essay about being asian american

How It Feels to Be Asian in Today’s America

By The New York Times Sept. 25, 2021

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I d o n ’ t r e a l l y k n o w w h o I a m , o r w h a t I a m , b u t I ’ m s t a r t i n g t o e m b r a c e w h a t e v e r i t m e a n s t o b e A s i a n A m e r i c a n , a l t h o u g h I ’ l l t e l l y o u t h e t r u t h : W h e n I m o v e d f r o m F l o r i d a t o C a l i f o r n i a , I w a s n ’ t A s i a n e n o u g h f o r t h e A s i a n s , a n d t o t h e A m e r i c a n s I ’ m n e v e r A m e r i c a n e n o u g h .

I’ve learned over time that Asian American voices shouldn’t be heard only when we are feeling like our lives are being threatened. We should be vocal long before and long after the news cameras turn away from us to focus on the next big headline.

Despite the fact that my mother’s family has resided in this country for four generations, we are perpetually viewed as foreigners, making assimilation seem impossible. That is the reason that I personally find the “American” in “Asian American” to be so important, because I am, culturally, by birth and in every other way, 100 percent American.

I have always viewed our status in this country as being one of second-class citizens. While, in the past, American-born people of Asian descent have said that they were grateful for their parents or ancestors having come to this country to give them a better life, I have long felt that this was a wrong decision on the part of my parents.

Seeking economic gain and being misguided by this country’s false promises of equality, they came here and now I and my descendants are basically stuck being second-class citizens in a country that we can never truly call our own because it seems to disown us. I also find it hard to feel any patriotism or even loyalty to this country as it is hard to love something that seems to hate you back.

I ’ d l i k e t o s a y t h a t w e ’ r e n o t a m o n o l i t h . J u s t b e c a u s e t h e v i r u s s t a r t e d i n C h i n a d o e s n ’ t m e a n t h a t w e ’ r e a l l C h i n e s e . T h e r e a r e m a n y o t h e r c o u n t r i e s i n A s i a . A n d j u s t b e c a u s e w e ’ r e A s i a n d o e s n ’ t m e a n t h a t w e ’ r e l o y a l t o o t h e r g o v e r n m e n t s a n d t h a t w e ’ r e t r y i n g t o p l a y a g a i n s t y o u a n d t h a t w e ’ r e o n a n o t h e r t e a m . O n t h e c o n t r a r y , w e ’ r e o n t h e s a m e t e a m . W e ’ r e A m e r i c a n s . W e s e e o u r s e l v e s a s A m e r i c a n s , a n d w e h o p e t h a t y o u d o , t o o .

When do we stay and fight for an equal and just piece of the American pie, and when do we choose a better life elsewhere, like our parents and grandparents did?

Our ancestors were pragmatic — they wanted to provide a better life for themselves and their children, and they did everything they could to make that happen, even if it meant leaving their homes and venturing into unfamiliar lands where they didn’t speak the language.

What if that better life is no longer in the U.S.? What if that better life is actually possible in many other places now, including the very lands our ancestors came from?

Asian American has become a term that is co-opted by states, corporations and other oppressive forces and no longer stands for the radical solidarity it once did. Sure, coalition building is useful — but I am interested in a coalition that doesn’t erase the oppression that occurs within and among “Asian” communities. As a Sikh American, I don’t want to be labeled as Asian American because other “Asian” communities express discriminatory anti-Sikh prejudice. I don’t want to have the same name as my oppressors.

Asian American no longer captures the nuances and layered oppressions faced by marginalized “Asian” communities, such as Hmong, Cambodian, Laotian, Dalit, Sri Lankan, Assamese, Sikh, Indian Muslim, Indian Christian and Uyghur communities, among others. I want to be seen. I want to define myself. I don’t want to be defined by a generic label that has lost its power of resistance.

I was adopted from China into a white family, and the rise in hate crimes and violence and racist rhetoric has brought up some difficult conversations with my parents.

My parents see me as their daughter, someone they love and are proud of. They don’t see me through the eyes of society: a young Asian woman who is often hit on for being exotic, or constantly asked where I am from. It’s hard to have these conversations with my white family, to get them to understand and to recognize that even as they try, they will never fully understand my experience.

Like most white people who are currently trying to understand what it means to be a person of color in America, their intentions are good but the burden to educate is on me.

Like many second-generation Asian Americans, I was the kid with the stinky lunch and the only one among friends whose parents had an accent. It was embarrassing. Now, what’s embarrassing is that I ever felt that shame about my family’s roots.

As an American of Chinese descent, I feel like we are being given two options, neither of which truly solve our problem. The first comes from the older generation, those who tell us that our silence will be our survival. Then there’s the second option, from those my age, who feel like we have to show more than just our passports and polished American English as proof of our belonging. We aren’t even unified in our beliefs, and that’s our greatest weakness.

My grandparents were interned during World War II. This had a profound impact on my family financially and emotionally. Due to the anti-Japanese postwar sentiment, my parents were encouraged to assimilate as much as possible into the dominant (white) culture. Growing up in the 1980s, I experienced some discrimination, yet it wasn’t until the last decade that I became more educated and engaged as an advocate for racial equity, including standing with my Black and brown friends to fight injustice.

I only think of myself as Asian American when I check off an identity box on a form. Otherwise, I’m a Sikh American, a Punjabi American and a South Asian American. The Asian community is not a monolith, and the term “Asian” to describe all of our various experiences and cultures is not helpful or accurate.

I’m married to a Caucasian man and we used to think it’s possible for us to belong. Now we don’t. Now people look at me differently when I’m alone versus when I’m with him. I don’t feel as safe. I carry a passport that says “U.S. citizen” to prove to people that I belong. Though at times I wonder if it’s a reminder to myself that I do.

Like all immigrants, I have an American dream. As a queer woman from a country marred by military dictatorships, censorships and blood coups, I saw the United States as a safe haven where diversity is celebrated.

That sense of security and optimism was shattered after my assault. It took me a month after my assault before I could confess to my father, who dreamed of being reunited with me after my medical training. A former monk known for his calm and gentle presence, my father cried for the first time in my life. He asked, “Are you hurt?” I hope to one day be able to tell him, “Yes, I was hurt, but I am also healing.”

Introduction by Jill Cowan. Illustrations by Sally Deng. Produced by Ruru Kuo, Adriana Ramic, Deanna Donegan, Alice Fang, Rebecca Halleck and Antonio de Luca. Additional production by Fahima Haque, Brad Fisher, Aidan Gardiner and Clinton Cargill.

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What does it mean to be Asian American?

The label encompasses an entire continent of different cultural roots. Does it speak to a shared experience?

by Vox First Person

The label “Asian American” is almost comically flattening.

It consists of people from more than 50 ethnic groups, all with different cultures, languages, religions, and their own sets of historic and contemporary international conflicts. It includes newly arrived migrants and Asians who have been on American soil for multiple generations. Depending on visa types, immigration status, and class, there are vast differences even among those from the same country. In fact, the income gaps between some Asian American groups are among the largest of any ethnic category in the nation. Yet these differences are rarely explored and discussed.

With the recent rise in anti-Asian attacks, however, Asian Americans have found themselves in a rare moment in the national spotlight. For many, it has led to a renewed sense of solidarity as well as confusion about what the Asian American label means or if there really is a unifying experience attached to it.

It also inspired Vox to post a survey asking Asian Americans to write in and tell us how they’re feeling right now. The rise in violence — especially the shootings at three spas in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent — haunted the responses. One major theme emerged: Why did it take such an extreme act of violence to get America to care about its Asian communities?

“It frustrates me that the anti-Asian sentiments popularized by Trump had to be escalated to media-worthy violence and mass shootings in order to be elevated to mainstream discourse,” one person wrote from California.

“We’re trending today, but I bet we’ll be forgotten by next week or month,” wrote another from Michigan.

Other persistent issues emerged from our survey, too. Many responded that they didn’t quite know how to talk about cultural identity or racism with their parents or their children. The experience of growing up in non-diverse areas versus immigrant- or minority-dense enclaves — and how different it felt when moving from one area to another — also kept coming up. People with roots in South and Southeast Asian cultures wondered how they fit into an ethnic category so commonly associated with East Asians. Many questioned what the label Asian American really means and what purpose it serves in the larger American conversation around race.

In a series of stories publishing throughout this month, we will explore some of these questions and shared experiences, in a time when many Asian Americans are experiencing a sense of alienation not only from the nation at large, but also from the label “Asian American” itself.

The pitfalls — and promise — of the term “Asian American” by Li Zhou

The many Asian Americas by Karen Turner

In many Asian American families, racism is rarely discussed by Rachel Ramirez

Seeing myself — and Asian American defiance — in Gilmore Girls’ Lane Kim by Sanjena Sathian

The Asian American wealth gap, explained in a comic by Lok Siu and Jamie Noguchi

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'I've walked between two worlds': What belonging means for Asian Americans

Asian American families across generations reflect on the ways they hold on to their cultures while finding a place in America.

For most of my life, I hated my name. Before I was born, my parents, who had come to the United States from China a few years before, had chosen to call me Elaine, but my mom’s sole white friend at the time told her that it was an old-lady name. She suggested Alyssa instead.

My dad didn’t know how to spell that, so when the time came to register me, he sounded it out, figured “Alyssa” sounded like “eleven,” threw in a couple of S’s for good measure, and there I was, hours old and legally bound to this strange portmanteau, Elessa.

I still ended up going by Elaine, perhaps because my parents wanted me to use my Chinese name, Yilan. When I arrived in school, no one could say it and Yilan gradually became Elaine.

It didn’t matter much to my parents, who never use either of these English names for me. But it mattered to me. I hated Elessa, hated the question mark in the teacher’s voice on the first day of school, hated never finding it on a keychain or magnet, hated that it wasn’t “real.” I wasn’t even like the other kids who went by their Chinese or Korean names. My immigrant parents had done the most embarrassing thing possible as far as I was concerned: make something up. Elessa was proof of assimilation gone wrong, evidence that we didn’t belong.

I made everyone call me Elaine, I told this story like it was a big embarrassing joke, and when I turned 18, I changed my name legally. When I saw my name written on my college diploma, I hardly remembered there had ever been a different one. I was Elaine now, fully assimilated Chinese American, and no one could question where I’d come from.  

Elessa, and how that name made me feel, has come back to me recently with the sharp rise in anti-Asian hate crimes across the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though Asian Americans are now the country’s fastest-growing racial or ethnic group, watching videos of elderly people being attacked in broad daylight—worrying that my parents could be next—reminds me that even if we change our names, even if we see ourselves as Americans, others may not see us that way .

In light of the March spa shooting in Atlanta that killed eight people , six of whom were of Asian descent, I sought to understand how people in a city where the most high-profile hate crime against Asians had occurred, felt about their place in America and what it means to them to belong.

What’s in a name?

On a recent spring afternoon, DD Lee, a 39-year-old woman who moved from China as a child, is laughing over Zoom, remembering her 12-year-old self. Living in Kentucky and in need of a new name, she picked “Annette” out of a book. She tried it on for a couple months, then went with Dina in high school before a friend suggested DD, the initials of her Chinese name, Dan Dan.

“There was literally an identity crisis when it came to the name part of things,” she says.

Lee was one of many Atlantans who shared a story about their name, and how it represented a fundamental question of who they were in this country. They remembered childhoods spent figuring out how to fit in, of striking the right balance between Asian and American, of holding onto their families’ cultures without feeling like an outsider.

Shawn Wen, 39, also didn’t have an English name as a kid. His father, who emigrated from Taiwan, didn’t give him one because he wanted his sons to find their names for themselves. He went by his Chinese name, I-Hsiang, at school, and was bullied for being “the smallest Asian kid” with a “horrible” name. At home he struggled with his parents’ expectations and joined the military out of high school to prove his father wrong.

“I’ve walked between two worlds: Having to balance the expectations of my cultural community while also confronting the realities of American society and its expectations of me as an Asian American,” he says. “Sometimes I haven’t felt like I’ve belonged to either.”

He chose the name Shawn in middle school but changed it again as an adult after making peace with his father. After many years of struggling with his identity, he says he’s found his name, and with it, where he belongs: “My Asian American name is Shawn I-Hsiang Wen.”  

Reminders of home

Many of the people I spoke with remember being the only Asian family in town, the only Asian kid in school. They sought refuge in food, in the ingredients of home. When they couldn’t find them in the one Asian store within driving distance, they grew their own.

Hannah Son and her family would drive an hour and a half from Macon, Georgia, to Atlanta every Sunday after church to load up on Korean groceries for the week. When they moved to Gwinnett County, a suburban part of Atlanta with a larger Asian American population, it was “a big culture shock for me,” she says. “I didn’t know there were other Asian people in Georgia.”

Ruth McMullin, whose Black GI father and Vietnamese mother fled Vietnam in 1975, remembers the pride her mother felt about her bitter melon crop. A world away from her homeland, she grew these spiky, green reminders of Vietnam in the small Alabama town where they settled. “Everybody who came over thought that was the strangest thing,” McMullin says. “But she was pleased as punch.”

As a biracial child growing up in the Deep South at a time when there were very few kids like her, McMullin was picked on and felt like she didn’t belong to any group. Even today, she carries a photo of her mother as “street cred at Asian markets” because people don’t believe she’s of Vietnamese descent.

“If I had a sense of belonging, I wouldn’t have to pick one culture or the other. A lot of times society expects you to pick,” she says. “Why would I? It’s all of me.”

Who gets to belong?  

For Mila Konomos, 45, being around the foods and norms of Korean culture made her feel even more confused about herself. She grew up on U.S. military bases as part of a white family that adopted her from Korea when she was six months old. Other kids in the predominantly white community, including her brothers, bullied her for her looks, and made her hate being Asian, she said.

When the family moved to California when she was a teenager, she met other Asian American kids and made friends, but they didn’t accept her either. They didn’t understand that she’d never had kimchi before or would make fun of her when she tried to speak Korean.

“I received a lot of shaming from Asian peers and the Asian community, you know, being called a twinkie or a banana—as if I had any choice in my situation,” she says.  

