This is the 5th volume of the

Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies

Editor-in-C

hief: Professor David Palum

bo-Liu

Issue Editor: Professor Stephen M

urphy-Shigematsu

Managing E

ditor: Victoria Yee

Editors:

Sunli Kim

(Oceanic Tongues)

Vy LeVan A

nh TranN

ujsaubnusi Vue

Cover A

rt & D

esign: Justin LamL

ayout: Justin Lam

*

More about the Stanford Journal of A

sian Am

erican Studies: http://aas.stanford.edu/journal/

More about O

ceanic Tongues: http://oceanictongues.stanford.edu

This print publication was m

ade possible by the special support of:

Stanford Asian A

merican A

ctivities Center

Stanford Com

parative Studies in Race &

Ethnicity Departm

entStanford English D

epartment

Stanford Institute for Creativity and the A

rtsO

kada House

Professor Stephen Hong Sohn

*

Printed in San Francisco by Giant H

orse Printing: May 2013

CO

NTE

NTS

FE

ATU

RE

PO

ETR

Y

81112141517192022252730333435363738394043

Henry Leung Shroud

Iris A. Law V

isitation D

epartureFox at M

idnightAw

akening

Ngoc Luu G

randpa’s Garden

Sandy Chang Silenced

Aldric Ulep M

other’s Day Phonecall

Nujsaubnusi Vue M

y Father’s Altar

Justin Lam A

shes and Dust

Okay

Mg Roberts N

ot So, SeaThis R

efracted FailureA

sters

Esther Lee Said Twine to Tum

bleweed

Breathing D

emonstrations

Vowels of R

ust, Consonants of Paper

Kazim

Ali Sent Mail

Road at A

cheU

rduR

andom Search

Phenomenal Survivals of D

eath in the M

ountains

Yael Villafranca Green K

iss

Mark Flores Three Q

uarters

Christina N

guyen Perpetual Foreigner

Bushra Rehman The G

rass Pulled Up

Lee Tonouchi The Myth-o-M

a-Logical Tale of Haw

ai-ian Santa

Matthew

Salesses How

the Rules of R

acism are D

iffer-ent for A

sian Am

ericans

Kelsey D

ang Problematic R

epresentations of Asian

Am

erican Men in H

ollywood Productions

Tiffany Dharm

a My M

usic is Silence: Asian-A

merican

Youth and the Model M

inority Myth

Kyle Abraham

The Lucky 16%: A

sian Am

erican Col-

lege Enrollment and the Journey to G

et There.

Haerin Shin A

Confession of N

ationalistic Disloyalty

as a Profession of Ethnic Identity: The Poetics and Politics of D

issonance in Julie Otsuka’s W

hen the Em

peror was D

ivine

Michael Tayag A

n Evaluation of the Hands-O

N C

on-ciliation Policy and Practice of the Philippine C

onsul-ate G

eneral in Hong K

ong

Natalia D

uong Exposing Agent O

range: Tracking Photographic Lineages to R

e-engage View

ers with the

Ongoing Environm

ental and Hum

anitarian Concern

Phuong Vy Le An Evaluation of R

ace Concordant

Doctor-Patient R

elationship as a Method of Elim

inat-ing C

ultural Barriers in the V

ietnamese A

merican

Patient Population

FE

ATU

RE

“

SHO

RT STO

RIE

S

ESSA

YS

RE

SEA

RC

H

44495161708095109

125

143

160

173

98

SHR

OU

DH

enry Leung

Skylawn M

emorial Park in San M

ateo housed my uncle’s w

ake that sum

mer. It w

as ornate in a way that seem

ed to me especially

Western, though I don’t know

where to point to prove this; death is

always expensive to excess. I w

as angry: The thought of more divi-

sions in our family, this cem

etery so far from m

y grandparents’ in Pacifica, w

here at least the blackened bins of burnt joss paper make

the place distinctly Chinese, w

hatever that means for us this m

any generations along—

And that m

y uncle had been converted to Christianity in the

last week of his blight, not, as far as I know, from

a lifelong anguish w

ith it but from a sw

ift hard-sell when vulnerable, from

a pastor who

would spend the w

ake bragging and proselytizing to the rest of us—

And even the address of the place, “H

ighway 92 at Skyline

Boulevard,” as though they ow

ned trans-county traffic with their

holes in the earth, with these dusty stones, w

ith our decaying bodies.

We arrived, a few

dozen of us, cousins, aunts, uncles, chil-dren in hushed tow

, in the morning in our suits, som

e blacker than others, and so early that it felt like preparations for a flight. W

e lined up and sat in the chapel, in dism

aying order, family groups rent on

either side of the aisle. My uncle’s face w

as printed on a large easel, a picture I recognized from

an honor he’d been awarded as a JC

Pen-ney em

ployee. Beside the easel: the open casket. B

oth of these faces stilled and hardened, im

perfect mem

ories.

I’d been asked to write som

ething and read from it in the

Am

erican way of eulogies. I had so little to say except in thanks too

late to share: thanks for building my bedfram

e with his bare hands

when w

e moved to C

alifornia, thanks for teaching me to crush cans

for recycling, and sanding wood and saw

ing pine boards and sipping tea just right, and driving us all to Los A

ngeles for a cousin’s wed-

ding once, when I w

as so young that all I remem

ber of it now w

as a pit stop in the m

iddle of the night at some blue-lit gas station in such

a vastness I’d wondered briefly if w

e were hom

eless. My m

other helped m

e write a version of his story in C

hinese. He’d been the first

in our family to sw

im across the border from

Guangdong to M

acau during the C

ultural Revolution, to stow

away to H

ong Kong and

make it to A

merica as a refugee. She told this to m

e in broad strokes at hom

e, sitting cross-legged on a secondhand chair with three ob-

long lights on the wall behind her, as she rubbed the soles of her feet

with her knuckles, as she apologized for not raising m

e better, as I sat and w

ondered when m

y growing-up had com

e to its end and why I

hadn’t noticed.

I was undecided up until the m

orning of the wake. M

y un-cle’s daughter w

aited for me in a lounge outside the funeral hom

e’s bathroom

. I locked myself in to clean up after using a bad urinal,

which spat everything back w

hile flushing. When I cam

e out, and she asked if I still w

anted to say a few w

ords, I shook my head no. H

ow

could I explain that there was no w

ay to honor him the w

ay I wanted

to, in a way that felt sincere?

Later I w

ould write a poem

, “On Second Thought,” begin-

ning with the lines:I’m

asked to read something at the funeral

so I build my uncle’s labors into an edifice.

But the dead die tw

ice in our veneers.

Little window, big cold.

And a book of m

ore poems w

ould come out of that sum

mer’s grief

and storytelling, in a language and inflection my uncle w

ouldn’t have understood, but w

ith a binding and a price tag which m

ight have m

ade him proud.

U

ntil then, I sat in the pews betw

een my m

other and older sister. W

hen it was our turn to rise and see the body, m

y mother’s

knee buckled as she wept. M

y sister put her arm around her, rubbed

her back. I thought I should too, but I didn’t know how

. I looked dow

n at the man I’d often thought looked a lot like m

e, or the other w

ay around. It was like w

hen I looked at old black-and-white photos

of my father, long dead, and I’d see a past w

here I might end up.

W

e sat again, and the ceremony continued. Each of m

y un-cle’s siblings w

ent up one at a time to cover his body w

ith a colored sheet, a shroud. First his brother, w

ho’d flown from

out of state by him

self. Then my m

other, one edge of the red shroud at a time. She’d

already tucked in the third corner when som

eone said my sister and I

should get up and help her. I was blocking m

y sister from the aisle. I

froze in my seat.

1110

We w

atched her finish the last corner. If I could forgive my-

self for not moving, I’d say it w

as best that she had this mom

ent for herself.

VISITA

TION

Iris A. Law

Monterey rolls in, bringing w

ith her sudden sea weather

that settles in, glowering, over the hills. Inky, w

et storm clouds

vein through the city. Miles of rain turn to ice overhead.

When she lifts, she leaves behind tokens: stray seabird feathers;

a faint scent of iodine that lingers in doorframes and w

indowsills;

gull bones; a fragment of porcelain spoon - snippets that

freckle the weft of m

y days. nights, When I’m

lonesome

for water, I follow

the blooms of old salt past the tracks;

I look to the coast; I drink up the landlocked sky.

DE

PAR

TUR

EIris A. Law

As the w

heels fold up into the body of the plane,I cannot help but cry, just a little. N

o heaving of thechest, no w

ailing. Simply a tense w

eeping without sound,

letting the water gather lightly in the crevices of m

y eyesas the cards slip from

my lap.

Something to do w

ith the stone angel yesterday - collapsedin grief over the tended grave, unm

oving in her anguishas the jays clim

bed, scolding, over her head and neck.

All w

e could do was stare at her from

acrossthe iron railing, not daring even to touch one otherfor com

fort, sun-soaked, untenable, miles betw

eenour fingers and her faceless, m

arble grief.

12

I. PO

ETR

Y

“We m

ust march onw

ard, bear witness, and w

ork with a conscious

effort to build a magnificent, dynam

ic canon.”- M

arilyn Chin

FOX

AT M

IDN

IGH

TIris A. Law

The girl reborn.

When the m

en in masks

were tired of m

e, they lita fire beneath m

y feet, floated me

into the September m

orning,brow

n paper lantern ballooninginto the plum

-blue dark.

They had touched me

with dirty fingers, had pressed

my palm

s to something hard

and wet. It had gleam

edgunsoot and all black.It broke m

y skin like glass.

Soft wax, pretty ashes. Paper fox

creeping into burrow before

the burned-out dawn. The m

oonslept softly on the B

ay while streaks

of light leaked from betw

eenits teeth: cold, sticky, red as blood.

AW

AK

EN

ING

Iris A. Law

Light from w

ithin the tide pools. The water etches

jagged peaks. Slim fingers pierce the surface,

fumble on kelp-slick rocks, grip. Take hold. Pull.

Something w

et shivers behind the dock. A body,

inching belly-to-mud, craw

ls up out of the sea.

1514

GR

AN

DPA

’S GA

RD

EN

Ngoc Luu

Peach and nectarine trees. A

kumkw

at saplingand lem

on grass. An orange tree

covered in white fluff, overrun by ants.

Squash weaving itself in and around

a gray wire fence. In the distant corner,

a cluster of lean sugarcane. The fig tree stood in the m

iddle of the garden.

My cousin and I often played

by the orange tree. Chinese jum

p rope. K

ung Fu fighting. He-M

an. She-Ra.

One H

alloween, G

randpa bought plaster m

asks, painted like faces w

orn by Chinese opera singers.

They were thick, heavy and stifling.

Mine w

as white covered in delicate

strokes of black, beginning at the tear ducts, running below

the round rosy cheeks, and m

eeting on the forehead.

He and I also played in the church

parking lot across the street. We clim

bed the roof of the garage and peered over it, sm

iling, at our feat. W

e stayed there, hidden,by its low

walls until dark,

until there was nothing left

but the sound of crickets.

SILEN

CE

DSandy C

hang

Grandchild

His son and daughter-in-law

were at w

ork, his daughter was at

school, and his wife w

as at the garden picking the chili peppers before they w

ilted from the w

inter chill. He sat in a chair looking out

the window

, listening to the faint heartbeat of the clock behind him.

A child appeared from

the kitchen holding a knife. Muab rau kuv!

The child stopped and stared at him blankly. W

hen the man stood up

from the chair, the child started to run but tripped on a toy. H

e could alm

ost hear the mom

ent flesh gave in to metal.

StrokeW

hile resting on a hospital bed, he looked up at his daughter who

was talking to the doctor. H

is daughter turned to him and told him

that there w

as blood in his head and that they were going to poke a

hole through his skull to suck out the blood. After the surgery, she

told him that he could not stay out in the sun too long and that he

could not carry heavy things. They might as w

ell have made him

a w

oman.

Copper

He had heard stories of A

merica from

his friends and relatives at the Thai refugee cam

p – of the green land that flourished under the alw

ays-shining sun, where m

oney was earned easily, and w

here his children could live like kings. Looking at his son, he realized he had been lied to. H

is son’s clothes were w

ashed with blood, face w

as bruised black, and on his arm

was a dark tattoo that m

arked his al-legiance. H

elp me, Father. H

e turned away. You are not m

y son.

Opium

Gunshots roar in the distance. H

is family huddles deeper into the

covers of a thick Laotian bush. He turns to his w

ife, whose face is

covered in dirt and grime. In her arm

s, his small son shivers. W

e continue at daw

n. Rest for the night. H

e hugs them both in attem

pt to keep them

warm

. The sudden movem

ent causes the baby to wail out

into the night. Yelling from a distance. H

e covers the baby’s mouth

1716 w

ith his hand. Running footsteps. H

e pulls a small lum

p from his

pocket and slips it into the baby’s mouth. The baby suckles on it and

falls imm

ediately to sleep. He pats his pocket to m

ake sure he has enough to last the journey.

PrisonerThe soldiers com

e to his village and announce that if the men do not

join their army, they w

ould burn the village. Worried and scared for

his family, he runs up to the m

en dressed in green and brown uni-

forms and tells them

that he would like to join. They herd the group

to a camp not far aw

ay, where hundreds of other m

en stare gauntly at the new

arrivals. They give him a rifle half his size. They tell him

he has to use it.

Wife

I decide to accompany m

y friend to a nearby Hm

ong village, since he w

ants me to m

eet the love of his life. We spend half the day

walking on a long dirt road, and w

hen we reach the village w

e head tow

ard a small w

ooden hut near the back. I stop halfway. I catch a

glance of a beautiful wom

an, of her long black hair and pale, moon

face. Aware of m

e, she slowly peeks up from

the cloth she is sewing,

and her almond eyes catch m

ine. Her cheeks blush a flam

ing red. G

lad that I had picked it along the way, I take out a rum

pled flower

from m

y pocket and offer it to her. “Can I talk w

ith you?”

MO

THE

R’S D

AY

PH

ON

EC

ALL

Aldric Ulep

‘you should talk to grandma’

more like i should

learn how

to talk to grandma

‘agsingsingpet ka agbasa’ [focus on your grades]“w

en grandma” [yes grandm

a]‘saanka ag ob-obra la unay’ [dont let your job get in the w

ay]“m

ayat ti basa ko grandma” [m

y studies are okay]

i hadnt the heart or vocabularyto tell her it w

asnt true

working a m

ereeight hours a w

eekfor a hundred dollarsto do poorly in classesm

y mom

is paying thousands for(w

hat the fuck am i doing?)

– things i could not comm

unicate

“hello grandpa”‘hi barok, kum

usta?’ [hi son, how are you?]

his voice trem

bles, ‘saan m

akangeg ak’ [i cant hear anything]he w

asnt talkingbecause he thought he couldnt hear m

ei w

asnt talkingbecause i didnt know

how

(where are those dam

n tissues)

1918

MY

FATH

ER

’S ALTA

RN

ujsaubnusi Vue

It stares at me

With its inviting stance

the calm, the stillness.

I stare back empty m

inded.It w

hispers the essence of burning joss sticks softly into m

y skin, Invading my

soul with m

orals and tarnishing m

y sins.G

iving me breath

As if I w

ould seek it after floating

up from the deepest oceans.

It bears the light holding a lit candle, blinding m

e from

lies, seducing the thought of hope.It flaunts the taste of m

agnificenceG

old and Silver,the jingles from

the bells, his hands, firm

with strength

the resonance of a gong played by the spirits,the glorified secrets cover the pathw

ay to another world of

holy opium and scandalous m

edicine.M

y father’s altar cries with hym

ns

Where did she go?

C

ome…

BackH

ome.

‘kayatna agsao ti basit ni mom

my’ [m

om w

ants to talk to you again]“m

om i had to w

ork hardto hide the sobsagain”‘hapay agsangsangit ka?’ [w

hy are you crying?] ‘m

aka sangsangit ak pay’ [stop youre making m

e teary]

these tears of frustration:icant talkto those w

ho taught me how

to speak. she com

plimented m

y useof our native tonguew

hen all i did was throw

stabbing wordcouples

and drop short childish phrases –english tinged w

ith a fake accent

im learning chinese in college

a class some strangers (undergrad aid donors)

are paying thousands forw

hen my ow

n languagethe very language of m

y mother

is a stranger to me –

like my grandparents

a.j.u.

2120

ASH

ES A

ND

DU

STJustin Lam

My parents gave m

e a book telling me I w

as made of dust. But you,

you are made of ash.

But w

e’re not so different, you and I. I of dust and you of ash…w

hy you’re only a little darker than I am

. My parents have a fear of the

dark, more so than m

e. I’m not talking about the dark that com

es w

ith the night, but the darkness of the human heart, w

hich is often the darkest of all.

I would rather be m

ade of ash than of dust. I, made of dust, am

much

more com

mon than you, m

ade of ash. You find dust everywhere.

Where do you find ash? O

nly at the mausoleum

. You are exquisite, you are rare, you are special, you are ash, and m

aybe, just maybe,

you are death? You are made from

the remnants of death, and that

makes you life. I am

made of the flecks of discarded life, and that

makes m

e death. Through a ritual of fire you come into existence.

While m

e, me I am

from the refuse of living beings.

Ash is the stuff of M

other Nature, launched from

the great Earth’s bow

els. Dust is the stuff of us insignificants. You are the stuff of vol-

canic eruptions, belching thick dark smoke into the sky to sm

other the w

orld. Ash rained dow

n on Pompeii, ash rained dow

n on Sodom

and Gom

orrah, ash rained down on A

tlantis, ash destroyed the old so that there could be the new. W

hat did dust ever do but gather?

Surely then, you, a being of ash, is surely much m

ore useful than m

e, a being of dust. You are the stuff of cosmos, and I am

the stuff of ordinary. From

the ashes, the phoenix rises. From dust? W

ell, maybe

an allergy.

My parents tell m

e to be careful of ashes. They are dark, they tell me.

Stay away, they tell m

e. I disagree. I think they are beautiful, much

more w

orthy than those of dust. I see you, made of ash, for w

hat you truly are!

All this talk of w

orth, all this comparison, I find m

yself repeating m

yself, so maybe I w

ill just say this:

Ashes from

ashesD

ust from dust

We m

ay look differentB

ut in you I trust.

2322

OK

AY

Justin Lam

The lioness storms in

And a flash of m

etallic blueVanishes under the sheetsW

hat are you doing?N

othingH

ow can you be doing nothing?

THIS IS IM

PORTA

NT, you’ve w

astedThe last hour on N

OTH

ING

?I w

as looking for something

What w

ere you looking for?Inform

ation, about tomorrow.

Oh tom

orrow.

Yeah, tomorrow

.I need that inform

ation.

Okay

I’ll print it off for youSo w

hat have you been doingFor the past tw

o hours?I said, I w

as looking for information

Stop wasting your tim

eI’m

not wasting m

y time

Print off that information for m

e

Okay

When do you have to be there tom

orrow?

Eight thirtyEight thirty? Idiot child, I have to go to W

OR

K!!!!!!

Okay, okay, you can drive m

e down earlier

Why didn’t you give m

e the information earlier?

Sorry, okay?D

idn’t you know that I had to go to w

ork tomorrow

?

Okay, okay, jeez

Don’t jeez m

e, you crazy, stupid childW

hy are you still awake? You should sleep

Okay, okay

I wanted to eat som

ethingW

ell you’re not. You’re going to sleep.

Okay, okay

What are you w

earing tomorrow

?The thing w

e bought yesterdayW

ell you’re going to wear that all day

What?? There’s N

O w

ay I’m w

earing that all dayYou are nowB

ut I don’t –H

ave you prepared anything for tomorrow

?N

o….

Then too bad

Okay, okay

Are you done packing?

Alm

ostW

hy haven’t you finished packing?You had the last tw

o hours

Okay, okay

I will

I said you had to finish tonight!!

Okay, okay

I get itA

nd print that stuff off

Okay, okay

It’s printingW

hy can’t you be more responsible?

Okay, okay

2524

Why can’t you be a better child?

Okay, okay

I’m very disappointed in you.

Okay, okay

Why can’t you be sm

arter?

Okay, okay

Why can’t you w

ork harder?

Okay, okay

Why don’t you love m

e more?

I’m going to bed.

Okay, okay

Good night

The blue reappearsA

nd snaps shutThe line cutsB

ut not before

Okay, bye.

NO

T SO,

SEA

_______________________________________M

g Roberts

1. M

other remem

bers time through w

et. Dry.

W

et seasons. She talks about earth betw

een toes, fabric wrapped shoulder to w

rist to m

imic long sleeves. She talks about ten

siblings that appear and disappear in tim

es of drought.

She says, “Victor and M

ariquita are the two that survived”.

In a jungle sometim

es people disappear. 2.

Mother raises her hands, pretends to pull on a pair of gloves—

taut arms

reach out to sea. She shows m

e thickened skin in dark circles:

holed-palm

s.

