Chinese, Japanese, Look At These

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Hey there,

So, we’re going to take a little departure from our usual programming on EMDB to talk about something in addition to TV. This country is fucked up. Like in so many different ways. But specifically I wanted to talk about the rise of hate crimes occurring against Asians and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) that’s been happening for over a year now. After the mass shooting in Atlanta last week, where 8 people were murdered, 7 of whom were women, and 6 of whom were Asians, it felt like a tragic inevitability. And just this week when another 10 people were murdered in a mass shooting in Boulder, CO it felt like a uniquely American tragedy.

On election night 2016, I was walking home from my polling place in a very residential neighborhood (safe enough for me to be walking home) when I entered a crosswalk at a four-way stop and two men in a pickup truck yelled “CHINK BITCH!” at me. While sadly that wasn’t the first time in my life I had been called that on the street, or the first time I had been made to feel unsafe while just trying to exist (all instances by men), this felt like the prelude to a dark chapter this country was entering. I wish I was wrong.

America has always been racist, and for those who think this is a recent problem, it means you’ve had the privilege of not paying attention. The history of discrimination against Asians in this country is a long one, and since it’s intentionally not taught in schools or covered in the media, many people are unaware of the extent, but will probably notice the similarities to how other ethnic groups have been treated by the US government. Chinese immigrants had their traditional hairstyles cut, were labeled as “unclean,” wrongfully blamed for spreading disease, were banned from even immigrating to America, were forbidden from owning land, forbidden from testifying in court against white people, were lynched by angry white mobs, had and are having their businesses vandalized and ransacked, and were/are scapegoated for taking jobs. Because if the playbook of white supremacy is anything aside from disgusting, it’s also predictable. Dehumanize minorities to make their elimination and subjugation easier, demonize them in the eyes of society so other marginalized groups think they are the problem and not the system of oppression.

I'm not trying to write a dissertation on the comprehensive history of Asian discrimination in the US nor am I trying to win a gold medal for Asians in the Oppression Olympics. Just because I’m talking about hate against AAPIs, this doesn’t discount the pain and suffering of other marginalized groups, but the mainstream media has failed and is still failing to cover AAPI discrimination and hate crimes appropriately. Evidence includes Chuck Todd just had a panel to discuss the rise in hate crimes against Asians WITHOUT A SINGLE ASIAN PRESENT and the fact it took actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu offering a $25,000 reward for any information related to a series of attacks against elderly Asians and Asian Americans to finally get media attention. The latter example led some community activists to voice concerns over the reward being seen as a bounty creating more surveillance and policing of the Black community, which then brought up discussions on Asian/Black unity and the historically fraught race relations. So let me just clarify, and I’ll type it loud for those in the cheap seats THE ENEMY IS WHITE SUPREMACY, NOT OTHER MINORITIES.

A lot of other folks have already created some concise and informative resources. So do some homework, and take the time to watch and listen to the sources below. It's really the least you can do to educate yourself. Here's a very abbreviated list of some things you should know:

  • AAPI are not a monolith. The group is comprised of many different ethnicities, each with their own histories, challenges, and cultural implications. Then again, racists tend to not be so attuned to whether someone is Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese etc so they just hurl the same epithets at all AAPI. Just like how they tend to group South Asians and people of Middle Eastern descent. Yellow is yellow, brown is brown, and all of it isn’t white.

