that you try to empathize with the anger and grief of the fathers, mothers
and children who have lost their loved ones to police violence. To empathize with
my anger and grief, and support me if I choose to be vocal, to protest. To share this
letter with your friends, and encourage them to be empathetic, too.
As your child, I am proud and eternally grateful that you made the long, hard journey
to this country, that you've lived decades in a place that has not always been kind to
you. You've never wished your struggles upon me. Instead, you've su#ered through a
prejudiced America, to bring me closer to the American Dream.
But I hope you can consider this: the American Dream cannot exist for only your
children. We are all in this together, and we cannot feel safe until ALL our friends,
loved ones and neighbors are safe. The American Dream that we seek is a place
where all Americans can live without fear of police violence. This is the future that I
want — and one that I hope you want, too.
With love and hope,
Your daughters, sons, nieces, nephews and grandchildren
Read More:
• President Obama Talks Alton Sterling, Philando Castile Killings in
Facebook Post
• CNN Asks Philando Castile's Mother to Respond to Thursday's Dallas
Shooting
• Akai Gurley's Death Forged an Unlikely Coalition That Called for Justice
Amerasia Journal 35:1 (2009): 179-187
Practicing Pinayist Pedagogy
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales and Jocyl Sacramento
In 1995, I1 wrote an article entitled “Pinayism” and my life was
forever changed. In many ways, the article was a proposal to develop a theoretical framework addressing the social, political, and
economic struggles of Pinays.2 Defining Pinayism has been challenging, organic, and collaborative because of the epistemological
and political diversity of Pinays I have met. After fourteen years
of workshops, talks, presentations, and lesson plans, Pinayism
has become a praxis asserting a transformative and transgressive
agency that combines theory, practice, and personal reflection.
To further examine the growth of Pinayism, this essay focuses
on Pinayist pedagogical praxis. In this article, I collaborate with Jocyl Sacramento, a recent graduate of San Francisco State University’s
Asian American Studies Master’s program. Her work develops the
notion of Pinayist pedagogy, which further expands on the “Pinayism proposal” and how it has become a transformative curricular
praxis. From the onset, one of the main objectives was to create a
Pinayism that would be useful in the everyday lives of Pinays. Our
aim is to explore the ways in which Pinayist pedagogy fulfilled this
objective in spaces both in and outside of the classroom.
Defining Pinayism as Pedagogy
Pinayist praxis is a process, place, and production that aims to
connect the global and local to the personal issues and stories
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales is an associate professor of Asian American
Studies and affiliated faculty in the Educational Leadership program at
San Francisco State University. She is also the director of Pin@y Educational Partnerships and senior researcher with the Educational Equity
Initiative at the Cesar Chavez Institute. She is also an ethnic studies curriculum consultant for the San Francisco Unified School District.
Jocyl Sacramento is a second-generation Pinay. She serves as Program
Coordinator for Pin@y Educational Partnerships and Oasis for Girls in
San Francisco. She has an MA in Asian American Studies from San Francisco State University and is a Sally Casanova pre-doctoral scholar.
179
2009
Amerasia Journal
180
of Pinay struggle, survival, service, sisterhood, and strength. It
is an individual and communal process of decolonization, humanization, self-determination, and relationship building, ultimately moving toward liberation. Through this process, Pinays
create places where their epistemologies are at the center of the
discourse/dialogue/conversation and organizing. Pinays also
represent Pinayism through critical cultural production of art,
performance, and engaged scholarship that expresses their perspectives and counternarratives.3
Building on these descriptions, Pinayism has expanded to include Pinayist pedagogy, a curricular and spatial intervention of
transformative praxis that aims to teach the elements of process,
place, and production. Building on Paulo Freire’s notion of praxis
to “encourage students to become social agents, developing their
capacity to confront real-world problems that face them and their
community,”4 Pinayist pedagogy’s goals are two-fold: 1) teaching
and learning critical Pinay studies with the central purpose to develop the capacity of Pinays to confront global, local, and personal
problems that face them and their community; and 2) mentoring,
reproducing, and creating a community of Pinayists.
At the core is critical Pinay studies, the teaching and learning of Filipina women’s stories, including their history and their
contemporary experiences. Pinayist pedagogy aims to uncover
challenges that Pinays face, while creating plans of action that
pursue social change for the betterment of their lives. Pinayist
pedagogy resists oppression both in the content and the methods
of the curriculum and calls for a commitment to social justice,
making the classroom a space of “transformational resistance.”5
Freire argues that this transformation will occur if students and
teachers engage in a reciprocal relationship where knowledge
is shared through a circular exchange where both students and
teacher participate in mutual humanization.
Through Pinayism, this humanizing pedagogy becomes a
practice of freedom. Freire suggests that this “liberation is thus a
childbirth, and a painful one.”6 Pinayist pedagogy is more than
childbirth, where the nurturing process of childrearing is what truly
leads to the humanization and liberation of teachers, students, and
Pinays. Central to Pinayist pedagogy is the creation of communities
that humanize and liberate Filipina women. bell hooks asserts that
a holistic approach to liberatory teaching “does not seek simply to
empower students. Any classroom that employs a holistic model
of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are em-
In Search for a Humanizing Pedagogy:
The Pinayist Workshop
Practicing Pinayist Pedagogy
powered by the process.”7 Similarly, spaces of Pinayist pedagogy
become places of healing for both Pinayist teacher and student.
It (the Pinayism workshop) challenged me to love myself and to
see beyond my internalized perceptions of what the world thinks
of me. It also made me think about how I treat other Pinays.
—Pinay high school student
Pinayism began in the community and has created community,
where Pinays could come together, share their experiences, and
possibly plan actions to improve their lives. For many, these workshops were the first time Pinays were the center of the dialogue.
Although each workshop is different because of the participants and the facilitators, the constant elements are a discussion
on Pinay needs, connecting global, local, and personal issues of
Pinays, defining Pinayism, and a discussion amongst the participants on how to practice Pinayism in their daily lives.8 To ensure
that the workshop implements Pinayist pedagogy, we introduce
the five stages of the Paulo Freire’s cyclical process of praxis:9
Identifying the Problems: At a 2008 Pinayism workshop for
high school students held at the University of California San Diego, participants read Pinays Screamed but No One Heard10, a poem
dramatizing the history of Pinays in the United States from 1587 to
the present. The participants then took part in a Pinay Issue Utak
Baguio,11 brainstorming issues that Pinays deal with on global, local, and personal levels. Young women and men juxtaposed issues like sexism and sex-trafficking with suicide rates, domestic
violence, high rates of breast cancer, teen pregnancy, eating disorders, mental health issues, intergenerational conflict, racism within feminism, media representation, lack of mentors, and pressures
of conforming to standards of beauty. They clearly had a sense of
the multitude of issues facing Pinays today.
Analyzing the Problems: Workshop participants are provided
with statistical and qualitative data on their identified issues.
For instance, if the issues of overseas contract workers come up
in the Utak Baguio, the facilitators cite how 75 percent of overseas
contract workers from the Philippines are women.12
The workshop facilitators then engaged participants in detailed conversations, aimed at teasing out the connections between the lives of Pinays in the United States and how Pinays are
181
perceived on a global level. With a working definition of Pinayism, workshop participants can frame possible ways to address
these issues facing their communities.
Creating Plans of Action: Participants get into circles of about
five to six people and each group is assigned one of the issues
brought up during the Pinay Issue Utak Baguio. In these circles,
participants collaborate to create posters with a plan of action
to address the issues. These plans should have individual and
communal actions with global, local, and personal outcomes.
Since we often begin our workshops with poetry, we sometimes
conclude by having participants write poems about how to address challenges in the lives of Pinays. These plans, whether in
the form of posters or poetry provide participants with ways that
they can take Pinayism into their daily lives.
Freire’s stages 4 (Implement the plan of action) and 5 (Analyze
and evaluate the actions) usually cannot be completed in the workshop format but we encourage participants to stay in contact
with us to share their experiences and reflections.
Reflections and Outcomes
At the end of a Pinayism workshop, a young Pinay made her
way through a crowded room. She was pale, and with watery
eyes, she whispered, “My auntie is a mail-ordered bride. What
should I do?” I was silent as I listened to her auntie’s story. I
learned a great deal from her ability to be vulnerable and courageous in the same breath. I could only suggest she talk more to
her family about it. I also gave her names of supportive organizations. Years later, I learned that this Pinay went to college and
became an activist for women’s rights. I last saw her at a protest
in front of the Philippine Consulate urging the Philippine government to stop the sex trafficking of women and children. She
humanized Pinayism for me. She also gave me hope.