“This is how you lead kalabaw

into and out of field”.

2726

3.

W

ith downw

ard-arced lips, she talks about her own

mother’s

death.

“Broken heart,” she w

hispers.

“Never

married.”

3.

Mother runs her thin

brow

n fingers across my scalp, stares

into the textured, stucco of the apartment, its orange w

alls breaking into 4ths, 8ths, and 16ths. Tears pool in crouched corners, her eyes far aw

ay.

She says, “The day my Lola died the living

fanned out

in rows of

tiny black dots.

She says, “You have her hair”.

THIS R

EF

RA

CTE

DFA

ILUR

E_____________________________

Mg Roberts

I.Mem

ory is like when the light leaks out and the desire to stop reproduc-

tion and the desire to procreate become the sam

e thing.

A diagnosis is a m

oment of inexplicit clarity, blurred identifications

hemm

ed in by bones. Bones resem

bling anything but beauty produced on film

.

How

can I make things any clearer here? C

an I say the making of im

-portant things is like an axis, the study of tectonics? The m

aking. Make.

II.I w

ant to define elegance. I want to exam

ine the arrangement of all its

letters, its violence before you. Are tulips elegant? I m

ean redemptive.

Transferable.

2928

Are red tulips elegant?

The thought spills out, everything spills out of it, everything spills.

III.M

emory is like a m

irror producing impressions of refracted failures,

where im

ages of tragedy appear: your head bobbing in and out of a toilet, a pool of vom

it, two m

en having their way w

ith you in that cheap hotel room

, its green shag carpet, its layered smoke penetrating every-

thing.

Such perfect arrangement of the letters required to spell catastrophe.

IV.This is a splinter of im

pressions you know you w

ill never forget. You repeat the m

emory w

hen you sleep. The mem

ory repeats.

Today the ospreys are building nests in cell phone towers and all I can

think to say is those are not trees. There are stick-piles making and

making.

Light leaks from com

pacted branches with such inexplicable clarity,

where I w

ept and wept.

3130

ASTE

RS

I._________________________________________M

g Roberts

What/W

hen presents itself through stretched time, through a w

aiting room

’s white

sterility. Born in clustered petals, right leg clenched in

midw

ife’s grasp.

What/W

hen is unable to breathe on her own.

W

hat/W

hen is not breathing as she should.

I can put together any-thing

but this scene:

[a calculated sentiment] folding w

ings against an arced

spine.

Watch as the m

idwife m

arks every possible

line, as in the collection of

cells, so carefully without need for light.

When asked to lie dow

n I am im

possible. I do not scream, but look

closely at the red vase on the bedside table,

at the

sunflow

er in bloom

:

3332

Can you see the hundreds of little flow

ers growing on a disk?

Pressing palms together, steepling

fin-

gers, bow m

y round head to look dow

n at hands.

I open m

y m

outh for this

poem

:

all this sinew

—veins—

and im

agine purple asters

forcing

petals into skin and

every piece of

air

too.

SAID

TWIN

E TO

TUM

BLE

WE

ED

Esther Lee

You are dead to us, You-Me, the parents say,

expunging “You-Me” from

the family tree.

You-Me sighs: M

y nature my grave

mistake? They reply, You-M

eW

e’ll re-instate our love onlyif you band your disjointed finger, if you

bark as we do. The brother chides,

Otherw

ise You-Me, returning

home w

ill be impossible. C

onsider bloodm

oney your last gift, the sister w

rites. For no

good, You-Me’s nature exposed

to elements, like church

bells clanging onevery corner, m

addening.

3534

BR

EA

THIN

G D

EM

ON

STRA

TION

Esther Lee

for M

arina Abramovíc

in bath water she im

merses herself—

one leg at a time,

to the waist then chin,

eyes cinched, nose a sinking periscope, m

outh pursed, and holding—

submerged she hears

a muffled return.

after one minute and

before breath elapses

[44 seconds...

2 minutes, 28 seconds...

3 minutes, 13 seconds...]

with hands gently braced

upon her hands, you lean down

below the w

aterline and press lips to hers, replacing your form

er breath, and pushing in new

air.

VO

WE

LS OF

RU

ST, CO

NSO

NA

NTS O

F PA

PE

REsther Lee

for my sister

Previous night’s dream recurs: your sister sinking

toward the lake basem

ent, how she turns

away yet still returns, blurriest of foreign tongues.

Transposed upon her are faces of children. You won-

der(though the forest rem

ains a smug, silent green)

which plants are edible and w

hich are poison, whether

the parcel of rust bobbing on the water w

aits fora christening, its m

ovement a disturbance

to fish, scaring them to the lake floor. B

eneath

your sister’s bed: green water and paper

that tears itself and two sm

all beds, unmade.

In the interim she folds m

ore paper boats

too garish. Doctors say, Parcel of rust. You w

ince—knuckles calloused from

grit—and w

hile crossing the cattle guard, you spot tw

o wooden boxes, nested,

one slightly smaller than the other. U

p close they pixelate less and less. You ask your sister, a bird hanging from

her beak: How

do you walk

away and still return? The light m

oving across her face creates the narrative of you both, running in reverse, your laughter m

istaken for gasping.

3736

SEN

T MA

ILK

azim Ali

Lost in your inbox collecting dust, a letter from m

adness

Alw

ays silent unable to say where are you

Night the silent w

hisperer friending you without saying your

connection

Sending messages every day asking “brother do you believe in

god?

Have you been touched by alarm

yet?”

I give you the river and lie down for the part w

here you split me

From the banks, one silver m

inute beyond vision

I requested your guest book but you fled into darkness

So I interrogated everyone left, reft the searchlight from the

search.

Death, the last virus, crashes every system

,

You’re a citizen of the country that isn’t on any maps

You said BR

B so I just dote on the ground, far from

home

Waiting for your answ

er, the chat window

open forever

THE

RO

AD

AT A

CH

EK

azim Ali

I was w

hispered along the road at Ache

toward the sun-puddled gate

the sum of yearning for

whatever m

akes you emptier

better weather, the absence of bees

but the year tells it better, all the hives

unraveling into summ

er, little mouths

flooding the May air to stillness.

My telling tints the blue air

whiter, storm

-white open ear

listening to what w

ill unspool next,clover, apple-trees, and to w

hat

I owe the m

ysterious reciter arrivingdriving out dry the flood m

onth

spelling me in every direction, unclear but

swarm

ing, given this my year to hear

3938

UR

DU

Kazim

Ali

Can’t even to India return I return

First writing then to read I learned

Cloudy-cloudy bright alw

ays and cold

Disappearing places I m

y way storm

I ocean to then moon abscond

Departure before from

sweeping sore

Someone m

y book inside urdu has written

How

coalesce these storms

Exercise endless claimed and m

apped

How

will I never w

ill I learn

RA

ND

OM

SEA

RC

HK

azim Ali

to the TSA

Who w

ill in the night unpetaling lose himself in fealty

His crim

e heartbreaking, confessed and festering

What undresses in the ground, lost in perjury

If you don’t understand who w

ill

He’s to be tried for the nearly unforgivable sins of nam

ingordinary stars after him

self, drinking coffee without labor law

s

The whole idea is that your life is an understatem

entW

ishing you could translate your lust, faking like you care

Marking tim

e by the icicle melting from

the eaveD

are not swear it, even to save you

Chaste and chastened, he is touched by you

his body changes as he sinks under your hands

The world’s opulent answ

er, his silent umbrage

A subm

erged body arrows to the surface

Not by intent but because it is buoyant

He w

ants to save you, wants to save everyone

When you’re finished w

ith him, hand him

back his glasseshe tells you to renounce m

eat and demand an end to inheritance

Tells you to recite Arabic in the gate area

What else is left but to be hum

an here

4140

PH

EN

OM

EN

AL SU

RV

IVA

LS OF

D

EA

TH IN

THE

MO

UN

TAIN

SK

azim Ali

1.Jacketed by mountains does the self of sulfur

send itself to rock or vaporC

left do You breathe my surface

Beneath or above the earth’s surface

When in the valley I collapsed in sound

I dreamt of a m

an his hands boundB

y shafts of sun and cloud Saying, “I am

Saint Everyone.In m

y pocket a spool of piano wire.”

Awake in the predaw

nI w

ill fill this coffin of stone

2.Awake I unchim

e Tickets to heaven all validated, declinedO

n the third night thrustThe m

onsoon, my Saint Everyone lust

Played out and the cloud-craftU

nloosed from the rock pier, reft

by thunder. Abandoned by death

Wandered the unm

arked roadW

here my bones still lie in the earth

Am

id yarrow and m

adder and woad

3.If you press your ear to solid stoneW

ill you hear the body’s hard equationTurn solvent as it quivers

Monsoon a doorw

ay to foreverTook oars aw

ay and promised

Saint Everyone carried only orchidsYou are not buried, have no m

oneyB

ody hold fire, hold water and loam

Practice the early primal tunes

Night long fled but aloft unseen

Pierced I am by m

oon-stunned noon

4.Acres of sky shine cobalt blue

In my locket tides of dirt spill new

Outw

ard I am borne

To myself sw

orn and inside worn

From this shore I w

indward grow

Endless border crossM

y first body built sturdy from loss

My second in spans of cloud and snow

42

II. SHO

RT

STOR

IES

“Words are tricky. Som

etimes you need them

to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don’t, it turns gangrenous and kills you. . . .

But sometim

es words can break a feeling into pieces.”

- Chitra Banerjee D

ivakaruni

GR

EE

N K

ISSYael Villafranca

carrying a threat of joy, an honorable knight: there’s your look: sm

oke casting brief ribbons of shadow: grip the blade w

ith my hand,

a signal: your look for me your face for m

e alive in me: I’ve decided:

I’m telling you this now

that I’ve shown you m

y naked lesioned back:

there was a child w

ho learned to catch geckos and nothing else: you still m

ove like this, with as m

uch attention and I promise to take you

crabbing back east: allure for soft shells: you have this for me: tw

o buses and a train across the peninsula: seven years in fam

ine circling the beloved city: I return to the old w

ords: knowing no other w

ay

say what you m

ean: only I can’t, I keep beginning and beginning: there w

as a child crouching outside a locked door: you’re still here, even w

hen you’re not, it still happened, I still lived it: I gave you the com

b and you put it down and used your fingers instead: you

made up a nam

e for me that no one else know

s: you said you weren’t

thirsty but your eyes gave you away: this is w

hat you know of shel-

ter:

that I can come back: that I do: the girl still strong in m

e: when you

sleep, I slide the nail with one sw

ift motion into your tem

ple: lead you off this planet: you’ll know

me, I have prom

ised for you: the feel is a slow

wild taking in

4544

THR

EE

QU

AR

TER

SM

ark Flores

I w

as never the type of person who had problem

s answer-

ing questions on standardized tests, but every time I took the SAT,

without fail, som

eone would alw

ays ask about the race question.

“W

hich bubble do you fill in?”

O

ut of context, the question sounds ridiculous, but consider-ing m

y home state of H

awaii’s origins as a plantation conglom

erate of im

migrants, it’s not strange to be m

ultiracial. In fact, my cousin

is the only one in his kindergarten class of just one ethnicity. A good

number of the population is “hapa”, or m

ixed race— the very w

ord com

es from H

awaiian Pidgin, w

hich itself was m

ade up of borrowed

words from

other languages. As a result, quite a few

people are 50%-

50% in term

s of ethnicity. But the SAT only lets you bubble in one

answer.

D

ue to sheer repetition, I’ve mem

orized the standard an-sw

er— pick the one that you identify w

ith more. B

ut what does that

mean? Is it the one that you look m

ore like physically? Is it the one that you identify m

ore with culturally? W

hat if the two are in con-

flict? Needless to say, there w

as always som

eone who struggled to

answer the question.

B

ut it was never m

y struggle.

W

hile I’m technically m

ultiracial myself, it w

as never really an issue. I’ve alw

ays been Asian, and I’ve alw

ays been Chinese. It

was how

I was born, it w

as how I w

as raised, and it will be how

I die. It w

as something I’d never thought to question.

I’m

¾ C

hinese, but there’s something special about ¾

. It m

eans my ethnicity com

es from both sides of m

y family, and w

hile I’m

of mixed race, it w

asn’t a matter of “using chopsticks w

ith my

mother, and using a fork w

ith my father”—

we’d alw

ays use chop-

sticks.

M

y mother is full C

hinese; her brother-in-law is the cur-

rent President of the Haw

aii Chinese C

hamber of C

omm

erce; her grandfather, m

y Tai Kung, im

migrated on a boat to the U

.S. to get an education. She grew

up on her grandmother’s bitter herbal C

hinese rem

edies, and meals of jook, jai, and a w

hole host of other foods that becam

e a staple of family gatherings.

M

y father is ½ C

hinese, ¼ Filipino, and ¼

Hispanic. H

e was

born in Hong K

ong, and most of his 6 siblings are fluent in C

anton-ese. I’ve been told he has an accent, and the first tim

e he hugged his brother in years w

as after they took at trip together to visit his home

village in China. H

is mother lived in C

hina for nearly her entire life, cannot speak or read English w

ell, and never fails to tell me how

proud she is about m

y academic achievem

ents. His father is m

y only grandparent w

ho is not full Chinese (½

Filipino and ½ H

ispanic), lived in M

anila his entire life, and also is fluent in Cantonese.

I’ve never been to a fam

ily gathering where noodles w

ere not served, I consider m

y astrological sign a “wood dog”, not C

ancer the C

rab, and can scarcely remem

ber not being able to use chop-sticks. Every so often, I’ve been seen sporting a bow

l cut; when I

smile, m

y mom

reminds m

e to make sure m

y eyes have not creased into a squint, and as a child, apparently, I w

ould sing Chinese opera

with m

y grandmother. M

y paternal grandfather never did anything to advance the culture that he grew

up in— I never questioned his

earthly, rich, skin tone, and I don’t think I even realized he wasn’t

Chinese until late elem

entary school. Hispanic or Filipino culture

was just never a part of m

y life.

N

eedless to say, I’ve always felt full C

hinese. My features

reflect this as well—

my face is relatively flat, m

y hair has never been anything but perfectly straight, the bridge of m

y nose is too sm

all to support my glasses, and if I shaved m

y head and not my

face, I’d undoubtedly look like some sort of C

hinese sage. The only thing that could possibly indicate anything otherw

ise is my last

name, Flores, w

hich is certainly not Asian. It’s strange that a last

4746 nam

e, supposedly a gift from m

y ancestors, is something that has

always seem

ed foreign to me, and has dragged behind m

y every step like an unforgotten secret, a stain upon m

y Asian character. I’m

not “pure” C

hinese, I’m “diluted”, and m

y last name is forever a rem

ind-er of this split bloodline. O

f all the other names m

y grandparents w

ear— C

hong, Lum, and C

hing— I got stuck w

ith Flores.

B

ut this had never really been a problem for m

e, at least until I cam

e to college.

H

ere at Stanford, with m

y name displayed on m

y door, I be-cam

e more than just “M

ark”, I became “M

ark Flores”. Whereas m

y last nam

e and I had previously existed in isolation with each other, in

college, it became a necessary brand used to distinguish m

e from the

hundreds of other students. It’s strange that with the addition of this

last name, I seem

ed to lose my ethnicity.

I had never really been questioned before about m

y race— it

was relatively clear from

the way I looked that I w

as Chinese. B

ut here, w

ith this burden attached to my nam

e, my face becam

e deceiv-ing, a m

ismatch w

ith the moniker of m

y ancestral line. People would

give me curious looks, as if they w

eren’t quite sure exactly what to

think of me, or of this nam

e. My last nam

e became a sort of screen, a

prism, filtering the im

pressions of the people around me, as m

y Asian

appearance began to crack, and morphed into som

ething different entirely. If I w

as no longer Chinese here, w

hat exactly was I then?

I didn’t know

.

This all cam

e to a head on Chinese N

ew Year this past w

in-ter. A

s per custom, the younger generation receives red envelopes,

lai see, filled with m

oney as a gesture from the elderly. It w

as always

one of my favorite holidays—

I’d receive money (from

both sides of the fam

ily), with no expectation of reciprocation. This year, it w

ould be a bit different.

O

ne of my neighbors decided that he w

anted the entire dorm

to celebrate Chinese N

ew Year. A

s full Chinese him

self and fluent

in Cantonese, I figured C

hinese cultural celebrations should defer to him

— after all, w

hat did I know? H

e decided to give all the Chi-

nese people in the dorm a red envelope w

ith $2 each, as a gesture of cultural pride. B

ut, he wasn’t quite sure w

hat to do with all of the

“mixed” C

hinese here.

H

e proposed giving out money proportionally to our racial

backgrounds— 100%

for the full Chinese, 50%

for the half Chinese,

and 75% for people like m

e, and the rest of Chinese agreed. It w

as a kind and benevolent gesture to be sure, and everyone w

as just eager to get som

ething. I suppose logically, it made som

e sense, but it also m

ade me profoundly uncom

fortable.

W

as I somehow

not really Chinese? W

as the ¼ of m

e that w

as not Chinese som

ething dirty, something w

rong, something spoil-

ing my C

hinese lineage? I certainly was raised to be full C

hinese— I

had the same fam

ily as my full C

hinese cousins, I ate the same food,

I did the same things, and even looked the sam

e way. W

as this some-

how “not good enough?” W

hy did I have to be treated differently?

That sam

e day, another (full Chinese) person questioned if I

actually was C

hinese. When I told her I w

as, she didn’t really believe m

e.

I w

ent to sleep unable to put the issue to rest, and on the ac-tual N

ew Year’s D

ay, I received no red envelope. I was told that the

“donor” had decided to call off the whole thing, from

the same girl

who w

ondered about my background.

I think I will alw

ays have doubts.

Later in the w

eek, after calling my grandm

a and wishing

her a happy new year, I checked m

y mail and received som

e red envelopes from

my extended fam

ily. I appreciated the gesture, but it w

asn’t able to fill the doubt that had seeped into my heart. W

hat was

I, really? Did I even count as C

hinese?

I w

ould like to end this narrative stating how I found som

e

4948 m

iddle ground between m

y internal ethnicity and my outw

ard ethnic-ity, but I received no such revelation. Still today, I don’t know

what I

am.

B

ut this question is not like the SAT, with a 5-hour tim

e lim

it, and there is no right answer. I do not have to choose betw

een tw

o (or more) answ

ers to bubble in, and I have as long as I need to define m

y identity. I have slipped on the struggle of the multiracial in

this scientific, polarizing, categorizing world of ours, and I w

ill fit the m

old of whatever person I w

ish to be. I will find m

y own definition

of race, and will conform

to no other standards but my ow

n. I am

more than just m

y background.

I am not just ¾

Chinese, I am

a whole person.

PE

RP

ETU

AL FO

RE

IGN

ER

Christina N

guyen

She basked in the realm

of the Heavenly K

ingdom. W

hen she stood, draped in the red glow

and the light of yellow stars, I

wanted to bring her to m

y empire. W

ith convincing words and

strength of posture, I tried to woo her. She rem

ained – fixed, frozen, caught in-betw

een – so I offered her exotic seeds. Even though she knew

what they w

ere, she could only understand a little of what they

meant. So she took them

, bit them, and exploded them

. Their juices, flying out as blood-soaked shrapnel, stained her innocence. Som

e of the seeds w

ere hard, some w

ere sharp, but all of them sealed her fate.

Forced to leave, unwilling as she w

as, she turned to me.

She came to m

y empire in hovering m

etal coffins in the sky. She cam

e as they turned into falling balls of flame. She cam

e to my coun-

try, flailing over and through the water. She cam

e to me in w

ooden caskets, barely large enough and often too sm

all. The black fingers covered her, sw

allowed her, and pulled her into the depths of the

ocean. Still she came to m

e because she had no other choice. She had already taken the seeds, bitten them

, and exploded them.

A refugee in m

y land, she is discontent. She curls into her enclave, barely venturing out. I adm

it that she is more than I thought. She

takes what she w

ants, what she can, from

all I have to offer. Am

bi-tion gleam

s in her dark-brown, alm

ond shaped eyes. Originally she

had not the faintest notion of being the queen of my lands; now

it is hard to say w

hether she will ever stop clim

bing up, ever stop mov-

ing forward. B

ut I cannot hold her here. While she is gone, her hom

e suffers.

Her hom

e sinks into the gray of hopelessness. Orange toxins still fall

like snow. The cold ruler keeps a tight reign and the people struggle

to make their voices heard. Their slow

, aching limbs stretch to rise,

but the culling of the wintry despotism

keeps them grounded. H

er m

other reaches out, calling, demanding, and denying that she is

gone. The constant monsoon rains m

irror the mother’s tears. H

er

5150 m

other stubbornly refuses to yield to my dem

ands, clinging to her heavy red cloak w

hile reaching for the green prosperity of spring.

