{"id":1541,"date":"2019-12-18T11:30:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T16:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=1541"},"modified":"2019-12-18T15:45:45","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T20:45:45","slug":"asian-american-the-invisible-minority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/han\/asian-american-the-invisible-minority\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian-American, the Invisible Minority"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her essay \u201cInvisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman,\u201d Yamada addresses the frustrating lack of awareness with which the majority culture regards Asian-American oppression. Yamada, then a professor of English at Cypress College in Seattle, Washington, begins the essay with an anecdote from an Ethnic American Literature course she had taught. In the course, she introduced to her class the works of various politically active Asian-American writers, as a part of the Asian segment of the course curriculum. During one of the class discussions, Yamada recounts how several students mentioned they \u201cwere not offended by any of the Black American, Chicano or American Indian writings . . . [as] they \u2018understood\u2019 the anger expressed by the Black Americans and Chicanos and they \u2018empathized\u2019 with the frustrations and sorrow expressed by the American Indian\u201d (30). Yet, for some reason, when it came to Asian-Americans, some students noted that they found themselves <\/span>angry<\/span><\/i> at the idea that Asian-Americans could even be oppressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reflecting on her students\u2019 honest, albeit ignorant, remarks, Yamada realized that the invisible condition of Asian-American oppression explained much of the (not so) casual racism she had encountered all throughout her life. She notes one particular interaction in which she was explaining to her college\u2019s administrators how they had infringed upon her rights as a professor. In response to Yamada\u2019s self-defense, the administrators exclaimed how uncharacteristic this was of someone \u201c\u2018so polite, so obedient, so non-trouble-making\u2019,\u201d and furthermore, how it \u201cundoubtedly [must have been] some of \u2018those feminists\u2019,\u201d rather than Yamada herself, that pushed her to raise such a dispute (31). Yamada writes how she ultimately \u201c\u2018let it go\u2019,\u201d choosing not to challenge the administrators for their racist remarks, because it would have been futile to do so with those unable to even recognize their own racist behavior (31).<\/span><\/p>\n

Yamada then notes that Asian-American women, even more so than Asian-Americans as a whole, were especially slow to \u201cemerg[e] as a viable minority\u201d in American society (31). With respect to her students\u2019 surprise that Asian-Americans were oppressed at all, Yamada explains that, ironically, Asian-American women not admitting to themselves the reality of their oppression contributes significantly to such a narrative. And herein is the crux of the Asian-American invisibility issue. Through continued dishonesty with ourselves about our experiences with oppression, Asian-Americans can only exacerbate existing stigmatic stereotypes, as Yamada herself had done, passive even in the face of such blatant racism, during the aforementioned dispute with the college administrators.<\/span><\/p>\n

To further evidence this notion, Yamada remarks how she had, for the past eleven years, happily busied herself with the daily responsibilities as an English professor, a wife, and a mother of four children. Unwittingly, Yamada found herself contentedly fulfilling the role of the middle-class woman, who was her family\u2019s secondary income source, \u201cquietly fitting into the man\u2019s world of work\u201d (32). Thus, the duality of being a woman and Asian-American makes it doubly more difficult to remove the mainstream perception of invisibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asian-Americans have been socially conditioned to expect responses which trivialize their adversity. This powerlessness, Yamada writes, results in feeling unable to make a difference to anyone or anything. If we have been trained since our childhood to allow others to redefine the extent of our adversity, then it is no wonder we feel invisible. Yamada explains that Asian-Americans\u2019 relinquishing of power over their own experiences is due to an inability to separate opinions from their source. That is, the social apathy is viewed as something that \u201c\u2018can\u2019t be helped.’\u201d This is what mutated Asian-American culture into one of invisibility. Therefore, to move towards visibility, Yamada advocates we must first recognize the fact that we <\/span>are <\/span><\/i>invisible and to \u201craise our voices a little more, even as they say to us \u2018This is so uncharacteristic of you\u2019\u201d (35).<\/span><\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/span><\/p>\n

Yamada, Mitusye. \u201cInvisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman.\u201d <\/span>This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color<\/span><\/i>, by Moraga Cherri\u0301e and Anzaldu\u0301a Gloria, 4th ed., SUNY Press., 2015, pp. 30\u201335.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her essay \u201cInvisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman,\u201d Yamada addresses the frustrating lack of awareness with which the majority culture regards Asian-American oppression. Yamada, then a professor of English at Cypress College in Seattle, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-han"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1584,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions\/1584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}