Amerasia Journal
2009
A Space of Hope: The Pinayist Classroom
182
Hope is something shared between teachers and students. The
hope that we can learn together, teach together, be curiously impatient together, produce something together, and resist together
the obstacles that prevent the following of our joy.
—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom13
Central to Pinayist pedagogy is the pursuit of a humanizing education, a hope shared by teachers and students, regardless if they
Practicing Pinayist Pedagogy
are Pinay or not. In Asian American Studies at San Francisco
State University, I usually teach elements of Pinayism in each of
my courses. Specifically in my Asian American Women’s course,
where a majority of my students are Asian American, with an equal
gender balance between women and men, I teach a unit that focuses
on critical Pinay studies.
This unit begins with a discussion about what Pinayism is in
order to demystify students’ preconceived notions about what it
means. Although Pinayism is centered on the teaching of critical Pinay studies, it is important to acknowledge that Pinayism
is not about male-bashing nor is it meant to be divisive. Pinoys
along with men and women who have relationships with Pinays
are encouraged to participate in Pinayism.14 A Pinay college student pointed out:
Putting Pinayism in a context of inclusion and a way of life allows for more widespread change. Pinayism then, is no longer
alienating or separate from other movements, or from the support of Filipino men. Addressing Pinay issues in this way allows for the underlying foundations of family and community
to play an important part, whereas in mainstream Feminism, it
was overlooked and deemed unimportant to the movement.
The unit emphasizes how Pinayism goes beyond mainstream
feminism to engage the complexities and intersections—where
race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, spirituality, religion, body
image, educational status, age, place of birth, mental health, diasporic migration, citizenship, nationalism, globalization, transnationalism, and love cross—to understand how Pinay identities, perspectives, multiple subjectivities, negotiation of contradictions, and transformative resistance are birthed.
The unit has several components that are spread across five
to ten class sessions, depending on the course topic. It usually
begins with a contextualizing of Pinayism in the history of feminism, womanism, and third world/women of color studies. One
of the activities in the unit includes a global internet search where
students are instructed to search terms that are associated with
Pinays on the internet. This often results in some extremely negative portrayals, which are often oversexualized images. In a “boodoo” doll creation activity, students work in teams to create dolls
that represent certain body alterations that are typically associated
with Pinays or Asian women. Poetry workshops provide an outlet for students to write about Pinays or women in their lives.15
183
One of the major activities included in the unit is the Pinayism Scenarios. Drawing from Augusto Boal’s (1971) development
of the Theatre of the Oppressed, students participate in interactive theatre that creates a dialogue between performers and audience members about problems in their communities. In this
critical performance pedagogy, performance in the classroom to
pursue a critical dialogue on how the curriculum and literature
presented in the course is directly connected to the cultures, histories, experiences, and problems faced in the students’ communities with the aim of pursuing an education that is both humanizing and liberatory. In the Pinayism Scenarios, the students are
instructed to do the following:
1. Show conflict: Do a one-minute skit of the scenario.
2. Describe the context: Discuss with the class how your group
contextualizes the scenario in a larger framework (such as colonization, racism, sexism, beauty-queen syndrome, classism,
ageism, homophobia, and so on).
3. Connect the global, local, and personal issues of Pinays: Explain
how your scenario deals with global, local, and personal issues.
4. Create alternatives: Redo the one-minute skit with a Pinayist
reaction.
Following is an example of a scenario:
Amerasia Journal
2009
Celia is twenty years old and comes to the U.S. to marry a man
she met on the Internet. He seemed nice in the online chat rooms
but is abusive when she arrives in the U.S. He treats Celia as his
personal slave. He beats her, even putting a hot iron to her face
so she would be ashamed to leave him. What can be done?
184
The Pinayism Scenarios often lead students to develop ways
that they will make changes in their own lives to address issues
that pertain to Pinays. It also leaves them wanting to do more.
The in-class activities usually culminates in a midterm or final
which encourages the students to create a presentation or project that follows Freire’s cyclical process of praxis. Students have
created oral herstory projects, audio recordings, multimedia presentations, community service projects, political campaigns, and
even political fashion shows. Through these projects students
often have a transformative Pinayism experience.16
Reflection and Outcomes
Pinayist educators challenge dominant ideologies by presenting
different ways of utilizing reproductive labor. Pinayist educators
Practicing Pinayist Pedagogy
use their role as teachers to reproduce people who choose to participate in transformational resistance. They resist reproductive theory suggesting that education produces workers to help maintain the
capitalist economy. Instead, Pinayist educators create communities
of social justice in the classroom. Their pedagogy provides a counterhegemonic, student-centered, and culturally relevant teaching
and learning experience that utilizes love, holistic health, and community to humanize the teacher, student, and Pinay.
Pinayist educators also bring forth their Pinay perspective by
sharing personal narratives. These stories illustrate the communal nature of teaching that they bring into the classroom, which
provides a process of humanization for both the teacher and the
student. They also provide a space for their students to “become
conscious about their presence in the world” and how it affects
Pinays.17 A Pinayist educator’s classroom is a space where students find hope and a place to call home.
Where Pinays Call Home: Creating Pinayist Communities
“I want my classes to be a catalyst for students to change their
lives.”
—Pinayist high school teacher
Introducing the concept of Pinayism through workshops and in the
classroom has created a space where Pinays feel we belong—a place
to call home. We are challenged to reflect on how Pinayism can be
applied in our own lives and how we can share Pinayism with others. Groups of students have initiated classes on Pinayism.18 Filipino student groups have held workshops to discuss gender issues
and brought on local Pinayists and Pinayistas to share an overview
of the possibilities of Pinayism. Pinay scholars insert Pinay narratives into their academic work to ensure that the contributions and
voices of Pinays are recognized. These examples of Pinayism as a
pedagogical praxis show that Pinayists are taking it upon themselves to introduce, practice, transform, and reproduce Pinayism.
A growing number of Pinayist educators serve to centralize
Pinay experiences and epistemologies by incorporating the Pinay
narrative in the content of the curriculum at any level, from toddlers to our elders, and in any setting, both formal and informal,
in a classroom and in the community. Pinayism in academia is not
just about theory production. Its key components also include accessibility and mentorship. Pinay pedagogues create communities
that critique oppression, seek social justice and (re)produce agents
of social change.19 Ultimately, Pinayist pedagogy places Pinays at
185
the center of the curriculum, legitimizing our existence in the world.
Pinayism is not only about teaching the content of Pinay studies,
but also deliberately about the humanizing pedagogy we use to
teach, and the overall purpose and problems that we, as Pinayists, aim to confront.
Notes
Amerasia Journal
2009
We would like to thank all who have contributed to the development of Pinayism, particularly our mothers and our families. We would like to especially thank
Dawn Mabalon for assistance on this article and Mahalaya Tintiangco-Cubales
for her patience and Pinayist hugs.
186
1.
The singular voice refers to experiences of Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales.
2.
Pinay and Pinoy are nicknames for Filipina/o in America, adopted by some
of the earliest Filipina/o immigrants to Hawaii and the United States. Because of its almost exclusive use by working-class Filipina/o immigrants
and their descendants in America from the turn of the century to the 1960s,
some newly immigrated, elite Filipinas/os in the 1960s and 1970s shunned
the term because of its roots in the working-class experience of early immigrants. Now, the term is widely used by Filipinas/os worldwide to refer to
anyone of Filipina/o ancestry.
3.
For an expanded definition of Pinayism, please refer to Allyson TintiangcoCubales, Pin@y Educational Partnerships: A Sourcebook of Filipina/o American
Studies, Volume II (Santa Clara: Phoenix, forthcoming).
4.
Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade and Ernest Morrell, The Art of Critical Pedagogy
(New York: Peter Lang, 2008): 25.
5.
Daniel Solórzano and Dolores Delgado-Bernal, “Examining Transformational Resistance through a Critical Race and LatCrit Theory Framework:
Chicana and Chicano Students in an Urban Context,” Urban Education 36:3
(2001): 319.
6.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 2000): 49.
7.
bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New
York and London: Routledge, 1994): 21.
8.
