Asian Americans Need Our Own Chapter in American History

People always ask me what it was like to move to America at a young age, but to be honest it was all a blur. I don’t even remember how long it took me to learn English, but I did quickly learned to assimilate, absorbing all kinds of Americana while jettisoning pieces of my own Chinese culture. Somewhere along the line, I adopted the perception that Asians, particularly Asian girls, are quiet and weak — no fun to make friends with and always the last ones to get picked for kickball during gym class. For that reason, I deemed them unlikeable and tried to disassociate. Though I was shy as a little girl, I forced myself to be extroverted and made a lot of friends. I participated in sports all throughout school, played down my interest in math, sat with non-Asian kids at lunch, and in general, behaved in ways my parents called ‘reckless’ and others considered ‘unexpected for an Asian girl’ — a phrase I have become too familiar with over the years. But as I grew older and met other Asian women and men who didn’t fit this stereotype, I began to realize that it was wrong. It also dawned on me that though I no longer view myself or other Asians through this lens, the rest of America still does.

One evening a couple of months ago as I was taking the escalators out of an emptying metro stop, I was startled by someone shouting angrily several dozen steps above me on the adjacent escalator. As I stepped up towards the exit, their words became clearer “…fucking bitch…fucking ching chong…bitch…” Though it was difficult to hear every word, they were clearly racially targeted and clearly directed at me. I picked up my pace and kept my gaze upwards as if not to notice, which encouraged them to yell more loudly and aggressively. “….I’ll shove your mask up your ass…” was the last thing I heard before stepping out into the street.

In retrospect, it took me a while to realize that I was being targeted. I had never experienced such explicit racism nor been the recipient of such derogatory language and it caught me off guard. At first I felt frightened, refusing to look back until I was a safe distance away from the metro, but soon that fear subsided into anger — anger from being insulted and frustration for feeling so flustered and afraid. It was probably best that I didn’t say anything and kept my composure, but I felt like a coward. Although this feeling was triggered by the situation, it was amplified by an uncomfortable awareness of the way my race is perceived in America: that we are deferential, submissive, and weak. This incidence was a byproduct of that very perception and ironically, my response (or lack thereof) fed right into it.

In the months that followed as well as the months that preceded, there have been thousands of incidences of racism against Asians across the US. Since the onset of the pandemic, Asian-Americans have fallen victim to increasing verbal and physical attacks, both in the safety of their neighborhoods and beyond. As I read article after article, I couldn’t help but notice the large proportion of women and elderly that were targeted. Why? Because attackers know that they are the least likely to fight back. My parents once said to me that though we have lived in America for over a decade, we would never be accepted as fully American and will always be the weakest link, even amongst minorities. Though I doubted the validity of their words, recent events have shown me otherwise. I couldn’t help thinking about the person at the metro stop — the fact that she was not only a woman but also a woman of color, yet did not hesitate to target me. That because I was an Asian woman she knew I wouldn’t reciprocate. This very fact reverberated an aftershock in me that lasted much longer than my heightened heart rate from her jarring words.

Although Asian-Americans are generally accepted by American society — more specifically Whites — because most of us are educated and occupy well-paid jobs, we are subject to stereotypes that define us as easily manipulatable and disposable, something to be taken advantage of — a skinny math nerd to do your homework or an exotic sexual fantasy. Like racism against Blacks and Hispanics, racism against Asians have also been perpetuated by the media. Yellow face and ‘Asian accents’ were commonly used in Hollywood to portray Asian characters and exclude Asian actors from the industry, such as Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or more recently, The Ancient One from Marvel’s Doctor Strange who was Asian in the comic books but played by a White actress. While portrayals of Asians as a math nerd or submissive love interest seem innocuous compared to the drug-dealers or criminals that Blacks and Hispanics are often portrayed as, they exacerbate the inferiority of Asian-Americans in American society.

By the same token, while Asians are generally well-respected in America because of their assumed socioeconomic status, that respect is conditional: we respect you as long as you keep your head down and do your work, we respect you as long as you remain complaisant, we respect you as long as you stay in your place and don’t cause trouble or acquire too much power. While Asian students make up a large proportion of medical or scientific research trainees each year, there are hardly any Asians heading hospitals or research labs. Similarly, Asians make up a large proportion of the workforce in industry, but very few are in executive or managerial positions. As ‘model minorities,’ we are expected to be competent but not too competent, to work hard but have no say, to model but not lead. If an Asian is too successful, he or she is stealing American jobs and should go back to their own country — as if they are not American. Cheap Asian labor is exploited but also accused of depriving the American economy. Once the transcontinental railroad was built in the 19th Century, thousands of imported Chinese workers were driven out of their towns and the first racially discriminatory immigration law was created in the US.

