By: Kelvin Phung, Edited By: Leyna Nguyen, Illustration By: Alexus Lee
Growing up as a Vietnamese-American, I’ve grown accustomed to being misidentified as Chinese or as another East Asian ethnicity, typically along the lines of Korean or Japanese. While it may be a genuine mistake sometimes, more often than not, it is used as an offhanded insult to mock and diminish my race and heritage to merely just the known Asian ethnicities. Aside from being completely belittling and reductive, it also erases the rich history and culture of my family’s roots that have shaped me into the person I am today. These numerous and annoying confrontations have often led me to question my identity and place, not only in society but also in my own culture and race. It’s a precarious struggle between feeling like a proud member of the Asian community while also not feeling entirely accepted due to the lack of acknowledgement for me being Southeast Asian.
Sadly, this is a reality that many non-East Asian individuals have suffered with. While I may pass as an East Asian due to my somewhat physical likeness to the appearance of a typical East Asian, many other Asians do not have this “privilege,” causing them to be at the receiving end of even more discrimination and criticism. So why exactly is the accepted definition of “Asian” so narrow and non-encompassing? Before we can answer this question, we must first jump into the history of Asian immigration into the United States and explore its implications on the perception of the Asian race.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the majority of Asian migrants into the United States were of East Asian descent. For example, by the early 1900s, more than 100,000 Japanese nationals had immigrated to America to become agricultural laborers and pursue other menial professions. An even larger quantity of Chinese individuals, however, had migrated to the U.S. during this timespan as well. By the early 1900s, there were more than 300,000 Chinese immigrants in the United States. Many came after the widely-famous California Gold Rush and pursued jobs as agricultural laborers, miners, railroad construction workers, and much more. This skewed and unbalanced overrepresentation of East Asian individuals in America warped the narrative of what exactly being an Asian looked like. Many began to associate the Asian race with the stereotypical features and aspects of East Asian people: fair-skinned, small and almond-shaped eyes, and small-statured. Thus, a selective and disproportionately monolithic idea of Asian identity was born, and it diffused and was adopted into American culture and rhetoric.
As the demographics of the American population continue to change, however, we must expand our vision of who an Asian can be and what an Asian can look like. As more and more immigrants migrate to the U.S. to seek better social and economic opportunities, the number of varying ethnicities and nationalities has exponentially increased. For example, after the Vietnam War, more than 1 million Vietnamese citizens moved to America to escape the raging war; with such a massive influx of Vietnamese immigrants, the Vietnamese population rose to become the six-largest foreign-born group in the country (as of 2012). Similarly, around 1.2 million Western/Southwestern Asians have immigrated to America to escape political turmoil and pursue more prosperous economic opportunities. Specifically, the war-torn countries of Syria and Yemen have produced a large number of refugees seeking asylum in America, and many migrants have also moved from Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon. Lastly, many Indians have immigrated to America to seek higher academia and/or better job opportunities. From 1980 to 2012, the population of Indians in America increased by roughly eleven-fold, and Indian-Americans now constitute a large minority in the U.S. While this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the Asian ethnicities and nationalities that have immigrated to the United States, it puts into perspective the diversification of the Asian race in modern times. While East Asians may still represent the largest ethnic groups out of the entire Asian-American population, there are also plenty of other nationalities that should be recognized as well.
This cherry-picking of East Asians as the sole representatives of the Asian race has lent itself to producing some severe consequences. Most prominently, it has led to the fetishization of East Asian men and the establishment of beauty standards and expectations derived from stereotypically East Asian features that all Asians are expected to uphold. In the case of Asian men specifically, they are expected to be tall, to be lean and muscular, to have broad shoulders and chiseled abs, to have clear and blemish-free pearl-white skin, and to reinforce the typical hypermasculine traits that all men have historically been forced to conform to. This stems from not only the colorism ingrained in Asian cultures but also the toxic masculinity internalized in families through generations of upholding patriarchal values in past societies.