After participating in the Conversing Pinay conference in 2000, I began to
really think clearly about developing a Pinayism that aims to connect the
global, local, and personal worlds of Pinays.
9.
Duncan-Andrade and Morrell, Art of Critical Pedagogy.
10.
This poem can be found in Tintiangco-Cubales, PEP Sourcebook, volume II.
11.
In the 2006 PEP Tibak Training, Artnelson Concordia used the Tagalog
translation Utak Baguio, for brainstorm.
12.
Statistics were cited by Elsa Valmidriano as being from GABRIELA Network’s findings published in 2007, www.gabnet.org.
13.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom (New York: Rowman and Littlefield,
1998), 69.
In his article responding to Pinayism, Frank Samson calls on men to join
the Pinayist movement by exploring praxis on the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. He states that the first step in engaging in
Pinayism is to develop an ownership predicated on a Pinayist consciousness. He describes this individual process as a direct opposition to a society that equates masculinity with heterosexist patriarchal norms. He asserts that Filipino men must implement Pinayism as “a way of being in the
world.” Samson challenges men to reevaluate how they view their mothers and women in their family and urges men to refrain from participating
or perpetuating verbal, physical, and sexual assault against Pinays and
other women. See Frank L. Samson, “Filipino American Men: Comrades
in the Filipina/o American Feminism Movement,” Melinda L. de Jesús,
ed., Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory: Theorizing the Filipina/American
Experience (New York and London: Routledge, 2005).
15.
Tintiangco-Cubales, PEP Sourcebook, volume II.
16.
Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, “Final Project Runway: In the I’s of Asian
American Women,” Geraldine B. Stahly, ed., Gender Identity, Equity, and Violence (Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2007).
17.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Indignation (Boulder and London: Paradigm Publishers, 2004): xx.
18.
A group of students initiated a directed group of students’ class at University of California, San Diego. This class was housed in the Department of
Ethnic Studies in Spring 2005.
19.
Jocyl Sacramento, Reproducing Resistance: A Study on Pinayist Pedagogical
Praxis. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, 2009.
Practicing Pinayist Pedagogy
14.
187
The Development of Feminist Consciousness among Asian American Women
Author(s): Esther Ngan-Ling Chow
Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 284-299
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/189565 .
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF
FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
AMONG ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN
ESTHER NGAN-LING CHOW
American University
This article examines the social circumstances, both current and past, that have
affected the development and transformation of feminist consciousness among Asian
American women. Gender, race, class, and culture all influenced the relative lack of
participation of Asian American women in the mainstream feminist movement in the
United States. It concludes that Asian American women have to come to terms with
their multiple identities and define feminist issues from multiple dimensions. By
incorporating race, class, and cultural issues along with gender concerns, a transcendent feminist consciousness that goes beyond these boundaries may develop.
Like other women of color, Asian American women as a group have
neither been included in the predominantly white middle-class
feminist movement, nor have they begun collectively to identify with
it (Chia 1983; Chow forthcoming; Dill 1983; Loo and Ong 1982;
Yamada 1981). Although some Asian American women have participated in social movements within their communities or in the larger
society, building ties with white feminists and other women of color
is a recent phenomenon for Asian American women. Since Asian
American women are a relatively small group in the United States,
their invisibility and contribution to the feminist movement in the
larger society may seem insignificant. Furthermore, ethnic diversity
among Asian American women serves as a barrier to organizing and
makes it difficult for these women to identify themselves collectively
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks are given to Rita Kirshstein, Sherry Gorelick,
Margaret Andersen, and Brett Williams for their constructive comments and suggestions on the early versions of this article.
GENDER&SOCIETY,Vol. 1 No. 3, September1987284-299
0 1987Sociologistsfor Womenin Society
284
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Chow / ASIAN AMERICANFEMINISTCONSCIOUSNESS
285
as a group. Because approximately half of Asian American women
are foreign-born, their lack of familiarity with the women's movement
in the United States and their preoccupation with economic survival
limit their feminist involvement. The use of demographic factors
such as size, ethnic diversity, and nativity, without an examination of
structural conditions, such as gender, race, class, and culture, will not
permit an adequate understanding of the extent of feminist activism
of Asian women in the United States.
What are the social conditions that have hindered Asian American
women from developing a feminist consciousness, a prerequisite for
political activism in the feminist movement? From a historical and
structural perspective, this article argues that the feminist consciousness of Asian American women has been limited by their location in
society and social experiences. A broader perspective is needed to
understand the development of feminist consciousness among Asian
American women who are subject to cross-group pressures.
The intent of this article is primarily conceptual, describing how
gender, race, class, and culture intersect in the lives of Asian American
women and how their experiences as women have affected the
development of feminist consciousness. The ideas are a synthesis of
legal documents, archival materials, and census statistics; participant
observation in the civil rights movement, feminist movement, Asian
American groups, and Asian American organizations since the mid1960s; interviews and conversations with Asian American feminists
and leaders; and letters, oral histories, ethnic newspapers, organizational newsletters, films, and other creative writings by and about
Asian American women.
GENDER CONSCIOUSNESS:
PRECURSOROF FEMINISTCONSCIOUSNESS
Gender consciousness is an awareness of one's self as having
certain gender characteristics and an identification with others who
occupy a similar position in the sex-gender structure. In the case of
women, an awareness of femaleness and an identification with other
women can lead to an understanding of gender power relations and
the institutional pressures and socialization processes that create and
maintain these power relations (Weitz 1982). Ultimately, gender
consciousness can bring about the development of feminist conscious-
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
286
GENDER gcSOCIETY / September 1987
ness and the formation of group solidarity necessary for collective
action in the struggle for gender equality (Christiansen-Ruffman
1982; Green 1979; Houston 1982).
Being female, awareness of gender roles, and identification with
other women are the major ingredients in building gender consciousness. However, it is necessary to understand the social contexts in
which the gender consciousness of Asian American women has
developed. Domination by men is a commonly shared oppression for
Asian American women. These women have been socialized to accept
their devaluation, restricted roles for women, psychological reinforcement of gender stereotypes, and a subordinate position within Asian
communities as well as in the society at large (Chow 1985). Within
Asian communities, the Asian family (especially the immigrant one)
is characterized by a hierarchy of authority based on sex, age, and
generation, with young women at the lowest level, subordinate to
father-husband-brother-son. The Asian family is also characterized
by well-defined family roles, with father as a breadwinner and
decision maker and mother as a compliant wife and homemaker.
While they are well protected by the family because of their filial piety
and obedience, women are socially alienated from their Asian sisters.
Such alienation may limit the development of gender and feminist
consciousness and render Asian women politically powerless in
achieving effective communication and organization, and in building
bonds with other women of color and white feminists.
In studying the majority of women activists who participated in
various movements for oppressed groups, Blumberg (1982) found
that participation in these movements affected the development of
gender consciousness among women, which later, because of sexism
in the movements, was transformed into a related but distinctive state
of awareness-a feminist consciousness. For Asian American women,
cross-group allegiances can hinder the development of feminist
consciousness or expand it into a more universal view. Women who
consider racism and classism to be so pervasive that they cannot
embrace feminism at the same level may subordinate women's rights
to other social concerns, thus limiting the development of feminist
consciousness. Women who are aware of multiple oppressions and
who advocate taking collective action to supersede racial, gender, and
class differences may develop a feminist consciousness that transcends
gender, racial, class, and cultural boundaries.
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287
AWAKENING FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
In the wake of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s and the
feminist movement in the mid-1960s, Asian American women,
following the leads of black and Hispanic women, began to organize
(Chow forthcoming; Ling and Mazumdar 1983; Lott and Pian 1979;
G. Wong 1980). Initially, some better educated Asian American
women formed women's groups to meet personal and family needs
and to provide services to their respective organizations and ethnic
communities. These groups, few in number and with little institutionalized leadership, were traditional and informal in nature, and
usually supported philanthropic concerns (G. Wong 1980). While
there had been a few sporadic efforts to organize Asian American
women around specific issues and concerns that did not pertain to
women (e.g., the unavailability or high cost of basic food, Angel
Island, the World War II interment of Japanese Americans), these
attempts generally lacked continuity and support, and the organization of Asian American women was limited as a political force.