  • The two bookends of racial stereotypes that AAPI suffer under are Yellow Peril (forever seen as foreign invaders) and the Model Minority Myth (Asians are said to be the “good” kind of minority, which drives resentment amongst other minority groups, minimizes and de-legitimatizes racism we face, and ultimately makes our suffering invisible)

  • AAPI women have been fetishized and hyper-sexualized for centuries starting with the US government banning the immigration of Chinese women under the pretenses that 1. they were all prostitutes and 2. they didn’t want Chinese people to start families in the US. They didn’t ban Chinese men at that time because they needed them as cheap labor to build the railroad and mine for gold

  • The women murdered in Atlanta are not confirmed to be sex workers, but the fact that this was the assumption by the murderer shows the problematic way our society demonizes sex work as well as the deeply ingrained sexualization of women and hyper-sexualization of Asian women specifically. Even if the victims were sex workers, sex work is real work. Just ask Robert Kraft (remember that? Maybe you don’t because he faced no consequences. So maybe our society really only cares about the legality of sex work when it applies to the sex worker and not white millionaires)

And now back to TV because this is EMDB after all and if you’ve made it this far into the post, you deserve some recommendations. One thing I've always loved about TV is its ability to transport you into another reality, to live for a brief moment through the eyes of its characters no matter how different from you they may be. It's easier to hate something or someone you don't understand and in this hate-filled world we're living in, we could all use a little more empathy and perspective. So here's a quick list of some shows and movies with non-problematic representations of Asians

  • Taste The Nation: San Francisco (Hulu): Padma Lakshmi takes you on a food and history tour of Chinatown in SF and meets up with comedian Ali Wong

  • Kim's Convenience (Netflix): A really lovely sitcom that centers on a Korean family in Toronto who run a convenience store. Great representation of the relationships between immigrant parents and first generation children

  • Never Have I Ever (Netflix): A charming coming of age drama-comedy by Mindy Kaling that focuses on an Indian American teen trying to lose her virginity

  • Fresh Off The Boat (Hulu): I’ll be honest, I stopped watching this show after the first few seasons (bad Asian, I know) but I’d still recommend checking it out! My personal favorite episode is Season 2, Episode 10 The Real Santa

  • Master of None (Netflix): A comedy-drama series by Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang that follows Aziz’s character Dev’s personal and professional life. Make sure to watch Season 1, Episode 2. Any child of an immigrant will feel it especially

  • Selfie (was on Hulu, now I can’t find it anywhere, again, Asian erasure): Ahead of its time and suffering from a terrible name and marketing, Selfie was a romantic sitcom on ABC that premiered in 2014. Starring JOHN CHO as the male romantic lead

  • Always Be My Maybe (Netflix): A classic romcom starring national treasures Randall Park and Ali Wong with an amazing performance by the one and only Keanu Reeves

  • The Joy Luck Club: Such a classic. From Wikipedia “American drama film about the relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese immigrant mothers

  • Fakin’ Da Funk (you can watch the whole movie on YouTube here): I’m going to say this is a classic that all AAPI Millenials watched, probably because there were not many movies with AAPI in them! Starring Dante Basco (RUFIO! RUFIO!) and Tatiana Ali. The IMDB summary is perfection “A Chinese baby boy is adopted by a black couple in ATL. 17 years later he moves with his mom and bro to a black LA hood. A Chinese girl ends up in the same hood for the summer with a black family. Will they fit in?”

  • American Dragon: Jake Long (Disney+): Speaking of Dante Basco, he also starred in this kid’s show for two seasons in 2005-2006. Jake Long is a second generation, mixed race Asian American who is also a..you guessed it, dragon.

  • Better Luck Tomorrow (you can watch on Crackle here): Directed by Justin Lin and financed by…MC HAMMER?? Another movie I’m going to say all AAPI Millenials watched. A bunch of overachieving Asian American high schoolers take a dip into the world of petty crimes that of course escalates. Asian Americans can do messed up things too, we’re just people!

Honorable Mentions:

  • Minari (Hulu): I haven’t watched this yet, which is the only reason it’s not on the list above

  • Awkwafina is Nora From Queens: again, haven’t watched this yet

  • Crazy Rich Asians: This movie was decent although formulaic, but risks portraying all Asians as crazy rich and therefore falls into the model minority trap. That being said, it’s a good sign there’s more Asian representation in film and television where every film doesn’t need to live up to the high expectations of The Joy Luck Club

Thanks for reading and watching kids,

xoxo EMDB