Listening to Konomos, I felt ashamed of myself. I wanted to apologize to her even though we’d never met. I grew up in Southern California in a tightly knit Chinese community where 99 Ranch Market replaced Ralph’s as the go-to supermarket and entire shopping complexes were filled with all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue, boba shops, and tofu houses. My parents and their friends constantly compared us kids to each other, engaging in a complex psychological game of reverse one-upmanship. “No, your kid’s Chinese is so good.”

My friends and I judged other ABCs (American-born Chinese) who couldn’t switch between Mandarin and English seamlessly or who shamed their parents by using forks. They weren’t as good as us, couldn’t handle their bifurcated identity. We also looked down on kids who were, as we called them, “FOBs” (fresh off the boat), the ones who wore socks with sandals or whose haircuts looked like our grandparents. Somewhere between the twinkies and the FOBs was a place for us, the well-adjusted immigrants, the ones who really belonged.

Konomos would have been one of those kids we judged, and weeks later, something she said has stuck with me.

“For a long time, I felt like I had to become Korean,” she says. “What I realized is, no, I am Korean. Even if I don’t speak the language, even if I don’t celebrate all the traditions, even if I don’t always eat all the food, I’m still Korean, and Koreans need to expand their idea of who is allowed to be Korean.”

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As a child, I came to understand that there are many ways to be American, just as there are many ways to be Asian. But as I listened to people share their stories at a time when our belonging is being challenged with violence, I realized I had had a very specific idea of how to be Asian American: It was to be Elaine—when, actually, Elessa is just fine.

Elaine Teng is a writer and editor at ESPN. ESPN and National Geographic are both owned by The Walt Disney Company. Follow her on Twitter at @elteng12 .

Haruka Sakaguchi is a Japanese freelance photographer based in New York. See more of her work on her website or by following her on Instagram @ hsakag .

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The Difficulty of Being a Perfect Asian American

College admissions makes people do strange things. This was one of the takeaways of the Varsity Blues scandal , in 2019, which uncovered an admissions consultant and a network of coaches and administrators who helped wealthy and famous families essentially bribe their way into selective colleges. The scandal seemed to be the twisted, if logical, end point of all the credential-stacking and résumé-padding that has become part of the process. Yet there was something reassuring about the scandal, too: the conclusion that the admissions system is rigid enough that people with means, even Hollywood A-listers, would feel the desperation to game it. They may have believed that their children were entitled to a place at a prestigious school. But they couldn’t breeze right in. By some measures, it is twice as hard to get into élite colleges and universities than it was twenty years ago. Their desperation was warranted.

These anxieties about status are acutely felt among a cohort for whom going to college can seem a foregone conclusion. Asian Americans are often held up as a “model minority,” a group whose presence on campuses like Harvard or M.I.T., where forty per cent of incoming first-years self-identify as Asian American, far outpaces their percentage of the U.S. population. The figure of the model minority emerged in the fifties, a reflection of Cold War-era policies that were designed to attract highly educated immigrants from Asia. Over time, this stereotype ossified. American meritocracy held up the immigrant as proof that its rules were fair, and many high achievers were flattered to play along. Even though many of the gains for Asian Americans could be explained through policy—and even as studies showed how entire swaths of the community were left behind in poverty—the experience of being Asian in America has been rigidly defined by a framework of success and failure. As the scholar erin Khuê Ninh argues in “ Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other Model Minorities ,” it’s a framework that has been internalized, even by those who resist it.

Ninh’s fascinating book tells the stories of scammers, grifters, and impostors—Asian Americans following the high-pressure, expectation-heavy paths that can lead down darker alleys of faux accomplishment. There is Azia Kim, who masqueraded as a Stanford undergrad for months, even persuading two students to allow her to share a dorm room. Elizabeth Okazaki did something similar there, posing as a graduate student, attending class, and sleeping at a campus lab. Unlike the students caught up in the Varsity Blues scandal, these young people gave exhausting performances that weren’t going to result in a diploma or job. And, in the case of Jennifer Pan, who spent years tricking her parents into believing that she was attending the University of Toronto, the subterfuge resulted in tragedy. In 2010, she hired hitmen to murder them.

What compelled these impostors? To what extent were their actions driven by a need to keep up an illusion of excellence? Ninh, who teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara, explores these stories not to rationalize them but to point out how they suggest a mood, a limited set of emotional possibilities for Asian Americans. “What if what seem to be outlandish and outlier behaviors are instead depressingly Asian American?” Ninh writes. Being a model minority, she argues, doesn’t require one to believe in the myth. Ninh asserts that a relationship to high achievement is “coded into one’s programming” as an Asian American, and that “its litmus test is whether an Asian American feels pride or shame by those standards.” Whether you are Amy Chua, extolling the virtues of being a “ tiger parent ,” or someone making fun of Chua, you are perpetuating the success-or-bust framework. A joking dismissal doesn’t debunk the stereotype so much as it signals the impossibility of living outside of it.

Ninh offers compelling evidence that adherents to the model-minority myth come “from an implausible multiplicity of life chances and immigration histories.” She cites the scholars Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou, who found that Southeast Asian refugees and wealthy, cosmopolitan transplants from China alike were “keenly aware” of stereotypes around Asian achievement. Lee and Zhou write that “for no other [racial] group is the success frame defined as getting straight A’s, gaining admission into an elite university, getting a graduate degree, and entering” into a coveted profession; in contrast, other groups balance grades with an investment in classroom behavior or how well they fit in with others. Ninh cites a 1998 study of perceptions of Asian Americans, based on interviews conducted with seven hundred college students of all races. A sense of Asian Americans as somehow exemplary permeated this student body; notably, the Asian Americans who took part in the interviews perceived themselves to be “more prepared, motivated, and more likely to have higher career success than whites,” even though their actual grades didn’t reflect any superiority.

Of all deceits, Ninh wonders if there is “something quaintly bookish, faintly charming about the academic grifter.” What drew Kim, Okazaki, Pan, and others to lie wasn’t a predictably ascendant path. Pretending to be students was a holding pattern, perhaps until a better answer presented itself. As Ninh points out, “The shortest route to mad bling does not run through four years of coursework. Money, then, would not appear to be the primary driver for our scammers— status is, arguably, and self-identity.”

Ninh feels enough sympathy for her subjects to probe their ambitions, their potential, the unnoticed mental-health struggles that led these people to take such immense risks. “Even when we have come to know our social formation as harmful to us,” she writes, “a life worth wanting may still be trapped in its terms.” The scammers and grifters might be viewed as people who allowed the expectations of Asian American identity to metastasize into something perilous. Ninh’s book is at its best when she seems to level with her subjects, to read them against their contexts: high-pressure parents, suburban milieus where value is doled out in how many colleges you get into, a national myth where you are both an undifferentiated mass and living proof of the American Dream. It’s a lot of work to pretend you are perfect—even more so when you know it is an illusion. Studies show that Asian Americans are the racial group who are least likely to seek help for mental illness, with much of it remaining undiagnosed. In 2018, Christine Yano and Neal Adolph Akatsuka published “ Straight A’s: Asian American College Students in Their Own Words ,” a collection of reflections from Harvard undergraduates. The achievements of these students aside—these were young people who, by traditional metrics, had done well—it was striking how each one navigated expectations of success and feelings of invisibility. Many lamented how the quest for excellence came to feel like a trap, ultimately leaving them unfulfilled. Even a drive to pursue unconventional paths, like art or writing, was cast as a rebellion against STEM stereotyping, not an expression of authentic desire.

“Passing for Perfect” is a tricky, unpredictable book, toggling between broad social analyses and sensational outliers, with close readings of reportage and court documents alongside Ninh’s bemused, occasionally exasperated commentary. Her shifting tones convey what it feels like to live inside a stereotype—to realize that even reasoned disavowals will never make it go away. She wonders whether it is possible to tunnel your way free from an imposed identity you know to be unhealthy and false. Stereotypes winnow down our imaginations or make us feel inadequate in the present; they also stifle a vision for the future, frustrating us, as our attempts to deny them only make them grow stronger.

The challenge, Ninh acknowledges, is to talk about success in terms that don’t merely reify the myth of the model minority. The starting point is to imagine other models of teaching, assessing, or assigning value. For the individual, resisting the myth requires more than merely becoming a “bad Asian”—for example, by rejecting the stereotype that Asians are good at math and violin by opting for art and football. Her book ends with a consideration of “Better Luck Tomorrow,” a film, from 2002, that drew on elements of the 1992 killing of Stuart Tay, a teen-ager from Orange County. Tay was killed by five students from a competitive, affluent high school. Tay and his eventual killers—four of whom were Asian American—were plotting a robbery, and his conspirators became convinced that he was going to betray them. Three of Tay’s killers were honor-roll students, leading the press to refer to the event as the “honor roll murder.”

In the movie version, the culprits’ murderous success burnishes the model-minority image; they excel at their studies as well as their criminal dalliances. As the movie ends, it is possible to believe they got away with it. But, in one of the most harrowing parts of “Passing for Perfect,” Ninh discusses the movie with two of Tay’s killers, Kirn Young Kim, who was paroled in 2012 and is now a prison-reform activist, and Robert Chan, who remains incarcerated. They lament that the characters in the film essentially win, rather than, in Ninh’s words, pull up short and offer “a cold, hard look at what all the work is for.” She notes that Chan has spent his time in prison unlearning the anger and “hypermasculinity” that defined his high-pressure teen years. And yet, in his mother’s home, a framed letter hangs on her bedroom wall. It is an invitation from the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Southern California to interview for admission.

From the distance of middle age, the pressure to achieve looks like a race toward a false horizon. Of course, this isn’t how it’s experienced. Debbie Lum’s recent documentary, “Try Harder!,” offers an absorbing exploration of the pressures internalized by today’s high-school students. It chronicles a year at Lowell High School , a public magnet school in San Francisco that was, at the time Lum was filming, roughly fifty per cent Asian American. (Up until recently, students had to test into Lowell. As a result of a 2021 change to the school’s admissions, the demographic is expected to shift.)

Lowell is one of the top public schools in California, and therefore the nation—the type of place where even those with astronomical G.P.A.s and perfect SATs feel intense worry about their futures. The type of place where a kid who rallies his wallflower friends at the school dance compares himself to an enzyme.

Students talk about a “war on two fronts,” the competitive environment of the school itself and the pressure they feel from their families. For many, the only way to cope is to joke about how impossible it is to truly measure up. As “Try Harder!” begins, there’s a whimsical quirk to Lum’s storytelling. A charismatic Chinese American student named Ian cracks that he is “not even close to the best of the best.” He is self-effacing and funny. Everyone starts at Lowell dreaming of Stanford, he explains. By sophomore year, the Stanford hoodies are relegated to the closet, and expectations grow more realistic: the U.C.s. By junior year, he says, kids settle for Occidental, a “West Coast private college that’s not that hard to get into.”

Lum follows a few students through their days, which are dizzying. Lowell seems a challenging place to distinguish oneself. A physics teacher implores the students to give up their fetish for prestige, pointing out that “you are not too good for Santa Cruz, or Riverside, or even Merced,” which are often perceived to be among the U.C. system’s lesser schools. There’s no way to win. On one hand, they must excel in their local rat race. On the other, Lowell doesn’t send as many students to schools like Stanford or Harvard as you might think. The students—and at least one teacher—suspect that, for top colleges, Lowell seems too “stereotypically Asian,” a monolith of “A.P.-guzzling grade grubbers,” bereft of the well-rounded superstars who make admissions officers happy.

At times, “Try Harder!” hints at these larger stories, from the alleged prejudices that top-tier colleges harbor against the perceived machinelike excellence of Asian applicants to the racial politics of San Francisco to the uneven distribution of resources that produce élite public schools like Lowell. In February, local voters recalled three members of the city’s Board of Education, in part to protest their role in a 2021 decision to diversify Lowell by replacing its merit-based admissions system with a lottery. The recall campaign was driven by Asian American voters—many of whom presumably have little interest in following Ninh’s call to rethink paradigms of success. As one parent told the Times , education has “been ingrained in Chinese culture for thousands and thousands of years.”

Lum focusses on these pressures as they trickle down to the students, which makes for a compelling set of dramas. One of the film’s stars is an African American student named Rachael, whose sweet, aggressive modesty leads her to underestimate her own capabilities. There’s a Taiwanese American kid named Alvan who seems happiest in his dance class—only his parents would never understand. His highest and lowest moments alike are commemorated with a dab . These are all students who, in Ninh’s words, “pass for perfect.” The occasional shots of students staring off into the distance convey more than they are capable of articulating as teen-agers.

As the year wears on, they begin to feel the effects of the grind. There’s less energy for all-night study sessions; the tense, feigned smile of the after-school job is harder to maintain. Students begin wondering why they worked so hard in the first place. I want to say that I felt a familiar sense of fear as the admissions letters began rolling in, but, even though I attended a competitive Bay Area high school full of Asian kids, it was nothing like this. There was less to do, yet more possible futures to imagine. “Try Harder!” slowly shifts genres from comedy to horror. You almost stop caring whether anyone will get into their dream school, because you already recognize that we should be encouraging students to dream of something other than school. Yet you desperately want them to get in, for it is the only horizon they have ever known.

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Coming To Terms With Being Asian American

Why it took me 25 years to come to terms with being asian american.

It was the first time that someone had encapsulated my entire personhood into one word: “Asian.”

Culture has a way of connecting us from the things we have in common to our differences. For #AsianPacificAmericanHeritageMonth we created a space for our voices to be heard and to defy (or embrace) the stereotypes that are placed on Asian Americans. We asked a few Asian Pacific American R29 staffers what their favorite thing about their culture is and discovered that the strings that attach us so closely with our culture are also associated with the memories we make with our families. The act of gathering and creating food brings us together (and something we still defer back to when we're feeling a bit homesick). Comment below with what about your culture brings you ✨joy✨. #APAHM #AcknowledgeIsPower #AsianPacificAmericanHeritageMonth A post shared by Refinery29 (@refinery29) on May 19, 2017 at 10:03am PDT

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Cindy Lee on being an Asian American during the COVID-19 pandemic

On February 10, 2021, Cindy Lee, an ASU graduate student in the Master of Liberal Studies program focusing on personal essay and narrative nonfiction writing, published her first essay in Transformations,  a joint project of the ASU Narrative Storytelling Initiative and the Los Angeles Review of Books.  In “ Am I a Conditional American ,” Lee writes about her recent experience as an Asian American living in Scottsdale, Arizona during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Congratulations on the publication of your essay, “ Am I a Conditional American? ” in Transformations. Your essay received a lot of attention after it was published in February. What was the experience like for you?  What surprised you the most?