Nevertheless, these activities, as stepping stones for future political
activism, allowed Asian American women to cultivate their gender
consciousness, to acquire leadership skills, and to increase their
political visibility.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many Asian American women
activists preferred to join forces with Asian American men in the
struggle against racism and classism (Fong 1978; G. Wong 1980; Woo
1971). Like black and Hispanic women (Cade 1970; Dill 1983; Fallis
1974; Hepburn etal. 1977; Hooks 1984; Terrelonge 1984), some Asian
American women felt that the feminist movement was not attacking
racial and class problems of central concern to them. They wanted to
work with groups that advocated improved conditions for people of
their own racial and ethnic background or people of color, rather
than groups oriented toward women's issues (Fong 1978; G. Wong
1980; Woo 1971), even though they may have been aware of their roles
and interests and even oppression as women.
As Asian American women became active in their communities,
they encountered sexism. Even though many Asian American women
realized that they usually occupied subservient positions in the maledominated organizations within Asian communities, their ethnic
pride and loyalty frequently kept them from public revolt (Woo
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288
GENDER & SOCIETY / September 1987
1971). More recently, some Asian American women have recognized
that these organizations have not been particularly responsive to their
needs and concerns as women. They also protested that their intense
involvement did not and will not result in equal participation as long
as the traditional dominance by men and the gendered division of
labor remain (G. Wong 1980). Their protests have sensitized some
men and have resulted in changes of attitudes and treatment of
women, but other Asians, both women and men, perceived them as
moving toward separatism.
Asian American women are criticized for the possible consequences
of their protests: weakening of the male ego, dilution of effort and
resources in Asian American communities, destruction of working
relationships between Asian men and women, setbacks for the Asian
American cause, cooptation into the larger society, and eventual loss
of ethnic identity for Asian Americans as a whole. In short, affiliation
with the feminist movement is perceived as a threat to solidarity
within their own community. All these forces have restricted the
development of feminist consciousness among Asian American
women and their active participation in the feminist movement. (For
the similar experience of black women, see Hooks 1984.)
Other barriers to political activism are the sexist stereotypes and
discriminatory treatment Asian American women encounter outside
their own communities. The legacy of the Chinese prostitute and the
slave girl from the late nineteenth century still lingers. American
involvement in Asian wars continues to perpetuate the image of
Asian women as cheap whores and exotic sexpots (e.g., images such as
"Suzie Wong" for Chinese women, the "geisha girl" in the Japanese
teahouse, the bar girls in Vietnam). The "picture bride" image of
Asian women is still very much alive, as U.S. soldiers and business
men brought back Asian wives from China, Japan, Korea, and
Vietnam with the expectation that they would make perfect wives and
homemakers. In the last few years, a systematic importation through
advertisements in newspapers and magazines of Asian "mail-order
brides" has continued their exploitation as commodities and has been
intensively protested by many Asian American communities. Mistreatment, desertion, divorce, and physical abuse of Asian wives or war
brides have been major concerns for Asian American women (Kim
1977). The National Committee Concerned with Asian Wives of U.S.
Servicemen was specifically organized to deal with these problems.
The result of these cross-pressures is an internal dilemma of choice
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Chow / ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
289
between racial and sexual identity at the personal level and between
liberation for Asian Americans (in the broader sense for all racial and
ethnic minority groups) and for women at the societal level. Lee
(1971, p. 119) reported interviews with two Asian American feminists
who reflected the mixed feelings of many Asian American women.
One woman, Sunni, said:
We are Asian women. Our identity is Asian, and this country
recognizes us as such. We cannot afford the luxury of fighting our
Asian counterparts.Weought to struggleforAsian liberationfirst,and
I'm afraid that the "feminist"virtues will not be effective weapons.
There is no sensein having only women'sliberationwhile we continue
to sufferoppressionas Asians. (Lee 1971,p. 119)
Another women, Aurora, took the opposite view:
History has told us that women's liberation does not automatically
come with political revolutions;Asian liberation will not necessarily
bring Asian women'sliberation.... Weought to devoteour energiesto
feminismbecausea feministrevolutionmaywell be theonly revolution
that can bring peace among people. (Lee 1971,p. 119)
When Asian American women began to recognize injustice and
became aware of their own strengths as women, some developed a
feminist consciousness, giving top priority to the fight against sexism
and for women's rights. Some sought to establish women's caucuses
within existing Asian American organizations (e.g., the Organization
of Chinese American Women), while others attempted to organize
separately outside of the male-dominated Asian American organizations (e.g., the Organization of Pan American Women and the
National Network of Asian and Pacific Women).
Asian American women began to organize formally around
women's issues in the early 1970s. Yet many of these groups were
short-lived because of lack of funding, grass-roots support, membership, credible leadership, or strong networking. Those that endured
included women's courses and study groups sponsored by Asian
American studies programs on college and university campuses,
multilingual and multicultural service programs in women's health
or mental health centers (e.g., the Asian Pacific Health Project in Los
Angeles and the Asian Pacific Outreach Center in Long Beach, the
Pacific Asian Shelter for Battered Women in Los Angeles), and
writers' groups (Pacific Asian American Women's Writers West).
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GENDER&SOCIETY / September1987
A few regional feminist organizations have been formally established and are in the process of expanding their influence and
building up their networks from the grass-roots level to the national
one. These organizations include the National Organization of Pan
Asian Women, the National Network of Asian and Pacific women,
Asian American Women United, the Pilipino Women's League, the
Filipino American Women Network, the Vietnamese Women Association, and the Cambodian Women for Progress, Inc.2 These feminist
organizations aim to advance the causes of women and racial and
ethnic minorities, to build a strong Asian sisterhood, to maximize the
social participation of Asian American women in the larger society,
and to effect changes through collective efforts in education, employment, legislation, and information. The active participants in these
feminist organizations are mostly middle-class Asian women, college
students, professionals, political activists, and a few working-class
women (G. Wong 1980).
RACIAL CROSS-PRESSURES
Joining the white feminist movement is a double-edged sword, for
Asian American women experience oppression not only as women in
a society dominated by men but also as minorities facing a variety of
forms of racism that are not well understood by white feminists (Chia
1983; Chow 1982; Fujitomi and Wong 1976; Kumagai 1978; Loo and
Ong 1982). The structural racism of American institutions, which
limit access to resources, opportunities, prestige, privileges, and
power, affects all the racial and ethnic minority groups of which
Asian American women are a part (Chow forthcoming; Dill 1983;
Hepburn et al. 1977; LaRue 1976; Loo and Ong 1982; Palmer 1983;
Wong et al. 1979).
Legal restrictions, as one form of racism, were used to exploit
cheap labor, to control demographic growth, and to discourage
family formation by Asians. These restrictions also hindered the
development of gender consciousness and political power among
Asian American women. Since the mid-1850s, the legal and political
receptivity to Asian Americans, men and women, has been low in the
United States (Elway 1979; Pian 1980). The U.S. immigration
policies generally emphasized imported cheap labor and discouraged
the formation of family unity. Some laws specifically targeted Asian
American women. As early as the 1850s, the first antiprostitution law
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Chow / ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
291
was passed in San Francisco, barring traffic of Chinese women and
slave girls. The Naturalization Act of 1870 and the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882 forbade the entry of wives of Chinese laborers. In 1921, a
special act directed against Chinese women kept them from marrying
American citizens. The Exclusion Act of 1924 did not allow alienborn wives to enter the United States, but their children could come;
this act separated many families until the passage of the Magnuson
Act in 1943. The Cable Act of 1932 stipulated that American-born
Chinese women marrying foreign-born Asians would lose their U.S.
citizenship, although they could regain it through naturalization
later. The passage of antimiscegenation laws (e.g., the California
Anti-miscegenation Law in 1906), ruled unconstitutional by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1967, barred marriage between whites and "Mongolians" and laborers of Asian origins, making it impossible for
Asians to find mates in this country. As a result, bachelor communities
mainly consisting of single Asian men became characteristic of many
Asian groups, especially the Chinese (Glenn 1983).
In spite of political pressures, repressive immigration laws, and
restrictive and discouraging economic hardships, a few Asian women
did come to the United States. Chinese women came in the 1850s,
followed by Japanese women, who came during the late 1890s, and
Filipino and Korean women who migrated in the early part of the
twentieth century. These women were "picture brides," merchant
wives, domestics, laborers, and prostitutes. In the popular literature,
they were generally portrayed as degraded creatures, cheap commodities, and sex objects who took jobs from whites, spread disease and
vice, and corrupted the young. Descriptions of their sexist, racist, and
economically deprived living conditions reveal a personal and
private resistance marked by passive acceptance, suppression of
feelings, silent protest, withdrawal, self-sacrifice, and hard work.
