Mark Ma rk in g the the Oriental Oriental n March 1997, the cover of featured PresiPresid e n t Will William iam Jefferson Clinto Cli nton, n, first lad lady y Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Gore, all in yellowface. The presid pre sident ent,, portrayed port rayed as a Chinese C hinese houseboy buck -toothed, squinty-eyed and pigtailed, wearing a straw “coolie” selves coffee. The first lady, similarly buck -toothed squintysquinty-eyed, outfitted as a Maoist Red Guard, brandishes a “Little Red Book,” while the vice president, robed as Buddhist priest, beatifically proffers a begging bowl already stuffed with money. I n using the yellowface cartoon to illustrate a story about alleged political corruption, the editors of simultaneously emphasized their racial point and revived a tradition of racial grotesques that had illustrated illustrated broadsides, editorials, and diatribes against Asians in America since the mid -nineteenth century. century. Th e cover story story summarized allegaallegations that the Clinton administration had solicited solicited campaign donations donat ions from Asia Asian n contribut cont ributors ors in exchange for policy policy fafavors. These allegations virtually ignored the much larger illeille gal contributions of nonnon-Asians Asians an d focused focused exclusively on Asian and Asian American contributors.’ Like media, was silent of the the broader questions: the impact of multinational corporacorpora tions on American politics and the baleful influence of big money on big politics. instead played played the race
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I
Introduction
card. Focusing only on the Asian and Asian American campaign contri butions, Na ti onal Revie w made i t clear that it was not corporate money, on al Review or even foreign foreig n money generally, generally, but specifi specificall cally y Asian Asian money mone y that th at polpol Na tion onal al luted the American political process. In the eyes of the Nati editors, editor s, the t he nation’s first famil family y (with Al Gore as as potentia potentiall heir) heir ) had ha d been so polluted by Asian money that they had literally turned yellow. Yellowface marks the Asian body as unmistakably Oriental; it sharply defines the Oriental in a racial opposition to whiteness. Yellowface exexaggerates “racial” features that have been designated “Oriental,” such as “slanted” “sla nted” eyes, eyes, overbite, and mu must stard ard -yellow skin color. Only the cialized Oriental is yellow; Asians are not. Asia is not a biological fact but a geographic geogra phic designatio des ignation. n. Asians Asians come in the t he broadest br oadest range of skin skin color color and hue. Because the organizing principle behind the idea of race is “com“com mon ancestry,” it is concerned with the physical, the biological, and the reproductive. But race is not a category of nature; it is an through which unequal distributions of wealth and power are natural ized justifi justified ed in the th e language la nguage of biology and an d genealogy. Physiognomy Physiognomy is relevant to race only insofar as certain physical characteristics, such as skin skin color color or o r hue, hue , eye eye color color or o r shape, shape , shape of the nose, color or texture of the hair, h air, over - or underbite, underbite, etc., are socially as markers of racial difference. Th e designation designat ion of yell yellow ow as the racial color of the t he Orie O rienta ntall is is a prime example of this social constructedness construc tedness of race, In I n 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court denie den ied d Takao Takao Ozawa, Ozawa, an from Japan, the right to be come a naturalized citizen. In its ruling, the court recognized that some Asians, including Ozawa, were of a paler hue than many European immigrants already accepted into the nation as “white.” Race, the court c ourt conclud c oncluded, ed, was not a matter of actual actual color but of “blood” or ancestry, ancestry, and an d Ozawa Ozawa,, being of Japanese “blood,” “blood ,” could no t claim to be white, no matte ma tterr how how white white his What does doe s Yell Yellow owfa face ce signify? Race is a mode mo de of placing cultur cul tural al meaning on the body. Yellowface marks the Oriental as indelibly alien. Constructed as a race race of aliens, aliens, Orientals repr esent a present prese nt danger da nger of pollution. polluti on. An analysis of the Orient Ori ental al as a racial category must begin with with the concept of the alien as a polluting body. The cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas argues that fears of pollution arise when things are ar e out o ut of place. Soil, she observes, is fertile ferti le earth ea rth when on the grou g round nd wit with tomatoes growin growing g in it; i t is polluting polluti ng dirt when o n the kitchen table. table. Pollutants Pollutants are a re objects, objects, or persons, perceived perceived to be out ou t of place. place. They create a sense of disord dis order er and an d anomaly in the symbol symbolic ic structure of society. Douglas observes that pollution i s not a conscious
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Yellowface