Experiencing the response to my essay has been incredible. Honestly, it has been transforming. First, I was amazed that award-winning journalist and writer Steven Beschloss, executive editor of Transformations magazine, chose to publish my essay. Then, after it came out, I was so moved by the responses. I could never have imagined the impact.

What surprised me most is how extensively the feelings I expressed are shared among people of color. 

A Black corporate assistant vice president referred to my statement: “...in practice, ‘we’ is not always we.” She wrote, “That is the narrative for all non-white Americans in this country.”

A Pakistani American dermatology oncologist, who had been treated poorly after September 11th, said, “Thank you for writing this for all of us.”

A Chinese American mother and 14-year-old daughter both read the essay and discussed it together.

A Latino American global marketer commented, “My favorite quote was ‘The American Dream can be bestowed, and it can be withdrawn.’”

A Ph.D. scientist and professor tweeted that my story was close to her own Korean American experience. She quoted from the essay: “I’ve come to realize that ... my acceptance is conditional. My Americanness is conditional. The rules are not up to those of us who are ‘other.’”

You begin your essay by recounting an incident of anti-Asian harassment at a Target store in Scottsdale at the beginning of the pandemic. Were you surprised at how quickly the characterization of the COVID-19 pandemic as “The China Virus” and “Kung Flu” began?

I was horrified but not surprised. The U.S. has historically seen Asians as the “Yellow Peril.” This was true in WWII with the Japanese, the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, Korean communists during the Korean War, the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War, the U.S. auto industry vs Japanese carmakers, and the trade wars with China. Viewing Asians as “the enemy” and “other” can recede below the surface, but those feelings are clearly easy to summon with a “foreign” disease.

How else have you seen its impact in your community (Scottsdale, ASU, the Phoenix area, etc?)

A former Scottsdale city councilman, not re-elected, jumped on the bandwagon in March 2020. He shared a Facebook post explaining that “COVID literally stands for ‘Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease’ and the number 19 is due to this being the 19th virus to come out of China.” This was disprovable with a 5-second online search. I timed it.

A year later, in March 2021, a 74-year-old Filipino American father, husband, and grandfather was punched and knocked down while taking his morning walk in Phoenix. His head hit the pavement and fractured his skull. He died two days later from his injuries. 

I have to ask, have you encountered overt and/or open harassment you described in the essay as an AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) graduate student at ASU?

Oh gosh, no! That’s never happened at ASU. I actually had age anxiety starting at ASU, not concern about mistreatment as an AAPI student. I felt like I would be the only student eligible for a senior discount. That worry evaporated Week One when a much-younger classmate offered to help me with something and called me “dude.”

You described being reminded of your otherness periodically throughout your life and how that otherness is conditional on how others see you—you write: “My acceptance is conditional. My Americanness is conditional.” How do we think we can begin to change that at an individual level?

The more you know “a people,” the less their acceptance is conditional. Educate. See a movie or documentary, or read a book/essay by a person of color. There are so many examples I could list. Attend a lecture or a webinar. Understand the struggles and resentments. In an hour, I learned a lot about discrimination in housing in government programs. Watch the five-part PBS series “Asian Americans” which “traces the story of Asian Americans, spanning 150 years of immigration, racial politics, and cultural innovation.”

A recent exchange I had with a friend answers the question in a different way. My husband bought me some pepper spray. With continued violence against AAPI people, especially women, he was worried for my safety and wanted me to carry it. I was having dinner with a white friend and showed it to her. She asked me, “Why would you need that?” I pointed to my face. She said, shocked, “I’m so sorry! You’re so individualized to me, I don’t even see you in terms of race.”

As people of color, we need to speak up and speak out. Collective voices can help educate as well. In a survey this month commissioned by the nonprofit, Leading Asian Americans to Unite for Change, 42% of people could not name a well-known Asian American. Eleven percent said Jackie Chan—who is not American. Nine percent said Bruce Lee. That is ancient history. Last year, for example, I put together a 4-minute video showing Asians and Asians in music and movies from 1961-2020. We’re in the popular culture if one wants to self-educate.

Cindy's video:  Asians in American Pop Culture Movies & Music (1961-2020) , password: cindy

What about George Takei in “Star Trek,” Sandra Oh in “Grey’s Anatomy,” Daniel Dae Kim in “Lost” and “Hawaii 5-0,” Olympic skater Michelle Kwan, basketball player Jeremy Lin, numerous Japanese baseball players on U.S. teams, actress Awkwafina in the films Oceans 8, The Farewell, Crazy Rich Asians, Bowen Yang on Saturday Night Live, presidential and now NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, Senator Maizie Hirono of Hawaii. And yet we’re invisible in 2021.

What do you think the ASU community can do to change the conditions for and experience of AAPI students and faculty at ASU? 

You can’t address what you don’t know. I think any communities that want to change the conditions for and experience of AAPI—of people of color in general—need a forum for under-represented groups to have continuing open dialogue with the dominant group, with management, with the administration. Education leads to understanding. Overt and unconscious bias exists. I’ve been asked to participate in a conversation about my essay with the Multicultural Professional Network at a global corporation in what they call “Inclusion Dialogue,” formerly known as “Courageous Conversations.” I’m so impressed that the company reaches out for their employees to hear such diversity of thought even from someone like me.

 I think ASU, as a public university, already does this. Can it be improved? I’m not the one who could answer that. 

Recently, Stop AAPI Hate revealed that nearly 3,800 incidents of anti-Asian hate were reported between March 19, 2020 and February 28th, 2021, more than 1,200 more than the previous year.  It’s also clear that AAPI women report disproportionately more attacks—68 percent compared to 29 percent for men. As a woman, do you think you are more vulnerable to anti-Asian hate?

It’s likely I’m physically more vulnerable than an Asian man. Older Asian women do seem to be the easy targets. It could also be that Asian men are even less likely to report than women. I saw a video of a young Asian father, pushing his one-year-old baby in a stroller, getting tackled and punched. It is mind-blowing and unbelievable.

  As a graduate student focused on non-fiction writing and personal essay, it must be gratifying to have your first published essay receive so much attention. How will this help you build your writing career?  What else are you writing about?

I could never have imagined how much another world has opened up for me. What I wrote struck a nerve at a particular moment. Timing has so much to do with the publishing of my essay, the response, and the attention. Anti-Asian hate on a national level along with the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter movement have conjured up feelings on a collective level that exist individually among people of color. Emotions have been amplified by coronavirus impacts.

This experience has been quite a boost, but I don’t know that it will build my writing career. I still have a lot to learn and develop. I’m still emerging.

What I’m writing about next is my family. My father came to the U.S. in 1948 as a Korean student. He’s 94 now and lives in California. In his boredom during the COVID-19 lockdown, he finally sat down and hand wrote his life’s history on lined, yellow pads of paper. He shares his childhood in Korea, losing his family during the Korean War, the life he’s had up to the present. It’s an amazing American immigrant story. It’s my family history legacy and my next project.

  What has been the most rewarding part of being a graduate student at ASU?

That answer has so many parts. I could gush.

I’ve met, befriended and shared classes with incredible students who are fascinating, generous, and diverse. Some are great writers, so I also learn from reading their work.

The wisdom, knowledge, and humanity of the professors I’ve had is so enriching. I’ve learned so much, and I love being in an academic environment again.

It’s so rejuvenating, doing something new in going back to school for a master’s degree after decades of working. It’s such a brain feed, and makes me feel like an excited kid.

I’ve applied what I’ve learned in classes instantly, not just in my writing. In the prep session for the upcoming conversation with multicultural professionals, I mentioned that I am optimistic about the future, even though race relations in the U.S. have regressed recently. I mentioned growing up in the 1960s as a kid, and was able to reference very specific examples of civil rights advances of that decade, having just completed Angela Giron’s immersion course on ‘60s Decade of Turmoil at ASU. My answer was informed not just by my childhood experiences but also by my recently acquired historical, political, and cultural knowledge of the period.

What advice would you give to ASU graduate students who also happen to be aspiring writers?

  I’m no expert, but here’s what I’d say, if it applies to the kind of writing they and I are doing.

 We have really great writing professors at ASU. You will improve and grow as a writer. I’ve learned so much from Sarah Viren, who is an award-winning writer and a brilliant, nurturing professor. She creates the ideal environment for workshop dialogue and gives thoughtful, in-depth commentary and guidance with your writing. Her readings and emulation exercises helped us expand our writing style. I wrote the "Conditional American" essay in Sarah's class; she encouraged me to try to have it published. Dr. Viren’s 2020 essay, “The Accusations Were Lies. But Could We Prove It?” has won multiple highest honors. She just had another incredible article published in The New York Times Magazine. Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine, author and editor of more than 30 books, kept questioning and countering students to help us find our own way. I told him he “badgered me” into digging deeper to find the better story to tell and write, which made him smile. The professors in my Master of Liberal Studies degree program, including Program Director Angela Giron and Associate Director Megan Todd, encourage our creativity and support us incredibly. Rebecca Byrkit, founding faculty member of the MLSt program, teaches creative nonfiction and judges writing competitions. There are also helpful writing workshops outside of ASU to seek out. I took my first creative nonfiction writing class from a multi-awarded journalist, editor, and author Amy Silverman, who has taught at ASU, teaches writing workshops at Phoenix College and through Changing Hands Bookstore.

Write simply, and write from the heart. That’s all I did in my essay.

Write accessibly. Tell stories. We talk all the time about access: access to education, to health care, to equality, to justice, access for people with disabilities. But then as academics and graduate students, we write in language that is inaccessible. As writers, we can communicate in more conversational ways to reach a broader audience. If we write more the way we speak, we may be easier to understand, and more people may read the work and take it in. We can be intelligent without being incomprehensible.

 I learned this during the past semester: Sometimes there’s the story you think you want to write, and then there’s the real story that wants to be written. To borrow wisdom from three writing professors: Dig deeper, reflect, and don’t get in your own way. Easier said than done, of course.

Don’t be self-defeating. You’re becoming a better writer as you learn and continue, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Last week I looked at something I’d written in one of my first nonfiction writing classes. It was awful. I suddenly felt sorry for the other students in the class.

 In William Zinsser’s book, On Writing Well, his mantra is: clarity brevity simplicity humanity. (I haven’t followed the brevity advice). But I do try for clarity, simplicity, and humanity.

  Photo courtesy of KJZZ .

How the ‘model minority’ myth harms Asian Americans

Smith Professor of Equity and Inclusion in Business, Queen's University, Ontario

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Eddy Ng does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Queen's University, Ontario provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA.

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May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month , a time when Americans celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders – a group that is commonly abbreviated as AAPI – to U.S. society. It’s also a time to acknowledge the complexity of AAPI experience.

And as a professor who studies equity and inclusion in business , I think the focus on AAPI communities this month provides an excellent occasion to push back against a stereotype that has long misrepresented and marginalized a diverse range of people: the myth of the “model minority.”

The term “ model minority ” first appeared in popular media in the 1960s to describe East Asians – primarily Japanese and Chinese Americans – as having high educational attainment, high family median income and low crime rates. That label has since been applied to all AAPIs.

More than half of native-born Asian Americans have heard of the “model minority” description. Among those who are familiar with it, 4 in 10 feel it is harmful.

Racially visible, in practice invisible

The narrative of the “model minority” portrays Asian Americans as uniformly successful and privileged. Yet the reality is far more complex. In reality, AAPIs encompass over 20 distinct ethnicities , yet are often lumped into a single category.

This obscures wealth and status disparities within the community. Income inequality among AAPIs is high, with more than 10 groups, including Burmese, Hmong and Mongolians , experiencing poverty at rates equal to or worse than the national average.

The myth of the model minority erases the struggles of these underserved communities. It also perpetuates the harmful notion that AAPIs don’t need support or advocacy to address systemic inequities.

The myth also undermines AAPIs in the workplace. Research shows that the depiction of AAPIs as diligent and hardworking has burdened them with additional responsibilities . Unfortunately, their efforts often go unnoticed. Stereotypes portraying Asians as passive and unassertive also frequently lead to their talents being overlooked for managerial and leadership positions . Top executives in Fortune 500 companies of East Asian descent make less than their non-Asian counterparts.

AAPIs also often encounter unique barriers to upward mobility in the workplace — a phenomenon known as the “ bamboo ceiling .” They may struggle to align with stereotypical Western models of leadership, which include assertiveness and extraversion , and are disproportionately passed over for promotions , particularly into upper-level management.

Forever foreign

Alongside the myth of the model minority, another related narrative holds that AAPIs are perpetual foreigners – a manifestation of racism or xenophobia, where naturalized or even native-born Americans are viewed as outsiders because of their ethic or racial background.

This myth has persisted despite generations of assimilation. Asians have often been viewed as outsiders since their arrival on American shores in the mid-19th century, labeled under the broad umbrella of “Orientals” and subjected to a variety of stereotypes .

As a result, AAPIs often face intrusive questions about their origins, such as “Where are you really from?” and “Your English is really good.” These and similar microaggressions can lead AAPIs to grapple with a sense of otherness that undermines their sense of belonging at work and beyond.

The belief that AAPIs are America’s “other” — compounded by historical prejudices such as the “yellow peril” and contemporary scapegoating during events such as the COVID-19 pandemic — fuels xenophobia and anti-Asian violence . This poses a real and immediate threat to the safety and well-being of AAPI individuals and communities.

Time for a post-model-minority narrative

The model minority narrative not only implicitly denies remedies to systemic discrimination, but it also harms other marginalized and oppressed groups. It implicitly suggests that non-Asians and non-Asian Americans cannot be considered model minorities.

Successful AAPIs are often presented as examples of what’s possible through hard work and grit — which masks the systemic barriers they, like other people of color, must overcome to succeed. This, in effect, pits different racial groups against each other .

This Asian Heritage Month – and all year round – I hope people can embrace a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of AAPI experiences. A few ways to do this include amplifying the voices of underrepresented AAPI communities, challenging stereotypes and advocating for policies that address the systemic inequities faced by all marginalized groups.

And instead of narrowly defining success in terms of elite credentials and earning power, Americans might want to consider celebrating more diverse forms of achievement , too.