(Aquino 1979; Gee 1971; Jung 1971; Louie 1971; J. Wong 1978; Yung
1986).
The repressive immigration laws were repealed after World War II,
and the number of Asian families immigrating to the United States
increased. By 1980, the sex ratio was balanced for the first time in the
history of this racial and ethnic group. Women now constitute half of
the Asian American population (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1981).
Although many of the repressive laws that conspired to bar the
sociopolitical participation of Asian American men and women have
changed, the long-term effect of cultural, socioeconomic, and political
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GENDER & SOCIETY / September 1987
exploitation and oppression are still deeply felt, and there are new
forms of discrimination and deprivation. The passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, setting restricted immigration
quotas for family members of Asian American and Hispanic Americans, recalls earlier repressive legislation. As long as legal circumstances restrict the immigration of the mothers, daughters, and sisters
of the Asian American women in the United States, the full
development of their gender and feminist consciousness will be
hampered.
The long history of racism in the United States has left its mark on
feminism. Some Asian American women feel repelled by the racial
composition, insensitivity, and lack of receptivity of some white
women in the feminist movement (Fong 1978; Yamada 1981). They
argue that white feminists do not fully understand or include issues
and problems that Asian American women confront. White feminists
are not aware of or sympathetic to the differences in the concerns and
priorities of Asian American women. Without understanding the
history and culture of Asian American women, some white feminists
have been impatient with the low level of consciousness among
women of color and the slow progress toward feminism of Asian
American women.
Although some degree of acceptance of Asian American women
and of women of color by certain segments of the white feminist
movement has occurred, many problems remain (Bogg 1971; Dill
1983; Hepburn et al. 1977; Hooks 1984; Lee 1971). Ideological
acceptance does not necessarily lead to full structural receptivity.
Conscious and rigorous efforts have not been made by many of those
active in white feminist organizations to recruit Asian American
women and other women of color openly, to treat them as core groups
in the movement, and to incorporate them in the organizational
policy and decision-making levels. Palmer (1983) points out that
ethnocentrism is a major reason that feminist organizations treat race
and class as secondary and are not fully accepting women of color.
Hooks (1984) is critical of a feminist movement based on the white
women who live at the center and whose perspectives rarely include
knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live at
the margin. Dill (1983, p. 131) states, "Political expediency drove
white feminists to accept principles that were directly opposed to the
survival and well-being of blacks in order to seek to achieve more
limited advances for women." The same is true for Asian American
women.
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Chow / ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
293
Inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior of white women
are highly evident in the "token" membership of minority women in
some feminist organizations, which indicates simply a superficial
invitation to join. For women of color, these frustrations of not being
included in the "white women's system" run parallel to those
experiences of white women who try to break into the "old boy's
network." Consequently, Asian American women feel more comfortable making allies with women of color (e.g., the National Institute
for Women of Color) than with their white counterparts. While there
are interethnic problems among Asian American women and between
them and other women of color, social bonding and group allegiance
are much more readily established, and common issues are more
easily shared on the basis of race and ethnicity. A separate movement
for women of color may be a viable alternative for the personal
development of Asian American women and other women of color
and for their struggle for liberation and social equality.
ECONOMICCONDITIONS AND CLASSCLEAVAGES
Economic exploitation and class cleavages also account for the
limited development of feminist consciousness and political activism
among Asian American women. American capitalism demands
cheap labor and the economic subordination of certain groups,
resulting in a dual or split labor market. Certain minorities,
primarily blacks, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans, are
treated as internal colonized groups exploited culturally, politically,
and economically (Almquist 1984; Blauner 1972; Bonacich 1972).
Asian American women have lived in racially segregated internal
colonies such as Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Little Saigon. They
have experienced social isolation, ghettoization, poverty, and few
opportunities for personal growth and emancipation. Limited resources and lack of access to information, transportation, and social
services have made them rely on their families for support and
protection. They must also work to maintain them financially. The
labor force participation of Asian American women is much higher
than that of white and black women (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1983),
but many of them have worked in the secondary labor market sector,
which is characterized by long working hours, low pay, and low
prestige. Although their educational levels are relatively high, 70
percent are concentrated in clerical, service, and blue-collar work, and
are facing tremendous underemployment (U.S. Bureau of the Census
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GENDER & SOCIETY / September 1987
1983; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 1978).
Cultural values that emphasize hard work and that place a stigma
on idleness prevent Asian American women from not working and
going on welfare. Asian American households generally have a
greater number of multiple breadwinners per family than the general
U.S. population. The financial burdens on many Asian American
women pressure them to continue struggling for economic survival
for the good of their families, sacrificing their own interests, and
suppressing their feelings and frustrations even in the face of gender
and racial discrimination. They have little time to examine the
implications of their economic situations; they do not fully understand
the dynamics of class position; and they are not likely to challenge the
existing power structure.
How economic and class conditions hinder feminist consciousness
and political activism is evident for Chinese working-class women
living in Chinatowns in many cities. Subject to the impact of internal
colonization, their work world is an ethnic labor market, offering few
good jobs, low pay, long hours, limited job advancement, and relative
isolation from the larger society. The film Sewing Woman (Dong
1982) vividly describes the ways in which a working-class Chinese
woman attempts to balance her family, work, and community
responsibilities. Unionization of garment factory workers in Chinatown is only the beginning of a long process of political struggle for
these women.3
In a study of Chinatown women, Loo and Ong (1982) identify the
major reasons for the lack of integration of these working-class
women into the feminist movement. First, Chinatown women do not
relate comfortably to people outside their ethnic subgroup, which
produces social distancing and alienation. Second, Chinatown
women face varied problems, so no political movement that addresses
only one of these will claim their allegiance. Third, although the
women's movement aims to improve conditions for all women, the
specific concerns of Chinatown's women are often not those of the
women's movement. For instance, health, language, and cultural
adjustment are major issues for low-income immigrant women.
These are not the foci of the women's movement. Fourth, Loo and
Ong demonstrate that the psychological profile of Chinatown
women is not that of political activists. Chinatown women lack a
sense of personal efficacy or control over outcomes in their lives, do
not have a systematic understanding of the structural and cultural
elements of a society that produces sexism, and tend to blame
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Chow / ASIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS
295
themselves for social problems. And finally, Chinatown women
perceive themselves as having more in common with Chinatown men
than with white middle-class women.
Although class cleavages exist among Asian American women,
political allegiance is easily achieved because of racial bonding.
Initially, the highly educated and professional, middle-class Asian
American woman organized politically and involved themselves in
the feminist movement, in some cases organizing Asian American
women's groups (G. Wong 1980). Although some of these groups may
tend to advance middle-class interests, such as career mobility, there
have also been efforts to incorporate the needs of working-class Asian
American women. Because race and ethnicity cut across classes and
provide a base for political identification, economic barriers are
much easier to overcome among Asian American women than
between them and white women. Nevertheless, there is still a great
need to address issues concerning working-class Asian American
women and to mobilize them to join feminist efforts.
CULTURAL FACTORS AND BARRIERS
Asiatic and U.S. cultures alike tend to relegate women to subordinate status and to work in a gendered division of labor. Although
Asiatic values emphasizing education, achievement, and diligence no
doubt have accounted for the high aspirations and achievements of
some Asian American woman, certain Asiatic values, especially when
they are in conflict with American ideas, have discouraged Asian
women from actively participating in the feminist movement (Chow
1982, 1985). Adherence to Asiatic values of obedience, familial
interest, fatalism, and self-control may foster submissiveness, passivity, pessimism, timidness, inhibition, and adaptiveness, rather
than rebelliousness or political activism. Acceptance of the American
values of independence, individualism, mastery of one's environment
through change, and self-expression may generate self-interest,
aggressiveness, initiative, and expressive spontaneity that tend to
encourage political activism; but these are, to a large extent,
incompatible with the upbringing of Asian American women.
Although the cultural barriers seem to pose a greater problem
internally for Asian American women, a lack of knowledge and
understanding of the cultural and language problems faced by Asian
American women widens the gap between them and white women
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GENDER&SOCIETY / September1987
(Moschkovich 1981). Further effort is needed to enhance cultural
awareness and understanding in order for women of all kinds to
develop a transcendent consciousness, a more inclusive experience of
sisterhood.
