This response is a pretty specific response I had to Abby Wilkerson. Wilkerson states that minorities and outcasts are often sexually oppressed because they are already disadvantaged socially. I, myself being Korean, have experienced such prejudice. I have found that people have different expectations from me. There is an odd trend that people see Asians as less sexually apt than others! People have assumed certain things about me because of my race. Society and media display Asian men as less masculine than others. I have done research on this trend before, and have come to one conclusion. When Asian people first came to America to build the railroads, many American settlers saw how Chinese men cooked and did their own laundry. This was a fine observation, but when the Chinese men started taking the labor positions because of their cheap wages, Americans started discriminating against the Chinese, and the stereotype was made.
This is just something I have found over time, but it makes sense, and it is relevant towards me. Wilkerson describes the prejudice in a very general sense, but I have experienced it first hand, which is very insightful.
Diablog Group 3, Follow up
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I can break down the prejudice a little bit more. In your example, the first Chinese came here individually. Socially, they were away from home, isolated in the vast America land. It was hard for them to make life. Chinese came to the US unarmed. So, they became an easy target for bully by Americans who wanted to show off and impress ladies. That developed a trend to disregard another races sexually as well as socially.
May I ask you to give a specific example for the prejudice you have felt?
I grew up in California through most of my youth, up until around 12 or 13, and moved to Minnesota. The region I lived in California had a really Korean heavy population, so for most of the part I experienced no racism. But Minnesota is different. I'm not saying Minnesota as a state is prejudice, but there is an obvious majority, white people, and minorities, Latino, African American, Asian, etc. The first day of class I came in and started the first day kind of stuff. We had to draw name-tags with a drawing of something special on it. I was doing my thing until the bully of the class came up to me and told me to do his work, because I was Asian, thus making me a great artist or a laborer or something. This was a minor incident, but it was my first incident with blatant direct racism, and it stuck with me. For the first time I was questioned who I was, and what that meant to me.
That was me being questioned through race. My sexuality was questioned all throughout my high school simply because I was able to connect and talk to girls better than guys. Rumors flew that I was gay and whatnot, but other guys have friends that are girls too, but don't get question! Why was I being target? It was because I didn't fit into the "tough guy" model. I'm tall but slimmer, and I like wearing tight pants. So I was judged.
I had the same exact problems growing up being Vietnamese. People love to make the assumption that I draw well and work hard. A lot of people came to me to copy instead of other people which was frustrating. I sort of see what you mean with the Chinese laborer thing, but I think its a really big connection to make. I don't know where this stereotype came , maybe its because so many asian parents value education so much that they probably encountered an asian american with good ethics and assumes their all the same. I think another issue that we have to deal with is the common sexual stereotype asian men have.
This is something that I have never really considered before reading this article. I grew up in a small town that was VERY white. I think the few people of other ethnicities who I went to high school with already got a lot of attention simply because there were so few of them and they looked different. I believe it's the added attention that causes people who aren't white in the Midwest to have their sexuality questioned.
Thanks for this great discussion. Here are two sources that might be helpful for thinking about Asian men, masculinity and sexual stereotypes:
1. David Eng's book Racial Castration
2. David Pierson's LA Times article via Asian Nation Sex and the Asian Man
There is also another great book about racism, specifically against the Chinese. If you have ever heard of, read, or watched movies involving the fictional character of Charlie Chan (he's often been referred to as the Chinese version of Sherlock Holmes), you might be interested in reading this book: Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History
by Yunte Huang. Although the book does not really discuss sexuality or masculinity as it relates to the Asian culture, Charlie Chan as a character is an interesting study: he speaks in Confucian sayings, bows constantly, is very submissive, speaks in a very stereotypical accent, is a teetotaler, and yet he has 13 or 14 children! I'm not sure what the purpose was in providing this character with so many children (people he meets are always very surprised to hear the number of his offspring). Perhaps a way to demonstrate his virility? As if there is no other way to show his "masculinity" than by his large family?