act. Mere presence in the wrong place, the inadvertent crossing of a boundary, may constitute pollution.’ Aliens, outsiders who are inside, insid e, disrupt the internal structure of a cultural formation as it defines itself vis-a-vis the Other Ot her;; their the ir presence pres ence constitutes a boundary bounda ry crisis. crisis. Aliens Aliens are always a source of pollution. Not all foreign objects, howeve however, r, are aliens aliens only only objects objects or persons whos whose e presence pr esence disrupts the narrative narrative structur stru cture e of of the community. community. It is useful here he re to distinguish distinguish between the alien an d the th e merely foreign. Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they carry different connotations. “Foreign” refers to that which is outside or o r dis distant, while “alien” describes things that are immediate and present yet have have a foreign forei gn nature na ture or allegiance. allegiance. Th e difference is political. political. According According early as as the sixteenth century centu ry “alien” “ alien” to the Oxford English Dictionary, as early referred to things whose allegiance lay outside the realm in which they resided, as in “alien priories” monasteries in England whose loyalty was to Rome. Rom e. This early defini def initio tion n of “alien” emphasized emphasized the t he unalterable unaltera ble nature natu re of the foreign foreign object an d its its threatening presence. pres ence. Only when the foreign is present does it become alien. The alien is always out of place, therefo the refore re disturbin distu rbing g and dangerous dange rous.. The Th e difference between the alien and an d the merely foreign fore ign is exemplified by the differ ence enc e between between the immigrant i mmigrant an d the tourist. tourist. Outsiders who declare their intention of leaving leaving may may be accord ac corded ed the status of of guest g uest,, visitor, visitor, tourist, traveler, traveler, or foreign student. stude nt. Such foreigners, foreigners , whose whose presence is defined as temporary, are seen as innocuous and even desirable. On the other hand, if the arriving outsiders outsiders declare no inte ntion ntio n to leav leave e (o r if such a declared intention is suspect) susp ect),, they they are ar e accorded a ccorded the status of alien, with with considerably different and sometimes dire consequences. Only when aliens exit or are “naturalized” (cleansed of their foreignness and rere made) made ) can c an they they shed their status as pollutants. pollutants. Alienness is both a formal political or legal legal status and an d an informal, infor mal, but by by no n o means less powerful, cultmal cult mal status. T he two states are hardly syn synonymous or congr c ongruent. uent. Alien legal status and an d the procedure proc eduress by by which it can be shed often depend on the cultural definitions of difference. In 1923, a year after i t denied deni ed Takao Oza Ozawa wa the right r ight to naturalize, naturalize, the SuSu preme pr eme Court stripped stri pped Bhagat Singh T hind hi nd,, an India In dian n immigrant immi grant who thro ugh naturalization, naturalizat ion, of of his was already an American through United States, the court had ruled that no matter what the In actual color of his skin, nor how much he h e could c ould prove himself culturally assimilated, Ozaw Ozawa’ a’ssJapanese Japan ese “bloo “b lood” d” made him “unamalga “una malgamabl mable” e” by by marriage into the American national family. In United States de Thind, despite the ethnological ethnological evidence presented by Thin d that he, he , a high high-caste Hindu, Hin du, wa was a desce d escenden ndentt of of Arya Aryans ns and hence white by by “blood,” “blo od,” the
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Introduction
court ruled that he was not, holding that race was not a scientific cate gory gory but a social social one, on e, and an d upheld uph eld the revocation revocation of Thind’s Thind ’s citizenship. citizenship. In both and the Supreme Court C ourt tacitl tacitly y recognized recognized race to be a product of popular ideology. In both cases, Chief Justice land, writing for the court, cited the existence of a “common under standing” of racial difference which color, culture, and science could not surmount. sur mount. The important impo rtant thing about race, race, the Supreme Court held, was not what social or physical scientists at the time may have had to say about abou t it, but rathe ra therr how it wa was “popularly” “popularly ” defined. Not until 1952, after more than a century of settlement in the United States, were Asian immigrants finally granted the right to become natu ralized citizens. Even Even so, long after the legal status of “alien” has been shed, the “common underst unde rstand anding” ing” that Asia Asians ns are an alien presence in America, n o matter matt er how long they may may have have resided in the United States nor how assimilated they are, is still prevalent in American culture. In 1996, 1996, the immediate immed iate response of the th e Democratic National Committ Com mittee ee to allegations allegations that it had accepted illegal illegal campaign donations from foreigners wa was to call call Asia Asian n American contr c ontribut ibutors ors to the t he party’ party’ss coffers coffe rs and an d demand that they verify their status as citizens or permanent residents. One such