CONCLUSION
Paradoxically, Asian American women (like other women of
color) have much to gain from the white feminist movement; yet they
have had a low level of participation in feminist organizations. Since
feminist consciousness is a result as well as a source of feminist
involvement, Asian American women have remained politically
invisible and powerless. The development of feminist consciousness
for Asian American women cannot be judged or understood through
the experience of white women. Conversely, white women's understanding and definition of feminist consciousness needs to be more
thoroughly rooted in the experiences of women of color. The same
cross-pressures that hinder the political development of women of
color could be a transcending political perspective that adds gender to
their other consciousness and thus broadens political activism.
NOTES
1. Accordingto the 1980Census, thereare 3.5 million Asian Americansin this
country,constituting 1.5 percentof the total U.S. population. Womenconstitute51
percentof the total Asian Americanpopulation in the United States.
2. Pilipino and Filipino are acceptableterms used to describepeople from the
Philippines andcan be usedinterchangeably.The U.S. Bureauof Censushas usedthe
termFilipino since 1900.Now Filipino is a commonly used termfor the group and it
also can be found in Webster'sDictionary.
3. Personaldiscussionwith theunion representativein Local23-25of theILGWU
in New YorkChinatown.
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Invisibility is an Unnatural 35 Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman
Mitsuye Yamada
Last year for the Asian segment of the Ethnic American Literature course I was
teaching, I selected a new anthology entitled Aiiieeeee! compiled by a group of
outspoken Asian American writers. During the discussion of the long but thoughtprovoking introduction to this anthology, one of my students blurted out that she was
offended by its militant tone and that as a white person she was tired of always being
blamed for the oppression of all the minorities. I noticed several of her classmates' eyes
nodding in tacit agreement. A discussion of the "militant" voices in some of the other
writings we had read in the course ensued. Surely, I pointed out, some of these other
writings have been just as, if not more, militant as the words in this introduction? Had
they been offended by those also but failed to express their feelings about them? To my
surprise, they said they were not offended by any of the Black American, Chicano or
American Indian writings, but were hard-pressed to explain why when I asked for an
explanation. A little further discussion revealed that they "understood" the anger
expressed by the Black and Chicanos and they "empathized" with the frustrations and
sorrow expressed by the American Indian. But the Asian Americans?? Then finally, one
student said it for all of them: "It made me angry. Their anger made me angry, because I
didn't even know the Asian Americans felt oppressed. I didn't expect their anger." At this
time I was involved in an academic due process procedure begun as a result of a
grievance I had filed the previous semester against the administrators at my college. I had
filed a grievance for violation of my rights as a teacher who had worked in the district for
almost eleven years. My student's remark "Their anger made me angry ... I didn't expect
their anger," explained for me the reactions of some of my own colleagues as well as the
reactions of the administrators during those previous months. The grievance procedure
was a timeconsuming and emotionally draining process, but the basic principle was too
important for me to ignore. That basic principle was that I, an individual teacher, do have
certain rights which are given and my superiors cannot, should not, violate them with
impunity. When this was pointed out to them, however, they responded with shocked sur
prise that I, of all people, would take them to task for violation of what was clearly
written policy in our college district. They all seemed to exclaim, "We don't understand
this; this is so uncharacteristic of her; she seemed such a nice person, so polite, so
obedient, so non-troublemaking." What was even more surprising was once they were
forced to acknowledge that I was determined to start the due process action, they
assumed I was not doing it on my own. One of the administrators suggested someone
must have pushed me into this, undoubtedly some of "those feminists" on our campus, he
said wryly. In this age when women are clearly making themselves visible on all fronts, I,
an Asian American woman, am still functioning as a "front for those feminists" and
therefore invisible. The realization of this sinks in slowly. Asian Americans as a whole
are finally coming to claim their own, demanding that they be included in the
multicultural history of our country. I like to think, in spite of my administrator's myopia,
that the most stereotyped minority of them all, the Asian American woman, is just now
emerging to become part of that group. It took forever. Perhaps it is important to ask
ourselves why it took so long. We should ask ourselves this question just when we think
we are emerging as a viable minority in the fabric of our society. I should add to my
student's words, "because I didn't even know they felt oppressed," that it took this long
because we Asian American women have not admitted to ourselves that we were
oppressed. We, the visible minority that is invisible. I say this because until a few years
ago I have been an Asian American woman working among non-Asians in an educational
institution where most of the decision-makers were men*; an Asian American woman
thriving under the smug illusion that I was not the stereotypic image of the Asian woman
because I had a career teaching English in a community college. I did not think anything
assertive was necessary to make my point. People who know me, I reasoned, the ones
who count, know who I am and what I think. Thus, even when what I considered a veiled
racist remark was made in a casual social setting, I would "let it go" because it was
pointless to argue with people who didn't even know their remark was racist. I had
supposed that I was practicing passive resistance while being stereotyped, but it was so
passive no one noticed I was resisting; it was so much my expected role that it ultimately
rendered me invisible. My experience leads me to believe that contrary to what I thought,
I had actually been contributing to my own stereotyping. Like the hero
*It is hoped this will change now that a black woman is Chancellor of our college district.
In Ralph Ellison's novel The Invisible Man, I had become invisible to white Americans,
and it clung to me like a bad habit. Like most bad habits, this one crept up on me because
I took it in minute doses like Mithradates' poison and my mind and body adapted so well
to it I hardly noticed it was there. For the past eleven years I have busied myself with the
usual chores of an English teacher, a wife of a research chemist, and a mother of four
rapidly growing children. I hadn't even done much to shatter this particular stereotype:
the middle class woman happy to be bringing home the extra income and quietly fitting
into the man's world of work. When the Asian American woman is lulled into believing
that people perceive her as being different from other Asian women (the submissive,
subservient, ready-to-please, easy-to-get-along-with Asian woman), she is kept
comfortably content with the state of things. She becomes ineffectual in the milieu in
which she moves. The seemingly apolitical middle class woman and the apolitical Asian
woman constituted a double invisibility. I had created an underground culture of survival
for myself and had become in the eyes of others the person I was trying not to be.
Because I was permitted to go to college, permitted to take a stab at a career or two along
the way, given "free choice" to marry and have a family, given a "choice" to eventually
do both, I had assumed I was more or less free, not realizing that those who are free make
and take choices; they do not choose from options proffered by "those out there." I,
personally, had not "emerged" until I was almost fifty years old. Apparently through a
long conditioning process, I had learned how not to be seen for what I am. A long history
of ineffectual activities had been, I realize now, initiation rites toward my eventual
invisibility. The training begins in childhood; and for women and minorities, whatever is
started in childhood is continued throughout their adult lives. I first recognized just how
invisible I was in my first real confrontation with my parents a few years after the
outbreak of World War II. During the early years of the war, my older brother, Mike, and
I left the concentration camp in Idaho to work and study at the University of Cincinnati.
My parents came to Cincinnati soon after my father's release from Internment Camp
(these were POW camps to which many of the Issei* men, leaders in their communities,
were sent by the FBI), and worked as domestics in the suburbs. I did not see them too
often because by this time I had met and was much influenced by a pacifist who was out
on a "furlough" from a conscientious objectors'
* Issei - Immigrant Japanese, living in the U.S.