The underlying basis for anti-Asian racism is that we are foreign, that we don’t belong — no matter how long we have lived in America or contributed to its growth as a nation. This view not only fuels explicit racist attacks but is intertwined with another issue — that our place in this country is not only temporary and conditional, but also irrelevant to American history, then and now. Growing up, I remember making a longhouse model while learning about the Native Americans, writing a report on Rosa Parks, and flipping through pages of my history book about the Pilgrims, the Declaration of Independence, the 13th & 14th Amendments, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement…looking back, there was hardly a full page on the Chinese Exclusion Act or the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Surely, Asians existed in other facets of American history other than becoming the first illegal immigrants or prisoners of war?

Back then, I didn’t think much of it at all. I was an immigrant kid learning about American history, of course I didn’t expect there to be anything about my people in America. It wasn’t until recent years that I started to question the lack of Asian American narrative recorded or taught. This missing piece in American history not only legitimizes Asian-Americans’ foreign status, but perpetuates a feeling of isolation perceived by Asian-Americans today — that we were never a part of America and never will be. Even in recent years as race has become a key topic of discussion, it has largely been Black and White as it has been historically. Until the pandemic, I hadn’t even heard of the term ‘anti-Asian racism.’ As I learned more about institutional racism in America, I realized that it plagues Asians just like it does Blacks and Hispanics, yet there is very little research done on how Asian communities are affected or to what extent. Our voices are rarely heard in political or social justice discussions, largely due to an expectation for us to remain quiet and an unspoken acknowledgement that we are irrelevant to the conversation.

While statistics reveal the severity of the issue, they speak very little to the humanity of each victim and the suffering endured by the Asian-American community. What we need is for our stories to be told and written into history so that they’re not just heard by people today but by those generations from now. We need to be included in the conversation about race, especially as the pandemic has revealed that racism affects us as well. Many blame Donald Trump for inciting anti-Asian racism by dubbing the coronavirus as the ‘Chinese-virus’ and consider it ‘un-American,’ but they are mistaken. Yes, Trump did encourage and worsen the negative sentiments towards Chinese and non-Chinese Asians during the pandemic, but that sentiment was already there and has always been there. It is not un-American because to many Americans, Asians have always belonged on the other side of the Pacific. The pandemic has simply made way for more direct finger-pointing and attacks towards our community. Some might raise their eye-brows and use Trump as a scapegoat explanation for the rise in anti-Asian racism that they have probably endorsed in more covert ways. But to us, this is no surprise. We have always endured anti-Asian sentiment, if not explicit racism, whether it be snarky remarks or the bamboo ceiling, and recent events are simply brighter, more glaring threads woven into that fabric of racism.

Following the salon shootings in Atlanta, in which six of the victims were Asian women, I felt the same burning anger I felt after leaving the metro stop. Of course these women had no way of protecting themselves or fighting back against the armed intruder. But like me, they were easy targets because they were Asian and women — the weakest of the weakest link. I will never forget the way I was yelled at by the woman at the metro stop and how it made me feel. Though the whole incident lasted only a couple of minutes and she probably had no intention of actually harming me, I felt extremely vulnerable. I finally understand why, not because I was a coward, but because I was taught to feel this way — that there is nothing I can do but remain silent lest the situation worsens. To remain unprovoking and unassuming. That is the expectation, one set by society on Asians, particularly Asian women. It’s a dangerous expectation, and is so deeply ingrained that it’s perceived even amongst ourselves as our own shortcoming — that we are too weak to stand up for ourselves. I’m in no way saying the victims of the shooting had a means to do something, but though they could not, we still can, and this toxic expectation needs to be violated.

We are not going to remain passive as members of our community are assaulted and murdered because of hate and racism, and we will not allow our narratives today to be erased or reduced down to a single page in a history textbook. Asian-Americans are an integral part of America: its culture, its economy, and its history. And in order to build a better America, a more racially equitable America, our part of the story matters too. We can not let another Asian little girl grow up not knowing where she fits because her people aren’t represented, and we certainly cannot let her grow up feeling like she has to keep her head down. We deserve our own chapter in American history, though it is long overdue, it is not too late to begin writing it now. Inevitably, the racist attacks against Asian Americans will persist, no matter how many people speak out and how many politicians denounce it. However, by demanding a permanent place in American society, we can gradually change the way we are perceived by other Americans — and the way our future generations will perceive themselves.