Eventually, I will hold her forever. A

lready, she is bound to me.

Grow

ing, changing, she adapts until it is no longer Hell. Even if only

warily, she calls m

y empire her hom

e. She knows that everyone in

the Heavenly K

ingdom perceives her as a foreigner, a stranger. For

all that, inwardly, she know

s she is not dead; she knows she still does

not belong in my lands. She is the perpetual foreigner.

When she returns hom

e, it flourishes. So with spring a new

life and a new

prosperity comes to that land. B

ut that is no longer her home –

and neither is my land.

THE

GR

ASS P

ULLE

D U

PBushra Rehm

an R

oadside, FloridaA

ugust 1997

The grass pulled up like snakes climbing their w

ay to heaven. My

boots were shot. They used to be baby blue, but now

they were dirty

grey, like a mouse. N

atalia was standing in the road hitching, her

thumb stuck out, her shoulder turning brow

n in the sun. Cars kept

passing us, and I couldn’t believe it. How

come no one w

as picking us up? W

e were tw

o cute girls, at least I thought, but then I looked at us again and saw

two caram

el girls made darker from

the sun and dust w

e kept kicking up. We w

ere flying and in love, but getting a ride…

well that w

as near impossible. M

eanwhile, an arm

y of mosqui-

toes was happily creating trails of blood on our arm

s.

“M

aybe if we don’t stand under these trees the m

osquitoes w

ill stop bothering us.” I looked at Natalia hoping she’d agree.

She low

ered her arm and started m

assaging her shoulder. “W

e’re not having any luck in this place anyway.”

W

e walked dow

n the road a bit, but of course, the mosqui-

toes had wings and had no problem

following us.

“If I had one w

ish,” Natalia said, “I’d w

ish for a bottle of B

ug Off.”

“W

hy wouldn’t you just w

ish for all the mosquitoes to die?”

“That’s m

ean!”

“O

h God. I forgot you w

ere a hippie. Well, w

hy wouldn’t

you just wish for a ride to get us out of here? O

r even better, why

wouldn’t you just w

ish for our own car?” I im

agined us in a hot, red, topless car w

ith the window

s rolled down, blasting Velvet U

nder-

5352 ground into the lush green of Florida. “I’ve got sim

ple needs, Razia, sim

ple needs.”

A

nother car whizzed by. “A

t least the mosquitoes like us.”

I tried to slap one off but missed. I looked at N

atalia and threw m

y m

osquito-bitten arms around her. It didn’t m

atter about the heat.

Natalia laughed and squirm

ed but then bit my ear. “M

ore bites!” She pulled m

e back into the shade of the trees. “Forget these stupid driv-ers.”

She threw herself dow

n on the ground and tried to pull me dow

n w

ith her, but I pulled back. “We can’t get m

ore dirty! People with

cars probably already think we’re going to m

ess up their seats. M

aybe we should stand here w

ith mops, so w

e’re more easily recog-

nizable. Third World cleaning ladies.”

It was so bad, w

e both started giggling. We w

ere lucky we didn’t

miss the car. I heard the sound of w

heels from far off first. M

y head snapped up, and I quickly jum

ped out into the road and flashed my

thumb. B

y some m

iracle, the car stopped. It was a C

hevrolet and green, like A

rmy but w

ithout the camouflage.

I looked back at her. “What do you think?”

“W

e can’t walk all the w

ay to Key W

est.”

W

hen we got up to the car, w

e saw an old m

an and wom

an up front. I hesitated. There w

as a large crucifix with a bleeding Jesus

dangling from the rearview

mirror. I w

asn’t used to seeing Jesus a lot, and the sight of him

bleeding away w

as always a bit of a shock.

“H

i!” I said in my perkiest voice, trying not to look at Jesus’s

scarred body.

“W

here you girls heading?” the old man asked. H

is teeth w

ere denture perfect.

Instinctively, my finger shot up to m

y one crooked tooth that was

always trying to clim

b over the others and jump out of m

y mouth.

Probably the only chance I would ever have for perfect teeth w

as go-ing to be w

hen they all fell out and I got dentures. Of course, the w

ay I w

as living, who knew

if I would ever be able to afford dentures, or

if I would live that long.

“W

e’re heading to Key W

est,” Natalia said, seeing I w

as go-ing off into one of m

y reveries.

“W

e’re heading to Miam

i, girls. You’re welcom

e to come

along.” He turned to his w

ife and said, “Honey, put in those Irish

tapes.” And she did. W

e entered the car to the strains of what sound-

ed like pagan Gaelic m

usic.

N

atalia and I scooted in like two little children. Inside, the

seats were clean, shiny leather and a darker olive. M

y sweaty legs

imm

ediately stuck to the leather. I saw the old m

an looking at us in the rearview

mirror. It alw

ays happens so fast. One m

inute you’re on the road, and the next m

inute, you’re in a Chevrolet listening to Irish

music w

ith an old man and w

oman w

ho love Jesus. I sat back and started checking them

out.

The power dynam

ics of hitchhiking are weird. In exchange for a ride,

you’re expected to be entertaining or an open throbbing non-judg-m

ental ear. Natalia and I had sat through long tirades about broken

marriages and selfish children. W

e’d listened with m

ock empathy to

one yuppie man’s existential despair. W

e’d heard at least seven sto-ries about how

much m

ore fun it had been to hitchhike in the Sixties and how

two attractive young girls like us shouldn’t be hitchhiking at

all.

The old man w

as wearing a black suit and had heavily-dyed black

hair. The wom

an was w

earing a navy blue dress and you could tell she had never, nor w

ould she ever, unless she was hit by lightning or

otherwise enlightened, w

ear pants. I became very aw

are that Nata-

lia and I were both w

earing pretty tight ripped-up jean shorts. Plus,

5554 N

atalia was w

earing a T-shirt that said “Blam

!” in large red letters across her chest.

The man’s eyes in the rearview

mirror w

ere now tw

ice the size they w

ere when w

e first got into the car. I suddenly knew w

e had made

a mistake. It alw

ays amazed m

e the way som

e religious people, it doesn’t m

atter what religion they are, go ga-ga over a little bit of

skin. It burns me up. The old m

an’s eyes shifted from m

y face to my

breasts then to Natalia’s and back. Som

ehow, he still m

anaged to drive straight. I had to give him

credit for that.

When I looked over at N

atalia, I could tell she was starting to get

really upset. She was no naïve cat w

ho had just hit the street. She looked directly into the rearview

mirror, and he looked aw

ay quickly. H

is wife didn’t seem

to notice anything. She just kept changing tapes, listening for half a m

inute, then popping the cassette out again and replacing it w

ith another tape of unrecognizable music. I guess

she didn’t like Irish music.

I decided right then and there that I didn’t feel like being in a

peep show, not to m

ention one with an indecisive D

J, so I did what I

did best. I started talking. “That’s quite a crucifix you have there.” I said. I thought if I brought up the topic of religion the old m

an might

remem

ber some of the com

mandm

ents. Maybe there w

as one in there that told you not to ogle young girls.

My plan w

orked for a second. He started looking at Jesus’s naked

flesh instead of ours, but then he turned back and looked us up and dow

n as much as that w

as possible through the rearview m

irror.

“Why you girls heading to K

ey West?”

“I have a friend there,” I said. “She’s getting m

arried.” It w

as a lie, but it was better than sharing the truth, that w

e were on our

way to spend tim

e with N

atalia’s hippie friends who lived in a beach

trailer in Key W

est.

Plus it w

as one of our games. N

atalia and I would tell fake

life stories to the drivers until we started to feel our lies m

ight be real. M

aybe we could have parallel lives, ones w

e’d be able to access as soon as physicists figured out how

to move betw

een worm

holes.

“Marriage! Is that right? M

arriage is one of God’s greatest gifts.”

The old man looked at our thighs as if w

e were chicken being picked

out at a church BB

Q. “B

ut where are m

y manners? I’m

John and this here is m

y wife, Joy.”

“I’m N

atalia, and this is Razia.” I w

as grateful she had taken the first step. You w

ould think it would be a sim

ple exchange, but I’d learned once leaving Q

ueens that saying my nam

e, Razia, w

asn’t simple at

all.

He looked at us, and I could tell he w

as weighing our features, de-

ciding which foreign countries w

e could possibly be from. W

e could pass for so m

any. At least he w

as looking at our faces and not our chests.

Natalia w

as a mix of m

any things: Egyptian, Italian and New

Eng-land W

hite. In short, she looked more desi than m

e. Dark and pretty,

she got harassed in every gas station and deli we w

ent. “You Indian? You Pakistani? You B

angladeshi? Will you m

arry me?” She w

ould roll her eyes and som

etimes leave w

ithout paying. The men w

ould scream

from behind, and she w

ould turn back and say, “Are you that

cheap? Well no then, I w

on’t marry you.”

“I’m Pakistani,” I said in a clipped tone, hoping he w

ould get the hint, but know

ing he wouldn’t.

“Pakeeestan!” he mispronounced in A

merican. “I w

as in Karachi in

the Seventies.” He looked at Joy. “That w

as before I found the Lord and before I m

et my better half.” Joy paused in her tape pushing and

smiled. I could see the precision of her w

hite buck-teeth.

“Partition, terrible thing the way the natives turned on each other

right when the B

ritish left!”

5756 N

atalia quickly put her hand on my thigh and squeezed m

y knee to calm

me dow

n so I didn’t get one of my “R

acial Rage Fits” as w

e jokingly called them

.

He noticed our touch and his face stiffened. D

amn, these religious

people with their eyes like haw

ks. You have to be constantly vigilant w

hen you’re sitting in the seat of judgment. I caught m

yself, judging. I guess I hadn’t shaken off m

y own religious training.

“Sooooo . . .” he stretched it out like a long, low tire letting out air.

“When are your w

eddings?” He m

ade sure it was plural to avoid any

confusion.

Outside of the car, I thought I saw

two ostriches running for their

lives in the Florida bush. I answered honestly before I could stop

myself. “I don’t w

ant to get married.” It w

as just a knee-jerk reaction from

all the years of answering back to m

eddling Pakistani aunties w

ho seemed as if they had only one pastim

e: trying to get the girls in the com

munity m

arried. As soon as they finished w

ith one, they pounced on another. B

efore the blood was even dry.

“Oh com

e now.” From

his voice, I could tell he was going to start

preaching, “Marriage is a blessing given to us by our Lord. H

aven’t you read the B

ible?” He didn’t w

ait for a response. “‘And the Lord

God said, it is not good that the m

an should be alone, I will m

ake a helpm

ate for him.’ That’s G

enesis.”

“Am

en,” Joy said. I jumped. I had alm

ost forgotten she could speak. I suddenly had a fantasy she w

as like a blow-up doll toy w

ho said “A

men,” on cue. M

y skin prickled from the bottom

of my neck up

into my hair. W

as she a doll? She seemed so stiff. I started to panic.

Had her am

en sounded real or like some kind of cheap playback

machine? B

ut then I remem

bered her changing the tapes. Could a

blow-up doll change tapes?

John winked at us through the rearview

window. Joy noticed the

wink and w

as roused from her road com

a. No, she w

asn’t a doll. “It’s all in the B

ible,” she said, “every direction we need to know

for life.”

She looked over at him w

ith a simpering look, and he glow

ed down

on her with a spark of lust. O

h goodness, they were turning each

other on.

“Yes.” He reached out a w

rinkly hand, one that seemed it had been in

a sitz bath for a week and grabbed her thigh. “The Lord says, ‘There-

fore shall a man leave his father and his m

other, and shall cleave unto his w

ife. And they shall be one flesh.’” N

atalia looked over at m

e alarmed. I w

asn’t feeling too well m

yself.

Joy turned around, and I nearly jumped. Joy’s face close up w

as caked w

ith make-up, thick foundation, fuchsia lipstick, and green eye

shadow up to her eyebrow

s. It was scary. I had been so distracted by

Jesus and the old man I hadn’t looked at her too closely. She looked

from m

e to Natalia. H

er words w

ere covered with spit. “‘M

arriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but w

horemongers and

adulterers God w

ill judge!’”

My stom

ach felt tight. The air in the car felt impossible to breathe.

This was w

hy I had left my fam

ily in the first place, so I would never

have to feel this way, trapped and preached to. I pinched N

atalia’s leg.

“O

w. W

hat are you doing?” she whispered.

“Psychos,” I mouthed silently. She nodded, but John thought she w

as agreeing w

ith him.

“Isn’t that right?” H

e reached over and pinched Joy’s thigh hard. She w

inced and then turned and smiled. From

the side, I could see her front teeth w

ere coated with lipstick. That’s strange. I hadn’t

noticed it before.

“B

ut where are our m

anners, Joy? Moslem

s don’t believe in our tenets.” H

e shrugged. His w

hole body loosened, and for a sec-ond, in the rearview

mirror, he looked like a norm

al person. “Well, I

guess we’ll all know

what’s w

hat on Judgment D

ay!”

5958

He started singing:

The other night as I left the meeting

God’s spirit bade m

e stayB

ut I said not tonight, for next week only

I must go and dance w

ith the gay.A

fter that I’ll go and get converted A

nd be a Christian bright

But alas, too late, I see the folly

By saying not tonight.

Natalia and I stared at him

. He had no idea how

appropriate his song w

as.

John’s voice was shockingly beautiful. Suddenly, I felt jealous. I’d

never been allowed to sing m

yself. It was forbidden in m

y Orthodox

Muslim

family. N

ot knowing w

hat to do with the heat of m

y feelings, I rolled dow

n the window

. The air felt cool and fresh, wet, full of

sweet sm

ells I didn’t recognize, ones I wanted to breathe in.

John abruptly ended the hymn. “W

hat are you doing?! Can’t you see

the AC

is on?”

I heard the sound of Irish flutes being dragged through

mountain passes and Joy m

utter something under her breath. I

thought I heard “Heathens.” I suddenly m

issed the mosquitoes like

they were long lost friends.

“Careful.” N

atalia put her hand near my thigh. I bit dow

n on my lip.

But that w

as it. I started looking along the side of the road for a sign. Then I saw

one. “Food Gas Lodging,” a blue square against the w

et Florida green.

“I’m not feeling w

ell. Maybe w

e should pull over. You can drop us off at the next rest stop.”

“Oh no-no-no-no-no-no.” H

e shook his head vigorously. I said I was

going to take you to Miam

i, and I’m going to take you to M

iami. B

e-

sides, two young girls like you shouldn’t be hitchhiking. I w

ouldn’t be able to forgive m

yself if I left you back on the road for any sick person to pick up.” H

e nodded gravely.

Joy backed him up w

ith an “Am

en.” Was that the kind of thing som

e-one said “A

men” to? I didn’t think so. John looked at her sharply. I

guess it wasn’t. Joy fidgeted in her seat, and I felt her shrink into her-

self. She started changing tapes again, putting one in, listening for a m

inute, and then switching to another tape of unrecognizable m

usic. O

utside, Florida was w

aving by us. Lizards stuck out their tongues and m

illions of insects buzzed.

“Does your fam

ily know you’re hitchhiking? That you’re out here?”

He looked at m

e through slit eyes. I got a chill down m

y spine and not one that w

as from the A

C either. O

f course no one really knew

where w

e were. W

e hadn’t told anyone we w

ere hitchhiking. For the first tim

e, real panic, not just the slight intimation of it, hit m

e. He

gave me a sick sm

ile. “I wouldn’t think people from

your country w

ould allow their daughters to go hitchhiking.”

My heart contracted. I looked over at N

atalia and felt an overwhelm

-ing desire to protect her from

the world. Even though it w

ould probably be the other w

ay around. I started formulating a plan. It

was som

ething my health teacher had told m

e to do if I was ever in

danger. There was a rest stop 5 m

iles away, so I had a few

minutes.

Natalia looked straight into his eyes through the rearview

mirror.

“The first hitchhikers were just travelers w

ho hopped onto caravans on the Silk R

oad. Didn’t you know

?”

John laughed. “Is that so?” His eyes shifted to N

atalia to get another look at her breasts.

I took the opportunity and leaned forward, stuck m

y finger down m

y throat. The bagels and butter N

atalia and I had eaten in the morning

came up fast.

The man and his dentures started rattling. Vom

it had gotten on his

6160 black suit. “Jesus C

hrist!” Joy gave him a sw

ift look, but it didn’t stop him

. “Why didn’t you tell us you w

ere feeling sick?!”

“She did,” Natalia looked w

orried until I winked. She shook her

head, then looked at him. “W

e’re sorry, really sorry. Could w

e just pull over at this rest stop?” The exit w

as right there. “We’ll help you

clean up.”

Yeah right we w

ere going to help them clean up. N

atalia and I were

going to scram as soon as w

e could, leaving him and his w

ife in the parking lot w

ondering why it w

as taking us so long to get paper tow

els from the bathroom

. That car was going to stink all the w

ay to M

iami, and w

e were going to hop into the back of a Pepsi truck

where the driver w

ould let us sleep in peace for hours.

As w

e took the exit, he was fum

ing. The backs of his ears were red.

He w

asn’t looking at us anymore as he drove his olive green C

hevro-let dow

n the ramp. N

atalia looked at me and sm

iled. I looked at her, w

iped my m

outh and smiled back.

THE

MY

TH-O

-MA

-LOG

ICA

L TALE

O

F H

AW

AIIA

N SA

NTA

Lee Tonouchi I adm

it. I losing it. Any m

oment now

I might jus buckaloose! M

ay-be it’s cuz dis gotta be da stupidest tourist question eva posed to m

e during m

y fifteen years driving dis trolley bus. Maybe it’s cuz of dat

crazy onreal magazine article I jus read about da future of H

awai‘i

nei. Maybe it’s cuz dat article finally m

ade me realize dat da A

meri-

can Dream

I been chasing, while trying for m

aintain my unsteady

and junk paying job, must not apply to H

awai‘i people. I guess up

till now I nevah notice da fine print w

here da ting says “Am

erican D

ream only applicable in the continental U

nited States. Offer not

valid in Haw

aii.” For some reason, us, w

e always no count, brah.

Like how if get one fast food com

mercial on TV, half da tim

e da H

awai‘i price not going be w

hat dey say, cuz dey flash da disclaimer,

“Prices may be slightly higher in H

awaii”. O

r like when w

e mail

order stuff and dey charge us “international” shipping. Like what is

dat? And even w

hen I call ‘em up for correck dem

for let ‘em know

dat da battle’s not yet w

on and Native H

awaiians still fighting for

sovereignty, dey jus respond with one “Excuse m

e?” Like dey no catch on to da joke das not one joke.

It’s probably one combination of all of these tings perculating, so

when m

y passenger Om

aha, Nebraska ask-es m

e “Do you folks have

Christm

as in Haw

hyah?” I no can handle. I know it’s alm

ost Christ-

mas, but I got no C

hristmas spirit in m

e. I used to da stupid ques-tions like if w

e live in grass shacks. If we have electricity. If w

e surf. If w

e surf to work?!

I admit, das da kine im

ages those picture postcards perpetuate. So m

aybe it’s not entirely da fault of da stupid tourist that they’re mis-

informed. B

ut c’mon. C

hristmas? I tinking brah, get C

hristmas all

ova da world, you tink H

awai‘i is dat exotic and far aw

ay dat Christ-

mas no can reach ova hea? I alm

ost crash my trolley bus cuz I too

busy rolling my eyes cuz da question sooooo m

ento. Das w

hen I get one idea.

6362 H

earing dis tourist’s question brings me back to da tim

e my good

friend Braddah M

ike wen m

ail me dat lettah from

when he w

ent Big

Island for do his research projeck for get his PhD. D

at wuz nice of

him for correspond I rem

embah tinking. C

uz usually if Braddah

Mike goes som

eplace I no find out about ‘em till w

ay aftah he comes

back. I opened da envelope and Scotch-tape to his lettah wuz w

hat appeared for be one little piece of gravel. In his lettah he explained how

he wuz m

ailing me one souvenir, one sm

all rock he got from

Haw

ai‘i Volcanoes National Park, da hom

e of Pele, da Haw

aiian G

oddess of da Volcano.

Ho, I w

en let-a-go da lettah so fast. Sucking Mike. W

hy wuz he

cursing me I w

ondered. Da superstition goes, you not supposed to

steal Pele’s rocks. Everybody know dat. W

hen you go dey always

telling how each year people disregard da w

arnings and decide for snake som

e. But eventually dey all get sent back. O

n display wuz

some of da actual lettahs from

both Locals and tourists explaining how

dey took rocks and brought ‘em hom

e and dey wound up w

ith all kine bad luck so das how

come dey m

ailed ‘em back. Som

e people loss all their m

oney. Some got all kine m

ysterious illnesses. Som

e loss their jobs, their homes, and/or their loved ones. Som

e died, so their relatives w

uz da ones who sent ‘em

back, cuz dey ne-vah like com

e dead too. So w

hat da heck wuz B

raddah Mike doing I w

ondered. What I eva

did to him? I called ‘em

up for broke his ear ova da phone. Das

when he explained to m

e what he found out in his research. H

e said da story of Pele’s C

urse nevah have no basis in Haw

aiian mytholo-

gies. In 1946 one park ranger wuz tired of people desecrating da

landscape so he wen go invent da story of Pele’s C

urse. Yet, even though he m

ade ‘em all up, w

ord spread and eventually ukuplanny people fo’ real kine believed. A

nd not jus tourists. Locals too. Even Locals w

ho wuz H

awaiian. So da w

hole ting’s fo’ fake, but Braddah

Mike said das da pow

ah of superstition and belief.