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Asians have migrated to and have lived in the Americas since the days of our founding fathers. The first to come from the Eastern Hemisphere were a small group of Filipinos in the early 18th century that settled in present day Louisiana. The first major influx of Asian Americans was Chinese Americans who came in the 1800’s to find financial opportunity during the California gold rush. They settled in the Golden State and eventually spread out all over the United States, creating the now-famous Chinatowns that millions of Americans visit every year. There is a continual migration of well educated South Asians and East Asians for job and education opportunities and their success has formed the basis for the “myth of the model minority” (MMM). This is the idea that all people who are Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are successful both socioeconomically and educationally. This does have a logical basis rooted in statistics—AAPI students are reported to have higher grade point averages, math scores, and overall standardized tests scores on tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Exam (ACT). Other studies often use a racialized rhetoric comparing Asian Americans to white Americans in terms of education and socioeconomic status while contrasting them to the so-called “lazy” and “incapable” Hispanic and African Americans.

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     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

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When I search “Asian rights in America” on Google, there are almost 68400000 search results. But if I search “Black people rights in America”, there are about 90800000 search results online. It is obviously that there are some differences between these two values and what reason causes this different? Why people focus more attention on black people’s rights not on Asians’ rights? You may say that it’s maybe because the number of Asians is smaller than the number of black people. It’s true. In America, Asians are mineral group and only occupy 5.6 percent of the total American population. But I don’t think quantity is the only influence factor and also I disagree with this assumption that micro community’s rights can be ignored selectively by people. Everyone’s equal and they should have same rights and get same attention from public no matter what skin colors they have and where they come from. It’s year 2016 and in the U.S.A which is a democratic country; I know that black people’s rights matter, white people’s rights matter. But please never forget Asian’s rights matter too.

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The Anxiety of Being Asian American: Hate Crimes and Negative Biases During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Published: 10 June 2020
• Volume 45 , pages 636–646, ( 2020 )

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• Meera Choi 1 &
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In this essay, we review how the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic that began in the United States in early 2020 has elevated the risks of Asian Americans to hate crimes and Asian American businesses to vandalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidents of negative bias and microaggressions against Asian Americans have also increased. COVID-19 is directly linked to China, not just in terms of the origins of the disease, but also in the coverage of it. Because Asian Americans have historically been viewed as perpetually foreign no matter how long they have lived in the United States, we posit that it has been relatively easy for people to treat Chinese or Asian Americans as the physical embodiment of foreignness and disease. We examine the historical antecedents that link Asian Americans to infectious diseases. Finally, we contemplate the possibility that these experiences will lead to a reinvigoration of a panethnic Asian American identity and social movement.

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Anti-Asian Hate Crime During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring the Reproduction of Inequality

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Introduction

COVID-19 (or the coronavirus) is a global pandemic that has affected the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people. At the time we write this, there have been over four million cases across over 200 countries worldwide (Pettersson, Manley, & Hern, 2020 ) . Moreover, pervasive stay-at-home orders and calls for social distancing, as well as the disruptions to every facet of our lives make it difficult to overstate the importance of COVID-19. As the beginning of the outbreak has been traced to China (and Wuhan in particular), both in the United States and elsewhere, people who are Chinese or seen as East Asian have become associated with this contagious disease. Early reports in the United States were often accompanied by stock photos of Asians in masks (Burton, 2020 ; Walker, 2020 ). Many of the first reports labeled the disease as the “Wuhan Virus,” or “Chinese Virus,” and the Trump administration has also used these terms (Levenson, 2020 ; Maitra, 2020 ; Marquardt & Hansler, 2020 ; Rogers, Jakes, & Swanson, 2020 ; Schwartz, 2020 ). News media coverage in the United States focused on the hygiene of the seafood market in Wuhan and wild animal consumption as a possible cause of coronavirus (Gomera, 2020 ; Mackenzie & Smith, 2020 ). Memes and jokes about bats and China flooded social media, including posts by our peers online. These reports provide the American public a straightforward narrative that focuses on China as the origin of COVID-19.

In this paper, we review current patterns of hate crimes, microaggressions, and other negative responses against Asian individuals and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. These hate crimes and bias incidents occur in the landscape of American racism in which Asian Americans are seen as the embodiment of China and potential carriers of COVID-19, regardless of their ethnicity or generational status. We believe that Asian Americans not only are not “honorary whites,” but their very status as Americans is, at best, precarious, and at worst, in doubt during the COVID-19 crisis. We suggest that what we witness today is an extension of the history of Asians in the United States and that this experience may lead to the reemergence of a vibrant panethnic Asian American identity.

Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans During COVID-19

As of early May 2020, there have been over 1.8 million individuals who have tested positive for and over 105,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the United States alone and the numbers are growing rapidly every day (“Cases in the U.S.,” 2020 ). Although researchers have traced cases of the virus in the United States to travelers from Europe (Gonzalez-Reiche et al., 2020 ) and to travelers within the United States (Fauver et al., 2020 ), some members of the general public regard Asian Americans with suspicion and as carriers of the disease. On April 28th, 2020, NBC News reported that 30% of Americans have personally witnessed someone blaming Asians for the coronavirus (Ellerbeck, 2020 ).

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the negative perceptions of Asian Americans that have long been prevalent in American society. Many individuals in the United States see the virus as foreign and condemn phenotypically Asian bodies as the spreaders of the virus (Ellerbeck, 2020 ). Consistent with Claire Jean Kim’s theory on racial triangulation (Kim, 1999 ) and the concept of Asians as perpetual foreigners (Ancheta, 2006 ; Saito, 1997 ; Tuan, 1998 ; E. D. Wu, 2015 ) , we posit that during COVID-19, the racial positionality of Asian Americans as foreign and Other persists, and that this pernicious designation may be a threat to the safety and mental health of Asian Americans. They are not only at risk of exposure to COVID-19, but they must contend with the additional risk of victimization, which may increase their anxiety. Historically, from the late 19th through the mid twentieth century, popular culture and news media portrayed Asians in America as the “Yellow Peril,” which symbolized the Western fear of uncivilized, nonwhite Asian invasion and domination (Okihiro, 2014 ; Saito, 1997 ) . It is possible that the perceived threat of the Yellow Peril has reemerged in the time of COVID-19.

The spread of the coronavirus and the increased severity of the pandemic has caused fear and panic for most Americans, as COVID-19 has brought about physical restrictions and financial hardships. So far, forty-two states have issued stay-at-home orders, which has resulted in 95% of the American population facing restrictions that impact their daily lives (Woodward, 2020 ). Novel efforts to end the pandemic across the states have led businesses to shut down. As a result, more than 30 million people in the United States have filed for unemployment since the onset of the coronavirus crisis (Gura, 2020 ). Because this virus has been identified as foreign, for some individuals, their feelings have been expressed as xenophobia, prejudice, and violence against Asian Americans. These negative perceptions and actions have gained traction due to the unprecedented impact COVID-19 has on people’s lives, and institutions such as UC Berkeley have even normalized these reactions (Chiu, 2020 ). However, racism and xenophobia are not a “natural” reaction to the threat of the virus; rather, we speculate that the historical legacies of whiteness and citizenship have produced these reactions, where many individuals may interpret Asian Americans as foreign and presenting a higher risk of transmission of the disease.

Already, the FBI has issued a warning that due to COVID-19, there may be increased hate crimes against Asian Americans, because “a portion of the US public will associate COVID-19 with China and Asian American populations” (Margolin, 2020 ). News reports, police departments, and community organizations have been documenting these incidents. Evidence suggests that the FBI’s warning was warranted. Based on reporting from Stop AAPI Hate , in the one-month period from March 19th to April 23rd, there were nearly 1500 alleged instances of anti-Asian bias (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ). The reported incidents have been concentrated in New York and California, with 42% of the reports hailing from California and 17% of reports from New York, but Asian Americans in 45 states across the nation have reported incidents (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ).

Reports of Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents

There have been a large number of physical assaults against Asian Americans and ethnically Asian individuals in the United States directly related to COVID-19. While the majority of Americans are sheltering-in-place and staying at home, 80% of the self-reported anti-Asian incidents have taken place outside people’s private residences, in grocery stores, local businesses, and public places (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ). We suggest that these hate crimes and other incidents of bias have historical roots that have placed Asians outside the boundaries of whiteness and American citizenship. In addition, we believe that the current COVID-19 crisis draws attention to ongoing racial issues and provides a lens through which to challenge the notion of America as a post-racial society (Bonilla-Silva, 2006 ).

One of the incidents under investigation as a hate crime includes the attempted murder of a Burmese-American family at a Sam’s Club in Midland, Texas (Yam, 2020a ). The suspect said that he stabbed the father, a four-year-old child, and a two-year-old child because he “thought the family was Chinese, and infecting people with coronavirus” (Yam, 2020a ). Police are investigating numerous other physical incidents including attacks with acid (Moore & Cassady, 2020 ), an umbrella (Madani, 2020 ), and a log (Kang, 2020 ). There have been a number of physical altercations at bus stops (Bensimon, 2020 ; Madani, 2020 ), subway stations (Parnell, 2020 ), convenience stores (Oliveira, 2020 ), and on the street (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ; Sheldon, 2020 ). Asian Americans are also reporting physical threats being made against them (Driscoll, 2020 ; Parascandola, 2020 ). Based on Stop AAPI Hate statistics, 127 Asian Americans filed reports of physical assaults in four weeks (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ), and it is likely that other Asians have not reported their experiences out of fear or concern about the legal process.

In addition to the physical attacks and threats against Asian Americans, individuals have also filed reports of vandalism and property damage targeted at Asian businesses. One Korean restaurant in New York City had the graffiti “stop eating dogs” written on its window (Adams, 2020 ). Perpetrators have also made explicit references to COVID-19 in their vandalism, where phrases such as “take the corona back you ch*nk” (Goodell & Mann, 2020 ), and “watch out for corona” (Wang, 2020 ) have been documented on Asian-owned restaurants. Some of these incidents were not reported to the police and therefore will not be investigated as hate crimes, as business owners reasoned that it would be difficult to track the vandals (Adams, 2020 ; Buscher, 2020 ). These incidents of vandalism demonstrate the association some people make between Asian American businesses and COVID-19.

Beyond the narrow definition of the incidents that can be classified as punishable hate crimes, Asian Americans have also documented a large number of alleged bias and hate incidents. Stop AAPI Hate reports indicate that 70% of coronavirus discrimination against Asian Americans has involved verbal harassment, with over 1000 incidents of verbal harassment reported in just four weeks (Jeung & Nham, 2020 ). In addition, there have been over 90 reports of Asian Americans being coughed or spat on. One prevalent theme in the verbal incidents is the linking of Asian bodies to COVID-19, where the aggressors are purportedly calling Asians “coronavirus,” “Chinese virus,” or “diseased,” and telling them that they should “be quarantined,” or “go back to China” (ADL 2020 ). In all of these incidents, the perpetrators consistently use anti-Asian racial slurs (Buscher, 2020 ; Goodell & Mann, 2020 ; Sheldon, 2020 ). This hateful language that targets all Asians (and not just Chinese Americans) demonstrates the racialization of Asian Americans.

The threat of a global pandemic to people’s everyday lives is something that most Americans have not experienced before. However, the act of interpreting the current national crisis as an external threat and ascribing this danger to Chinese bodies and more broadly Asian bodies should not surprise scholars of Asian Americans. In fact, this deeply-rooted cognitive association of Asian Americans to Asia and to disease has a long history. Hence, we examine the phenomenon of xenophobia against Asian Americans in the context of historical racial dynamics in the United States.

The Color Line and the Positionality of Asian Americans

Race has been posited as a socio-historical concept, and while many race scholars in the United States have focused on the black/white binary, others have documented how Asian Americans have also been racialized over time (Omi & Winant, 2014 ). These scholars have examined how the racialization of Asian Americans has developed in relation to African Americans and white Americans (Bonilla-Silva, 2004 ; Kim, 1999 ). One of the dominant stereotypes of Asian Americans is that they are perpetual foreigners , where individuals directly link phenotypical Asian ethnic appearance with foreignness, regardless of Asian immigrant or generational status (Ancheta, 2006 ; Tuan, 1998 ; F. H. Wu, 2002 ). This stereotype is longstanding in American history and has forcefully re-emerged during the COVID-19 crisis. The perception of an Asian-looking person as simultaneously Chinese, Asian, and foreign underscores how this racial categorization affects all Asian Americans. Thus, we suggest that the concept of Asian American panethnicity (Okamoto & Mora, 2014 ) may be particularly applicable during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The legacy of white supremacy equates white bodies with purity and innocence, while nonwhite bodies are designated as unclean, uncivilized, and dangerous. White supremacy and its tactic of othering Asian bodies has been a consistent recurrence over earlier pandemics. Dating back to the nineteenth century, the bubonic plague was framed as a “racial disease” which only Asian bodies could be infected by whereas white bodies were seen as immune (Randall, 2019 ). In 1899, Honolulu officials quarantined and burned Chinatown as a precaution against the bubonic plague (Mohr, 2004 ). In 1900, San Francisco authorities quarantined Chinatown residents, and regulated food and people in and out of Chinatown, believing that the unclean food and Asian people were the cause of the epidemic (Shah, 2001 ; Trauner, 1978 ). The history of the Yellow Peril has continued throughout the 20th and 21st centuries in the embodied perceptions of Asian immigrants as the spreaders of disease (Molina, 2006 ).

More recently, during the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic, the discourse in the United States focused on Chinatown as the epicenter of the disease (Eichelberger, 2007 ). Studies suggest that 14 % of Americans reported avoiding Asian businesses and Asian Americans experienced increased threat and anxiety during SARS (Blendon, Benson, DesRoches, Raleigh, & Taylor-Clark, 2004 ). We suspect the negative impact of COVID-19 on Asian Americans has been far greater than the impact of SARS. In New York City’s Chinatown, restaurants suffered immediately after the first reports of COVID-19, as some restaurants and businesses experienced up to an 85% drop in profits for the two months prior to March 16th, 2020 – far before any stay-at-home orders were given (Roberts, 2020 ). When moral panic arises, foreign bodies, typically the undesirable and “un-American” yellow bodies, may be seen as a threat that can harm pure white bodies.