Camp in TVenton, North Dakota. When my parents learned about my "boy friend" they
were appalled and frightened. After all, this was the period when everyone in the country
was expected to be one-hundred percent behind the war effort, and the Nisei* boys who
had volunteered for the Armed Forces were out there fighting and dying to prove how
American we really were. However, during interminable arguments with my father and
overheard arguments between my parents, I was devastated to learn they were not so
much concerned about my having become a pacifist, but they were more concerned about
the possibility of my marrying one. They were understandably frightened (my father's
prison years of course were still fresh on his mind) about repercussions on the rest of the
family. In an attempt to make my father understand me, I argued that even if I didn't
marry him, I'd still be a pacifist; but my father reassured me that it was "all right" for me
to be a pacifist because as a Japanese national and a "girl" it didn't make any difference to
anyone. In frustration I remember shouting, "But can't you see, I'm philosophically
committed to the pacifist cause," but he dismissed this with "In my college days we used
to call philosophy, foolosophy," and that was the end of that. When they were finally
convinced I was not going to marry "my pacifist," the subject was dropped and we never
discussed it again. As if to confirm my father's assessment of the harmlessness of my
opinions, my brother Mike, an American citizen, was suddenly expelled from the
University of Cincinnati while I, "an enemy alien", was permitted to stay. We assumed
that his stand as a pacifist, although he was classified a 4-F because of his health,
contributed to his expulsion. We were told the Air Force was conducting sensitive
wartime research on campus and requested his removal, but they apparently felt my
presence on campus was not as threatening. I left Cincinnati in 1945, hoping to leave
behind this and other unpleasant memories gathered there during the war years, and
plunged right into the politically active atmosphere at New York University where
students, many of them returning veterans, were continuously promoting one cause or
other by making speeches in Washington Square, passing out petitions, or staging
demonstrations. On one occasion, I tagged along with a group of students who took a
train to Albany to demonstrate on the steps of the State Capitol. I think I was the only
Asian in this group of predominantly Jewish students from NYU. People who passed us
were amused and shouted "Go home and grow up." I suppose Governor Dewey, who
refused to see us, assumed we were a group of adolescents without a cause as most
college
*Nisei - Second generation Japanese, born in the U.S.
Students were considered to be during those days. It appears they weren't expecting any
results from our demonstration. There were no newspersons, no security persons, no
police. No one tried to stop us from doing what we were doing. We simply did "our
thing" and went back to our studies until next time, and my father's words were again
confirmed: it made no difference to anyone, being a young student demonstrator in
peacetime, 1947. Not only the young, but those who feel powerless over their own lives
know what it is like not to make a difference on anyone or anything. The poor know it
only too well, and we women have known it since we were little girls. The most insidious
part of this conditioning process, I realize now, was that we have been trained not to
expect a response in ways that mattered. We may be listened to and responded to with
placating words and gestures, but our psychological mind set has already told us time and
again that we were born into a readymade world into which we must fit ourselves, and
that many of us do it very well. This mind set is the result of not believing that the
political and social forces affecting our lives are determined by some person, or a group
of persons, probably sitting behind a desk or around a conference table. Just recently I
read an article about "the remarkable track record of success" of the Nisei in the United
States. One Nisei was quoted as saying he attributed our stamina and endurance to our
ancestors whose characters had been shaped, he said, by their living in a country which
has been contantly besieged by all manner of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and
hurricanes. He said the Nisei has inherited a steely will, a will to endure and hence, to
survive. This evolutionary explanation disturbs me, because it equates the "act of God"
(i.e. natural disasters) to the "act of man" (i.e., the war, the evacuation). The former is not
within our power to alter, but the latter, I should think, is. By putting the "acts of God" on
par with the acts of man, we shrug off personal responsibilities. I have, for too long a
period of time accepted the opinion of others (even though they were directly affecting
my life) as if they were objective events totally out of my control. Because I separated
such opinions from the persons who were making them, I accepted them the way I
accepted natural disasters; and I endured them as inevitable. I have tried to cope with
people whose points of view alarmed me in the same way that I had adjusted to natural
phenomena, such as hurricanes, which plowed into my life from time to time. I would
readjust my dismantled feelings in the same way that we repaired the broken shutters
after the storm. The Japanese have an all-purpose expression
In their language for this attitude of resigned acceptance: "Shikataganai." "It can't be
helped." "There's nothing I can do about it." It is said with the shrug of the shoulders and
tone of finality, perhaps not unlike the "those-were-my-orders" tone that was used at the
Nuremberg trials. With all the sociological studies that have been made about the causes
of the evacuations of the Japanese Americans during World War II, we should know by
now that "they" knew that the West Coast Japanese Americans would go without too
much protest, and of course, "they" were right, for most of us (with the exception of those
notable few), resigned to our fate, albeit bewildered and not willingly. We were not
perceived by our government as responsive Americans; we were objects that happened to
be standing in the path of the storm. Perhaps this kind of acceptance is a way of coping
with the "real" world. One stands against the wind for a time, and then succumbs
eventually because there is no point to being stubborn against all odds. The wind will not
respond to entreaties anyway, one reasons; one should have sense enough to know that.
I'm not ready to accept this evolutionary reasoning. It is too rigid for me; I would like to
think that my new awareness is going to make me more visible than ever, and to allow
me to make some changes in the "man made disaster" I live in at the present time. Part of
being visible is refusing to separate the actors from their actions, and demanding that they
be responsible for them. By now, riding along with the minorities' and women's
movements, I think we are making a wedge into the main body of American life, but
people are still looking right through and around us, assuming we are simply tagging
along. Asian American women still remain in the background and we are heard but not
really listened to. Like Musak, they think we are piped into the airwaves by someone
else. We must remember that one of the most insidious ways of keeping women and
minorities powerless is to let them only talk about harmless and inconsequential subjects,
or let them speak freely and not listen to them with serious intent. We need to raise our
voices a little more, even as they say to us "This is so uncharacteristic of you." To finally
recognize our own invisibility is to finally be on the path toward visibility. Invisibility is
not a natural state for anyone.
Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Cultural R
masculine
"One day I g
in "Empty H
our faces ont
(Kim, 1993,
otic aliens w
never been a
pression, Asi
challenging
standpoints.
1960s were t
development
movement a
gen-
American an
articulating
representatic
for white women is part of a broader program of hegemonic recuperation,
a program that has at its main focus the reconstruction of white
"other," Asian women do not replace but merely substitute for white
power" (p. 320). It is also important to note that as the racialized exotic
women, and thus will be readily dismissed once the "real" mistress returns.
The controlling images of Asian men and Asian women, exaggerated
out of all proportion in Western representation, have created resentment
and tension between Asian American women and men. Given this cul-
tural milieu, many American-born Asians do not think of other Asians in
sexual terms (Fung, 1994, p. 163). In particular, due to the persistent de
sexualization of the Asian male, many Asian females do not perceive their
ethnic counterparts as desirable marriage partners (Hamamoto, 1999,
p. 42). In so doing, these women unwittingly enforce the Eurocentric
der ideology that objectifies both sexes and racializes all Asians (see
Collins, 1991, pp. 185-86). In a column to Asian Week, a weekly Asian
American newspaper, Daniel Yoon (1993) reported that at a dinner dis-
cussion hosted by the Asian American Students Association at his college,
the Asian American women in the room proceeded, one after another, to
describe how “Asian American men were too passive, too weak, too bor-
ing, too traditional, too abusive, too domineering, too ugly, too greasy, too
short, too ... Asian. Several described how they preferred white men, and
how they never had and never would date an Asian man” (p. 16). Partly as
a result of the racist constructions of Asian American womanhood and
manhood and their acceptance by Asian Americans, intermarriage pat-
terns are high, with Asian American women intermarrying at a much
higher rate than Asian American men. Moreover, Asian women involved
in intermarriage have usually married white partners (Agbayani-Siewert
and Revilia, 1995, p. 156; Min, 1995, p. 22; Nishi, 1995, p. 128). In part
,
these intermarriage patterns reflect the sexualization of white racism that
constructs white men as the most desirable sexual partners, frowns on
Asian male-white women relations, and fetishizes Asian women as the
embodiment of perfect womanhood. Viewed in this light, the high rate of
interlocking system of sexism and racism" (Hamamoto, 1992, p. 42).
projects proc
portant task
tures, constr
forcibly excl
Fightin
ongoing wos
however roc
Asia or as b
Frank Chin
complained
act "like Or
ine Hong K
praised the
though The
(quoted in
American
Asian
one-dimen
110
CHAPTER FIVE
aralar (for)
பெண்
passage, the narrator voices her mixed feelings toward the Chinese Amer-
ican community:
ex Chinand otha
20m, Lisa 24
I looked at their ink drawings of poor people snagging their neighbors'
flotage with long flood hooks and pushing the girl babies on down the
I
anymore through our Chinatown, which tasks me with the old sayings
and the stories. The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my
people understand the resemblance so that I can return to them.
(Kingston, 1977, p. 62)
zbot and feminis
sxana fired mas
salonial figure
போர்
ternity, by casting
Art cultural natio
narimpositional di
sie also engage
independe
of the best fem
ir esample, Arthur
sugh the practica
a men have also
ambiographical fo
inmakers
. Finally
as just as Arthu
Similarly, in a critique of Asian American sexual politics, Kayo Hatta's
short video Otemba (1988) depicts a girl's-eye view of the final days of her
mother's pregnancy as her father hopes and prays for the birth of a boy
(see Tajima, 1991, p. 26).