Wit dat theory in m

ind, I figgah I go take dat park ranger’s story and do ‘em

one bettah. Instead of getting tourists for stop taking itsy

bitsy rocks, I decide my m

yth-o-ma-logical tale going get tourists

and speculators for stop snaking whole chunks of land and driving up

real estate prices so everyday Local folks like myself no can afford.

When tinking about how

I going respond to Om

aha, I make da deci-

sion dat I going forego all sense of job security, cuz not like get such one ting now

days anyways. W

it one sly kolohe kine grin I tell da guy, “O

f course we get C

hristmas in H

awai‘i.”

As w

e head along da coast up to Hanaum

a Bay w

e pass by all da D

iamond H

ead homes and K

ahala side mansions dat I nevah going

afford. Das w

hen I get on da mic and I ask m

y passengers, “Since O

maha w

en ask, who like know

da story of Haw

aiian Santa?” Palm

Beach, Lake Forest, O

ak Brook, Tokyo, W

estport and Malibu all

chime in “Yes, do tell.”

But before I can even start dey already bom

barding me w

it questions. I dunno w

hy tourist people always gotta interrupt. “W

here does your H

awaiian Santa live?” “D

oes he ride a sleigh?” “Do you have

reindeer here?” And of course, “So are all your toys m

ade of Koa

wood?” I feel like telling da guy, yeah brah, alllll Local people shop

at Martin &

MacA

rthur. In fact, I even planning on selling my giant

flat screen HD

TV and m

y entire home entertainm

ent system. . . so I

can buy one niiiice koa papahclip.

All m

y life I been catering to da tourists. In high school I took Japa-nese as m

y second language instead of Haw

aiian. Imagine dat. A

nd I not even Japanese. B

ut counselors told me Japanese m

o’ bettah cuz I can use ‘em

for get one job later on. So I took ‘em, even though

wuzn’t interesting. Japanese tourists probably not too im

pressed by m

y remedial m

astery of comm

on Japanese phrases like “Onam

ae wa

nan desu ka?” and “Genki desu ka?” W

hat’s your name? and H

ow

are you? I also know “G

orufu o shimashoo ka?” W

ould you like to play G

olf? But I nevah really had da chance for use dat one cuz like

I can afford for take up golfing. Da only Japanese phrase I use on

one consistent basis is “Nihongo ga w

akarimasen,” w

hich means I

don’t understand Japanese, which I suppose is little bit ironicals cuz

I telling dat to dem. . . in Japanese. M

aybe das why dey alw

ays look at m

e funny kine.

6564 Since sm

all kid time everybody w

uz always telling m

e how w

e gotta do everyting for show

da hospitalities to da tourists. Even da hotels I go, dey all fully kow

tow to all da visitors. I found out

couple hotels wen even ban B

raddah Iz. You can believe dat? First I heard dat I w

uz puzzle. I wuz like how

can you ban one dead guy? D

as when m

y friend wen go explain how

wuz B

raddah Iz’s m

usic dat wuz ban. A

t da hotel my friend K

oza work at, he said

it’s cuz “Haw

ai‘i 78” wuz playing in da lobby so one tourist lady

wen go com

plain about how da song m

ade her feel unwelcom

e so m

anagement w

en go reack. Or m

aybe I should say dey wen over-

reack cuz dey wen go ban all songs m

ade by Haw

aiian song legend Israel K

amakaw

iwo‘ole. I could m

aybe see how da song “Living

in a Sovereign Land” might upset som

e tourists, cuz it alludes to da overthrow

of da Haw

aiian nation and wanting sovereignty for da

Haw

aiian peoples. But to m

e “Haw

ai‘i 78” is more about w

hat we

going do about rampant over developm

ent. My friend says da part

da tourist lady probably nevah like wuz da part dat goes “A

ll the fighting that the K

ing had done. To conquer all these islands, now

there’s condominium

s.” He said it probably m

ade her feel guilty for staying at da hotel. I couldn’t understand how

stopping da song from

being played wuz going soothe her guilt. W

ouldn’t it make her

feel even more guilty cuz she w

uz helping for hide da truth? I no can understand tourists.

From sm

all kid time, our kupuna alw

ays emphasized how

we need

da tourists. Our elders, our teachers, all told of how

tourists is good for us. K

inda like vegetables, bland, but full of richness. And how

w

e need tourists for keep coming back, cuz dey keep our econom

y going. B

ut what dey nevah fully understand is so w

hat we do w

hen da tourists return, but nevah go back? A

ccording to da article I jus read inside H

onolulu magazine, da statisticians predicting dat by da

year 2020 Haw

a‘i going get more people born outside ova hea liv-

ing hea than those who w

uz born ova hea. In oddah words planny

Haw

ai‘i people going be force for move aw

ay. I know som

e of these new

comers going be im

migrants cuz H

awai‘i get one history of im

-m

igrant labor from w

ay back in da plantation days. But da article

said most of da new

residents is going be rich mainland transplant

peoples. Cuz seem

s like getting for be das da only people who can

afford for ova hea.

“No w

erry,” I begin “All your questions going be answ

ered during da course of m

y myth-o-m

a-logical tale.” I scan my rearview

mirror.

I see all eyes stay transfixed on top me. W

ell, on top da back of my

bolo head anyway.

“You know how

da Haole Santa lives in da N

orth Pole? You tink das extrem

e? Das nahting. H

awaiian Santa, brah, he live in. . . da

volcano. I know M

alibu ova dea looking at me like he no believe.

Well, he can go check ‘em

out den. See, cuz before time, back in da

ol’ hanabatta dayz, one good Haw

aiian man nam

ed um, K

alikimaka,

yeah, Kalikim

aka. He w

uz weary. H

e wuz tired of big m

ulti-nation-al corporations bullying him

off his house on da beach so dey could m

ake all their fancy hotels. So for get dem for stop hassling him

, he w

en decide for hele on.”

“Den later w

hen Kalikim

aka we go m

ove up da mountain, rich real

estate developers wen go m

uscle him out again so dey could build

all their luxury homes w

it da scenic views. K

alikimaka w

uz tired fighting so he w

en decide for move again. D

is time to w

here nobody w

ould boddah him. Straight into da volcano.”

“When people saw

da guy who w

en jump into da volcano dey as-

sumed he w

en comm

it suicide. Da story w

uz even in da papah and had his obituary too. It said K

alikimaka w

uz one good natured man.

Alw

ays laughing and smiling. D

as why all his friends called him

uh, ‘M

ele’ Kalikim

aka cuz he wuz alw

ays so happy.”

“But aftah aw

hile Kalikim

aka came not so m

erry. Living in one volcano can do dat to you. Picture living in Ew

a side, no more air

condition, and get all kine fumes com

ing from W

aianae landfill. Sm

elling da pilau air everyday, Kalikim

aka started for come bitter

and resentful. You know how

Haole Santa get elfs. W

ell, Haw

ai-ian Santa get m

enehune. Menehune is da opposite of elfs. Sam

e height but opposite. W

hile elfs is benevolent and dey make tings for

give away, m

enehune is mischievious and dey like for steal. A

t first

6766 K

alikimaka did kolohe rascal kine stuff for get back at people. Like

he would enlist da help of da m

enehune and have dem steal tings for

fun. Like cameras and purses from

tourists when dey parked at Pali

lookout and left their stuffs in plain view on top da front seat w

it da w

indow dow

n. But w

hile wuz fun for see da angry look on da tour-

ists’ faces when their stuff w

uz gone, Kalikim

aka still wuzn’t satis-

fied.”

“Cuz still had rich people buying H

awai‘i up. So K

alikimaka de-

cided for do what da state couldn’t do. B

ack in da 70’s Governor

George A

riyoshi wen go enact da law

where public jobs could only

go to Local residents. Da tinking w

uz das going deter outsiders from

moving ova hea. C

uz how dey can com

e one resident if dey no more

one job? And how

dey can get one job if dey not one resident? And

for long time da law

wen fly. A

nd wuzn’t until recently dat couple

Florida guys wen sue and so da A

CLU

wen com

plain cuz dey said das illegal discrim

inations and da Haw

ai‘i law w

uz actually un-constitutional. D

a AC

LU legal director revealed how

“It sends the m

essage that nonresidents are not welcom

e.” I thought wuz obvi-

ous from da beginning w

hen dey made dat law, but actually took da

lawyers 27 years for figgah dat out. G

o figgah.

Instead of using da legal systen, Kalikim

aka wen decide for resort

to his own m

ethods and use fear tactics. He im

agined he could scare off new

comers if he spread da rum

or dat da island wuz going

sink if had too much people. A

nd naturally da areas dat would be

first for go would be all da rich beach houses and luxury condos dat

transplants love best. But to his chagrin, dat still nevah scare people

away. I guess cuz da rich people tink different from

regular people. M

ost everyday people, dey see da water stay rising dey go “Flood,

flood, run away, flee for your lives.” B

ut rich guys is like “My good-

ness, I do believe the the tide is unusually high. I suppose we’ll just

have to finish our martinis on our luxury yacht.”

“And so, w

uz back to da drawing board for K

alikimaka. So you

know how

Haole Santa get his sleigh w

ith his reindeer, Haw

aiian Santa get his outrigger canoe pulled by his nine w

ild puaa. But look

Palm B

each ova dea. She saying but pigs no can walk on w

ater. Das

right. And w

hat? Reindeer can fly in da air? See, sam

e smell. So

what K

alikimaka w

en use his magic canoe for do? H

e wen go far

out to sea, den taking his magic lasso. C

uz Kalikim

aka’s uncle wuz

one paniolo so he had da kine cowboy background, ah, li’dat, ah.

But using his m

agic lasso he wen go lasso. . . da sun. I know

West

Port ova dea saying, but wouldn’t da sun burn da rope? D

as true, true. B

ut what W

est Port dunno is Kalikim

aka wen go catch da sun.

. . nighttime. Plus his rope w

uz magic, so leave it alone. So anyw

ay, w

hat’s da point in dat? Da point w

uz he wen do dat for talk stories

with da sun for convince da sun for turn up da heat on da tourists.

Das w

hy, you no notice, Japanee tourists, Haole tourists, C

hinese tourists, dey alw

ays getting really bad sun burn, like dey look like dey in one constant state of em

barassment. M

ost people tink ah, stupid tourist, w

hy dey jus nevah use sun screen. But really no m

at-tah how

much sun screen dey put, still no w

ork. Das cuz in actuality

tourists is getting ’15.2 degrees of extra’ sun. I kid you not.”

“Still yet, skin all burn, everyting, people continued for move hea.

Luckily, Kalikim

aka had one more trick left. So you know

how

lately been having lotta vog coming out from

da volcano? Das

cuz of Kalikim

aka. Scientists say might get health risks cuz all da

kine chemical elem

ents coming out in da fum

es. What da scientists

dunno, but people believe is dat in those fumes is one gas dat af-

fecks all recent transplant people. It gives dem one perpetual sense

of feeling unwelcom

e. You hear all da time, right, about people w

ho m

ove here and dey jus no fit in. Dey like da scenery, but dey hate da

people, dey hate da food, and dey hate da culture. An’den dey put all

da blame on da Local people for m

aking dem feel excluded, w

hile at da sam

e time dey stay m

aking da gates on top their gated comm

uni-ties m

ore extra higher. Yeah, wassup w

it dat? Some transplants can

be weird like dat. B

ut da gas only has one lasting affeck on da bad apples of da new

comer lot. Eventually cool transplants w

ho down

with Local culture going forget dey evah felt anyting. Lotta tim

es da new

comers w

ho do da most com

plaining, dey usually da first for go. For proof you could ask dem

. But dey gone already. N

evah to be heard from

again.”

“And so dat concludes da legend of H

awaiian Santa.” N

obody says

68 anyting as I pull into Hanaum

a Bay. I dunno if it’ s cuz dey dis-

tracted by da view as w

e drive down around da bend or if it’s cuz dey

retinking “Oh, w

hereever shall we buy our retirem

ent homes now

?”

Part of me w

ondahs if Braddah M

ike going be upset at me or w

hat for m

aking up stories and misrepresenting da H

awaiian culture. C

uz I no tink he w

uz mad at da park ranger w

ho made up da story about

da rocks. Da guy had good intentions. I figgah I actually helping

Braddah M

ike out. Cuz if m

y story catches on den das going be one w

hole noddah dissertation topic he can write about one day and he

can get one noddah Phd.

I park my trolley bus and m

ake some quick kine announcem

ents. “N

o forget for bring your valuables. Cuz w

e not liable. You nevah know

when going get m

enehune. Rem

embah now, no w

alk too close togeddah. M

ake sure you spread out da weight.” I sm

ile little bit to m

yself when I notice O

maha and M

alibu, stepping gingerly off m

y trolley bus. I give dem all one shaka for tell ‘em

goodbye and I give ‘em

one friendly reminder, “M

eet back in two hours. H

ave fun. R

elax. Take deeeeeeep breaths. Let it all in. And no forget, M

ele K

alikimaka!”

III. ESSA

YS

“You think you got something big to say? Som

ething mom

entous? O

r is it what you had to m

emorize in order to escape the m

en with

lightning in their eyes? ” - John Yau

7170 H

OW

THE

RU

LES O

F R

AC

ISM A

RE

DIF

FE

RE

NT

FOR

ASIA

N A

ME

RIC

AN

SM

atthew Salesses

M

y senior year in Chapel H

ill, I finally got up the courage to take a course in A

sian Am

erican literature. Stupidly, I treated it as a little experim

ent. As an adoptee, I had grow

n up with w

hite parents in a w

hite town in rural C

onnecticut. My only know

ledge of Asian

culture was C

hinese food and, when I w

as growing up, a num

ber of m

eetings of adopted children that still haunt me, though I realize that

my parents had m

y best interests at heart. They had taken me to these

meetings for connection, but w

hat I remem

ber was the disconnect:

the awkw

ardness of forced interaction between children w

ho thought of them

selves as white and didn’t w

ant to be shown otherw

ise. We

hated being categorized as adoptees, or I did and I read those feelings into the others, w

ho to me did not seem

friendly, or familiar, only

more strange for their yellow

faces.

Those meetings m

ade me feel classified by m

y parents as other. O

ne of the things I most rem

ember from

that time (and from

books like W

e Adopted You, B

enjamin K

oo) is the comm

on experi-ence that the adopted child has w

hen one day he looks into the mirror

and all of a sudden realizes that his skin color is not the same as his

parents’. Up until that m

oment, he sees him

self as white (in the case

that the parents are white). I saw

myself as w

hite. When I closed m

y eyes, or w

hen I was in a conversation and seem

ed to be watching

from above, I w

as a skinny white boy, a com

bination of my parents,

just like other kids. Sometim

es, if I am being honest, I still catch

myself looking dow

n at my conversations w

ith white people and

picturing myself, in that strange ongoing record in m

y head, as no different from

them. A

s a boy, the one thing that nagged at me w

as the flatness of m

y nose. I was constantly tugging on it, thinking that I

could stretch it out and thereby gain acceptance.

But let m

e pause here for a mom

ent. This is going to be a difficult essay to w

rite, and I want to prepare m

yself—and you,

reader—by com

ing at this topic from a larger angle.

It seem

s to me that a sim

ilar type of self-contextualizing (through race) happened on a grand scale in A

sian Am

erica as Jer-

emy Lin took over sports new

s and much of A

A m

edia references last spring. W

ith Lin’s rise, there was a feeling, a sw

elling collec-tive feeling, that w

e Asians w

ere no different from the other people

we see on national TV, alm

ost exclusively white and black. That w

e w

ere Jeremy Lin, able to play as w

ell as they in “their” arena, the ability of Jerem

y Lin pointing to a potential in all of us. The writer

Jay Caspian K

ang said something to this effect in his G

rantland article: “The pride w

e feel over [Lin’s] accomplishm

ents is deeply personal and cuts across discom

forting truths that many of us have

never discussed. It’s why a headline that reads ‘C

hink in the Arm

or,’ or Jason W

hitlock’s tweeted joke about ‘tw

o inches of pain,’ stings w

ith a new intensity. Try to understand, everything said about Jerem

y Lin, w

hether glowing, dism

issive, or bigoted, doubles as a referen-dum

on where w

e, as a people, stand.”W

hen the disparagements cam

e—as w

e feared and maybe suspected

they would but hoped they w

ouldn’t—it w

as like that first time look-

ing in the mirror. W

e realized that for all of Jeremy Lin’s accom

plish-m

ents, we as A

sians are still different, are still seen differently than other races by the vast m

ajority of Am

ericans.

The truth is, racism tow

ard Asians is treated differently in

Am

erica than racism tow

ard other ethnic groups. This is a truth all A

sian Am

ericans know. W

hile the same racist m

ay hold back terms

he sees as off-limits tow

ard other minorities, he w

ill often not hesi-tate to call an A

sian person a chink, as Jeremy Lin w

as referred to, or talk about that A

sian person as if he must know

karate, or call him

Bruce Lee, or consider him

weak or effem

inate, or so on.B

ullying against Asian A

mericans continues at the highest rate of

any ethnic group. I remem

ber, when I w

as taking the Asian A

merican

literature course, an article in a major m

agazine that ran pictures of (m

ale) Asian m

odels above the tagline, “Gay or A

sian?” I remem

ber a video that w

ent viral last year in which people explained w

hy men

prefer Asian w

omen and w

hy wom

en dislike Asian m

en. Some of the

wom

en on the video were A

sian Am

erican.*

A

s I said, I was treating the A

A literature course as an ex-

periment. There w

ere a few w

hite students in class who laughed at

the “Gay or A

sian?” tag and found little offensive about it, at least until pressed. M

aybe the first sign that my experim

ent was w

orking

7372 w

as the anger I felt toward them

. The test, you see, was secretly how

A

sian I was, or m

aybe whether I w

as Asian at all. It w

as something

to do with discovering m

yself, and how m

uch that self was form

ed by m

y birth, which I knew

nothing about, and by my birth m

other, w

ho had abandoned me, and by the country that had raised m

e while

leaving scars of unknown origin on various parts of m

y body.C

ollege can be a chance to remake oneself, or to get closer to the

foundation of oneself that one gradually moves aw

ay from under the

influence of peers. I had, in fact, as soon as I got to UN

C, attem

pted to join the A

sian Am

erican club, but I couldn’t get over how cliquish

they seemed, em

bracing their strangeness, while the truth is that I

was trying to get aw

ay from those differences. Soon I found m

yself, w

ith this second chance, once again trying to be accepted by people w

ho looked like my parents, telling m

yself I didn’t want to be A

sian if this w

as what being A

sian meant, being birds of a different feather,

expected to be an automatic friend because of race. I had, as you can

see, my excuses.

Yet som

ewhere inside of m

e, I must have felt that I w

as grow

ing further from m

yself. Racist jokes w

ere told with alarm

ing frequency for a school billed the “m

ost liberal in the South,” and I w

as friends with tw

o groups: one mostly w

hite, mostly Southerners

in the same dorm

; the other mostly black, w

ith whom

I played pick-up basketball. They joked w

ithout censor. I had a girlfriend whose

aunt and uncle lived in North C

arolina, and when w

e went to visit,

they would say that at least I w

asn’t black, often before some rac-

ist diatribe. This seemed the predom

inant sentiment then. A

t least I w

asn’t ____.

I was taking the A

A course to find out w

hat I was. I hadn’t

read much A

sian Am

erican literature at that time—

I think almost

all I could add to the class discussion was M

ichael Ondaatje—

and a couple of books planted seeds in m

e then that would grow

into a certain self-aw

areness later in life. I will alw

ays be grateful to Don

Lee’s story collection, Yellow. In Lee’s stories, A

sian Am

erican characters experience racist incident after racist incident, but these incidents are m

ostly background to their lives as sculptors, surfers, lovers, etc. The characters are very m

uch of the world in w

hich they live, the w

orld in which I lived and a different w

orld than the one in w

hich white people live w

ith the privilege of their color.