The cycle of elevated risk, followed by fearing and blaming what is foreign is not just limited to disease outbreaks, but also occurs during economic downturns. In 1982, Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two men who blamed him for the influx of Japanese cars into the United States auto market. Vincent Chin was attacked with racial slurs and specifically targeted because of his race. Although Chin was Chinese American, in the minds of these two men, he represented the downturn of the auto industry in Detroit and the increased imports of Japanese automobiles (Choy & Tajima-Pena, 1987 ).

Similarly, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, retaliatory aggressions were not limited to attacks against Arabs or Muslims (Perry, 2003 ). Violence and hatred against the perceived enemy resulted in incidents targeting Sikhs, second and third generation Indian Americans, and even Lebanese and Greeks (Perry, 2003 ). More recently, the hate crime murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Indian immigrant falsely assumed to be an Iranian terrorist and told “get out of my country” before being shot to death, illustrates the association between racialized perceptions of threat and incidents of violence (Fuchs 2018 ). With the COVID-19 pandemic, violent attacks and racial discrimination against Asian Americans have emerged as non-Asian Americans look for someone or something Asian to blame for their anger and fear about illness, economic insecurity, and stay-at-home orders.

Fear and the Mental Health of Asian Americans

The current perceptions of China and more broadly East Asia as both economic and public health threats have made Chinese and East Asians in America fearful for their own safety. Some Asian Americans have made efforts to hide their Asian identity or assert their status as American in an attempt to prevent hate crime attacks (Buscher, 2020 ; Tang, 2020 ). While this tactic may be effective on the individual level, it does not modify the positionality of Asian bodies during COVID-19. The attempt to distinguish Asian Americans from Asians who are foreign nationals misses the fact that in the United States, being Asians and being foreign are inextricably bound together.

After World War II, news media and local organizations encouraged Chinese Americans to distinguish themselves from the Japanese, and similarly encouraged Japanese Americans to show their Americanness and patriotism to gain acceptance by the white majority (E. D. Wu, 2015 ). Muslim and Sikh Americans displayed American flags after 9/11 to show that they were not a threat to the United States, and more recently there has been a movement to celebrate Sikh Captain America (Ishisaka, 2018 ). Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang suggested that Asian Americans fight against racism by wearing red white and blue and prominently displaying their Americanness (Yang, 2020 ). In many of these situations, these strategies did not directly address the problems of racism and xenophobia – they simply shifted the blame towards another group.

Disease does not differentiate among people based on skin color or national origin, yet many Asian Americans have suffered from discrimination and hatred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the threat of the virus is real for all Americans, Asian Americans bear the additional burden of feeling unsafe and vulnerable to attack by others. The link between COVID-19 and hate crimes and bias incidents against Asian Americans is indicative of the widespread racial sentiments which continue to be prominent in American society. While some scholars have gone as far as to regard Asian Americans as “honorary whites” (Tuan, 1998 ), the current COVID-19 crisis has made markedly clear this is an illusion, at best. There are a number of reasons why the racial dynamics of anti-Asian crimes during COVID-19 should be examined more closely.

First, the majority of incidents and attacks have occurred in diverse metropolitan areas such as New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles. These are spaces that most Americans have traditionally regarded as more liberal and tolerant of difference than other parts of the United States. In New York City alone, from the start of the COVID-19 outbreak through April 2020, the NYPD’s hate crime task force has investigated fourteen cases where all the victims were Asian and targeted due to coronavirus discrimination (NYPD, 2020 ). The remarks of a Kansas governor that said his town was safe “because it had only a few Chinese residents” (Lefler & Heying 2020 ) offers one explanation for the high concentration of racial incidents in large cities with sizable Asian populations, but we think that this is not sufficient in explaining the data so far. Future research should track racial bias and hate crimes more systematically in order to further our understanding of how demography and urbanicity influence these incidents.

Second, these hate crimes have increased the anxiety of Asian Americans during already uncertain times, with many fearful for their physical safety when running everyday errands (Tavernise & Oppel Jr., 2020 ). Asian Americans are now self-conscious about “coughing while Asian” (Aratani, 2020 ), and concerned about being targeted for hate crimes (Liu, 2020 ; Wong, 2020 ). There is evidence to suggest that Asian Americans under-report crimes (Allport, 1993 ), and some recent immigrants may lack an understanding of the legal system and process of reporting crimes, particularly in the case of hate crimes. Therefore, scholars should take additional care to document and analyze these incidents and their effects on Asian American communities across the United States.

The possible upward trend of anti-Asian bias incidents and hate crimes is indicative of the growth of white nationalism and xenophobia. The image of a disease carrier with respect to COVID-19 is bound in Asian bodies and includes assumptions about race, ethnicity, and citizenship. As Vincent Chin, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Burmese-American family, and many others have shown us, the level of fungibility in terms of how Asian ethnicities are perceived can be deadly. It does not matter if the person is from China, of Chinese origin, or simply looks Asian – the perpetrators of this violence see all of these bodies as foreign and threatening. While there have been numerous instances of anti-Asian bias and crime, there have not been similarly patterned anti-European tourist incidents or an avoidance of Italian restaurants, suggesting that COVID-19 illuminates the particular racialization of disease that extends beyond this virus, and further back in American history.

Already there has been substantial news coverage of these anti-Asian crimes, which suggests that people are paying attention to this issue, and police departments are actively investigating many of these incidents. Activists and community organizations have started online campaigns such as #washthehate and #hateisavirus to combat anti-Asian racism during this time. The BBC has documented 120 distinct news articles covering alleged incidents of discrimination since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Cheung, Feng, & Deng, 2020 ). In addition, the Chinese for Affirmative Action and Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council have created a platform where individuals can record incidents of racism and coronavirus discrimination. The reporting of hate crimes during COVID-19 is superior to the reports of these types of incidents during the SARS outbreak (Leung Coleman, 2020 ; Washer, 2004 ). Although the federal government response has been limited compared to the hate crime prevention initiatives after 9/11 and SARS, in May 2020, the Commission on Civil Rights agreed to take on the demands proposed by a group of Democratic Senators in a letter requesting a stronger response to the anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination during COVID-19 (Campbell & Ellerbeck, 2020 ; Yam, 2020b ).

Similar to the murder of Vincent Chin, which served to ignite an Asian American activist movement, we hypothesize that the racial incidents against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic may encourage the political mobilization of a panethnic Asian American movement. At the same time, we believe that the incidents that are classified as “hate crimes” and “bias incidents” based on legal definitions do not fully capture the extent or pervasiveness of racist and xenophobic thoughts against Asian Americans. We encourage future scholars to more closely examine the culturally embedded racial logics that lead to these incidents, rather than focusing solely on the incidents themselves as the object of analysis. The hate crimes against Asians in the time of COVID-19 highlight the ways that Asian Americans continue to be viewed as foreign and suspect. This may be an additional burden on Asian Americans beyond the anxiety, economic instability, and the risk of illness all Americans have experienced during COVID-19.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge support from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the MacMillan Center, and the Council for East Asia at Yale University. We are also grateful for the support of the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2016-LAB-2250002).

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Tessler, H., Choi, M. & Kao, G. The Anxiety of Being Asian American: Hate Crimes and Negative Biases During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Am J Crim Just 45 , 636–646 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09541-5

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-long-history-of-racism-against-asian-americans-in-the-u-s

The long history of racism against Asian Americans in the U.S.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed , former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang called upon Asian Americans to become part of the solution against COVID-19.

In the face of rising anti-Asian racist actions – now at about 100 reported cases per day – Yang implores Asian Americans to “wear red, white, and blue” in their efforts to combat the virus.

Optimistically, before Donald Trump declared COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus,” Yang believed that “getting the virus under control” would rid this country of its anti-Asian racism. But Asian American history, my field of research , suggests a sobering reality.

A history of anti-Asian racism

Up until the eve of the COVID-19 crisis, the prevailing narrative about Asian Americans was one of the model minority.

The model minority concept, developed during and after World War II, posits that Asian Americans were the ideal immigrants of color to the United States due to their economic success.

But in the United States, Asian Americans have long been considered as a threat to a nation that promoted a whites-only immigration policy. They were called a “yellow peril”: unclean and unfit for citizenship in America .

In the late 19th century, white nativists spread xenophobic propaganda about Chinese uncleanliness in San Francisco. This fueled the passage of the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act , the first law in the United States that barred immigration solely based on race. Initially, the act placed a 10-year moratorium on all Chinese migration.

In the early 20th century, American officials in the Philippines, then a formal colony of the U.S., denigrated Filipinos for their supposedly unclean and uncivilized bodies . Colonial officers and doctors identified two enemies: Filipino insurgents against American rule, and “tropical diseases” festering in native bodies. By pointing to Filipinos’ political and medical unruliness, these officials justified continued U.S. colonial rule in the islands.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate people under suspicion as enemies to inland internment camps.

While the order also affected German- and Italian-Americans on the East Coast, the vast majority of those incarcerated in 1942 were of Japanese descent. Many of them were naturalized citizens, second- and third-generation Americans. Internees who fought in the celebrated 442nd Regiment were coerced by the United States military to prove their loyalty to a country that locked them up simply for being Japanese.

In the 21st century, even the most “multicultural” North American cities, like my hometown of Toronto, Canada, are hotbeds for virulent racism. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Toronto saw a rise of anti-Asian racism , much like that of today.

In her 2008 study, sociologist Carrianne Leung highlights the everyday racism against Chinese and Filipina health care workers in the years that followed the SARS crisis. While publicly celebrated for their work in hospitals and other health facilities, these women found themselves fearing for their lives on their way home.

No expression of patriotism – not even being front-line workers in a pandemic – makes Asian migrants immune to racism .

Making the model minority

Over the past decade, from Pulitzer Prizes to popular films , Asian Americans have slowly been gaining better representation in Hollywood and other cultural industries.

Whereas “The Joy Luck Club” had long been the most infamous depiction of Asian-ness in Hollywood, by the 2018 Golden Globes, Sandra Oh declared her now famous adage: “It’s an honor just to be Asian.” It was, at least at face value, a moment of cultural inclusion.

However, so-called Asian American inclusion has a dark side.

In reality, as cultural historian Robert G. Lee has argued , inclusion can and has been used to undermine the activism of African Americans, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups in the United States. In the words of writer Frank Chin in 1974, “Whites love us because we’re not black.”

For example, in 1943, a year after the United States incarcerated Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066, Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act. White liberals advocated for the repeal not out of altruism toward Chinese migrants, but to advocate for a transpacific alliance against Japan and the Axis powers .

By allowing for the free passage of Chinese migrants to the United States, the nation could show its supposed fitness as an interracial superpower that rivaled Japan and Germany. Meanwhile, incarcerated Japanese Americans in camps and African Americans were still held under Jim Crow segregation laws.

In her new book, “ Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion ,” Occidental College historian Jane Hong reveals how the United States government used Asian immigration inclusion against other minority groups at a time of social upheaval.

For example, in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration signed the much-celebrated Hart-Celler Act into law. The act primarily targeted Asian and African migrants, shifting immigration from an exclusionary quota system to an merit-based points system. However, it also imposed immigration restrictions on Latin America.

Beyond model minority politics

As history shows, Asian American communities stand to gain more working within communities and across the lines of race, rather than trying to appeal to those in power.

Japanese American activists such as the late Yuri Kochiyama worked in solidarity with other communities of color to advance the civil rights movement.

A former internee at the Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas, Kochiyama’s postwar life in Harlem, and her friendship with Malcolm X, inspired her to become active in the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements. In the 1980s, she and her husband Bill, himself part of the 442nd Regiment, worked at the forefront of the reparations and apology movement for Japanese internees. As a result of their efforts, Ronald Reagan signed the resulting Civil Liberties Act into law in 1988 .

Kochiyama and activists like her have inspired the cross-community work of Asian American communities after them.

In Los Angeles, where I live, the Little Tokyo Service Center is among those at the forefront of grassroots organizing for affordable housing and social services in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood . While the organization’s priority area is Little Tokyo and its community members, the center’s work advocates for affordable housing among black and Latinx residents, as well as Japanese American and other Asian American groups.

To the northwest in Koreatown, the grassroots organization Ktown for All conducts outreach to unhoused residents of the neighborhood, regardless of ethnic background.

The coronavirus sees no borders. Likewise, I think that everyone must follow the example of these organizations and activists, past and present, to reach across borders and contribute to collective well-being.

Self-isolation, social distancing and healthy practices should not be in the service of proving one’s patriotism. Instead, these precautions should be done for the sake of caring for those whom we do and do not know, inside and outside our national communities.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

Adrian De Leon is an assistant professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

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The influence of Asian American resistance

Historical photos capture the strength of Asian American activism and its impact throughout US history

The term "Asian American" was first coined in 1968 amid the rising voices of the Third World Liberation Front student movements in California.

With tensions from protests against the Vietnam War and calls for universities to invest in ethnic studies programs, the Asian American identity was born out of advocacy for multiethnic unity among the Asian diaspora. The new identity also became a form of resistance against the otherness of being labeled as "Orientals" and fighting back against US imperialism in Asia.

Historical photographs showcase the history of Asian American resistance movements from the 1960s to the 1980s, demonstrating the strength and resilience of the Asian American community among tenants, students, and laborers.

The impassioned fight for justice depicted in the photos contrasts the societal stereotype of the obedient and subservient Asian. They also remind us of the civil rights and labor rights won by Asian Americans with the sheer power of the collective .

Delano Grape Strike (1965)

One of the most important labor movements in US history was the Delano Grape Strike, a collaborative effort between Filipino American and Mexican American farm workers in California.

On September 8, 1965, Filipino-American farm workers, members of the Agricultural Labor Organizing Committee, walked out and declared a strike against Delano-area table and wine grape growers in Bakersfield, California.

They demanded a raise in their hourly wage from $1.25 to $1.40 and in the pay rate per packed box of grapes from 10 cents a box to 25 cents.

Labor organizers of the Agricultural Labor Organizing Committee enlisted the help of the National Farm Workers Association, and in 1966, the two unions merged to form the United Farm Workers .

For the next five years, Filipino and Mexican American workers continued to strike for economic justice for all farm workers.

In his statement before the US Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor in 1966, Cesar Chavez, a labor organizer with the National Farm Workers Association, said the "whole system of occupational discrimination must be killed just like the discrimination against people of color is being challenged in Washington."