donor, Suzanne Ahn, a prominent Houston physician and civic leader, reported to the U.S. Commission on o n Civil ivil Rights that th at DNC auditors threatened to turn her name over to the news media as “un cooperative” if she did not release personal financial to them. Ahn Ahn concluded that she had been bee n investigated by the DNC, DNC, the FBI, FBI, and an d the th e news news media simply simply because she had ha d contri co ntribute buted d to the th e DNC and was Asian American. Even public figures do not escape the assumption that Asian Americans are really foreigners in disguise. When Matthew Fong, a fourth-generation Californian, ran as a Republican candidate for Secretary of State in California California a position his mother March Fong had held for the better part of two decades he was was aske as ked d by news reporters whether his loyalties were divided between the and China.’ In the run-up to the t he 1996 presidential electio ele ctions, ns, a cartoon cart oon by by syndi syndicated cartoonist cartoonist Pat Oliphant Olipha nt play played ed on the persistent “common “co mmon under standing stan ding” ” of of Asia Asian n Americans as as perma per mane nent nt aliens in America. It showed a befuddled poll watcher confronted with with a long line of identically identically short Oriental Orie ntal men with with identical iden tical black hair, ha ir, slit eyes eyes behi be hind nd glasses, glasses, and an d buck teeth, all wearing identical suits and waving ballots. Referring to the Asian American DNC official who was made the poster boy of the fund raising scandal, the caption reads, “The John Huang is now voting.” Echoing the public comment of presidential candidate Ross Perot that none of the Asian names brought out in the campaign finance scandal thus far sounded soun ded like they they belonged to “real” “re al” Americans, Americans, one on e of
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Yellowface
Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Oliphant’s signature nebbishes asks from the margin, “Just how many John Joh n Huangs are there? the re? How How many many you you want?” want?” Th The e cartoon play playss on the “common understanding” that Orientals are indistinguishable as indi viduals and thus ultimately fail as “real” Americans. How could phant’s poll watcher, the yeoman guardian of the American political process a nd embodime embo diment nt of “common understanding unders tanding,” ,” possi possibl bly y hope to distinguish among all the Orientals flooding into the nation’s body politic?
Popula Pop ularr Cultu Culture re and Race The Oriental as a racial category is never isolated from struggles over race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and national identity. The Supreme Court’s Court’s “common understandin under standing” g” is a legal fiction. It giv gives es popular popula r convention, the common sense of “real” Americans, the power to define race. race. The “common understanding” of the Oriental as racialized alien therefore originates in the realm of popular popu lar cultur cul ture, e, where struggles struggles over over who who is is or who can become bec ome a “real “re al American” American” take place and where the categories, representations, distinctions, and markers of race are defined. Some studies attribute hostility toward Asian immigrants directly to economic competition competition and the creation of an ethnically defined segmented labor market. They provide provide us wit with h an a n economic framework for
6
Introduction
understanding the dynamics of class and race and a map of the ecoeconomic terrain terr ain o n which which anti anti-Asian Asian hostility has been bee n built. By themselves, however, those studies do not account for the development development or function functioning of specific racial images of Asians Asians in American This book takes u p popul po pular ar cult c ulture ure as a process, process, a set of of cultural practices that th at define defi ne American nationality nationality who “real “re al Americans” Americans” are a re in any given historical moment. momen t. American American citizenship an d American American nationality are not synonymous; citizenship carries with it an implicit assumption o r promise promise of equality, at least in political and a nd legal terms, while while nationality ality contains and manage managess the t he contradictions of the hierarchies an d ininequalities of a social formation. Nationality is a constantly shifting and contested terrain terrai n that tha t organizes organizes th e ideologic ideological al struggle struggle over hierarchies and inequalitie inequalities. s. Th e nature of popular culture is the th e subject subject of much Popular culture cultu re is is most most often identified as havin having g its its roots in the organic culture cul ture of the common commo n folk or peasant life, in opposition opposit ion to court co urt or bourgeois bo urgeois culture. Popular culture, then, is often characterized by politically resi resisstant, tan t, if if often nostalgic, qualities. qualities. Ever Ever since the th e rise of industrial industri al capitalcapitalism ism in the th e early early nineteenth ninet eenth century century,, popular culture cultu re has been in reality reality complex, increasingly increasingly shaped sha ped by the