In class, the w

hite students were incredulous. They claim

ed such acts of racism

could never happen with such frequency. Yet if

anything, to me, the racism

seemed infrequent, and w

ith minim

al effect on the characters’ lives. I had grow

n up constantly wavering

between denying and suspecting that m

y skin color was behind the

fights picked with m

e, the insults, the casual distance kept up even betw

een myself and som

e of my closest friends. Som

etimes—

in ret-rospect: oftentim

es—these incidents w

ere obviously rooted in race. I have been called “chink” and “flat face” and “m

onkey” many m

any tim

es. And it is the context of these w

ords that make a child grow

uncom

fortable with w

ho he is, that instill a deep fear in him. (A

s a side note: I am

married now

to a Korean w

oman w

ho grew up in K

o-rea, and w

hen I mentioned the “flat face” slur to her, she said, “but

your face is flat.” Yet how different w

as this from the leering w

ay it w

as said to me as a child, som

ething she hadn’t felt as a Korean in

Korea.) I w

as afraid, back then, of myself, as if there w

ere a little A

sian person living within m

e that was corrupting m

y being, taking m

e away from

the white person I thought I w

as.

There are still incidents from those days that I cannot get

out of my m

ind. I remem

ber watching, in one m

iddle school class, a video m

eant to teach us that blackface and sculptures of big-lipped black people and stereotypes of w

atermelon and fried chicken w

ere w

rong. Later that same year, one of m

y best friends drew a picture of

a square with a nose poking off of one side. I knew

this was m

e even before he said it. Som

etimes m

y friends would ask m

e to do the trick w

here I put my face against the table, touching both m

y forehead and m

y chin to the wood. I thought of this as a special ability, but under-

neath, I knew I should be asham

ed.

I would bet that this friend does not rem

ember draw

ing m

e in that one science class. We often drew

together. He w

as in all of m

y classes that year, as we w

ere allowed tw

o friends to share a sim

ilar schedule, and I was the only one w

ho requested him. That

he wouldn’t rem

ember this draw

ing is part of the problem, I know

now

. He thought of the picture as a joke, though I had never seen him

draw

caricatures or draw anyone else so sim

ply. Surely a part of him

knew w

hat he was doing but didn’t stop him

. There was no video

to tell him not to—

there was no one to tell him

not to, even me. I

pretended it didn’t bother me.

7574

That was the sam

e year my closest childhood friend sudden-

ly cut me off. W

e had been inseparable, but at the start of that school year, he m

ade fun of me and seem

ed to use this attack to springboard into popularity. I spent m

any nights during those first few w

eeks of school crying m

yself to sleep, not understanding why w

e weren’t

friends anymore. It is a w

ound that still hurts—as I type this, I find

my face heating up and m

y breaths deepening. I still don’t under-stand com

pletely, but I can point to the fear that this was due to the

color of my skin, m

ore than anything, as an indication that it indeed w

as. I understood even when I didn’t understand, as children can.

In response to the students who didn’t believe the frequency/vicious-

ness of the racism in Yellow

, the professor showed us an interview

in w

hich Lee says every incident in the book has happened to him. O

r perhaps I found this interview

later, I don’t remem

ber now. As a m

at-ter of research, I thought I w

ould ask a few A

sian Am

erican authors I know

about racist incidents in their books that are based on events that happened to them

. Earlier this year, Salon ran a piece by Marie

Myung-O

k Lee about a bully who m

ade it into her novel and whom

she finally, after m

any years, confronted. I heard from several w

riters about experiences m

aking it into their books: how they w

ere unable to get aw

ay from w

riting about those experiences, as unable as they w

ere to stop thinking about them, but hardly anyone seem

ed to want

to call out those past attackers. I spoke with one w

riter about the condition of anonym

ity, as the people who had hurt him

most w

ere those closest to him

.

I think what all of this says to m

e is that 1. these things hap-pen to all of us, and 2. they leave the type of m

ark that we cannot

escape, that we return to again and again, as w

riters do.*

A

few years after U

NC

, when I w

as an MFA

student at Em

erson College (w

here Don Lee got his M

FA and then later edited

Ploughshares and taught), there was a rum

or going around that in the original w

orkshop stories from Yellow

, the characters were w

hite. That Lee m

ade them A

sian later. I’m not sure the truth of this state-

ment. In fact, I’m

not interested in the truth of it. I’m m

ore interested in the fact that this w

as a rumor at all. This w

as something people

wanted to talk about, and talked about as if the truer versions of the

characters were w

hite. If Lee did use white characters, originally,

he is not alone. I know m

any Asian A

merican w

riters who refuse

to write about A

sian Am

ericans, out of a fear of being typecast, or a fear of being seen as “using” their ethnicity, or a fear of being an “A

sian Am

erican writer,” or som

ething. And really, I understand that.

I have been one of those writers. This m

ay not come as a surprise, at

this point in this essay, but for a long time, I w

rote only about white

characters. I wrote about them

because I grew up w

ith people like them

, but also because they were the people in books and because I,

too, feared the label, or at least told myself I did. W

hat that fear re-ally is, it seem

s to me now, is a fear of not being taken as seriously as

the White M

ale Writer, w

ho has so long ruled English literature.The breakthrough cam

e when I started to be able to read m

y own

stories objectively. Something w

as not making sense. W

hy were m

y characters w

ho they were? I inserted plenty of flashbacks and back-

story to try to “explain” them. B

ut in the end, I realized that what

they were m

issing, in many cases, w

as a crucial piece of me that had

gone into them. They w

ere Asian, like m

e. Many of them

were ad-

opted, like me. The original characters w

ere not the true characters. A

nd “changing” them to K

oreans made everything m

ake sense.*

For m

y day job, I organize a seminar at H

arvard on the topic of Inequality. I attend these talks both out of responsibility and out of interest. B

ut after two and a half years, I can only rem

ember A

sians being m

entioned twice, once in direct response to a question by an

Asian student. I rem

ember sitting beside another A

sian Am

erican student and listening to a lecture earlier this year. H

e said something

like, “Nobody ever talks about A

sians,” and I said, “Asians don’t

exist in Sociology.” We both laughed. It w

as a joke, but it stung with

a certain truth. The time A

sians were m

entioned not in answer to a

question was in reference to university adm

issions—a heated topic

now in the A

A com

munity—

as numbers show

that students of Asian

descent make up a disproportionately large percentage of adm

issions to top schools.

Often I have heard A

sians talking about these percentages w

ith pride, even in responding to racism. If attacked, they “point to

the scoreboard” of college admissions. Yet it is a very real com

plaint that A

sian descent seems to count against us in those sam

e admis-

sions numbers. B

oth Harvard and Princeton are currently under

7776 investigation on charges of racism

toward A

sians, whose grades and

SAT scores, on average, must be higher than those of other races in

order to gain admissions. M

any Asian A

mericans are responding by

marking the box on applications that declines to indicate race, som

e-thing I cannot help but read sym

bolically. I confess that I would give

my daughter that exact advice, in adm

issions: not to reveal her race. The accusation is that schools have capped their “quotas” of A

sian students, and this is w

hy Asians need to score higher, because they

are competing am

ongst themselves for a lim

ited number of spots.

Most A

sians accept the unwritten rules, pushing them

selves or their children harder. B

ut why should they, in a country that prides itself

on equal opportunity?

To bring up college admissions is often to be m

et with the

complaint that w

e should be happy with the success w

e have. In fact, success is often used as a justification for w

hy Asians are ignored in

discussions of inequality. I was forgetting a third m

ention of Asian

Am

ericans in the seminars: as a group other im

migrant races should

look toward as an exam

ple of successful assimilation. W

hy aren’t we

happy with our disproportionate adm

issions and the many children

who grow

up to be doctors and lawyers, pushed by their parents?

(The more sarcastic answ

er: why aren’t w

hite people happy enough w

ith EVERY

THIN

G?)

Jerem

y Lin, early in his success, was called out by boxer

Floyd Mayw

eather as only getting the attention he was getting

because he is Asian, since every day black athletes accom

plish what

Lin has and receive no fanfare. Or som

ething to this effect. Other

journalists responded by saying Lin is getting the attention because he w

orked so hard and is the ultimate underdog. B

oth these points, it seem

s to me, have a lot to do w

ith race. Why w

as Lin an under-dog, ignored by scouts w

hen he had succeeded at every level and outplayed the best point guards he faced (see: John W

all, Kem

ba W

alker)? Writers alw

ays seem to m

ention how hard Lin w

orks, and often m

ention this as a trait of Asian A

mericans. They m

ention that he w

ent to Harvard, how

smart he is. They m

ention that he is hum

ble. When I w

rote about the “Chink in the A

rmor” headline here,

a comm

enter responded by pointing to Asian A

mericans being too re-

spectful to speak up against racism. This respectfulness, he said, w

as som

ething he admired about A

sians.

It is hard to call som

eone who thinks he is com

plimenting

you a racist. But the positive stereotypes people think they can use

because of their “positivity” continue (and worsen) the problem

. Thinking you can call an entire race “respectful” is thinking you can classify som

eone by race, is racism. W

hich is what is happening to

Jeremy Lin w

hen he is called “hard-working” instead of “skilled,”

when his talent is m

arginalized by a writer w

ho sees him as the A

sian A

merican stereotype, the child of im

migrants w

ho outworks and

outstudies everyone else. Mayw

eather has one point, at least—other

athletes work as hard or harder than Jerem

y Lin. I’ve seen the videos of Lin’s w

orkouts, how intense they are, how

long, but this is not unusual for a basketball star. R

ead about Kobe B

ryant’s work ethic,

or Ray A

llen’s, either of which put Jerem

y Lin to shame. Jerem

y Lin is the success he is because of his individual talent, not because he is A

sian Am

erican. His ethnicity, I w

ould have to argue, was only a

factor in him having to “com

e out of nowhere,” since that w

as where

Asians have been relegated to in sports.

A

fter ESPN ran the “C

hink in the Arm

or” headline, the w

riter of the headline made a very defensive apology in w

hich he claim

ed to be a “good person” who didn’t know

the weight of the

word he w

as using. He w

as fired, and this apology came afterw

ard. W

hen he was first fired, I felt sorry for him

. I didn’t think he de-served to lose his job but then his defensiveness cam

e and took that sym

pathy away. Som

e on my Tw

itter feed suggested he didn’t know

the term because of his young age. H

e was 28. I w

as 29. “Chink” is a

very comm

on term, probably the m

ost comm

on slur against Asians,

and this was a w

riter and (I’m assum

ing) a reader who m

ade his livelihood online. I find it im

possible to believe that he hadn’t come

across the term in som

e way. It bothers m

e to see people make ex-

cuses for him. “I’m

sorry, but” is not “I’m sorry.” If you believe you

can get away w

ith the excuse, then what is that telling m

e?*

A

few years after I graduated from

UN

C, I decided to go to

Korea. I had never been back. I w

as still writing w

hite characters, though I had let a K

orean Am

erican slip into my novel in a sup-

porting role, a character who never finished his sentences, w

ho was

always cut-off or cutting him

self off. I was still searching for that

Korean part of m

e. I had spent a long winter in Prague as one of the

7978 only A

sians in the city, strange in a strange land. In Korea, I fell apart

imm

ediately. I ended up losing twenty pounds in tw

o weeks, and I

would have run back to the States if not for m

eeting my w

ife.

But then a strange thing happened. I got used to seeing K

o-reans, and w

as surprised whenever I saw

a white person. A

nd after som

e time, not like the sudden realization in the m

irror but a gradual process, I began to see m

yself as a person from this country. I w

rote m

y first story with a K

orean character, and something in it, the vul-

nerability, the honesty, clicked. In Korea, I had different differences

than in Am

erica. Not that race w

as out of the picture—the biggest

shock to people was m

y culture, in spite of my skin color, m

y inabil-ity to speak K

orean—but it w

as like looking at race from the inside

out, the opposite of how I had been forced to see m

yself my w

hole life. It w

as a lesson: that I had control over my differences, that I

could choose to build them up or break them

down, that they w

ere not sim

ply genetic, something that had never been true in A

merica.

IV. RE

SEA

RC

H

“But truly fundamental insights such as those of D

arwin or W

atson &

Crick are rare and often subject to intense com

petition, whereas

development of successful techniques to address im

portant problems

allows lesser m

ortals to exert a widespread beneficial im

pact for at least a few

years.”- Steven C

hu

8180

PR

OB

LEM

ATIC

RE

PR

ESE

NTA

TION

S O

F A

SIAN

AM

ER

ICA

N M

EN

IN H

OLLY

WO

OD

PR

OD

UC

TION

SK

elsey Dang

“If you want to be cool, if you w

ant to be the hero, if you want to get

the girl -- our popular culture seems to say -- you can’t be A

sian.”(R

obert M. Payne)

It is quite effortless to nam

e Hollyw

ood’s Caucasian leading

men; M

att Dam

on, Ryan Gosling, G

eorge Clooney, and C

hanning Tatum

are a few w

ho come to m

ind. But w

hat about Asian A

merican

leading men? The pool of options becom

es profoundly smaller, and

the names m

ore obscure. Few people can recognize A

sian Am

eri-can actors Jason Scott Lee, John C

ho, Will Yun Lee, or D

aniel Dae

Kim

. Asian A

mericans are underrepresented in film

and television, and the num

ber of Asian A

mericans on screen fails to account for

actual population demographics. A

ccording to Screen Actors G

uild C

asting Data R

eports, Asian Pacific Islanders “held only 3.8%

of all TV

/Theatrical roles in 2008,” a percentage “far less than the actual percentage of the A

PI population in the U.S. that sam

e year” (Ra-

bena). When A

sian Am

erican actors do receive roles, they often play sidekicks or unattractive characters. H

istorically, Hollyw

ood has relegated A

sian Am

erican male actors to stereotypical roles includ-

ing martial arts m

aster, villain, technology nerd, model m

inority, or asexual clow

n. This casting pattern continues today. Absent are

portrayals of Asian A

merican m

en as soldiers, lawyers, father figures,

or romantic leads.

A

range of scholars have found that when it com

es to Asian

Am

erican representation in the Hollyw

ood entertainment industry,

the images are overw

helmingly negative (M

archetti, Ono and Pham

). W

ith regard to Asian A

merican m

asculinity on-screen, many scholars

agree that Asian A

merican m

ales are often portrayed as asexual, ho-m

osexual, or effeminate. C

eline Parreñas Shimizu, A

ssociate Profes-sor of Film

and Performance Studies at the U

niversity of California

at Santa Barbara describes how

such representations are “straitjacket sexualities” in her book Straightjacket Sexualities: U

nbinding Asian

Am

erican Manhoods in the M

ovies. Shimizu also details how

Jeff A

dachi’s documentary on A

sian men in film

and television, The Slanted Screen, addresses the conflation of race and gender w

hen it asserts that “racial w

ounding is masculine w

ounding” (Shimizu). In

a similar vein, the M

edia Action N

etwork for A

sian Am

ericans lists “A

sian male sexuality as negative or non-existent” as a com

mon ste-

reotype in its mem

o to Hollyw

ood entitled “Restrictive Portrayals of

Asians in the M

edia and How

to Balance Them

.” Professor Herm

ant Shah from

University of W

isconsin-Madison’s School of Journal-

ism and M

ass Com

munication argues that Edw

ard Said’s seminal

work O

rientalism can be applied to H

ollywood’s treatm

ent of Asians.

Said argues that Westerners view

the East as different, backward and

weak. In A

sian Am

ericans and the Media, K

ent Ono and V

incent Pham

argue that when m

edia producers typecast Asian A

merican

actors in particular roles, their decisions imbue such negative stereo-

types with w

idespread social power. Indeed, researcher H

elen Kar-

Yee Ho from

the University of M

ichigan draws from

her interviews

with A

sian Am

erican young men to argue that in form

ative years, individuals turn to m

edia images for identity construction. In “N

e-gotiating the B

oundaries of (In)Visibility: A

sian Am

erican Men and

Asian/A

merican M

asculinity on Screen,” Ho evaluates recent roles

available to Asian A

merican m

en in primetim

e television. The author suggests that the ideal A

sian Am

erican portrayal is one in which the

actor is present, but not highlighted as different.

Several sources I identified comm

ented on norms and prac-

tices within the entertainm

ent industry as reasons behind the preva-lence of A

sian stereotypes in Hollyw

ood today. In his paper “Repre-

sentation of Asians in H

ollywood Film

s: Sociocultural and Industrial Perspectives,” Ji H

oon Park identifies media producers’ fear of

alienating white audiences as one reason stereotypes are preferred in

casting. In her piece, “Performing R

ace, Negotiating Identity: A

sian A

merican Professional A

ctors in Hollyw

ood,” Nancy W

ang Yuen identifies stereotypes as a painless w

ay for writers and producers

to establish a character. Through her interviews w

ith current Asian

Am

erican actors, Yuen highlights how the young people respond to

racialized characterizations. Joann Faung Jean Lee’s book, Asian

Am

erican Actors, chronicles the career frustrations of experienced

Asian A

merican actors in N

ew York, San Francisco, and Los A

ngeles

8382 w

ith regard to roles void of realistic character development.

In this paper, I argue that Hollyw

ood’s continual adherence to ste-reotypical roles for A

sian Am

erican men negatively alters society’s

perception of Asian A

merican m

ales and affects the sense of identity of the average A

sian Am

erican man as w

ell as the identities of the actors w

ho fill the stock roles. First, I make the connection betw

een m

edia representations of Asian A

mericans and societal perceptions of

Asian A

mericans. In this section, I w

ill describe the comm

on percep-tion of the A

sian as the perpetual foreigner or the “Other,” according

to works including Edw

ard Said’s Orientalism

. Next, the essay w

ill address problem

atic portrayals of Asian A

merican m

ales and com-

ment on the paucity of leading rom

antic roles for Asian A

merican

men; I w

ill focus on two film

s to evaluate their characterizations of A

sian men. I w

ill conclude with a discussion on H

ollywood practices

and casting decisions. In this final section I will review

recent casting decisions of this decade for A

sian Am

erican men in prim

etime televi-

sion.

Part 1: Media Stereotypes of A

sian Am

erican Men and

Their L

arger Implications

M

edia representations of Asian A

mericans dram

atically influence societal perceptions of A

sian Am

erican males because

people draw from

characterizations of groups found in the media

to form their understanding of reality. M

edia studies scholar Helen

Ho declares, “W

hat is comm

only circulated in cultural discourse and exchange has the pow

er to define and guide interpretations of others” (H

o 13). Since film and television are such effective form

s of com

munication, the im

ages they create produce a profound effect on an audience’s social perceptions. In his book Public O

pinion, W

alter Lippmann explains that m

edia have the power to shape the

“pictures in our heads” (Lippmann 29). H

e warns that “the pictures

inside people’s heads do not automatically correspond w

ith the world

outside” (31). The problem arises, then, w

hen people rely on media

characterizations of certain groups to form their attitudes tow

ard those groups. W

hen Hollyw

ood perpetuates negative stereotypes of A

sian Am

erican men, those im

ages lead to the persistence of incor-rect perceptions of A

sian Am

erican men in society at large.

Origins of A

sian Am

erican Male Stereotypes

Som

e of the most com

mon stereotypes of A

sian Am

eri-can m

en found in media productions past and present include: the

foreigner, the villain, the kung fu master, the m

odel minority, and

the asexual buffoon. Most of these characterizations are couched

in historical prejudice toward A

sians in Am

erica. One stereotype

frequently employed in the m

edia is that Asians in the U

nited States are forever foreigners; they can never fully assim

ilate and remain

outsiders in society. This perspective follows Edw

ard Said’s descrip-tion of “O

rientalism,” in w

hich Westerners view

an individual from

Asia as an exam

ple of the Oriental, an alien “O

ther.” Said explains that the O

riental is comm

only interpreted as strange and not to be trusted (Said 40). H

istorically, Westerners have view

ed the East as different and backw

ard, an attitude that became so pervasive that it

was assum

ed to be “comm

on sense” (Shah). The stereotypical Asian

Am

erican acting roles of the perpetual foreigner, the villain (em-

bodying a threat to the Western w

ay of life), and the exotic martial

arts master are all a result of past prejudicial notions of A

sians. These stereotypes norm

alize the concept of white superiority and non-w

hite inferiority, and they reflect the “im

perialist white eye” that Stuart

Hall claim

s is ever-present in media representations of race (H

all qtd. in Park 4). Furtherm

ore, restricted portrayals of Asian A

mericans

often treat a character’s “Asianness” as a defining personality trait.

Professor Joann Faung Jean Lee of Queens C

ollege, SUN

Y asserts,

“In essence, Asian presence in H

ollywood film

remains a prop” (Lee

7). The Asian A

merican role m

ost comm

only lacking in emotional

depth is that of the model m

inority, but all Hollyw

ood stereotypes of A

sian Am

ericans are static depictions. Professional actor Billy

Chang lam

ents, “Emotions are w

hat acting is supposed to be about. The funny thing is that w

ith Asian A

merican roles you get parts that

basically have no emotional content w

hatsoever. They’re just filler roles” (47).

