Race Talk: Asian American as a Political Identity [BLOG]

This week’s blog post comes from Aozora Brockman, a sophomore at Northwestern University. Brockman is studying anthropology, creative writing, and Asian American studies.  She is especially interested in researching racial issues that impact the Asian American community and is currently involved in an independent research project on how Asian American masculinity is viewed by non-Asian female fans of K-Pop male idols. Her intelligent commentary on race is colored by her perspective as a bi-racial Asian American growing up in the 21st century. 

In middle school my Japanese mother made me a brown rice ball every day for lunch, and I would eat it as quickly as possible at the lunch table—messily dropping rice on my lap in the process—before anyone could say, “Ew, what is that?!” or crinkle their noses at the distinct smell. Then I would sit back and marvel at what their lunch boxes contained—prepackaged apple slices and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches on bread the color of snow. Normal, “American” food. And silently and secretly, I would wish that my food was as clean and odorless as theirs.

But I never considered myself to be Asian American until I came to college. I did not even know what the term meant – how could Asians, who I understood as being foreigners, be American? But one “Introduction to Asian American Studies” course exposed me to a whole host of different answers to the question of who is Asian American. I learned of Chinese and Japanese Americans in the United States after the Gold Rush and exclusion acts that restricted their immigration. I learned of the brutal murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American mistaken as Japanese and killed by two angry white men with a baseball bat. I learned of the Hmong refugees in Minnesota and Vietnamese adopted into white families, and the racialization of Islam post-9-11, which made South Asians the target of hate crimes.

I learned that there are so many different ways to be Asian American. But even with that knowledge, I still did not identify as being Asian American for two main reasons – first, I am half-Japanese, which does not allow me to ‘fit in’ with the (mainly East Asian) Asian American community, and second, I came to believe that identifying as Asian would only solidify ideas of “biological” roots of race and thus contribute to racism. I did not like how my peers seemed to fit me into the box called “Asian” and define me with stereotypes of foreign-ness and high grades. Who is considered to be “Asian American” is based on socially constructed boundaries that are ever fluctuating, and it angered me that people took to generalizing us to having similar characteristics.

Thus, socially, I still do not identify with any race; however, politically, I am Asian American. I realized that though each of us in this community have different identities and cultures, it is still necessary for us all to come together as a group and tackle issues of immigration and racism. The Asian American community is often seen as apolitical and, as a consequence, suffers from not having much of a say in changing or adopting new laws that are beneficial to its members. It is often not known, for example, that Asians make up the highest racial group of new immigrants to the States, and that about 1.3 million undocumented Asian American or Pacific Islander immigrants reside in the U.S. Because small communities within Asian America that are greatly affected by immigration laws and deportation scares, such as Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, are too small to have an impact on Capitol Hill, it is all the more important for the Asian American community to unite and fight as one political entity.

Yet although it is important for all of us to get involved with immigration rallies or making our voices heard to our local politicians, it is sometimes difficult to disentangle ourselves from our busy lives to do so. I find this especially true as I am now on the seemingly never-ending treadmill of college, so instead of shouting at Asian American political rallies, I fill my mind with Asian American history and politics and share this information with my friends and family. Knowledge is power, as my favorite Asian American Studies professor once told me, and we all have the power to learn about our community and to ultimately help those who are struggling to gain equal rights. So even if I do not identify socially as Asian, it is important for me to be active in the community so that one day, my children can grow up learning about Asian American history in their schools, and so that when my little girl brings brown rice balls to school for lunch, she is able to eat it slowly and proudly, savoring every bite.

Asian Fortune is an English language newspaper for Asian American professionals in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Visit fb.com/asianfortune to stay up to date with our news and what’s going on in the Asian American community.