capitalist processes processes of its product pro duction ion and an d circulation. Neverthe Nevertheless less,, popular popula r culture, cultu re, albeit sometime sometimess reconstituted as coco-opted or deracinat der acinated ed mas masss culture, cultu re, continues to be identiidentified with with subordinat subor dinated ed groups, as opposed oppos ed to the domin dom inant ant ruling clas class. s. The mobilization of national identity under the sign “American” has never never been bee n a simple simple matter of imposing elite interests and an d values values o n the social social formati form ation, on, but is alw alwa ays a matter mat ter of negotiation between the domidominant and the dominated. Subordinated groups offer resistance to the hegemony of elite culture; they create subaltern popular cultures and contest for a voi voice ce in the t he dominant dominan t public public The saloon vies with the salon, the th e boardwalk boardwalk with with the cafe, and an d the th e minstrel thea t heater ter with with the t he opera house as an aren a rena a for public public debate deba te an d politic political al ideas.’” ideas. ’” Although Althoug h it mobilizes legitimacy, legitimacy, the hegemony of dominant groups is never complete; it can render fundamental social contradiccontradic tions invisible, invisible, explain them away, o r ameliorate ameliorat e the t hem, m, but it can c anno nott reresolv solve e them.” Howe Howeve verr deracinated, deracin ated, whether co-opted, utopian, nostalnostalgic, or nihilist, popul po pular ar cultur cul ture e is is al always contested terrain. T h e practices practices that make up popular pop ular culture cu lture are negotiations, in the public sphere, sph ere, bebetwee tween n and a nd among dominant dom inant an d subaltern subaltern groups groups around aro und the questions of national identity: What constitutes America? Who gets to participate and o n wha whatt grounds? Who are ar e “real “r eal Americans? Americans?” ” Since popula pop ularr cultur cul ture e is is a significant significant arena are na in which the struggle over defining definin g American American nationality occurs, it also pla plays ys a critical critical role in defindefining race. Race is a principal signifier of social differences difference s in America. It
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Yellowface
is deployed in assigning differential political rights and capital and social privilege, in distinguishing between citizens presumed presu med to have equal rights rights and an d privilege privilegess and an d inherently inherently unequal, subordinated subordinat ed subjec subjects. ts.“ “ Although race is often camoufla camouflaged ged or rend r endere ered d invisi invisible ble,, once onc e produced as a category of social difference it is present everywhere in the social formation and an d deepl deeply y imbedded in th e popular culture. Th e Oriental as a racial category is produced, not only in popular discourse about race but also in discourses having to d o with class, class, gend ge nder er a nd sexuality sexuality,, family, and nation. Once produced in those discourses, the Oriental be comes a participant in the production and reproduction of those social identities.
The Stereotype and the Family The racist humor of portraying Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore in yellowface works only because the first family is always presumptively white an enduring, if anachronistic, symbol of America as a white na tion in the popular imagination. Yellowface transforms the first family, historically an d symb symbol olica icall lly y white, i nto nt o the t he Orie Or ienta ntall family: Bill, Hillary and Al have, through the pollution of Asian money, become alien, yel low, and Oriental. Th e fami family ly is the primary primary metapho met aphorr of the nation. nati on. Th e idea of Americans as a family family is the discurs discursive ive basis basis for an imagined i magined nati na tionh onhood ood.. The fictive kinship, as a symbol of nationhood structures nationality as fictive a common ancestry. One need only recall that the most common terms in whic which h the nation is invoke invoked d (“br (“ brot othe herh rhoo ood, d,” ” “mothe “mo therr tongue,” “fa“fa ther th erla land” nd” ) all reference terms of kinship. These The se are terms t erms also shared by by race. Th e fiction fiction of of common ancestry ( both bot h biological biological and cultural) has been made mad e to the construction of both bot h race r ace a nd nation nat ion.. Inde In deed ed,, historically, the two categories have been interchangeable. For example, it was common in the early decades of this century to speak of national groups the American, French, or Japanese as “races.” The family is also the primary ideological apparatus, the central sys tem of symbols, through which the state contains and manages contra dictions in the social structure. It is the principal social unit through which the individual can become a national subject, a member of the community through birth, adoption, marriage. The family is a primary site in which labor power and class relations, gender and sexual rela tions, ethnic and racial identities are produced and reproduced. It is also the th e symbolic syste system m that th at give givess meanin mea ning g to an d organizes the closes closestt psychological, economic ec onomic,, and an d sexual relations rela tionships hips among amo ng people peopl e and an d within a Although the t he family family has often been considered a private private sphere sp here,, even even