The final “filler role” that is valuable to dissect is that of the asexual buffoon, a role that prevents the possibility of A

sian Am

eri-can actors playing leading rom

antic men in television and film

. The roles of “the villain” and the “m

artial arts foe” are the stereotypes m

ost clearly linked to the historically prominent fear of “yellow

per-il” in A

merica, a fear w

hich “combines racist terror of alien cultures,

8584 sexual anxieties, and the belief that the W

est will be overpow

ered and enveloped by the irresistible, dark, occult forces of the East” (M

archetti 2). Yet the “asexual buffoon” role is also linked to the per-ceived yellow

peril threat, which the U

nited States’ wars w

ith Japan, K

orea, and Vietnam

helped to perpetuate. In fact, the emasculation of

Asian A

merican m

en in Hollyw

ood can be traced to an effort to ward

off xenophobic anxiety over power relations (O

no and Pham 71). Si-

multaneously, the notion of A

sian Am

erican men as fem

inine is also linked to the past concentration of A

sian male im

migrants w

ho took over “fem

inized professions” in the late 19th century, working in tai-

lor’s shops, laundries and restaurants because they were barred from

heavy labor jobs. D

avid Eng, author of Racial C

astration, explains that these A

sian male im

migrants lived in bachelor com

munities that

were “physically, socially, and psychically isolated,” com

munities

which “m

ight easily be thought of as “queer” spaces” (Eng 18). Past discrim

ination toward A

sian male im

migrants is largely the cause

of the stereotype of the asexual buffoon and has therefore led to the severe lack of lead rom

antic roles for Asian A

merican m

en in today’s H

ollywood environm

ent. Scholar Celine Parreñas Shim

izu describes the com

mon m

edia portrayals of Asian A

merican m

ales as asexual, hom

osexual, or effeminate as “straitjacket sexualities,” representa-

tions that “inflict racial wounds, pathologize gender, and construct

an abnormal sexuality” (Shim

izu 18). When standard notions of

masculinity are considered abnorm

al for Asian A

merican m

en, de-sexualized, socially inept, com

edic roles are all that remain for A

sian A

merican m

ale actors with regard to rom

ance.

Case Studies: H

ollywood Film

s

To evaluate the types of romantic on-screen interactions

available to Asian A

merican m

ale actors, two film

s are worthy of

consideration: John Hughes’ 1984 teen m

ovie Sixteen Candles and

Justin Lin’s 2002 youth drama B

etter Luck Tomorrow

. Sixteen Can-

dles provides a limited, dem

eaning role for its Asian A

merican star

while B

etter Luck Tomorrow

provides a dynamic, stereotype-dispel-

ling role for its main A

sian Am

erican character. In Sixteen Candles,

Gedde W

atanabe portrays Long Duk D

ong, a foreign exchange student w

ho fulfills the stereotype of the foreigner as well as that of

the asexual clown. To begin w

ith, the name “Long D

uk Dong” relies

on a sophomoric locker room

joke that tells the audience early on that W

atanabe’s character will be a source for laughs. In one scene, a

gong plays as Dong’s visage appears on the screen. H

e is eating din-ner w

ith his host family w

ho looks at him as a specim

en. During the

dinner conversation, Dong m

ixes up a word and everyone at the table

laughs at him, including children w

ho are much younger than he. The

character looks down, em

barrassed. Looking at Dong, G

randpa an-nounces proudly, “H

e does the dishes and helps with the laundry, you

betcha.” Here, Long D

uk Dong clearly follow

s the stereotype of the foreigner w

ho does feminine w

ork. Later in the movie, D

ong fulfills the asexual clow

n stereotype when he is rom

antically paired with a

masculine, fem

ale jock named “Lum

berjack.” Instead of attracting a typically beautiful girl such as the m

ain character Samantha, D

ong is rom

antically interested in a female larger and stronger than he. Thus,

the representation “aims to provide com

ic relief” while fem

inizing D

ong and “constructs [his] sexuality as aberrant” (Ono and Pham

71). The character rem

ains one dimensional throughout the film

.

In contrast to Long Duk D

ong, Ben M

anibag (played by Parry Shen) contradicts A

sian Am

erican stereotypes in Better Luck

Tomorrow

. At first glance, high schooler B

en acts as a model m

inor-ity, set for an Ivy League school after college. H

e diligently prepares for his SAT test nightly and is involved in m

any extracurricular activities. H

owever, as the m

ovie progresses, it becomes evident that

Ben is a m

odel minority w

ho behaves badly. Ben gets involved in

helping other students cheat on tests, experiments w

ith drugs, and, m

ost shocking of all, participates in the murder of Steve, his love

interest’s boyfriend. Yet in the end, it appears Ben “gets the girl,”

Stephanie, when the tw

o share a kiss and drive away together. H

ere, the character of B

en ultimately defies the m

odel minority stereotype

and proves to be a sexually desirable romantic m

ale lead, a rarity in H

ollywood film

s. While B

etter Luck Tomorrow

should be applauded for its daring portrayal of A

sian Am

erican male youth, director and

producer Justin Lin faced a range of difficulties in the production, distribution, and reception of the film

. Because of B

etter Luck To-m

orrow’s all-A

sian Am

erican cast, Lin recalls “countless predictions about the im

possibility of the film’s success,” and he experienced

extreme pressure to “change the characters to w

hite ones” (Shimizu

19). MTV

Films, the studio behind the m

ovie, told Lin that there

8786 w

as no “Asian w

edge” in the market for his film

(Ho 4). A

fter Better

Luck Tomorrow

’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival, Lin w

as criti-cized for his failure to portray the A

sian Am

erican comm

unity in a positive m

anner. Following Sundance, the film

met w

ith limited box

office success (Ho 3). The response tow

ard Better Luck Tom

orrow

demonstrates that H

ollywood has m

uch left to achieve in the realm

of acceptance of diverse, non-clichéd stories with m

ultiple Asian

Am

erican leading characters.

Effects of Stereotypes on the A

sian Am

erican Male V

iewer

Just as film

and television stereotypes of Asian A

merican

men profoundly influence audiences’ real-life perceptions of A

sian A

mericans, m

edia representations also enormously im

pact Asian

Am

erican males’ perceptions of them

selves. In her interviews w

ith 27 A

sian Am

erican men, researcher H

elen Kar-Yee H

o of the Uni-

versity of Michigan found that w

ith regard to media depictions of

Asian A

merican m

ales, “the stereotypes listed by interviewees, w

hile not reflecting any essential A

sian Am

erican characteristics, constitute a very real, genuine discursive reality for A

sian Am

ericans as a racial m

inority in Am

erica” (Ho 50). H

o discovered that with only stereo-

types as potential role models, the m

en she interviewed “have grow

n up in an era of absence: they have developed self-concepts w

ithout any identifiable narrative presenting w

hat it means to be A

sian Am

er-ican, in day-to-day experience as w

ell as in the media” (52). The lack

of realistic portrayals of Asian A

merican m

en comm

unicates that A

sian Am

erican men are insignificant and undesirable. This in turn

can disturb Asian A

merican m

ales’ sense of self-worth, especially

in terms of dating. A

1998 psychology journal article entitled “Get-

ting the Message: M

edia Images and Stereotypes and Their Effect

on Asian A

mericans” reports that A

sian Am

erican men struggle w

ith confidence in their dating choices because of “the consistent m

essag-es…

equating beauty and attractiveness with W

hite in this society” (M

ok 199). Since positive Asian A

merican role m

odels are crucial to the form

ation of strong identities, it is valuable to consider what the

ideal Asian A

merican m

ale representation would be. H

o suggests that the ideal portrayal is “sim

ultaneously visible and invisible,” mean-

ing that Asian A

merican m

en should be present in narratives but not em

phasized as different (Ho 37).

Part 2: Current H

ollywood N

orms and C

asting Practices

Why do the aforem

entioned stereotypes of Asian A

merican

men persist in H

ollywood today? A

mericans have arguably m

oved beyond “yellow

peril” fears, and Asian A

merican m

en in reality occupy a variety of professions vastly different from

martial arts

teachers, delivery boys, dishwashers, or com

puter technicians. Still, H

ollywood relies on certain characterizations of A

sians for a variety of industrial and sociocultural reasons, all at the expense of the actors w

ho fill the roles.

Recurrence of Stock C

haracters in Hollyw

ood Productions

Quite sim

ply, Hollyw

ood utilizes stereotypes because they are an easy, safe choice in m

aking a movie. From

a narrative per-spective, “stereotypes are m

aintained because of their valued nar-rative econom

y” (Berg 42). C

harles Ram

irez Berg explains that

stereotypes “require little or no introduction or explanation, and because they are so quickly and com

pletely comprehended as signs,

stereotypes are an extremely cheap and cost-effective m

eans of tell-ing a m

ovie story” (ibid.). In an environment that involves enorm

ous pressure to produce a “box office hit,” producers need to create characters that audiences w

ill accept instantaneously. In other words,

casting directors work under credibility guidelines and intense tim

e constraints and turn to set characterizations, “conform

ing to prevail-ing notions of social categories,” as a type of insurance for success (Park 9). A

dditionally, Park suggests that stereotypes prevail in Hol-

lywood productions partly due to m

edia producers’ fear of alienating w

hite audiences. This notion stems from

greater racist sensibilities in society, nam

ely that non-Asian consum

ers are uncomfortable w

ith positive portrayals of A

sians involving status or success (Cohen

qtd. in Park 14). To please the largest market segm

ent, then, Holly-

wood restricts A

sian Am

erican men to narrow

representations. Mass

marketing strategies are largely to blam

e for the misrepresentation of

minorities on screen.

The final reason A

sian Am

erican actors find themselves be-

ing typecast is due to the gross underrepresentation of Asian A

meri-

cans in Hollyw

ood as a whole. In “Perform

ing Race, N

egotiating Identity: A

sian Am

erican Professional Actors in H

ollywood,” N

ancy

8988 W

ang Yuen shares that “whites m

ake up nearly 80 percent of feature film

writers, 70 percent of television w

riters, and the majority of the

industry’s directors, producers, and executives” (Yuen 253). Further, a 2006 U

CLA

study based on Internet Movie D

atabase data found that in 2005, 81 percent of all lead acting roles in H

ollywood w

ent to w

hites. Only 1.8 of lead roles w

ent to Asian A

mericans (R

obinson). A

Screen Actors G

uild study laments, “In the few

instances when

[Asian Pacific Islanders] are cast, A

PIs primarily play supporting

or minor roles” (R

abena). Asian A

merican actors’ access to leading

roles is highly limited; the sam

e study reports that “it remains un-

comm

on for prime-tim

e shows to feature m

ore than one regular API

character, if at all” (ibid.). Hollyw

ood casting director Jane Jenkins confirm

s that it is “definitely harder for minority actors to get good

[agent] representation and to get work” (Jenkins qtd. in R

obinson). Thus, in w

hite-dominated H

ollywood, the lack of diversity in acting,

casting, producing, and writing jobs leads to stale, inaccurate rep-

resentations of minorities, including A

sian Am

ericans. Yet if Holly-

wood continues to perpetuate the sam

e characters for Asian A

meri-

can men, audiences w

ill never grow accustom

ed to seeing Asian

Am

erican male actors in stereotype-defying roles. A

n examination of

recent television casting decisions unfortunately shows a perpetua-

tion of this trend.

Television Roles for A

sian Am

erican Men

To ascertain the current state of roles available to A

sian A

merican actors, it is helpful to exam

ine prime-tim

e television show

s of the last decade. Two recent popular television dram

as feature A

sian Am

erican men. Though the program

s have been celebrated for their diverse casts of characters, both N

BC

’s Heroes

and AB

C’s Lost restrict their m

ain Asian A

merican actors to roles

of foreigners, despite the actors’ ability to speak English flawlessly

(Ono and Pham

8). On H

eroes, a drama about a group of people

from around the w

orld who discover they have superpow

ers, Masi

Oka portrays H

iro Nakam

ura, a Japanese programm

er who finds

he has the ability to bend time. A

t the height of Heroes’ popularity,

entertainment m

agazines applauded Oka for m

aking the role of geek “chic,” but it rem

ains that Hiro fits the stereotype of an A

sian charac-ter as a technology-loving nerd. C

ompared to the other m

ale heroes

on the show, H

iro does not follow standard notions of m

asculinity. Throughout the show

, Hiro is com

monly found in “schoolboy” attire,

wearing slacks and cardigans. H

e also displays childlike behavior in the episodes, w

hich decreases his possibility of being a strong rom

antic contender. Furthermore, H

iro is never allowed to freely

pursue his love interest, Yaeko. As part of the plot, H

iro’s white

friend Adam

also is interested in Yaeko. As a result, “w

hen Hiro

kisses Yaeko, he knows his rom

ance will betray his friendship w

ith A

dam. B

ecause of this, “he cannot take pleasure in the act and even looks pained w

hile doing so” (Ho 174). H

iro’s other love interest in the show

is murdered early on (“Seven”). Thus, follow

ing a typical H

ollywood pattern, H

eroes fails to permit O

ka to perform as a m

ale rom

antic lead. Instead of portraying a manly, pow

erful superhero, “O

ka’s performance is com

edic, and centers on a meek dem

eanor, slapstick hum

or based on his small physical stature, and general

awkw

ardness, all qualities…labeled as stereotypically A

sian” (Ho

177). Though he possesses superpowers, H

iro’s naiveté hinders him

on the show, and he never truly “gets the girl.”

Sim

ilar to Masi O

ka’s character in terms of language bar-

riers, Jin-Soo Kw

on on AB

C’s Lost is the only m

ajor character w

ho cannot speak English at the start of the show. Daniel D

ae Kim

portrays Jin, a K

orean man trapped on a m

ysterious island with

several other survivors after a plane crash. In contrast to Hiro, Jin

is imm

ediately understood to be very masculine; he is protective of

his wife, possesses a m

uscular, toned body, and is of stoic character. H

owever, K

im still plays a stereotypically A

sian role: that of the foreigner. In the pilot episode, Jin offers raw

sea urchins to the others on the beach, but they are not interested in his food source because they find it strange (“Pilot: Part 2”). A

dditionally, Jin’s ethnicity is m

isidentified several times on the show. In one episode, the charac-

ter “Harley” incorrectly calls Jin and his w

ife Chinese (Yuen et al.

17). In another episode, “Sawyer” refers to Jin as Japanese w

hen he says, “I traded M

r. Miyagi the last of m

y water for a fish he caught”

(“White R

abbit”). Jin is very much “othered” in Lost: his difference

is highlighted as foreignness because he eats raw sea urchins, cannot

comm

unicate in English, and falls prey to the struggle of non-Asians

to correctly identify his race. Overall, w

hile the roles of Hiro and Jin

are progressive in some w

ays, they still marginalize the A

sian char-

9190 acters. Though H

iro possesses superhuman pow

ers, he is incapable of achieving characteristics of hegem

onic masculinity. O

n the other hand, w

hile Jin is quite masculine, he is perpetually a foreigner on

the Lost island.

Effects of Stereotypical R

oles on Asian A

merican A

ctors

How

do Asian A

merican professional actors react to the

restrictions of Hollyw

ood’s acting environment? In her ethnographic

research with tw

enty actors, Joan Faung Jean Lee found that though they fundam

entally disagree with racialized portrayals, m

any Asian

Am

ericans accept stereotypical roles simply in order to gain industry

experience. This follows one of the “Identity H

arms” of ethnic ste-

reotypes listed by Russell R

obinson of UC

LA: “taking on an identity

the actor loathes” (Robinson). If they fight against stereotyped roles

in auditions, Asian A

merican actors report that they w

ill not get the part (Lee 34). In an interview, actor R

aymond M

oy says of limit-

ing roles, “The anger?...It’s something that I think is there being a

minority, grow

ing up in a country that’s a majority…

You’ll never be treated like everybody else for the m

ost part” (33). For Moy, being

pigeonholed makes him

emotional. A

sian Am

erican actors’ experi-ences playing inaccurate ethnic characterizations can negatively affect their sense of belonging in the w

orld.

How

to Begin E

liminating Stereotypes

In order for m

ore realistic, multi-faceted roles to be offered

to Asian A

merican m

en, marketing executives m

ust first appreci-ate the purchasing pow

er of the Asian A

merican audience. A

ccord-ing to a report on the A

sian Pacific Islander market com

missioned

by the Screen Actors G

uild, “APIs are currently the m

ost affluent racial group in the country,” and “A

sian Am

erican households spend m

ore on entertainment than any other m

inority households” (Ra-

bena). According to the N

ational Consum

er Expenditure Survey, in 2007 “a total of $11 billion dollars w

as spent on entertainment by

Asian A

merican households alone.” Furtherm

ore, the report uses U

.S. Census B

ureau data to find that “over the past three decades, A

PIs have had the highest growing population rates of any racial

group in the nation” (ibid.). From a business perspective, the A

sian A

merican m

arket segment is highly desirable, and m

arketers need to

support projects that offer API consum

ers accurate, varied portrayals of A

sian Am

ericans in order to tap into this source of revenue. The other initiative that w

ill change the Asian A

merican m

edia landscape for actors is the expansion of the num

ber of Asian A

mericans found

in creative roles in film and television. In the docum

entary The Slanted Screen, D

arrell Ham

amoto, U

C D

avis professor of Asian

Am

erican Studies, asserts that “in order for Asian A

mericans to have

a substantive presence in film [and] in television, they m

ust enter into the ranks of producers, directors, w

riters, [and] executives as w

ell as being performers.” A

sian Am

ericans, he says, “need to be there w

here the decisions are being made.” Increased num

bers of A

sian Am

ericans in directing and producing roles will lead to m

ore accurate and equal representations of A

sian Am

erican men in m

edia creations.

Conclusion

The H

ollywood practice of consigning A

sian Am

erican men

to negative, stereotypical portrayals and excluding them from

posi-tive leading roles establishes a color line for A

sian Am

erican actors that cannot be crossed and sends a m

essage that Asian A

mericans are

unimportant and invisible. It dem

onstrates implicit racism

present in H

ollywood casting habits through denying m

eaningful roles to A

sian Am

ericans. Because m

edia representation is so closely linked to people’s perception of reality, society’s view

of Asian A

merican

men has little chance of changing as long as H

ollywood restricts

the acting roles available to Asian m

ales in Am

erica. Stereotypes of A

sian Am

erican men are rooted in historical prejudice tow

ard Asians

in Am

erica. The solution to eliminating stereotypes is tw

o-fold. M

arketers must appreciate the value of A

sian Am

erican audiences’ purchasing pow

er and push for realistic programm

ing that appeals to the A

sian Am

erican consumer. Sim

ultaneously, Asian A

mericans

must infiltrate the ranks of H

ollywood m

edia creators and producers. O

nly then will restricted, shallow

characterizations of Asian A

meri-

can men begin to disappear. W

orks Cited

“Asian Stereotypes.” Restrictive Portrayals of Asians in the M

edia

9392 and H

ow to Balance Them

. Media A

ction Netw

ork for Asian A

meri-

cans, n.d. Web. 12 A

pr. 2012.

Berg, C

harles Ram

irez. Latino Images in Film

: Stereotypes, Subver-sion, and Resistance. A

ustin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Print.

Better Luck Tomorrow. D

ir. Justin Lin. Perf. Parry Shen, Roger Fan,

John Cho, Jason Tobin, and K

arin Anna C

heung. MTV

Films, 2002.

Film.

Eng, David L. Racial C

astration: Managing M

asculinity in Asian Am

erica. Durham

, N.C

.: Duke U

niversity Press, 2001. Print.

Ho, H

elen Kar-Yee. N

egotiating the Boundaries of (In)Visibility: Asian Am

erican Men and Asian/Am

erican Masculinity on Screen.

Diss. U

niversity of Michigan, 2011. A

nn Arbor: U

MI, 2011. W

eb. 9 M

ay 2012.

Lee, Joann Faung Jean. Asian American Actors. Jefferson, N

C: M

c-Farland &

Com

pany, 2000. Print.

Lippmann, W

alter. Public Opinion. N

ew York: H

arcourt, Brace and

Com

pany, Inc., 1922. Print.

Marchetti, G

ina. Romance and the “Yellow

Peril.” Berkeley: U

niver-sity of C

alifornia Press, 1993. Print.

Mok, Teresa A

. “Getting the M

essage: Media Im

ages and Stereo-types and Their Effect on A

sian Am

ericans.” Cultural D

iversity and M

ental Health 4.3, 1998: 185-202. W

eb. 27 May 2012.

Ono, K

ent, and Vincent Pham

. Asian Americans and the M

edia. Mal-

den, MA

: Polity Press, 2009. Print.

Park, Ji Hoon. “R

epresentation of Asians in H

ollywood Film

s: So-ciocultural and Industrial Perspectives.” C

onference Papers: Interna-tional C

omm

unication Association (2005):1-22. C

omm

unication &

Mass M

edia Com

plete. Web. 9 M

ay 2012.