"This, and nothing more, is what farmworkers want," Chavez added.

Third World Liberation Front Strikes (1968)

The Third World Liberation Front strikes ignited the first Asian American activist movement.

Held at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968, the five-month strike was led by a coalition of student groups demanding ethnic-focused courses be added to the university's curriculum.

Though initiated by the Black Student Union, the coalition was made up of African-American, Asian-American, Latin-American, and Native-American students. These students were unified not only through their shared colonial and imperial struggles across Asia, Africa, and Latin America but also their experiences as people of color in a predominantly white, Eurocentric institution.

During the strikes, the students conducted large rallies, teach-ins, sit-ins, and picketing on the campus. In response, the university called the police, and riot squads began mass arrests of students .

The same year, Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee, both graduate students and key organizers of the Asian American Political Alliance, coined the term "Asian American." This term was created to "unify Asian ethnicities together based on their shared experiences under Orientalist US racism."

In 1969, the first Asian American studies curricula were established at the UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Protests Against the I-Hotel Evictions (1977)

International Hotel, or I-Hotel, in San Francisco's Kearny Street was a residential hotel for older Filipino and Chinese people, immigrant workers, and families who had been there since they immigrated in the 1920s.

With real estate development rapidly growing in the late 1970s, what was once a 10-block stretch of Manilatown was reduced to a single block anchored by I-Hotel.

At 3 a.m. on August 4, 1977, the San Francisco police went in and staged a mass eviction of the I-Hotel residents . At least 3,000 residents confronted 400 riot-geared police outside the building. Over 100 tenants and supporters barricaded themselves inside the building. Police broke into the windows of apartments and removed the remaining older tenants.

With the last vestige of Manilatown destroyed after the building was demolished in 1979, community members and supporters of the former I-Hotel residents continued to resist local real estate developers. Organizations such as the Chinatown Community Development Center and the Manilatown Heritage Foundation formed as a result of the community's efforts to fulfill social needs and fight for grassroots housing for their fellow residents.

Garment Worker Strikes (1982)

One of the largest protests in New York City's Chinatown history took place in 1982 when 20,000 garment workers went on strike.

Whispers of striking spread among the workers, predominantly young Chinese immigrant women . They no longer tolerated the low wages, little to no benefits, dangerous working conditions, and long hours .

In late June, they crowded Columbus Park and made their demands, and their employers signed the new International Ladies Garment Workers Union contract. With the help of city councilmen, local businesses, and community advocates, the garment shop employers began to sign the contract. They managed to get the signatures of every manufacturer by mid-afternoon.

Despite the swiftness and scale of the strike, May Chen, one of the ILGWU strike organizers, said she believes the strike's success remained "invisible up to the millennium" given the limited media coverage on Asian American communities and issues at the time.

Conviction of Chol Soo Lee (1982)

Chol Soo Lee, a 21-year-old Korean immigrant, was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 1974 after a local gang member, Yip Yee Tak, was shot to death in Chinatown.

After being misidentified by eyewitnesses, Lee was sentenced to life in prison.

K.W. Lee, founder of the Korean American Journalists Association, brought Lee's case to public attention. After investigating the case, he was convinced of Lee's innocence and began a series of writings advocating for his freedom.

This caught on with Asian Americans nationwide, and the "Free Chol Soo Lee Defense Committee" was created. The committee raised more than $120,000 to support Chol Soo's appeal of his initial murder conviction. The collective effort of Lee's supporters won him a retrial, which successfully led to the overturning of his murder conviction.

After spending a decade in prison, Lee spent the next 30 years working as a union organizer and advocate for the Asian American community .

"When you go through that kind of experience, and you see inhumane acts of violence … going through that brings out deeper humanity and compassion for other people," Lee said in a 2008 interview with Asian Week.

Murder of Vincent Chin (1982)

On the night of his bachelor party on November 2, 1983, Vincent Chin, then 27, was brutally beaten to death by two white men in Detroit.

Chin, who was Chinese-American, was targeted by the men who blamed Asians for job losses in the American auto industry amid the success of Japanese automakers.

Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz denied the attack was racially motivated and were charged with manslaughter after pleading to a second-degree murder charge. They left with three years of probation and a $3,000 fine and did not spend a single day in jail.

The judge presiding over the trial said Ebens and Nitz "aren't the kind of men you send to jail … You fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime."

As a result of this sentencing, Asian Americans in Detroit protested the sentence and denounced the city's legal system. A second investigation was initiated by the Department of Justice and the FBI after mass mobilization.

In 1983, a federal grand jury ruled that the attack against Chin was racially motivated and found Ebens guilty, sentencing him to 25 years in prison.

Chin's murder contributed to the landmark passing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal civil rights protections to safeguard American minorities against hate crimes.

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Is writing about being an Asian-American a bad thing for college applications? Answered

I’ve done some research into affirmative action for colleges, but the case with Asian-Americans is particularly taboo. A lot of different sources say a lot of different things. Some places tell me not to check the box on the Common App that states your ethnicity, while others say race isn’t a big deal. Being Asian-American is an important part of me, but I don’t want it to ruin my college chances. I’m currently drafting a supplemental essay about my ethnicity and my struggles but I don’t know if it’ll come off to app readers as overdone. So do you think I should be low-key about my race on my college app to stand out more?

Earn karma by helping others:

Hi there! To answer your questions:

1. Not checking the ethnicity box generally has little impact on your application for Asians. Admissions officers will know your ethnicity by your last name, or your parents' last names, unless you're biracial and have a non-Asian last name, as do your parents.

2. Writing about your struggles with your ethnicity is a cliche essay topic, and it's especially recommended that Asian-Americans avoid this, as it will only draw further attention to their ethnicity when they already have a harder time getting into college. If this aspect of your identity is incredibly meaningful to you, you can still write about it, but you should try to do so in a way that is more unique.

For instance, rather than generally talking about your struggles, you might focus on one aspect of your Asian identity - a South Asian might discuss colorism in their community and their experience with that, for instance. You could also subvert expectations and use the cliche storyline, but then add a twist - i.e. "I struggled to fit in, felt torn between my cultures and languages, so that led to my passion for studying foreign languages, as there was no expectation for fluency in a language not tied to my culture, and that was freeing."

You might find this article helpful: https://blog.collegevine.com/cliche-college-essay-topics/

Hope this helps, and let me know if you have more questions!

The whole application is to showcase who you are as a person, so if your race is a very important part of who you are, write about it. One tip would just be to focus less on the struggles and more on how they affected you & how you grew from them. Hope this helps!

So depending on your name it will not matter what ethnicity you are if you have a blatant name.

As for an essay about being an AA I’m of the opinion of high risk high reward. Some AOs may not like it but others will love it. If you talk about struggles it may be cliche but as an AA I’m unsure. Ask yourself is the essay so unique no one else will have this essay? If so the AA may be a nice difference than the struggles of growing up in a Hispanic area as that is approaching cliche.

Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!

Sorry about this comment. I messed up while trying to answer this question, and for some reason, I cannot delete this comment.

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How the Asian American film community has risen past racism, blocked opportunities

"Soul of a Nation" explores the history of Asian Americans in cinema.

For Asian American artists, the success of movies and TV shows like "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and "Never Have I Ever," have been a long time coming, after they faced decades of racism and closed doors in Hollywood.

Asian American actors say the struggles they have faced to make it to the screen are a result of the country's xenophobic attitudes towards Asian Americans, South Asians, Hawaiians and Pacific Islander immigrants.

"I came here in 1953. I began to feel the prejudice of the society," veteran actor James Hong told ABC News. "In those days, there were no so-called important roles for Asians."

Hong, 94, and other Asian American artists say that recent years have shown not only is the industry more open to sharing those stories, but also audiences are craving them as well.

MORE: Video Culture Conversations: Hollywood representation behind the lens

The ABC News' special " The New Face of Hollywood – A Soul of a Nation Presentation," will explore the history of the community in movies and TV and how they continue to make their voices heard. The special airs on ABC May 26 at 8 p.m. ET and is streaming on Hulu the next day.

Jeff Yang, a film journalist and author, told ABC News that Asian Americans faced strict barriers to many industries going back to the 19th century with the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The Exclusion Act, along with other policies like the Immigration Act of 1924 and the Japanese internment camps during World War II, fed into the nation's anti-Asian sentiment, according to experts.

Even when those acts were repealed in the middle of the 20th century, the sentiment and racism remained, according to Yang.

"That effectively made it impossible to make Asians the hero of any story in early Hollywood," he said.

Yang said that even when movies or TV shows had Asian characters, they would be portrayed by white actors in makeup. If an Asian was cast in a role, it would typically be a villain or a stereotypical caricature that was the butt of a racist joke, he said.

Hong recalled seeing J. Carrol Naish put on the makeup and act out those stereotypes as the title role of the TV show "The New Adventures of Charlie Chan."

"I was hurt, but in that sense, [the] hurt became so prevalent that it didn't really hurt," he said.

Yang noted that Asian women were either cast "as seductive temptresses, or as self-martyring, lotus blossoms."

Although most of Anna May Wong's movie roles fit into this mold, she was able to achieve major stardom in the entertainment industry and became the first Asian American female movie star, according to Yang.

Anna Wong, Anna May Wong's niece, told ABC News that she grew up admiring her namesake and the talent she brought to the screen during the early decades of motion pictures.

"Her very first successful movie, 'The Toll of the Sea,' she was 17, and it's a silent movie. But if you watch that movie, you see so much emotion coming from her," she told ABC News.

Despite that draw, Anna May Wong was also a victim of Hollywood's racism, according to film experts.

Wong lost the lead role of O-Lan in the 1937 film "The Good Earth," and filmmakers instead went with German-born actress Luise Rainer. Rainer, who appeared in yellowface to portray the Asian character, went on to win an Academy Award for her performance.

"People like Anna May Wong had to endure that humiliation, those stereotypes, those boxes, and they become invisible and excised," Wajahat Ali, a columnist and author, told ABC News. "It's like little flowers blooming from concrete that get stamped out, but the memory and the history…persevere."

Actor, writer and producer Nancy Kwan won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her leading role in the 1960 hit film "The World of Suzie Wong." Kwan portrayed a Chinese prostitute in the film. "Casting an Asian girl like me in the role was one of the first major roles for an Asian actor," Kwan told ABC News.

"In the early '60s, there were hardly any roles for Asians,” she said.

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Kwan recalled a time when she was in San Francisco promoting a film when a woman interrupted her in the middle of an interview. Kwan said, "this Chinese lady turns to me and said, Damn, Nancy, you played the prostitute, and now they think all Chinese women are prostitutes."

MORE: Video Michelle Yeoh reflects on her blockbuster career path and historic Oscar win

She told ABC News she responded, "I'm an actress. I play all sorts of roles. This one happened to be a prostitute."

Kwan said even being offered a role was a rare opportunity for actors like her. Kwan said it was a different era with "white actors playing Asians."

"It's difficult when you ask a minority or a person working in the industry, when there are not that many roles available, how they feel about it," she said.

In 1961 Kwan went on to star in the musical film “Flower Drum Song.” “Since the film [“The World of Suzie Wong”] did well, it gave me an opportunity to go into my next film, which was Flower Drum Song where I get to sing and dance… so, it was really a gift, a thrill,” Kwan said.

Flower Drum Song was the first major Hollywood feature film top have a majority Asian-American cast in an Asian-American centered story. Kwan played the leading role along with veteran actor James Hong.

Hong said he too struggled for a while in the industry, but he kept on going and would become a popular character actor in various hit shows and movies like "Seinfeld," "Mulan," and his biggest role in the Academy Award-winning movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Hong said he is proud of how the success of Asian-led film projects has opened up opportunities that he never had during his early career.

"It took me 70 years, but now it's exploded," he said. "Asian creators are creating, they're acting, they're producing, they're writing, they're directing. It's a dream come true."

Younger Asian American artists say they have been inspired by those who came before them.

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the 21-year-old star of the Netflix comedy series "Never Have I Ever," told ABC News that she was proud of the work that the show's creator Mindy Kaling did to present a grounded portrayal of South Asian Americans.

"It's nice to see people who look like me get to experience that representation. And it makes me realize the impact of 'Never Have I Ever' as a whole, and just projects, like 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' how they can have an impact on diversity and representation," Ramakrishnan said.

Jason Scott Lee, a fourth-generation Hawaiian, and star of films like “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” and “Mulan” told ABC News that Pacific Islander artists are also fighting back against stereotypes with film and TV projects.

MORE: Asians and Pacific Islanders battle 'invisibility' in media, Hollywood: Study

Last year he starred in "The Wind & the Reckoning," a historical movie set in the late 19th century that extensively used the Hawaiian language.

"It was extremely important for me as an actor and having a Hawaiian ancestry to do it like this," Lee said. "It feels like the landscape is shifting, that there's a bit of a paradigm shift there."

Kelvin Yu, the showrunner of the new Disney+ series "American Born Chinese," which stars Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh and Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan, says he, too, wanted to present one-of-a-kind stories that celebrate Chinese culture and history. Yu, who spoke to ABC News before the writers strike, said that the audience is hungry for those types of stories.

"The goal is changing the way people understand America, what kinds of stories are gratifying, what kinds of stories they want to see, or what kinds of stories they're willing to invest in," he said.

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The radical joy of queer Asian community: A photo love letter

• Updated: May. 30, 2024, 5:33 p.m. |
• Published: May. 29, 2024, 4:26 p.m.

Mobilization was necessary, and the images pulled for this article reveal the power of coalition building, reflection, and radical joy in the Asian-American struggle for justice and visibility. Their legacy continues to inspire and inform present-day activism, as the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic has tragically underscored the ongoing need for solidarity and resistance. Realuyo, Gulati, and Petkovic

• Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz

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For 35 years, New York City’s Asian American queer community has organized, resisted, and thrived. Their story is a microcosm of a nationwide movement that transformed queer Asian American activism, art, and acceptance across the nation.

From the West Coast’s Gay Asian Pacific Alliance , founded in 1980, to the Midwest’s Asian American Lesbian and Gay Alliance , established in 1988, communities across the country were mobilizing to address the unique experiences of queer Asian Americans, who often felt marginalized within both the Asian American and LGBTQ+ communities.