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8
Introduction
a haven from the th e marketplace marketpla ce and a nd from public public life, in fact fact the family family unit uni t has been a key entry point for intervention in every area of daily In the realm of economics, the state enters the family via taxes and estate laws. The state regulates gender relations in the family via marriage and divorce laws. I t regulates sexual relations through family laws regarding age of consent, conse nt, sanctioned a nd prohibit proh ibited ed sexual behav behav-iors, pornography an d marriage. It regulates the familial relationship bebetween parents and children via custodial, child welfare, and adoption law. It regulates race relations through laws prohibiting interracial mar riage and addressing housing, education and public accommodations. In the “crisis of the family family” ” and an d the t he struggle struggle to “restor “re store e famil family y values” values” that has been trumpeted for the past two decades, the Asian American fami family ly,, portrayed as “intact,” “intac t,” “discipl “dis ciplined ined,” ,” an d patriarchal, has presen pre sented ted as the t he model for economic econo mic success in a perio pe riod d of economic decline.’”This decline.’”This representation is quite rece r ecent; nt; Asia Asians ns have have been cast cast as as an economic, economic, social, social, and an d sexual threa t to the American national family throughout their history in the United States. The pollution of the nation’s first family did not only come about through thro ugh a suspected exchange of money for poli policy cy.. The Th e Clinton Cli nton admin istration’s hands hands-off policies toward toward hum h uman an rights right s violations by the Indo In do nesian government in East Timor, or the superexploitation of workers by by Nike in Vietnam in the th e inter int eres estt of free trade tr ade,, to only two inin stances, stances, has barely barely scandal scandalized ized the t he American press or public. publ ic. What What the seems seems to to have have been most most interested int erested in is the nu mber of times contributors and fundraisers came for coffee at the White House. Although thoug h the t he White House logs of overnight over night guests show show no Asian Asian or Asian Asian American guests save the governor of Hawaii, press reports that big con tributors to the Clinton rere -election election campaign might be invited for over over night stays at the White House were usually printed next to, and often illustrated with, pictures of Asian American fundraisers. The idea that the be droom dro om might mig ht now now be slept in by by (wealthy) ( wealthy) Orientals Orie ntals seems to most offend the “common understanding.” The alien body present in the national bedroom can now be imagined as the deeper of pollution. pollut ion.
The S i x Faces of the Ori Oriental ental Six images the pollutant, the coolie, the deviant, the yel yello low w peril, the model minority, and the gook portray the Orie Or ienta ntall as an alien body and a threat to the American national family. From each of these racial paradigms parad igms emerge em ergess a wid wide e array ar ray of specific images. Each of these repr re pre esentations was constructed in a specific historical moment, marked by
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Yellowface
a shift shif t in class relations relat ions accomp acc ompani anied ed by by cultural cultu ral crisis. At such times t imes American nationality who the “real Americans” are is redefined in terms of class, class, gend ge nder, er, race, ra ce, and a nd sexuality. sexuality. The representation of the Asian as pollutant originated in nineteenthnineteenth-century California. For white settlers from the East, Chinese settlers from the West disrupted the mythic narrative of westward exex pansion. Th The e Chinese Chines e consti con stitut tuted ed an alien prese p resence nce and an d a thr t hreat eat of polpollution which earlier fantasies of exotic but distant Asia could not contain. In the popular imagination, imaginat ion, California California was a freefree-soil Eden, a place where small producers, artisans, farmers, and craftsmen might have a second chance to build a white republic repub lic,, unstaine unst ained d by chattel chat tel slaver slavery y or proletar prol etarian ian In this prelapsarian prelapsarian imagery, the Chinese were both identified with the moral chaos of the Gold Rush and portrayed as the harbingers of industrial wage slavery. As the national debate over slavslavery, abolition, and statehood came to a boiling point in the late the ideal of establishing California as both free and racially pure dede manded the removal, or at least the exclusion, of both Chinese and African African Americans. Th e representation representatio n of the Chinese immigrant worker worker as a coolie came about as the working class was formed in the 1870s and 1880s. Although they had come to America America as free (albeit high highly ly proletarianized) proletariani zed) workers, Chinese immigrants