Payne, Robert M

. “Waiting in Vain for A

sian Am

erican Leads.” Lat-im

es.com. Los A

ngeles Times, 15 D

ec. 2003. Web. 9 M

ay 2012.

“Pilot: Part 2.” Lost. Am

erican Broadcasting C

ompany. 29 Sept.

2004. Television.

Rabena, D

arlene. “From D

ollars & Sense to Screen: The A

PI Market

and the Entertainment Industry.” Screen A

ctors Guild, 2010. W

eb. 14 M

ay 2012.

Robinson, R

ussell. “Hollyw

ood’s Race/Ethnicity and G

ender-Based

Casting: Prospects for a Title V

II Lawsuit.” Latino Policy &

Issues Brief. U

CLA

Chicano Studies R

esearch Center, D

ec. 2006. Web. 21

May 2012.

Said, Edward. O

rientalism. N

ew York: Pantheon B

ooks, 1978. Print. “Seven M

inutes to Midnight.” H

eroes. National B

roadcasting Com

-pany. 13 N

ov. 2006. Television.

Shah, Hem

ant. “‘Asian C

ulture’ and Asian A

merican Identities in

the Television and Film Industries of the U

nited States.” Simile 3.3

(2003): n. pag. Academic Search Prem

ier. 16 May 2012.

Shimizu, C

eline Parreñas. Straitjacket Sexualities: Unbinding Asian

American M

anhoods in the Movies. Stanford: Stanford U

niversity Press, 2012. Print.

Sixteen Candles. D

ir. John Huges. Perf. M

olly Ringw

ald, Michael

Schoeffling, Anthony M

ichael Hall, and G

edde Watanabe. U

niversal Pictures, 1984. Film

.

The Slanted Screen. Dir. Jeff A

dachi. Perf. Mako, C

ary-Hiroyuki

Tagawa, Jam

es Shigeta, Dustin N

guyen and Philip Rhee. A

AM

M

Productions, 2006. DV

D.

“White R

abbit.” Lost. Am

erican Broadcasting C

ompany. 20 O

ct. 2004. Television.

9594 Yuen, N

ancy Wang. “Perform

ing Race, N

egotiating Identity: Asian

Am

erican Professional Actors in H

ollywood.” Asian Am

erican Youth: C

ulture, Identity, and Ethnicity. Ed. Jennifer Lee and Min

Zhou. New

York: Routledge, 2004. 251-267. Print.

Yuen, Nancy W

ang et al. “Asian Pacific A

mericans in Prim

e Time:

Lights, Cam

era and Little Action.” Advancing Equality. N

ational A

sian Pacific Am

erican Legal Consortium

, 2005. Web. 16 M

ay 2012.

MY

MU

SIC IS SILE

NC

E:

ASIA

N-A

ME

RIC

AN

YO

UTH

AN

D

THE

MO

DE

L MIN

OR

ITY M

YTH

Tiffany Dharm

a M

y living room piano speaks loudly through its stillness. D

rawn

to the haunting beauty of its polished black wood, visitors w

ould constantly inquire about the dust on its keys. A

s its former player,

I was expected to replace the quiet w

ith a symphony; only a w

eak voice w

ould answer. I used to play, but I don’t know

how to anym

ore. They w

ere never satisfied by this reply: Surely, you must rem

ember

something!

Instead of sonatas or fugues, w

hat I remem

ber is ten years of conflict. Since the age of five, one of m

y mom

’s greatest goals w

as for me to becom

e an accomplished pianist. U

nfortunately, five-year-olds are not know

n for their willingness to devote their tim

e to C

hopin. My m

om w

ent through great lengths to get me to stay at that

piano bench. Although her aspirations cam

e from a good place in

her heart, the frequent result was crying and yelling from

both ends. Though the ferocity of the battle m

uted after a few years, any natural

love for piano was effectively crushed. I did not ever play for joy or

pleasure. Nevertheless, m

y mother’s pressure to perform

became m

y ow

n. As dozens of recitals and com

petitions passed, the comm

unity praised m

y talents and congratulatory ribbons accumulated on the

walls above the piano. I m

ust have mem

orized hundreds of pieces of classical m

usic during my decade as a m

andatory musician. A

fter passing the m

ost advanced level of performance exam

s with highest

honors, I had finally accomplished w

hat my m

om had w

anted. That w

as the last time I ever touched those keys.

W

hen I share this story with other A

sian-Am

ericans, many

of them can com

miserate. W

hile certainly not universal among all

classes and comm

unities, this acute and unyielding push to excel is such a com

mon narrative in A

sian-Am

erican households that it is now

an object of lore. The conglomerate of societal and parental

pressure directly targets academics and extracurricular activities.

It percolates outward to affect aspects of A

sian-Am

erican life and seeps inw

ard as high standards are internalized. The comm

onality of

9796 this cycle of expectation, external pressure, and assessm

ent has even becom

e a part of cultural myth. A

sian-Am

ericans are seen as the “m

odel minority,” a hard-w

orking, ambitious, and prosperous group

because of inherent cultural values. While this is a reductive gener-

alization, their statistical prevalence at top universities and in white-

collar professions seems to support this stereotype (Fong 1075).

Am

idst the distracting decorations of success, one crucial question is often overlooked: w

hat casualties result from this constant pressure

to achieve?

I forfeited the piano, but much m

ore is at stake. Many sacri-

fice their emotional w

ell-being, their passions, their identities; some

even give up on life. First and second generation Asian-A

merican

adolescents have internalized model m

inority standards of success w

ith devastating results. Because education occurs during develop-

mental years, these attitudes leave a deep, psychological im

print on involved youth. The idea that self-w

orth is restricted to quantitative m

easurements becom

es ingrained in their consciousness, build-ing from

childhood and peaking during their undergraduate years. Psychological anxiety and m

ental health problems are prevalent even

amongst those w

ho attain the highest standards. Not only is this con-

stant burden of expectation overwhelm

ingly stressful, but the myth

also stifles individuality and normalizes self-sacrifice during a critical

point of development w

hen young adults begin to make independent

choices and craft worldview

s. The pressure on Asian-A

mericans

to succeed becomes a feedback loop of burden and self-repression,

perpetuating the model m

inority myth by encouraging conform

ity to its clichés.

De C

apo: The B

eginning

Asian-A

mericans have struggled w

ith societal connotations of the m

odel minority m

yth for decades. The term “m

odel minor-

ity” was first used by sociologist W

illiam Petersen in a 1966 N

ew

York Times article titled “Success Story: Japanese-A

merican Style,”

(Fong 1975). Petersen praised Asian-A

mericans as an exam

ple that other m

inorities should emulate. C

iting their academic and econom

ic success, he lauded their ability to overcom

e obstacles like the World

War II internm

ent camps and stated that “every attem

pt to hamper

their progress has resulted only in enhancing their determination

to succeed” (Fong 1075). Petersen attributed their perseverance to cultural values of self-help and self-discipline, w

hich are traits that continue to be associated w

ith Asian-A

mericans today. H

is article’s explanation for their quantitative achievem

ents gained popularity and spaw

ned further discourse on the subject.

In addition to coining the concept of the “model m

inority,” Petersen established cultural difference as the basis for their success. This w

eaves subtle racism into the superficial flattery of the m

odel m

inority myth. B

ecause Petersen’s definition emphasized cultural

disparity, Asian-A

merican success becam

e a foundation for societal separation. Indeed, cultural values play a significant role in A

sian-A

merican values because a “m

ajority of them have only been living

in Am

erica for two or few

er generations” (Iwam

oto 80). Especially in Eastern A

sian societies, Confucianism

has a strong influence: Its tenets of respecting others and cultivating the self through study and w

ork inculcate a “strong belief in meritocracy” that m

any imm

i-grants m

aintain (Li 145). How

ever, the reduction of Asian-A

merican

persistence to the mere transplantation of C

onfucian values from

the East to West encourages aw

areness of distinction (Chou 222).

It enables a perceived dichotomy betw

een hemispheres to develop,

representing the myth’s veneer of orientalism

and cultural determin-

ism (C

hou 218). Binding A

sian-Am

ericans to the continent of Asia

separates them from

mainstream

Am

erica, reinforcing the idea of otherness. This suggests that “no m

atter how w

ell Asian-A

mericans

assimilate, they are at best the m

odel minorities instead of becom

ing part of the m

ajority” (Chou 222).

A

stereotype of foreignness emerges from

the model m

inor-ity m

yth and presents obstacles in the Asian-A

merican pursuit for

social acceptance. Although overtly racist policies like the C

hinese Exclusion A

ct are a thing of the past, de facto discrimination is

manifested through m

arginalization and ignorance. An underlying

current of exclusion manifests itself daily through questions like

“Where are you really from

?” or “What are you?”, w

hich Asian-

Am

ericans report receiving on a regular basis (Iwam

oto 79). Because

Asian-A

mericans are seen as foreigners, m

odel minority rhetoric

sometim

es expresses anxiety and “fears of losing strength and the w

ill to lead in the context of Asian dom

ination” on an international and dom

estic level (Fong 1077). Imm

igrant success is an occasional

9998 source of antipathy for the threatened C

aucasian majority, as w

ell as other m

inority groups who feel denigrated by m

odel minority

rhetoric. Even when achievem

ent does not breed hostility, it contrib-utes to ignorance. B

linded by the façade of success, many A

meri-

cans dismiss problem

s in the Asian-A

merican com

munity. Thus, the

model m

inority myth presents A

sian-Am

ericans with a burdensom

e dilem

ma: Success is the m

eans toward societal acceptance, yet it is

also a criterion for exclusion and misunderstanding.

Allegro: M

y Tempo M

ust Be Fast if I W

ant to Keep Pace

The nuanced duality of success as a m

ode of acceptance and exclusion adds to a feedback cycle of pressure. C

ognizant of racism

and other societal obstacles, Asian im

migrants feel the need

to work even harder to im

prove their condition of life. Because

early Asian im

migrants w

ere excluded from labor unions and had

very few options for em

ployment, they saw

“schooling as one of the only avenues left for their upw

ard mobility” (Lee 54). R

elying on the m

eritocratic systems of their hom

elands, imm

igrant parents believed that education w

as the purest means for their children to

attain a better life. Despite the elim

ination of de jure discrimina-

tion, this conviction persisted over time. A

2009 psychological study found that anxiety over a perception of foreignness caused parents to em

phasize academic achievem

ent as a “means to achieve higher

social status and overcome potential discrim

ination” (Benner and

Kim

873). Parents perpetuated these feelings by instilling a similar,

anxious drive in their offspring. Interviews w

ith Asian-A

merican

valedictorians and other top ranking students reveal the comm

onal-ity of their m

otivations: “We know

we are a m

inority in this country, and w

e have to do better than other Am

ericans. That’s the only way

we’ll have a chance” (H

sia 92). Excelling in school, attending a prestigious university, and earning a com

fortable living in a white-

collared profession became the im

migrant A

merican D

ream. Sadly,

Asian-A

mericans felt that tw

ice as much effort w

ould be required to attain it. Perceived racism

indoctrinated imm

igrant parents with the

pressure to succeed, and this anxiety contributed to the flourishing of a new

stereotype: the model m

inority.

The cultivation of this uneasiness moved m

odel minority

expectations from a societal to parental basis, and A

sian-Am

erican

familial structure w

as especially conducive to this development.

Traditional values like “honoring parents, not bringing shame to the

family, and placing fam

ily before the individual” facilitate mold-

ing a disciplined work ethic (Fong 1075). The close-knit “fam

ily-centered nature of A

sian families” also causes pressure to becom

e an especially consum

ptive part of the lives of Asian-A

merican youth

(Lee 53). Parental pressure is especially onerous in Asian A

merican

comm

unities because the burden of familial honor and advancem

ent is placed on the child. In interview

s conducted by New

York Univer-

sity, a Chinese-A

merican undergraduate claim

s that “parents believe that how

kids do in school reflects on the entire family” (Teranishi

72). Asian parents view

their children as extensions of themselves, so

excellence in education is a family affair. The com

bination of home

life and educational expectations contribute to schooling’s omnipres-

ence. A H

arvard student who w

as interviewed for C

NN

’s “Asian in

Am

erica” supports this claim: “I know

that family and education

were m

ost important in m

y family. It’s one of the best aspects of

Asian-A

merican culture. It’s a double edged sw

ord though…because

it can be brutal.”

A salient exam

ple of the overwhelm

ing parental pressure exerted on first and second generation A

sian-Am

ericans, New

York Tim

es bestseller Battle Hym

n of the Tiger Mother describes one

mother’s m

erciless integration of home life and academ

ic expecta-tion. Exalting a harsh parenting style as typical of the “C

hinese w

ay,” Yale Law School professor A

my C

hua proudly shares the se-crets behind her daughters’ success. Pushing her children to excel in all subjects, she finds that it is “crucial to override their preferences” because “nothing is fun until you’re good at it, and to get good at anything you have to w

ork” (Chua 43). She talks about excoriating

her daughters publically to yield better piano performances, adm

it-ting that she even w

ithheld bathroom privileges until one child could

adequately play a difficult piece. To counter those who are shocked

at her austerity, she maintains that everything is done in her daugh-

ters’ best interest: “Chinese m

others believe that the best way to

protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them

see w

hat they’re capable of, and arming them

with skills, w

ork habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take aw

ay” (Chua 182).

In her explanation for why such harsh parenting is necessary, she

101100

conveys why hard w

ork, education, and anxiety over the future are underlying A

sian-Am

erican themes in the push for success. She has

raised her children in this manner since they w

ere young, and this trend tow

ard accomplishm

ent at all costs only increases as higher education approaches.

One of the m

ost significant ways in w

hich Asian-A

mericans

evaluate availability of future opportunity and achievement is college

prestige. In a 2009 survey, researchers polled Caucasian and A

sian parents and children to assess w

hat factors influenced their decision in choosing a university. W

hile parents and children of the same

ethnicity tend to value the same ideas, this study found a striking

difference between races. U

niversity prestige was the num

ber one factor for A

sian-Am

erican parents and children 52% and 42%

of the tim

e; contrast this with C

aucasian parents and children, who valued

rankings as paramount only 10%

and 9% of the tim

e (Dundes 139).

This places significant pressure on children to attend a high-ranked university. A

n Asian-A

merican high school senior says, “I’m

expect-ing m

yself to get into a top ranked college – I mean, the greatest

colleges there are. I’m shooting for a H

arvard or an MIT” (Teranishi

40). When asked w

hy prestige had such weight, A

sian-Am

ericans cite reasons like educational value, job opportunity, and financial security (D

undes 139).

Unfortunately, the perceived societal obstacles that prom

pt A

sian parents to worry about the future m

ay not be a figment of

imagination. G

iven the emphasis on attending a selective college, an

especially poignant example is alleged discrim

ination against Asian-

Am

ericans in elite university admissions. A

n article in the Washing-

ton Post proposes the possibility of a “deluge of Asian-A

merican

applicants” causing “the nation’s most elite colleges to try to keep

their numbers dow

n through secret ceiling quotas and/or racially discrim

inatory selection policies” (Gervasi). The m

odel minority

threat has caused concern that schools like UC

Berkeley are becom

-ing “too A

sian” and infringing on the “time-honored ideal of cam

pus diversity” (G

ervasi). Although the D

eans of Adm

issions of several Ivy League colleges deny racial bias, A

sian-Am

erican admission

rates are still lower than those of the general population and continue

to decline each year due to the number of A

sian-Am

erican applicants (H

sia 93). This has contributed to a mindset in w

hich these students

feel that they are fighting for select spots that are allotted to them

at these elite institutions. As prestige frenzy w

orsens, the academic

quality of minority applicants increase; thus, the level required to

remain com

petitive is growing higher (H

sia 127).

While societal exclusion sets a rapid pace for success, paren-

tal pressure intensifies the beat of the metronom

e. Even though tiger m

others have disciplined their children to practice until perfection, key notes are being m

issed. A second generation A

sian-Am

erican hints at the loom

ing storm of discordance: “O

ur mother is proud

because [we] are excelling in respectable post-secondary institutions,

but the price of success was our severed relationship” (N

guyen 36). A

nd while college life generally m

arks a decline in parental influence regardless of agreem

ent, model m

inority expectations no longer need to rely on society’s betrayals or a tiger m

other’s criticisms to exist.

The burden of entrenched perspectives doggedly follows A

sian-A

mericans to university life and beyond. Since m

essages of expecta-tion and assessm

ent have been drilled into their minds since child-

hood, Asian-A

merican undergraduates inherit these high expectations

and begin to apply them of their ow

n accord.

Crescendo: T

he Pressure Inside of Me Is Increasing

A

dopted model m

inority pressures assume a life of their

own and continue to build during the college years. W

hile young adulthood is w

rought with tension and anxiety for adolescents of all

ethnicities, racialized expectations add to the pressures that Asian-

Am

ericans face. Caught w

ithin the expectations of Am

erican society and A

sian heritage, adolescents feel a “restricted sense of identity and lim

ited choice” for everything from personalities to occupations

(Yoo and Burrola 116). This feeling of internal conflict is usually

generalized under the umbrella term

of stress, which the Society for

Research into H

igher Education defines as an “imbalance betw

een environm

ental pressure and the capacity to meet that dem

and” (Fisher 2). This feeling of overw

helming anxiety is perceived w

hen-ever there “is a low

personal control or jurisdiction over the physical, psychological, or social environm

ent” (Fisher 2). These demands

include society’s expectations, parental anticipations, and internal-ized drive, w

ith each perpetually nagging voice always expecting

the best. This model m

inority environment contributes to the second

103102

component of stress: a feeling of pow

erlessness.

Because internalizing societal and fam

ilial expectations results in constrained individualities and perceptions of narrow

choice, A

sian-Am

ericans feel like they have little control over life decisions. D

riven to attend the most prestigious colleges, students

assume sim

ilar pressures when choosing undergraduate m

ajors and professions. A

psychological study found that “Asian-A

merican

college students were the m

ost likely to have their major or career

choice influenced by parental views, even w

hen not explicit” (Tewari

468). Asian im

migrant parents have a tendency to indoctrinate their

children with the idea that science, business, or engineering fields

were superior. Students sw

allow expectations to pursue these areas of

study, which w

ere successively linked to a push for careers that had higher social statuses and m

ore promise of econom

ic stability (Li 41) In an essay detailing his conflict over declaring a philosophy m

ajor, a K

orean-Am

erican college student writes that “I resisted thinking of

myself as an “English” person as opposed to a science person largely

because it would have been hard to square w

ith a sense of self-worth

centered on intellectual proficiency and academic com

mitm

ent” (Pat-rick S., 42). H

is cultural programm

ing causes him to dow

nplay his intelligence and interests, resulting in inner conflict. A

Vietnam

ese-A

merican undergraduate shares a sim

ilar story of how he had alw

ays thought of m

edicine as his “preordained profession” and had become

so accustomed to the idea that he w

as at a loss for any other call-ing (N

guyen 22). A lack of control over external dem

ands results in stifling and overw

helming am

ounts of stress.

This inner struggle between m

odel minority expectations and

individual desires causes psychological damage in A

sian-Am

ericans at rates higher than the general population (“A

sian in Am

erica”). A

study conducted on first-generation undergraduates found an “achievem

ent/adjustment paradox” because “A

sian-Am

erican stu-dents report poor psychological and social adjustm

ent” despite their external m

arkers of success (Qin, W

ay and Mukherjee 481). Frustra-

tion and alienation, elements inherent in the teenage experience, are

intensified due to unique standards placed upon the Asian-A

merican

comm

unity. Recent evidence indicates that A

sian-Am

ericans “were

more likely to be depressed, to feel hopeless and to have contem

-plated suicide” than their C

aucasian counterparts (Thompson 22).

Even more grievously, A

sian-Am

ericans are more likely to attem

pt suicide, and a statistical analysis of cam

pus deaths finds that “sui-cide accounts for a larger proportion of the deaths of 20-24 year-old A

sian-Am

ericans than for European Am

ericans” (Leong 417). Though cases of suicide m

ay be extreme, their relative statistical

prevalence deserves attention. At C

ornell University, w

hose student suicides are as w

ell-known as their strong engineering program

, the high percentage of A

sian-Am

erican victims has prom

pted university officials to install a special task force targeting their m

ental health. A

psychologist on this panel addresses the connection between accu-

mulated pressure and the prevalence of m

ental illness: “The stereo-type for A

sian and Asian-A

merican students is that they are academ

ic m

achines, but we see a lot of em

otional pain here. We see the hum

an side of that and those stereotypes cause hurt and keep people from

seeking care” (R

amanujan). M

odel minority stress is both a source

and perpetuator of suffering.