At the start of the 1990s, anti-Asian violence surged in New York City and across the nation , increasing by an alarming rate up 680% from 1985 to 1990. Local anti-Asian violence groups created flyers detailing the New York City Police Department’s Bias unit report of 3,254 reported rapes in NYC in 1989. The surge was not isolated; it mirrored a national rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, fueled by xenophobia and stereotypes.

Local anti-Asian violence groups created flyers detailing the New York City Police Department’s Bias unit report of 3,254 reported rapes in NYC in 1989. The surge was not isolated; it mirrored a national rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, fueled by xenophobia and stereotypes. Lesbian Herstory Archives

Mobilization was necessary, and the images pulled for this article reveal the power of coalition building, reflection, and radical joy in the Asian-American struggle for justice and visibility. Their legacy continues to inspire and inform present-day activism, as the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic has tragically underscored the ongoing need for solidarity and resistance.

The “Miss Saigon” protests: A watershed moment in queer Asian American activism

In the spring of 1991, New York City became a battleground for a pivotal moment in queer Asian American activism. The announcement that the Lambda Legal Defense Fund and the Lesbian and Gay Center would feature the musical “Miss Saigon” as a fundraiser ignited a firestorm of protest. This seemingly innocuous decision struck a nerve within the community, as the play’s portrayal of Asian women was widely viewed as offensive, degrading, and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

Leading the charge were two prominent queer Asian organizations, Asian Lesbians of the East Coast (ALOEC - though no longer online, you can learn about ALEOC in this zine ) and Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York . They were joined by a diverse coalition of LGBTQ+ groups and allies who recognized the racism inherent in the play’s casting of white actors in Asian roles (“yellowface”) and its exoticization of Asian women. Their central question was a powerful one: How could these mainstream organizations claim to represent all LGBTQ+ communities while ignoring the concerns of their Asian members?

The most widely cited account of the coalition work on The Heat is On Miss Saigon Coalition describes Miss Saigon as the key fundraiser of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund and NYC LGBT Center , instilling city-wide mobilization against the announcement. What began as a peaceful protest in the form of a request became a series of demands for the play to not be performed in New York City in the name of queer organizing.

A response to being left out of the FIA celebrations. Queers took the streets in 1997 creating their own counter parade. Lesbian Herstory Archives

The protests began with peaceful dialogue and requests for change. However, when these efforts were met with resistance and a refusal to remove “Miss Saigon” from the program, the coalition escalated their actions. The initial request transformed into a series of demands aimed at preventing the play’s performance in New York City altogether.

The protests culminated in multiple demonstrations , including a major one at the Broadway opening of “Miss Saigon” in the spring of 1991. As Milyoung Cho, a member of ALOEC and co-founder of Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence , explained in an interview, the movement quickly gained traction, drawing widespread media attention and sparking a broader conversation about representation, racism, and solidarity within the LGBTQ+ community. The “Miss Saigon’' protests marked a watershed moment in queer Asian American activism, demonstrating the power of collective action and the importance of challenging harmful stereotypes in mainstream culture.

May 22nd 1991 issue of Outweek with a cover story for their Queer N’ Asian issue ← reviewed by Bino A. Realuyo, co-founder of the Asian American LIterary Writers Workshop, and editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City (1999). Outweek

The movement also found a platform in the media, notably in the May 1991 issue of Outweek magazine. This groundbreaking issue, titled “ Queer N’ Asian issue ’' featured a cover story dedicated to the protests and the broader context of queer Asian activism. Bino A. Realuyo, co-founder of the Asian American LIterary Writers Workshop , and editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City (1999) reviewed the Queen N’ Asian issue, noting how it amplified the voices of queer Asian organizers, artists, and intellectuals, providing a much-needed space for nuanced discussions about race, sexuality, and representation within the LGBTQ+ community. The “Queer N’ Asian’ issue stands as a testament to the power of media in shaping social movements and giving voice to marginalized communities.

Desi queer activism and the India Day Parade

SALGA (South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association) merged as a vital hub for the Desi queer community in New York City, providing a safe space and fostering community for individuals from across the South Asian diaspora, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma (Myanmar), India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tibet as well as people of South Asian descent from countries such as Guyana, Trinidad and Kenya. Founded in 1991, SALGA’s impact extended far beyond its local roots, resonating with the experiences of queer South Asians across the United States and Canada.

Images from India Day Parade, New York City (Aug. 15, 2009)--members of SALGA and allies met before the day's parade to create signs amplifying the discrimination that excluded a visible contingent of Desi gays and lesbians from the march. Roopa Singh

Scholar and activist Gayatri Gopinath eloquently captures the significance of SALGA in her book, Local/Express: Asian American Arts and Community. She recounts her first encounter with the group in 1991, a time when a progressive South Asian community was just beginning to coalesce in New York City. Gopinath emphasizes the warmth and inclusivity she experienced at SALGA, despite being the only woman in a room of mostly older, first-generation immigrant men. This encounter underscores the importance of creating spaces where diverse voices within the Desi queer community could be heard and respected.

“I’ll never forget the day I screwed up the courage to walk into my first SAGA meeting at the LGBT Center on 13th Street: I was the only woman in a room full of mostly older, first-generation immigrant men,” Gopinath wrote. “But they were hugely welcoming and resolved there and then to change their name to SALGA. SALGA really came together in the fight to march for the first time in the India Day Parade in 1992″

One of SALGA’s most notable achievements was its involvement in the struggle to march in the annual India Day Parade. This parade, organized by the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA), celebrates India’s independence from colonial rule and serves as a major cultural event for the Indian diaspora in the Northeast United States. However, for many years, the FIA refused to allow LGBTQ+ groups to participate openly, reflecting the broader challenges faced by queer South Asians in navigating cultural and religious traditions.

In 1995, across the nation, parade exclusion fights made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In the case Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston , the court ruling against queer organizations. SALGA, along with other activists, played a crucial role in challenging this federal exclusion. Their tireless advocacy and organizing efforts eventually led to the FIA’s decision to allow SALGA to march in the parade in 2000 , despite specific rules marking a significant victory for visibility and acceptance.

The SALGA story is a testament to the power of grassroots activism and the importance of creating inclusive spaces within cultural communities. It also highlights the interconnectedness of queer Asian activism across different ethnic and regional groups, as SALGA’s struggles and triumphs resonated with and inspired other Desi queer organizations across the United States and Canada.

Image from 2017 Pride March from SALGA Website. SALGA

The rise of Asian American queer fiction

The mid-1990s marked a turning point in queer Asian literature , as a wave of new voices emerged to challenge stereotypes and express diverse experiences that went hand in hand with the political organizing happening at the time. This literary renaissance was deeply intertwined with the burgeoning queer Asian activist movement, which had gained momentum in the wake of protests like those against “Miss Saigon.” As more and more queer Asian Americans found community and empowerment through activism, they also sought to reclaim their narratives through writing.

By the mid-90s, it was easy to find first anthologies and collections of writers. The first-ever collection of gay male erotica was published by Cleis Press in 1998, titled Queer PAPI Porn: Gay Asian Erotica . This collection spanned 19 fuck fiction pieces introduced by its editor, Joël Barraquiel Tan, as “a sexy, smart, innovative book, stretching the boundaries of sex, race, and desire.” PAPI stands for Pilipinos, Asians, and Pacific Islanders, so though not all contributors are of PAPI descent or identify as exclusively male, the collection places queer PAPI porn at the center.

Cover for Queer PAPI 1998 publication edited by Joël Tan Cleis Press

Mainstream success opens doors for queer Asian filmmakers

The 2000s saw a surge in independent filmmakers, who were less constrained by commercial pressures and more willing to explore marginalized narratives. Mainstream cinema largely ignored queer Asian stories, perpetuating stereotypes or erasing them entirely. When representation did occur, it was often limited to supporting roles or one-dimensional characters. Within Asian communities, homosexuality was frequently taboo, leading to self-censorship and fear of ostracization. However, after Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2009, we saw shifts in opportunities for South Asian filmmakers. As an example, Sonali Gulati was awarded the 2009-2010 Robert Giard award, illustrating the impact mainstream art has on community-based art.

Sonali Gulati’s award-winning film, “I Am,” traces its origins to a moment of profound personal loss. After the passing of her mother, Gulati embarked on a journey back to her childhood home in Delhi, India. The film, which won the 2009-2010 Robert Giard Grant for Emerging Artists chronicles this poignant return after an 11-year absence. In “I Am,” Gulati confronts the unspoken truths of her past as an Indian lesbian filmmaker, exploring themes of love, loss, and the complexities of identity.

Film Still from “I Am” a film by Sonali Gulati. Sonali Gulati

Scholarship beyond borders

Though this article is meant to unveil Asian-American histories and narratives, it is important to detail the community connections across the boundaries of US-based Asian-American narratives, as the stories are not in isolation, but connected to a wide-reaching international community.

From the East Java Reyog project and Letter to Eros (Western Australia, Video Education Australasia, 16mm, 56 min, 1995) film project, produced and directed by Josko Petkovic. Josko Petkovic

A testament to this global dialogue is the 1999 issue of “ Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. ” This groundbreaking publication, now over two decades old, dedicated an entire issue to exploring the complex intersections of sexuality, gender, and culture across Asia.

Articles delved into diverse topics, from Japanese sexual politics to ancient rituals in the Philippines, queer Korean film to the nuances of naming gayness in Thailand. This issue remains a pivotal contribution to queer Asian history, showcasing the rich tapestry of experiences and expressions across the continent.

The range of historical representation of queer Asian-American history spans landscapes. It honors individuals, organizations, movement building, and representations of community that span diasporic landscapes. This list was never meant to be comprehensive, but it celebrates and pays homage to the work of Asian Americans to forge a mark with queer contexts and queerness, within the realms of Asian-American histories.

By recognizing these interconnected stories, we can gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of queer Asian experiences and the ongoing struggle for visibility and acceptance on a global scale.

More archival Resources:

• South Asian American Digital Archive - holds over 5,000 items, making it the largest publicly accessible archive of South Asian American stories and their archive of Brown Queer Feelings
• Okaeri Voices project - Los Angeles based resource and support group Okaeri hosts oral history interviews with LGBTQ Japanese Americans all over the age of 60.
• Timeline: Asian American and Pacific Islander LGBTQ History, 1873-2022 chronicles the history of LGBTQ+ people in API communities.
• The Dragon Fruit Project uplifts the stories of queer and trans API leaders and activists through oral histories, zines, a timeline of LGBTQ Asian and Pacific Islander history, and more.
• Interview with Representatives of the Union of Democratic Filipinos at a protest against the Miss Universe pageant held in the Philippines on July 19, 1974 via the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
• Where to Learn the Queer Asian American History You Absolutely Missed in School list of archival projects by Densho.org

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is a Black lesbian archivist and librarian living in NYC. You can find her online at shawntasmithcruz.com .

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Jay Park reveals what he's learned about fame and how it 'could change in an instant'

Becoming a singer was never at the forefront of a young Jay Park 's mind. He didn't take too much seriously, but enjoyed rapping and dancing. When his mom gave up on the idea of Jay attending college, she encouraged him to go to an audition.

"'Go audition for this thing and see where you stand; see where you stand within this industry,'" the 37-year-old recalls. At that audition, Park performed a self-written rap and freestyle danced and was selected to become a K-pop idol.

Almost two decades later, Park continues to release music and has added CEO and music label founder to his resume. His latest offering, "Jay Park Season 2," drops May 28.

"It all just happened very organically," Park tells USA TODAY. "It's almost like I didn't choose this career path, it kind of chose me, which sounds corny, but that's really how it happened."

Born in Seattle and raised in Edmonds, Washington, Park wasn't a model student. He often skipped class and had a "really bad GPA," he says.

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"My parents immigrated to the States in order for more opportunity and even for me as well," Jay says. "They wanted me to study well and become a doctor or lawyer."

But he never envisioned higher education and preferred rapping and dancing, having been introduced to hip-hop during the second grade thanks to a cousin.

"MTV and radio were very heavily influential at that time," he says. "I got really into R&B; you know like Michael Jackson, Usher , Ginuwine."

Paving his own career path

Park debuted with 2PM in 2008 and during the K-pop group's infancy, his social media posts sparked controversy. The fallout led to his departure from the group.

After moving back to the states, Jay began to rebuild his career. He wanted to showcase his individual talents and skills and began posting YouTube covers, later releasing his first EP in 2010. "I wanted to do things that I wanted to do and not cater too much to what people wanted," he says.

But Jay felt isolated on his own; a feeling that followed him around since youth. Park often felt like "the odd man out" growing up in the U.S. "I don't really fit in as an Asian, especially an Asian dude," he recalls.

When he moved to Korea, the disconnect continued. Jay didn't speak the language perfectly, nor did he understand the culture. People would constantly remind him that he was American.

"When I was younger, I didn't fit in anywhere," Park says. "I had to see where I fit in, and that's where I think hip-hop and dancing really gave me a sense of identity and a sense of belonging."

Park sought to establish a collective so he could "feed off energy; just do music together," he says. Jay's manager at the time sparked the idea to start his own label. Park founded AOMG in 2013 and H1GHER MUSIC in 2017 and served as CEO for both until 2021. In 2022, he established his latest label MORE VISION , home to artists including CHUNG HA .

"The reason why I made my own labels is because I wish I had someone to share these experiences or lend a helping hand or guide me to ... what I need to do with this type of fame or when stuff goes wrong," he says. "I never had that, I just had to figure it out for myself."

Especially now as Park embarks on making his own idol groups – both male and female – under MORE VISION, he wants to lead by example.

"I want to be a good mentor to these kids. We're investing our time and our money and they're investing their youth," he says. "I don't take anyone's time for granted. Their time is just as important to me as it is to them."

Entering 'Jay Park Season'

In the midst of all his business ventures, Park continues releasing solo music. His tracks " MOMMAE " and " All I Wanna Do " have garnered over 100 million streams on Spotify. He is among the top 1% of streaming artists in South Korea. He was also the first Asian artist signed to Jay-Z’s label, Roc Nation.

Jay has never shied away from reflecting his personality in all that he does, particularly in his music. And his latest project " Jay Park Season " places Park back in the spotlight.