immi grants fou f ound nd themselves themselves segregated in to a racially racially defined state of subordination as “coolie labor.” The Chinese “coolie” was portrayed as unfree and servile, a threat to the white working man’s family, which in was the principal symbol of an emergent workingclass identity that fused class consciousness with gendered national and racial identity. The coolie representation not only allowed the nascent labor movement, dominated by its skilled trades, to exclude Chinese from the working class; it also enabled the skilled trades to ignore the needs of common labor, which i t raciali racialized zed as as “coolie labo r” o r “nigger work.” Irish immigrants who were in the process of consolidating their own claim to Americanness and a white racial identity led the popular antianti-Chinese movement. The Oriental as deviant, in the person of the Chinese household ser vant, is is a figure figure of forbidden desire. The Th e deviant represents the possibil possibil-ity of alternative desire in a period during which middle-class gender roles and sexual behavior were were being codified and an d naturalized into a rigid heterosexual cult of domesticity. In the t he West, West, the Chinese immiimmigrant played a central role in the transition from a malemale -dominated, frontier culture shaped by the rituals of male bonding to a rigidly codicodified heterosexual Victorian culture. In the 1860s and early hun hu ndreds dre ds of of Chinese women were were brough bro ughtt to San Francisco Francisco and an d forced into i nto
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Introduction
prostitution. prostitu tion. By the end e nd of the decade d ecade,, thousands of Chines Chinese e immigrant men were driven out of the mines and off farms and ranches and were hired into middlemiddle-class households househol ds as domestic servants. Both of these situations opene ope ned d up u p possibili possibilities ties of of interracial interra cial sex and an d intima intimacy. cy. Midd Middle leclass whites regarded the Chinese with ambivalence. On the one hand, the Chinese were indispensable as domestic labor; on the other, they represented a threat of racial pollution within the household. A reprerepresentation sentat ion of of the t he Oriental Orienta l as both bot h seducti seductivel vely y childlike and an d threateningly threateningly sexual allowed allowed for both sympath sympathy y and an d repulsion. repu lsion. Th e representa repr esentation tion of the Orient Ori ental al as as deviant justified a taboo against intimacy throug thr ough h which racial and a nd class class stability stability could cou ld be preserved. By the tur t urn n of the century, cen tury, Asian Asian immigrants were repres rep resente ented d as the yell yellow ow peril, a threat thr eat to nation nat ion,, race, a nd fam family. ily. The acquisition of ter ritories and colonies brought with it a renewed threat of “Asiatic” imimmigration, migrati on, an invasio invasion n of “yel “yello low w men” and an d “little brown brown brothers. br others.” ” At the moment when the United States prepared to pick up “the white man’ man’ss burden bur den” ” in the Caribbean and an d the Pacific, Pacific, “Asiati “Asiatic c immigration” immigration” was said to to pose “ t h e greatest thre th reat at to Western civilizati civilization on and an d the White Race.” Domesti Domesticall cally, y, the triumph of corporatism, corpora tism, the homogenization homogenizat ion or dede-skilling of industrial labor, urbanization, and immigration had all contributed to massive changes in both middlemiddle - and workingworking-class famifamilies. These changes contributed to the construction of a culture of con sumption, reflected in new gender roles as well as new sexual attitudes and an d behavior among men and an d women of of both clas classe ses. s. In the aftermat af termath h of the th e First World World Wa War and a nd the th e Bolshe Bolshevik vik Revolution, these domestic social and an d cultural transformations were were accompanied accompanie d by by deep de ep anxieties about racial suicide and class Through its supposed subversion of the family family,, the yello yellow w peril thre t hreate atened ned to undermi unde rmine ne what Lothrop Loth rop dard, a popular advocate of eugenics and racial geopolitics, called the “inn “i nner er dikes” of of the white race. The representation of Asian Americans as a model minority, alalthough popularly identified identified with with the late 1960s and originated in the racial logic of Cold Wa War liberalism of the t he 1950s. 1950s. Th e image of Asia Asian n Americans as a successf successful ul case of “et “ ethn hnic ic” ” assimilation assimilation helped hel ped to contain co ntain three spectres that haunted Cold War America: the red menace of comcom munism, the black menace of racial integration, and the white menace of homosexuality. In place of a radical critique calling for structural changes in American political economy, the model minority mythology substituted a narrative of national modernization and ethnic assimila tion through heterosexuality, and consumption. By the late an image of “successful” “successf ul” Asian Asian American assimilation ass imilation could be held up to African Americans and Latinos as a model for nonmilitant, nonpolitical upward mobility.
