{"id":2343,"date":"2021-12-13T16:21:14","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T21:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2021-12-13T16:47:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T21:47:24","slug":"the-double-image-of-the-asian-american-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/an\/the-double-image-of-the-asian-american-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cDouble Image\u201d of the Asian American Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historical influences and the rise in prejudices against Asian Americans bred inward feelings of guilt, shame, and confusion. For people of color, the desire to become white is a common experience, which Nellie Wong encapsulates in her poem, \u201cWhen I Was Growing Up\u201d: <\/span><\/p>\n

when I was growing up, I felt<\/em><\/p>\n

dirty. I thought that god<\/em><\/p>\n

made white people clean<\/em><\/p>\n

and no matter how much I bathed,<\/em><\/p>\n

I could not change, I could not shed<\/em><\/p>\n

my skin in the gray water. (Wong 6)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The shame of being Asian American was magnified by the struggle between ethnicity and gender as \u201cwomen of color are often made to feel that we must make a choice between the two\u201d (Yamada 70). Asian American women were often shamed when choosing to advocate exclusively for women\u2019s rights by men who argued that such a choice would create unrectifiable divides between Asian American men and women.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"An

This illustration by artist Gracey Zhang illustrates inward feelings of confusion surrounding the Asian American identity<\/p><\/div>\n

The exploitation of Asian cultural identities and forced assimilation into a white-dominant society further exacerbates confusion at the individual and community levels. Whites manipulate Asian Americans\u2019 perception of their identity for personal benefit: \u201cIn wartime, it was charged that the Japanese were clannish and \u2018unassimilable.\u2019 Today, the consensus is that the Japanese American\u2019s power of accommodation is not only phenomenal, but it is \u201crarely equaled\u201d (Ikeda-Speigel 96). Furthermore, white society perpetuates the model minority myth by adjusting Asian Americans\u2019 proximity to whiteness at their whim, thus promoting harmful racial stereotypes and dehumanizing the Asian American community. In addition, whites appropriate Asian culture and label it as \u201cexotic\u201d and \u201coriental\u201d while simultaneously claiming that it is \u201cdirty, evil, and wrong\u201d (Pegues 15). As such, Asian Americans are reluctant to embrace their heritage in order to assimilate and reject their culture by adhering to Western standards and norms. As Pegues states, \u201ccolonization runs deep,\u201d and Asian Americans are pushed to abandon integral aspects of their cultural identity in pursuit of community.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a hopeless bid for acceptance into white spaces, Asian Americans are conditioned \u201cnot to expect a response in ways that matter\u201d (Yamada 34). Consequently, Asian American women unknowingly adopt a mentality of passive resistance and resort to assimilation in a society that operates exclusively for white males. Asian Americans distance themselves from their cultural heritage by struggling to fit into a rigid mold: \u201ctransplantation had created cultural barriers which could not be bridged\u2026 \u201d (Ho 60). As Liang Ho suggests, Asian American women aren\u2019t perceived as \u201call-American\u201d nor can they fit into their \u201cancestral ethnic shoes\u201d (60). Whites first view Asian Americans as \u201cexotic Orientals\u201d while Asians view Asian Americans as \u201crich capitalist Americans,\u201d forcing Asian Americans to compromise between a \u201cdouble image\u201d that is forced upon them (Ho 60).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources:<\/span><\/p>\n

Pegues, Juliana. \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d <\/span>Sinister Wisdom<\/span><\/i>. Vol. 54, 01 Jan. 1995, pp. 15-21.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ho, Liang. \u201cAsian-American Women: Identity and Role in the Women\u2019s Movement.\u201d <\/span>Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics<\/span><\/i>, vol. 4 no. 3, 01 Jul. 1982, pp. 60-61.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wong, Nellie. \u201cWhen I Was Growing Up.\u201d Yamada, Mitsuye. \u201cAsian Pacific American Women and Feminism.\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. 5-6.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yamada, Mitsuye. \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

Yamada, Mitsuye. \u201cAsian Pacific American Women and Feminism.\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. 68-72.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historical influences and the rise in prejudices against Asian Americans bred inward feelings of guilt, shame, and confusion. For people of color, the desire to become white is a common experience, which Nellie Wong encapsulates in her poem, \u201cWhen I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343","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\/2641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2752,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}