The series of EPs are the lead-up to a solo, R&B album; Jay's first one in eight years. "I had a catalog of a bunch of R&B songs that I've been working on for the past four or five years. I was too busy to finish," he shares.

Now, his artistry is returning with a mixture of old and new sounds. Songs written as far back as six year ago are juxtaposed against more recent musings. "You could see the change in attitude and of substance and content," he adds, "now, it's like a little bit more depth."

Park hopes his music can "age well." "It's not about right now. It's about five years. I want you to be able to listen to it 10 years from now and be like, 'Oh, that was a good song.'"

Reflecting on his career journey

Jay has been active for 16 years, and he's not slowing down anytime soon.

"I don't like to do things that come easy," he says. "I like to challenge myself because that's how you grow."

He felt this when launching his own soju brand, Won Soju . It took nearly four years to develop, but it was something new, motivating Park to work harder. And when he drinks soju, Jay says it depends on the occasion; it could be taking shots or mixing the alcohol with club soda.

Jay says he's always trying to become a better person, "to try to learn new things, be more understanding, patient, whatever it may be."

He's grateful for all his experiences since he knows anything "could change in an instant."

"Expect the unexpected and always try to be mindful and thankful," he says.

Research Our Records

Asian American and Pacific Islander Records at the National Archives

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Records may contain personal information about individuals who are still living. These records are possibly restricted under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Exemption (b)(6), and must be screened by National Archives staff before being released to researchers. Personal information may be redacted. Learn more about FOIA .

The National Archives holds a wealth of records documenting Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals. These records, created by federal agencies across a wide range of topics, capture the rich history and diversity of AAPI communities, as well as the challenges and triumphs they have faced.

As you plan your research, consider this question: how does my research topic intersect with the U.S. federal government?  

Please note:  Although some records are digitized and available online, there are many records that are only available in paper or microfilm format at National Archives research locations.

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Indo-German Trials Case Files and Related Records

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Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month Ceremony Records

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Blogs and articles.

National Archives News : Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Hoover Heads blog: " Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Not Quite American " (2018)

Pieces of History blog: " Asian/Pacific American History: Learning Our Legacy " (2020)

The Text Message blog: " The Past is the Present in the Asian American/Pacific Islander Records Aggregation Project " (2021)

The Text Message blog: " Honoring Notable Asian Pacific Americans for APA Heritage Month " (2019)

History Hub: “ 1950 Census: Language Barriers with Chicago's Chinese Community ”

History Hub: “ 1950 Census: Form P80, 1950 Census of Population – American Samoa ”

History Hub: “ 1950 Census: Form P85, 1950 Census of Population – Guam ”

History Hub: “ 1950 Census: Form P87, 1950 Census of Population and Housing – Hawaii ”

Reference Information Papers

Please note: These publications have not been updated since their initial release. We recommend that you  contact us  prior to visiting to review original records.

A Guide to Records of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders at the National Archives and Records Administration Pacific Region—San Francisco, 2004 ( Reference Information Paper 111 )

Chinese Immigration and Chinese in the United States: Records in the Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1996 ( Reference Information Paper 99 )

Records in the National Archives at San Francisco for the Study of Ethnic History, 1994 ( Reference Information Paper 83 )

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The participants in this companion documentary were not part of the focus group study, but were similarly sampled to tell their own stories.

• Read the data essay: What It Means To Be Asian in America
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• About this research project: More on the Being Asian in America project
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Most Asian Americans think SAT but not race is fair to consider for college admissions

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Most Asian American adults support use of the SAT and other standardized testing, along with high school grades, in college admission decisions but reject considering race or ethnicity to determine access, according to a new national survey released Wednesday.

The majority also think it’s unfair for colleges to consider an applicant’s athletic ability, family alumni ties, ability to pay full tuition or parents’ educational levels in determining who should get acceptance letters, the survey found.

At the same time, most Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders surveyed believe that slavery, racism and segregation should be taught in schools and oppose individual school boards restricting classroom discussion of specific topics, as some conservative districts have done.

Overall, AAPI adults value higher education not only as a pathway to economic well-being but for teaching critical thinking, fostering the free exchange of ideas and advancing equity and inclusion.

The survey by AAPI Data, a UC research enterprise, and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,068 AAPI adults age 18 and older. The poll, conducted April 8-17 in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Korean, has a margin of error of 4.7 percentage points.

The poll offers a comprehensive look at attitudes toward education among Asian Americans, who make up a disproportionately large share of students at the University of California and other selective institutions — yet are often overlooked in policy discussions about equity and diversity.

Supreme Court strikes down race-based affirmative action in college admissions

In another major reversal, the Supreme Court forbids the use of race as an admissions factor at colleges and universities.

June 29, 2023

Several polls have shown that Asian Americans support affirmative action, depending on how the question is asked. A 2022 survey found support at 69% when respondents were asked if they favor programs to help Black people, women and other minorities get access to higher education. But Asian American plaintiffs who led a landmark lawsuit against Harvard University argued that affirmative action policies that use race as a factor in admissions discriminated against them. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down such race-conscious practices.

In the new survey, the question about using race in admissions, worded without context about whom it would help, drew little support. Asked if they think it is “fair, unfair or neither fair or unfair for colleges and universities to make decisions about admitting students” based on race and ethnicity, 18% of respondents said it was fair, 53% said it was unfair, and 27% said it was neither.

The AAPI Data/Associated Press-NORC survey is among the first to gauge Asian American attitudes on standardized testing and other metrics for college admissions, along with broader questions about the value of education.

“The stereotype of AAPIs might suggest that they care about education only in a narrow way as it relates to economic mobility and hard skills related to job prospects,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a UC Riverside professor of public policy and political science and founder of AAPI Data. “This study reveals a more nuanced and fuller portrait, illustrating that AAPI individuals value education ... also for fostering critical thinking and nurturing a more informed citizenry.”

A strong majority — 71% — of those surveyed believe the history of slavery, racism, segregation and the AAPI community should be taught in public schools. A smaller majority, 53%, favor teaching about sex and sexuality — including 72% of AAPI Democrats and 25% of Republicans.

Overall, AAPI adults hold similar views as the general American public about the keys to children’s success: hard work, time spent with parents and which schools they attend. Asian Americans, however, are significantly more likely to believe the neighborhoods they live in are important to educational success — 62%, compared with 49% of all Americans. Ramakrishnan said research has shown that AAPI families are more willing to move to areas with good schools even if it means living in worse housing.

Asian American support for standardized testing comes as several elite universities have restored those requirements for admissions after pausing them during the pandemic. In recent months, Harvard, Caltech, Yale, Dartmouth and the University of Texas at Austin, among others, have reinstated testing mandates.

UC slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative

The University of California has slammed the door shut on standardized testing for admissions, saying no alternative to the SAT can avoid bias based on race, income.

Nov. 18, 2021

Some institutions say their reviews showed that the testing requirements increase diversity — benefiting applicants with less access to a rigorous high school curriculum, strong letters of recommendation or impressive extracurricular activities. Others have said it’s harder to assess an applicant’s readiness for college work without standardized testing — especially because many educators have reported significant grade inflation since the pandemic.

The University of California and California State University have both eliminated standardized testing requirements for admission.

Although some UC leaders have indicated interest in reviewing the effect of that decision on student outcomes, faculty leaders say there may not be much of an appetite for it. The UC Board of Regents rejected the Academic Senate’s recommendation to retain testing requirements and voted to bar them for admissions decisions.

USC is continuing its test-optional policy — accepting scores from those who wish to submit them but not penalizing those who don’t — and is reviewing whether to continue that course.

Frank Xu, a San Diego parent of a high school sophomore and an MIT student, said he opposed UC regents’ decision to nix testing mandates and believes that the preponderance of research shows that test scores highly correlate with college success.

“I’m all for research-based decisions, and I felt that at UC, it was a completely political decision to ignore the faculty senate,” he said.

But some Asian American students say testing is an unfair factor in admissions decisions.

At Downtown Magnets High School, students Rida Hossain and Shariqa Sultana said their families were not able to afford test prep, with annual incomes of less than $30,000 and relatives in Bangladesh to support.

“Standardized testing doesn’t portray a student’s capacity for how they’ll perform in higher education, because in the classroom, they’ll be doing a lot of essay writing, research, collaboration and projects that wouldn’t necessarily be put into a multiple-choice exam,” Shariqa said. “How you actually perform in class and your extracurriculars are a better metric than one test that determines your entire future.”

Ramakrishnan said there are several reasons why many Asian Americans support standardized testing. The majority are immigrants from China, South Korea, India and other countries that use such tests for college admissions, he said. They are accustomed to a system of high-stakes testing and see it as an equitable way to determine college access, compared with wealth or political connections.

The survey backs up that point, showing that 70% of AAPI respondents who are immigrants back testing, compared with 56% of those born in the United States. A plurality of those surveyed, 45%, said it was fair to consider personal experiences with hardship or adversity.

But 69% of those surveyed said legacy admissions — preferential treatment for children of alumni — was unfair, while 48% oppose consideration of an applicant’s ability to pay. A majority, 54%, don’t think it’s fair to consider whether applicants are the first in their family to attend college.

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Teresa Watanabe covers education for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the Times in 1989, she has covered immigration, ethnic communities, religion, Pacific Rim business and served as Tokyo correspondent and bureau chief. She also covered Asia, national affairs and state government for the San Jose Mercury News and wrote editorials for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. A Seattle native, she graduated from USC in journalism and in East Asian languages and culture.

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20 years on, William Hung looks back on 'American Idol' audition with no regrets

William Hung’s unforgettable appearance on reality singing competition “American Idol” catapulted him to early aughts fame, drawing as many trolls as there were fans. But two decades later, Hung says he still has no regrets. 

Hung, who was 21 years old when his audition aired in January 2004, became one of the earliest viral sensations in recent history after his enthusiastic, yet off-key, rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” stunned both the judges and American households. Hung, an immigrant from Hong Kong and one of the rare Asian faces on American TV, was an unlikely trailblazer on mainstream television. However, many mocked him for his appearance, accent and confidence. And some Asian Americans saw him as a source of shame. 

With this year marking the 20th anniversary of his episode, Hung, now 41, said he’s reflecting on his time in the spotlight with immense pride in his composure while spreading his message. 

“I feel that everyone has a right to try something new without being judged or ridiculed,” Hung said. “It’s OK for people to enjoy themselves.” 

Much has changed for Hung. He struggled with a gambling addiction for a while, he said, which friends and family helped him overcome. These days, he’s married and working at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as a senior stats analyst. He’s still speaking and performing, and he makes occasional movie or television appearances, he said.

But two decades ago, a smiling Hung appeared on the third season of “American Idol,” dressed in a patterned button-down, with his hair parted to the side. In the episode, he enthusiastically steps in front of judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson.

“I’m here for the opportunity to sing to America,” Hung, then a college student at the University of California, Berkeley, tells the judges as they grill him. “I might not be the best singer around the world, but I know that I am singing from my heart.” 

Hung dives into his a capella cover, dancing energetically as the panel dissolves into laughter and confusion. Cowell eventually calls the act “one of the worst auditions we’ve had this year.” 

Though the entire segment only lasts a few minutes, it was enough to rocket him to stardom. “Saturday Night Live” parodied him. He made several appearances on talk shows and sports events. At one point, he was even given a record contract. But much of Hung’s popularity was at his expense. Media was littered with impressions of Hung that smacked of offensive caricatures of Asian Americans as nerds with heavily accented English and no style or game, experts said. 

Though the public and media carried on as if Hung was oblivious to the sneers, he said he was aware of it all, but intent on tuning it out and focusing on the fans for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Hung explained that the audition came during a time when he was struggling academically. After winning a campus talent show by singing his now-infamous Ricky Martin cover, he said he got the confidence to give “American Idol” a shot. Hung said he didn’t have high expectations and wasn’t bothered by the judges’ comments. 

“Randy would hold this white sheet of paper to cover up his face as he kept laughing. I already knew that I probably wasn’t going to make it,” Hung remembers. “Paula was smiling. Simon was frowning. I kept singing and dancing. I felt like ‘It’s OK. I don’t want to be angry and upset like some of the other contestants.’” 

When the episode aired in January of the following year, Hung said he secluded himself in his room, hoping to process the moment by himself. But life changed almost instantly, he said. While he had hoped to finish college, he left to chase the opportunities that were flooding in. For him, the exposure was a chance to stand tall in the face of critics. 

Hung said he didn’t dwell on the role that race played in his reception. Looking back, he said, he understands the way his Asian background factored into the surrounding media coverage. He’s also understanding of the negative responses from some Asian Americans. 

“There were not as many prominent Asian figures overall. I remember back then that there’s Jackie Chan, maybe Michelle Kwan, Lucy Liu … that’s a small list,” he said. “I have empathy towards the people who criticize me because it’s like, ‘Wow, here comes William Hung putting Asians on the wrong foot, the wrong side of this perception.’” 

James Zarsadiaz, an associate professor of history at the University of San Francisco, said Hung had unintentionally reinforced all the cultural tropes of Asian Americans, while the audition ultimately revealed how most Americans still saw the group. Zarsadiaz added that rather than condemn the racist jeering, Asian Americans often blamed the contestant for the racism, likely in part because of their decadeslong fight against already problematic depictions. 

“Some probably felt that he made them look bad,” he said. “They also embraced an assimilationist ideology around how people should behave in the American mainstream media.” 

Anthony Ocampo, a sociology professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, added that for Asian men in particular, the way Hung was emasculated triggered memories of some of their own experiences, being teased for their appearance. But, Ocampo said, few came to Hung’s defense. In fact, many Asian Americans joined in the teasing in an attempt to distance themselves from the same nerdy tropes tied to Hung and assert their own sense of belonging. Additionally, some others may have internalized the idea of immigrants as two-dimensional characters. 

“They don’t realize that William Hung was a whole-ass person,” Ocampo said. “He’s a complicated person as anybody who had a story to tell that we just never really got to hear because we were so anchored on seeing him as a caricature. … Even Asian Americans weren’t willing to scratch below the surface.” 

What Hung did on “American Idol” all those years ago, Ocampo said, was, in reality, quite admirable. 

“Bottom line, he was someone who was fearless, unbothered, openly vulnerable, willing to try again and unconcerned with putting up a front,” Ocampo said.

Kimmy Yam is a reporter for NBC Asian America.