Yellowfoce
Since Since the the th e model minority minority image has coexisted coexisted with with and a nd re inforced a repre r epresent sentatio ation n of of the t he Asian Asian American American as the gook. Th e shift in the U.S. economy from largelarge -scale industrial produc pr oduction tion to flexible flexible accuaccumulation and the global global realignment of capital capital and labor have have broug ht about new crises of class, race, and national identity. In the context of these contemporary crises, crises, the “intact” “intact ” and a nd “traditional” “traditi onal” Asi Asian an Amer Ameriican family is promoted as a model of productivity, savings, savings, and an d mobility, not just ju st for African African America America o r Latino families but now now for all American American families, including inclu ding those of the th e white middle mid dle class. class. Simultaneously, how how ever, in post-Vietnam and postpost -liberal American popular culture, the Asian American is represented as the invisible enemy and the embodi ment me nt of inauthenti c racial and national identiti identities es the gook. The Viet Vietnam War is replayed in popular culture as the narrative of American dede cline in the postpost -industrial era. er a. The Th e received wisdom wisdom of of the t he Vietnam Wa War narrative is that America’s defeat defe at in Southeast South east Asi Asia a wa was broug br ought ht about abo ut by by a faceless an d invisible invisible Asian Asian enemy, aided aide d an d abett ab etted ed by an American counter coun tercult culture. ure. The Th e rapid growth of the th e Asia Asian n American American population and an d its its appar app aren entt succe success ss rende re nderr the model minority, minority, like the nownow-mythic Viet Cong, everywhere everywhere invisi invisible ble and powerful. powerful. In the narrative of American decline, Asian Americans are represented as the agents of foreign or multinational capital. In this narrative of national decline, Asian AmeriAmeri can success is seen as camouflage for subversion. The model minority is revealed to be a simulacru simul acrum, m, a copy for which which no original exists, a nd thus t hus a false false model of the American America n family family.. In the th e dystopic narrative narrative of AmeriAmeri can national decline, decline , the model minority minority resemble resembless the replicants in th e science science fiction book an d film Bla film Blade de Runner a cyborg, perfectly efficient but inauth i nauthentic entically ally human hum an,, the th e perfect per fect gook. T h e cultural cultur al crises crises in American society society that tha t give give rise to these repre re prese sen ntations of the Oriental come in the wake of economic change, particu larly larly in what economic historians historians Gordon Gor don a nd Reich call transformations of the structure of The of the social rere lations of production and the organization of work and segmentation of the labor market have profound effects on the structures, relations, and meaning of families, gender, and race. At each stage of capitalist development, development, new new “emerg “em ergent ent” ” public public spheres are constituted an d new new demands arise for participation in the dominant public sphere.” The popula pop ularr discourse of race in which these constructions of the Oriental were produced and an d deploye deployed d is not a transparent or unmediated reflec reflec-tion of the economy, but rather an expression of social contradictions drawing drawing on images of of the present, pres ent, vision visionss of the futu fu ture re,, an d memories of the past. As a historical analysis of the construction of representations of the Oriental and a study of racial ideology, this book asks how these
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Introduction
representations were constructed and what ideological tasks they per formed. form ed. Raci Racial al images and stereotypes stereotypes ar e ideologicall ideologically y active, an d thus contradictory and unstable. The Oriental appears in various guises through thr oughout out Ameri American can popular popul ar culture, cu lture, in pictures, songs songs,, paraphernalia, parapher nalia, books, a nd movies, movies, and a nd no single image represent repr esentss the totality o f the representation. represen tation. Therefore, rather rat her than focus on any single single genre gen re or o r memedium, dium , or the t he techno technolog logy y of a genre, o r its reception, recepti on, this book looks looks at popula pop ularr songs of the t he ninete nin eteent enth h century, centu ry, magazine fiction an d illustraillustra tions, silent movies and pulp fiction, and Hollywood musicals and dra mas. The principle criterion for selecting these “texts” has been the ex tent to which each helps to illuminate the social contradictions of its produc pro ductio tion, n, the inter int ernal nal complexities of the th e Oriental Orie ntal repre re prese senta ntati tion, on, and an d the th e wa way in whic which h the Oriental Orie ntal is imbedded imbedde d in the discourses discourses of race, gende gen der, r, class, class, and an d sexuality sexuality in America.