Stripped of the privileges of masculinity, some Asian American men
have attempted to reassert male authority by subordinating feminism to
nationalist concerns. Lisa Lowe (1991) argued that this identity politics
displaces gender differences into a false opposition of “nationalism and
"assimilation." From this limited perspective, Asian American feminists
who
expose
Asian American sexism are cast as "assimilationist," as be-
traying Asian American “nationalism." Maxine Hong Kingston's The
Woman Warrior (1977) and Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club (1989) are the
targets of such nationalist criticisms. Frank Chin, Ben Tong, and others
have accused these and other women novelists of feminizing Asian
American literature by exaggerating the community's patriarchal struc-
ture, thus undermining the power of Asian American men to combat the
racist stereotypes of the dominant white culture. For example, when
Kingston's The Woman Warrior received favorable reviews, Chin accused
her of attempting to “cash in on the feminist fad” (Chan, 1994, p. 528).
Another Asian American male had this to say about the movie The Joy
Luck Club:
ling portrays her
Conclusion
Velogical reptes
te and mainten
Hian American
moting forms: A
and Asian wome
Hlehough in ap
ed justify whil
manhood and v
The movie was powerful. But it could have been powerful and inclusive
,
if at least one of the Asian male characters was portrayed as something
other than monstrously evil or simply wimpy
. We are used to this mese
sage coming out of Hollywood, but it disturbed me deeply to hear the
bet, and class. F
parallel but in
mong these ca
rodintain their
120
RACISM AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE
legacy
possess
ip-hop -
of U.S. colonization of the Philippines: “The signifiers Filipinos'
and Philippines' evoke colonialist meanings and cultural redactions which
s inordinate power to shape the fates of the writers and of Filipino
peoples everywhere” (p. 52). Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee (1982), a
Korean American text, likewise challenges the myth of U.S. benevolence
Asia by tracing the impact of colonial and imperial damage and dislo-
cation on the Korean subject (Lowe, 1994, p. 61). Sa-I-Gu, an indepen-
dent video about the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, further
illuminates the failure of immigration for first-generation Korean women.
Consisting of taped interviews with six first-generation Korean women,
all of whom had their businesses destroyed during the 1992 rebellion, the
video details how immigration has brought them financial loss, not gain;
how their businesses were funded with capital from the homeland, not re-
sources amassed in the United States; and how their family life has dete-
riorated as a result of immigration (James, 1999, p. 166). As Sau-Ling
Cynthia Wong (1993) suggested, "To the extent that most typical cases
of Asian immigration to the United States stem from an imbalance of
resources writ large in the world economy, it holds in itself the seed of
exploitation" (p. 53).
type of the
By exposinghe
assion of the
ormalized
the narratiset
Ezed Asia
masculinize te
tead, they are
atly unequalis
ese writer 11
women
It womega
er short cor
6) depisze
Controlling Images, Gender, and Cultural Nationalism
Cultural nationalism has been crucial in Asian Americans' struggles for
self-determination. Emerging in the early 1970s, this unitary Asian
American identity was primarily racial, male, and heterosexual. Asian
American literature produced in those years highlighted Chinese and
Japanese American male perspectives, obscuring gender and other inter-
community differences (Kim, 1993). Asian American male writers, con-
cerned with recuperating their identities as men and as Americans,
objectified both white and Asian women in their writings (Kim, 1990,
1.70). In a controversial essay titled “Racist Love," Frank Chin and Jef-
frey Paul Chan (1972) pointed to the stereotype of the emasculated Asian
pruzzaman
are lots
American man:
The white stereotype of Asian is unique in that it is the only racial
stereotype completely devoid of manhood. Our nobility is that of an
Todaamai
117
IDEOLOGICAL RACISM AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE
lebasement les
to the end
wyen 2351
nd being a wonder
heung (1983
moking gender
ine, and try slasting in
urage, and creating
Wong (1989)
An Anthology of his
Wong operated by
"non-Christian, when
women's lives and binds them to Asian American men in what Collins
(1991) called a "love and trouble" tradition (p. 184).
Because the racial oppression of Asian Americans involves the
"feminization" of Asian men (Said, 1979), Asian American women are
caught between the need to expose the problems of male privilege and
the desire to unite with
men to contest the overarching racial ideology
that confines them both. As Cheung (1990) suggested, Asian Ameri-
can women may be simultaneously sympathetic and angry toward the
men in their ethnic community: sensitive to the men's marginality but
resentful of their sexism (p. 239). Maxine Hong Kingston's writings
seem to reflect these conflicting emotions. As discussed above, in the
opening legend of China Men, the male protagonist Tang Ao is cap-
tured in the Land of Women (North America), where he is forced to
become a woman-to have his feet bound, his ears pierced, his eye-
brows plucked, his cheeks and lips painted. Cheung (1990) argued that
this legend is double-edged, pointing not only to the racist debasement
of Chinese Americans in their adopted country but also to the subju-
gation of Chinese women both in China and in the United States
(p.240). Although the effeminization suffered by Tang Ao is brutal, it
is the same mutilation that many Chinese women were for centuries
forced to bear. According to Goellnicht's (1992) reading of Kingston's
work, this opening myth suggests that the author both deplores the
emasculation of her forefathers by mainstream America and critiques
the Confucian patriarchal practices of her ancestral homeland (p. 194).
In China Men, Kingston also showed no acceptance of sexist practices
by immigrant men.
The father in this novel/autobiography is depicted
as a broken man who attempts to reassert male authority by denigrat-
ing those who are even more powerless-the women and children in his
family (Cheung, 1990, p. 241; Goellnicht, 1992, p. 200).
(1977) reveals the narrator's contradictory attitudes toward her childhood
Along the same lines
, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior
"home," which is simultaneously a site of "woman hatred” and an area of
resistance against the racism of the dominant culture. The community
that nourishes her imagination and suffuses her with warmth is the same
mist cultural sabato
use of its potention
the following as
American literate
American female
may posited in die
ndered insbe
of loving and see
of Chinese Are
community that relegates
to the role of serving
lled me
women to an inferior position, limiting them
men (Rabine, 1987, pp. 477–78). In the following
119
CHAPTER FIVE
290NDA
ANIM
ideological assaults on their gender identities, Asian American cultural work-
ers have engaged in a wide range of oppositional projects to defend Asian
American manhood and womanhood. In the process, some have embraced a
masculinist cultural nationalism, a stance that marginalizes Asian American
women and their needs. Though sensitive to the emasculation of Asian
American men, Asian American feminists have pointed out that Asian
American nationalism insists on a fixed masculinist identity, thus obscuring
gender differences
. Though divergent, both the nationalist and feminist po
sitions advance the dichotomous stance of man or woman, gender or race or
class, without recognizing the complex relationality of these categories of op-
pression. It is only when Asian Americans recognize the intersections of race,
gender
, and class that we can transform the existing hierarchical structure.
nocieties tend
sive binaries:
citizen or al
ference of pri
ni disempowerin
Notes
1. In recent years, Asian Americans' rising consciousness, coupled with their
phenomenal growth in certain regions of the United States, has led to a signifi-
cant increase in inter-Asian marriages (e.g., Chinese Americans to Korean Amer-
icans). In a comparative analysis of the 1980 and 1990 Decennial Census, Larry
Hajimi Shinigawa and Gin Young Pang (1996) found a dramatic decrease of in-
terracial marriages and a significant rise of inter-Asian marriages. In California
(where 39 percent of all Asian Pacific Americans reside), inter-Asian marriages
increased from 21.1 percent in 1980 to 64 percent in 1990 of all intermarriages
for Asian American husbands, and from 10.8 percent to 45
for Asian
American wives during the same time period.
2. The
excerpt from Cao Tan's poem, "Tomorrow I Will Be Home," appeared
in War and Exile: A Vietnamese Anthology, edited by N. N. Bich, 1989, Springfield,
VA: Vietnam PEN Abroad.
3. I thank Takeo Wong for calling my attention to this film.
aldass privileg
Thus, white/male
Jack/female/lab-
White, male, bo
pilot are subord
percent
mother kind of
exclusive catego
detomous thi
tengons amor
difference. Su
the system of
pression. By
of their
Experienc
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