These absurdly unrealistic standards and expectations have been especially perpetuated by the phenomenon of the Hallyu wave bringing to light such industries as the Korean pop industry and the Korean drama industry. The men in these industries are portrayed as physically faultless and paragons of beauty, and many are also conditioned to display extreme shows of masculinity and machismo. Korean pop icons who have demonstrated traditionally “female-like” qualities have been mercilessly mocked and ridiculed for being “effeminate,” and many Korean dramas portray men as extremely possessive and domineering, especially towards their female love interests. Backlash from the associated fandoms is rare, however, and many still expect Asian men to uphold these completely unrealistic and damaging traits, even to this day. If anything, the expectations of an Asian man have only been perpetuated and amplified throughout the last few years through an exorbitant amount of romanticization and glamorization by the various fandoms, sensationalized media, and pop culture.
When Asian men, specifically non-East Asian men, don’t conform to these Eastern-oriented qualities and expectations, they are often subject to criticism and derision. Many non-East Asian men and even some East Asian men can be tanner or dark-skinned, shorter than what’s deemed as acceptable, and not muscular or lean. As a result, they are often criticized as being conventionally unattractive and “ugly” and not exemplifying the palatable image of what an Asian man should be and look like. This is especially prevalent on social media platforms, notably Twitter or TikTok, where non-East Asian content-creators are at the forefront of hate comments and attacks. For example, many South Asians are denigrated for their appearance, with critiques ranging from the dark complexion of their skin to the wideness of their noses. These features are completely normal and characteristically indicative of a typical South Asian person, but when compared to the conventionally palatable and desired qualities of an East Asian, they are viewed as abnormal and, consequently, ugly. Sadly, this form of selective bullying has become commonplace on such public forums, and simply being non-East Asian has become a normalized justification for merciless ridicule and contempt. While East Asian men continue to be praised for their beauty and attractiveness, other Asian men find themselves bearing the brunt of publicized and mass hate.
With Asia being the largest continent in the world, it seems absolutely absurd to reduce its entirety to a single geographical portion. Unfortunately, however, it’s a reality that exists within our society, and it is most poignantly experienced by non-East Asian individuals. Nonetheless, no Asian should ever be overlooked by another group of Asians, and no Asian should ever have his/her/their ethnicity and identity invalidated by the socially-imposed yet erroneous definition of what an Asian should be. Asians are inherently Asian by virtue of their rich cultural history and heritage, and forcing them to seek validation and approval to be rightfully categorized as an Asian is a gross neglect and erasure of the unique experiences they and their ancestors have gone through. Remember to embrace your culture and identity unapologetically, and remember that you define your own background, not anyone else. West/Southwest Asians, Central Asians, North Asians, South Asians, and Southeast Asians are just as authentically Asian as East Asians are, and they always will be.
Works Cited
“Chinese Immigration to the United States, 1851-1900.” Chinese Immigration to the United States - For Teachers (Library of Congress), www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/chinimms/.
Cumoletti, Mattea, and Jeanne Batalova. “Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants in the United States in 2016.” Migrationpolicy.org, 10 Jan. 2018, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/middle-eastern-and-north-african-immigrants-united-states-2016.
“Japanese - U.S. Mainland - Immigration...- Classroom Presentation: Teacher Resources - Library of Congress.” Japanese - U.S. Mainland - Immigration...- Classroom Presentation | Teacher Resources - Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/alt/japanese.html.
Rkasnuam, Hataipreuk, and Jeanne Batalova. “Vietnamese Immigrants in the United States in 2012.” Migrationpolicy.org, 25 Aug. 2014, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/vietnamese-immigrants-united-states-2012.
Zong, Jie, and Jeanne Batalova. “Indian Immigrants in the United States in 2015.” Migrationpolicy.org, 31 Aug. 2017, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/indian-immigrants-united-states-2015.
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