Yellowface: llowface: Stereotype Stereoty pe an d Discourse The reappearance of the yellowface grotesque on the front pages of a national magazine was deeply unsettling, particularly to those Asian Americans who had bought into the myth of the model minority. Since the the national media had popularized an image of Asian Americans Americans as the perfectly perfectly assimilate assimilated d and an d presumptively presumptively accepted etheth nic minority in the United States. Among many Asian Americans, the emergenc emer gence e of of the th e model minority minority image image led to a popular popul ar preoccupation preoccupat ion with “goo “g ood” d” stereotypes vs. “ba “ bad” d” stereotypes. This preoccupation with with “positive” “positive” and “negative” stereotypes stereotypes reifies reifies and inadvertently legitimates the racial discourse of the Oriental that produces produc es both bo th the t he coolie and an d the minority. It shifts attent att ention ion from fr om a criticriti cal analysis of race toward a narrow utilitaria utili tarian n calculus calcu lus in which specific specif ic images are ar e measured measure d in terms of their usefulness usefulness to strategies of upward upward Discus Discussio sions ns of “good” “goo d” a nd “bad” “b ad” stereotypes stereotypes have, more of ten than not, focused on the distance between image and reality. How ever, stereotypes of Asian Americans are not simply distorted versions of Asian lives in America. The Yellowface coolie and model minority, despite their apparent contradiction, not only coexist but, in fact, can become becom e mutually reinforc rei nforcing ing at a t critical junc ju nctu ture ress because neith ne ither er is crecre ated by the actual lives of Asians in America. What produces these ster eotypes is not just individual acts of representation, represe ntation, but a historica historicall disdiscourse of race that is embedded in the history of American social crises. On the othe o therr han d, a concern with with these imag images es as the product of and agent in a complex racial ideology can lead us to an understanding of
Yellowface
racial representation as a social social practice. practice. T he Oriental Orie ntal is a complex racial representation, made up of contradictory images and stereotypes. This complexity and ambiguity gives the Oriental its ideological power, its connection with the broadest web of social concerns. In turn, this con nectedness reinforces the representation and an d giv gives es the racial stereotype power to survive, survive, and reproduce. its power
Resisting the Orient Ori ental al Asian Asian Americans have not been pass passiv ive e in the th e face of the th e produc pro ductio tion n and a nd reproduction of the Oriental stereotype which has barred them from immigration, citizenship citizenship,, and a nd participation in American American socie society ty an d culculture. A century before John Huang became a celebrity in the annals of American political scandal, Asian Americans challenged their exclusion America America both throug t hroug h the legal sys syste tem m and in the th e realm of culture. The historical struggle of Asian Americans to achieve full citizenship in the t he United States has challenged challe nged a nd reviv revivifi ified ed every every aspect of citizencitizenship in a liberal democracy, democracy, including the right of and naturalizanaturalization, equal protection protection and economic economic rights, rights, and the t he right to participate participate in the public Asian names dot the landscape of constitu tional Yue-Ting (im(imWo (equal protection), Fong Yuemigration), Wong Ark (citizenship through birth), Toyota (land ownershi owne rship), p), and an d Fred Koremats Korematsu u (int (i nter ernme nment) nt) are ar e only a fe few of of the widely cited. Historian Sucheng Chan has identified almost 200 cases that Asian Asian Americans Americans have have broug bro ught ht before befor e the U.S. Supreme Court and more than a thousand cases that have come before lower courts and whose written decisions have warranted inclusion in the Fed eral Chan estimates that this number represents only about per cent cen t of the th e cases actually actually brou br ough ghtt before Federal courts. cour ts. One need only recall such books as Younghill Kang’s East Ea st Goes No Boy America Boy to be reCarlos Car los Bulosan’s America or John Okada’s No- No rein the Henrt, orJohn minded that culture has also also been where Asian Americans Americ ans have contested their exclusion exclusion as as Orientals, critiqued the unfulfille unfulfilled d promises promises of democracy, a nd mapp m apped ed alternative visions visions of American identity. Cul Cul tural critic Lisa observes, Asian American culture is the site of more than critical negation of the U.S. nation: I t is a site that shifts shifts and an d marks alternatives to national terrain by by occupying ot her he r spaces, spaces, imagining different diffe rent narratives and a nd critical hishisand an d enacti ena cting ng practices practices that t hat give rise to new forms for ms of of subjec subjec tivi tivity ty and an d new ways of questioni quest ioning ng the govern go vernment ment of h uman uma n life the nanational state.”’
14
Introduction
Th e film The film Mississippi Masala is a contemporary example AmeriAmericans’ resistance resistance to their racial subordination as Orientals in popular popul ar culcul ture. Directed by Mira Nair, the film is ostensibly about an interracial love affair between an Indian American woman and an African AmeriAmeri can man, but maps a critique of the contemporary racial landscape in America shaped shap ed by by class class,, gend ge nder er and an d immigration. immigrati on. si Mas ala simultaneously calls our attention to the transnational character of concon temporary Asian American immigration and to the multiple statuses of Asian Asian Americans, as both bot h bourgeoisie and an d working clas classs and an d as a “mid dleman minority” within local racial and class hierarchies. The film rere jects jec ts both bot h the th e evasion evasion of liberal multiculturalism and an d the th e essentialism of ethnonationalism in favor of a political consciousness shaped by an understanding of contradictory histories and the complexity of power. Only the full consciousness of these global histories and local positions make possible class alliances and transtrans -racial coalitions. In its utopian vision of a racial democracy, Mississippi stands with Carlos America Is in the Heart in the Asian American tradition of resisting the Oriental.