Pressured to hide imperfections, A

sian-Am

ericans conceal psychological dam

age and do not receive desperately needed treat-m

ent. Studies have shown that they are “at greater risk of not seeking

help to deal with their personal academ

ic and mental health prob-

lems” (Yoo and B

urrola 116). Because suffering and w

orking hard are accepted parts of A

sian cultural values, discussion of psycho-logical health is not only tense, but actively discouraged. In C

NN

’s “A

sian in Am

erica,” Dr. Sanjay G

upta explains how “In A

sia, any tim

e we talk about depression, it’s a sign of w

eakness.” Just like academ

ic success reflects on a family’s reputation, the stigm

a of m

ental illness as a flaw im

pacts their honor: “Asking for counsel-

ing is very embarrassing for the w

hole family, because w

hatever you do, it represents the fam

ily’s name” (“A

sian in Am

erica”). A

student interviewed in an academ

ic study echoed this idea, believing that “adm

itting his academic and personal failures w

ould cause his fam

ily to lose face;” he struggled on his own, w

hich eventually “left him

feeling isolated and depressed” (Lee 61). In addition to preserv-ing fam

ilial honor, the value placed on self-sufficiency is a factor in em

otional subdual. A second generation undergraduate w

ho strug-gled w

ith depression explains the Japanese concept of meaku kakat-

era dame, w

hich directly translates to “Do not unnecessarily burden

yourself onto others” (Hirashim

a 104). She says that she deferred

105104

seeking help because “there’s a mentality am

ong Asians to be tough

and to not let other people see that you actually have feelings – to cover up pain, anger, frustration, and depression” (H

irashima 104).

This dangerous theme of suppression extends beyond psychologi-

cal health. In multiple w

ays the Asian-A

merican m

elody is lost in a cacophony. B

ecause personal expression is forced to harmonize w

ith external and internal pressures, an original com

position becomes

undetectable. Afraid that they w

ill “risk the shame of not living up

to the model m

inority myth,” A

sian-Am

ericans tune themselves

to match the expectations placed upon them

and relinquish their independence and creativity in the process (Yoo and B

urrola 116). This com

pliance carries the greatest implications for the future. To

blindly struggle toward m

odel minority expectations is to conform

to its lim

ited ideals, to gloss over its grievances, and to perpetuate its hostile existence. D

epriving them of voice, the m

yth forces Asian-

Am

ericans to compose their ow

n undoing.

Sotto Voce: My M

usic is Not H

eard

Pressured from all sides, A

sian-Am

ericans have been taught that self-repression is m

odel behavior. Their silence has become an-

ticipated and rewarded: B

ecause racism’s specter continues to haunt

the Asian-A

merican experience, m

ainstream society has encour-

aged conformity by punishing difference and praising assim

ilation. C

ompensated by recognition and high m

arks for performing like

model m

inorities, young students “censured their own experiences

and voices” to gain “acceptance from the dom

inant group” (Lee 9). Internalizing expectations from

this early age, they continue to believe that their status w

ould rise if they “lived up to standards,” and others adm

itted that they have “silenced behaviors and experi-ences that failed to m

easure up to the model m

inority standard” (Lee 117). This stereotype survives because “it tells A

sian Am

ericans how

to behave” and convinces them that it is in their best interest to

“pose no threat to the White establishm

ent, to take things quietly, to not com

plain, and to not fight back” (Li 184). Programm

ed to equate conform

ity with success, A

sian-Am

ericans strive to please others at the expense of their ow

n expression.

Because A

sian-Am

ericans are consistently pressured to fit expectations, silencing individuality has becom

e normative. Taught

that she was “never supposed to raise her voice,” a college student

realizes how passivity has becom

e ingrained in her nature (Hirashi-

ma 96). A

sian-Am

ericans opinions have been discounted at all stages of developm

ent, and they have come to accept this as ordinary.

Com

pare the following statistic: C

aucasian students valued “hap-piness” and “fit” m

ost when selecting a university 67%

of the time,

but only 28% of their A

sian-Am

erican counterparts ranked their own

well-being as highly (D

undes 139). Individual desires are always the

first sacrifice in the calling for success; they are a necessary casualty in the quest for som

ething higher. Nevertheless, this m

ission never ceases. Even for those w

ho have been accepted into a selective insti-tution, they m

ust “pursue a particular degree to please family m

em-

bers rather than to advance their own interests,” a pattern that holds

truth for vocational choice as well (Li 26). Each sacrifice surrenders

a part of the self until there is nothing left. A first generation under-

graduate laments that “You tend to be w

hat they expect you to be and you just lose your identity. You just lose being yourself and becom

e part of w

hat someone else w

ants you to be” (Lee 59). Even for those w

ho realize that the model m

inority myth is negative, a study dem

-onstrated that its internalization can still “significantly influence stereotypic-consistent behaviors regardless of personal belief” (Yoo and B

urrola 124). Although dissociation from

one’s environment

is difficult, silence only strengthens its hold. A revolution of sound

is needed to reclaim identity and break the institutionalized cycle of

pressure.De C

apo Al F

ine: Starting Over from

the Beginning

A

n old friend of mine is fam

iliar with this struggle. W

ith over 230 strings under a com

bined tension of twenty tons, the piano

is no stranger to pressure. The correct amount of force produces the

notes that make beautiful m

usic possible, but too much stress w

ill m

ake the strings snap. Already at a disadvantage for not being cast

from high carbon steel, people flirt w

ith the same danger: They need

to speak when this pressure is too great. B

ecause adjusting tensions is unique to each piano and dependent on the variant interactions betw

een notes, Asian-A

mericans m

ust direct their own fine tuning.

At an especially critical juncture, first and second generation young

adults control the continuity of the model m

inority myth in their

107106

hands. They can rewrite the com

position, replacing its disharmonious

song with m

usic of their own conception.

The polished black w

ood calls out to me in stillness, and this

time I answ

er with a liberated w

ill. No one is there to tell m

e what or

when or how

to play. I choose to sit in the old chair, and my fingers

run tentatively over the keys as my soul begins to stir. A

t first it is a shaky m

elody, but then it grows louder, gains m

omentum

, becomes

unstoppable. Sounds imbued w

ith my individual heart and flair echo

off the walls, banishing the silence once and for all.

Works C

ited“A

sian in Am

erica.” Paula Zahn Now

. CN

N. 16 M

ay, 2007. Televi-sion.

Benner, A

prile and Su Yeong Kim

. “Intergenerational Experiences of D

iscrimination in C

hinese-Am

erican Families: Influences of Social-

ization and Stress.” Journal of Marriage and Fam

ily 71.4 (2009): 862-874. Print.

Chou, C

hih-Chieh. “C

ritique on the notion of model m

inority: an alternative racism

to Asian A

merican?” A

sian Ethnicity 9.3 (2008): 212-229. Print.

Chua, A

my. “W

hy Chinese M

others Are Superior.” W

all Street Jour-nal. 8 January 2011.

Dundes, Lauren. “The D

uty to Succeed: Honor versus H

appiness in C

ollege and Career C

hoices of East Asian Students in the U

nited States.” Pastoral C

are in Education 27.2 (2009):135-56. Print..

Fisher, S. Stress in Academ

ic Life: the Mental A

ssembly Line. B

uck-ingham

, England: Society for Research into H

igher Education, 1994. Print.

Gervasi, Susan. “A

sians Question A

dmissions.” The W

ashington Post 8 A

pril 1990.

Fong, Colleen. “M

odel Minority.” The A

sian-Am

erican Encylopedia. Ed. Franklin N

g. Vol. 4. New

York: Marshall C

avendish Corporation,

1995: 1075 -1086. Print.

Hirashim

a, Fuyuki. “Balancing on the H

yphen.” Balancing Tw

o W

orlds: Asian A

merican C

ollege Students Tell Their Life Stories. Ed. A

ndrew G

arrod. Ithaca: Cornell U

P, 2007.37-46. Print.

Hsia, Jayjia. A

sian Am

ericans in Higher Education and at W

ork. H

illsdale, NJ: Law

rence Erlbaum A

ssociates, 1988. Print.

Iwam

oto, Derek. “The Im

pact of Racial Identity, Ethnic Identity,

Asian Values, and R

ace Related Stress on A

sian Am

ericans and A

sian International College Students’ Psychological W

ell-Being.”

Journal of Counseling Psychology 57.1 (2010): 79-91. Print.

Lee, Stacey J. Unraveling the “M

odel Minority” Stereotype: Listen-

ing to Asian A

merican Youth. N

ew York: Teachers C

ollege, 1996. Print.

Leong, Frederick. “Suicide among A

sian Am

ericans: What D

o We

Know

? What D

o We N

eed to Know

?” Death Studies 31.5 (2007):

417-34. Print.

Li, Guofang. “Strangers” of the A

cademy: A

sian Wom

en Scholars in H

igher Education. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub., 2006. Print.

Nguyen, Phuoc. “Sticks and Salt.” B

alancing Two W

orlds: Asian

Am

erican College Students Tell Their Life Stories. Ed. A

ndrew G

ar-rod. Ithaca: C

ornell UP, 2007. 18-36. Print.

Qin, D

esirée Boalian, N

iobe Way and Preetika M

ukherjee. “The Oth-

er Side of the Model M

inority Story: Challenges Faced by C

hinese A

merican A

dolescents.” Youth Society 39.4 (2008): 480-503. Print.

109108

Ram

anujan, Krishna. “H

ealth Expert Explains Asian and A

sian-A

merican Students’ U

nique Pressures to Succeed.” Cornell C

hroni-cle [Ithaca, N

ew York] 19 A

pr. 2006.

S., Patrick. “Distilling M

y Korean Identity.” B

alancing Two W

orlds: A

sian Am

erican College Students Tell Their Life Stories. Ed. A

n-drew

Garrod. Ithaca: C

ornell UP, 2007. 37-46.

Print.

Teranishi, Robert T. A

sians in the Ivory Tower: D

ilemm

as of Racial

Inequality in Am

erican Higher Education. N

ew York: Teachers C

ol-lege, 2010. Print.

Tewari, N

ita. Asian A

merican Psychology: C

urrent Perspectives. N

ew York: Psychology, 2009. Print.

Thompson, N

eil. “Rates of D

eliberate Self-Harm

in Asians: Finding

and Models.” International R

eview of Psychology 12.1 (2000): 37-

43. Print.

Yoo, Hyung C

ho and Kim

berly S. Burrola. “A

Preliminary R

eport on a N

ew M

easure: Internalization of the Model M

inority Myth M

ea-sure (IM

-4) and Its Psychological Correlates A

mong A

sian Am

erican C

ollege Students.” Journal of Counseling Psychology 57.1 (2009):

114-127. Print.

THE

LUC

KY

16%:

ASIA

N A

ME

RIC

AN

CO

LLEG

E E

NR

OLLM

EN

T A

ND

THE

JOU

RN

EY

TO G

ET TH

ER

EK

yle Abraham I. IntroductionI am

about to log on to Dartm

outh’s Application page to see whether

I got in or not. I really do not want to check right now. U

gh… it’s so

hard. If I don’t get in, there must be som

ething wrong w

ith me…

that I didn’t see…

and that they [Dartm

outh College Adm

issions Officers]

saw, but I don’t think that there is anything terribly wrong about m

e. [Pause.] For the past tw

o weeks I have been calm

ing myself dow

n. If I don’t get it, it’s ok; it’s their loss; and it’s not m

y loss. [Long pause as she checks the status of her application.] O

h my G

od.

(Ivy Dream

s1 1/10 Intro)

In spring 2006, high school senior, M

ichelle, anxiously checks the status of her college application to D

artmouth C

ollege. Fortunately, for M

ichelle, she is granted admission and becom

es a part of D

artmouth’s C

lass of 2010. How

ever, Michelle’s experience

awaiting her adm

issions decision is filled with large am

ounts of anxiety, and perhaps she is not exaggerating w

hen she feels that there m

ust be something w

rong with her.

For M

ichelle, she is extremely happy to be accepted to

Dartm

outh College as one of the few

lucky Asian A

merican students

admitted to one of the Ivy

2 League schools. Her self-deprecating

thoughts of doubt and worth are not uncom

mon for m

any college ap-plicants since the num

ber of college applicants continues to increase. The increase in num

ber of students in higher education may parallel

*the increase in competition for college adm

ission across the United

States. From 2000 to 2012, there w

as a 6.2% increase of students

attending college in the United States (N

ational Center for Education

1. Ivy Dream

s is a ten-part documentary video posted on YouTube that traces the

college application experience of 4 high school Asian A

merican seniors applying to

Ivy League schools.2. Ivy League classification brands eight schools for its com

mon interests in sports

and athletics. These include Brow

n, Colum

bia, Cornell, D

artmouth, H

arvard, Penn-sylvania, Princeton, and Yale (Letich).

111110

Statistics). While the num

ber of students in higher education con-tinues to increase, the enrollm

ent at selective colleges remains at a

plateau or decreasing, especially in Am

erica’s most selective colleges

like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford (C

aldwell). In particu-

lar, Asian A

merican enrollm

ent of eight Ivy League schools in the last tw

o decades converges to 16% of the undergraduate population

(Unz). C

onsequently, this apparent cap on Asian A

merican enroll-

ment intensifies com

petition for limited spots at selective colleges,

which m

ay take a toll on their mental health.

Thus, the goal of this essay is to outline a rationale for a

continuing dialogue among the relationships betw

een higher educa-tion adm

issions outcomes and the college application experience for

Asian A

mericans. B

ased on personal experience and mental health

studies among A

sian Am

ericans, my central assum

ption is that a m

ajority of Asian A

merican college applicants experience uniquely

high magnitudes of anxiety during the process. This claim

should not be treated as a m

onolithic view of A

sian Am

erican because there are a handful of A

sian Am

erican students that do not experience large am

ounts of anxiety when applying to college. H

owever, this

essay focuses on a portion of the comm

unity that does. In this es-say, I address three m

ain questions: Why do m

any Asian A

mericans

experience so much anxiety w

hen applying to college? What are the

implications of this anxiety from

the college application experience? W

hat can be done to prevent and reduce the amount anxiety for

Asian A

merican college applicants?

This essay proceeds into four parts. In Section II, I discuss

the current debates of college access for Asian A

mericans. In Section

III, I take a historical approach to explain the current status of Asian

Am

ericans college access. In Section IV, I elaborate on negative im

plications from the college application process from

a cultural perspective. In Section V, I conclude w

ith suggestions to improve the

experience for Asian A

merican college applicants.

B

efore moving further, it is im

portant to recognize the im

portance of disaggregating generalizations made about the A

sian A

merican com

munity. H

owever, it is also im

portant to discuss the A

sian Am

erican identity. First, Asian A

merican refers to all w

hom

self-identify as Asian that lives in A

merica, regardless if they are

permanent resident or not. The figure below

delineates Asian coun-

tries according to United N

ations classifications, which m

ay be used for assistance in classification. Thus, any identification w

ith these countries deem

s an individual an Asian A

merican. Second, w

hile race and nation being m

ajor identifiers, Asian ethnicities are consid-

ered as well. C

ertain ethnicities, for example, the M

ien people do not pertain to a particular county because they are nom

adic hill tribes (N

g). To clarify another group of people that is often lumped w

ith A

sian Am

ericans, this essay considers Pacific Islanders as not part of the A

sian Am

erican classification despite popular tendency among

literature. While Pacific Islanders m

ay share comparable circum

-stances and struggles, this paper aim

s to focus on Asian A

mericans

with the effort of disaggregating generalizations m

ade about the A

sian Am

erican comm

unity. Furthermore, w

hile it is important to

make assum

ptions about Asian A

mericans, this essay concentrates on

how society treats A

sian Am

ericans as a whole in education.

Table 1: United N

ations Classification of A

sian Countries

(United N

ations Statistics Division)

Reg

ionC

ode

Countries

Central A

sia143

Kazakhstan, K

yrgystan, Tajik-stan, Turkm

enistan, Uzbekistan

Eastern Asia

30C

hina, Hong K

ong, Macao,

Dem

ocratic People’s Republic

of Korea, M

ongolia, Republic of

Korea, Japan

Southeastern Asia

35B

runei Darussalam

, Cam

bodia, Indonesia, Lao’s People D

emo-

cratic Republic, M

alaysia, Myan-

mar, Philippines, Singapore,

Thailand, Timor-Leste, V

iet Nam

113112 R

egion

Cod

eC

ountriesSouthern A

sia34

Afghanistan, B

angladesh, Bhu-

tan, India, Iran (Islamic R

epublic of), M

aldives, Nepal, Pakistan,

Sri Lanka Arm

enia, Azerbaijan,

Bahrain, C

yprus, Georgia, Iraq,

Israel, Jordan, Kuw

ait, Lebanon, O

man, Q

atar, Saudi Arabia, State

of Palestine, Syrian Arab R

epub-lic, Turkey, U

nited Arab Em

ir-ates, Yem

enW

estern Asia

145A

rmenia, A

zerbaijan, Bahrain,

Cyprus, G

eorgia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, K

uwait, Lebanon, O

man,

Qatar, Saudi A

rabia, State of Palestine, Syrian A

rab Republic,

Turkey, United A

rab Emirates,

Yemen

II. College A

ccess for Asian A

mericans

The dem

ographics of Asian A

mericans in higher education

continue to change, and colleges and universities across the nation are forced to deal w

ith the increasing number of A

sian Am

erican students. O

ne view is that A

sian Am

erican students are overrepre-sented in colleges throughout the U

nited States. As of A

pril 1, 2010, 17.3 m

illion people in the United States reported A

sian for at least part of his or her racial and/ or ethnic m

akeup (2010 U.S. C

ensus), com

posing 5.6% of the national population. In the sam

e year, Asian

Am

ericans made up 6%

of Am

erican college enrollment (N

ational C

enter for Education Statistics). Thus, from a national and quantita-

tive scope, Asian A

mericans are indeed overrepresented in higher

education but not by much. Public perceptions of this overrepresenta-

tion are reflected in certain media.

For exam

ple, an undergraduate student from the U

niversity of C

alifornia, Los Angeles (U

CLA

), Alexandra W

allace, posted a racist video ranting against A

sians on YouTube in March 2011.

Am

ong her offensive generalizations was a com

ment about “hordes

of Asians” that U

CLA

accepts every year, which is 36%

for 2012 (U

CLA

Undergraduate A

dmissions). O

ther elite schools that reflect this high A

sian Am

erican representation include California Institute

of Technology (Caltech), M

assachusetts Institute of Technology (M

IT), Stanford University, and U

niversity of California, B

erke-ley (C

al). The matriculation rates of A

sian Am

ericans among these

colleges are representative of the high Asian A

merican population

densities of nearby metropolitan areas (2010 U

S Census B

riefs). These cities are extrem

ely culturally diverse because the minorities

are the majority. A

lthough Asian A

merican enrollm

ent rate seems

disproportional to the Asian A

merican population at these schools,

this overrepresentation is only characteristic of a couple of Am

erica’s few

elite colleges (Takagi 158).

Conversely, scholars and activists in the A

sian Am

erican com

munity dispute this overrepresentation in other elite colleges,

such as the Ivy Leagues. One contentious claim

argues that the Ivy Leagues practice an unofficial quota system

strictly for Asian A

meri-

cans (Miller). Publisher of The Am

erican Conservative, R

on Unz,

discovered that for the last two decades A

sian Am

erican undergradu-ate enrollm

ent at the eight Ivy League schools converged to 16%.

Assum

ptions of discrimination and quota system

s used against Asian

Am

ericans at these elite schools are almost statistically im

possible to refute (G

eier), and the twenty-year plateau of A

sian Am

erican enrollm

ent does not keep up with the increasing A

sian Am

erican population in the U

nited States. In comparison, w

hen comparing

elite schools to other institutions that maintain race-neutral or race-

conscious admissions, the increase of A

sian Am

erican population is generally reflected in A

sian Am

erican college enrollment (A

sian A

merican Legal D

efense and Education Fund). The empirical evi-

dence regarding relationship between the A

sian Am

erican population and Ivy League school enrollm

ent may indicate an institutional bias

against Asian A

mericans. The YouTube video by A

lexandra Wallace

and the UC

LA A

ssociate Vice C

hancellor response that followed

continue to surface from various leaders in education and activists

across diverse backgrounds, it is important to exam

ine the demo-

graphic changes of Asians A

merican students in higher education

from a historical perspective.

115114

III. Historical E

xplanation

The apparent discrimination of A

sian Am

ericans at Ivy League schools m

ay be explained by examining the birth and evo-

lution of college admissions. A

lthough systems of higher educa-

tion have existed since their inception at Oxford and C

ambridge in

England (Darw

all-Smith x), it w

as not until about the late 19th and early 20th century that colleges began denying adm

ission to certain cam

puses. Some of the initial prerequisites included passing stan-

dardized tests similar to the Scholastic A

ptitude Test (SAT), devised in 1926, and the A

merican C

ollege Testing (AC

T), created in 1959 (Fletcher). Even though the goal of these tests is to guarantee that students w

ere prepared to for the academic rigor of college courses

(CA

RE), prejudices and discrim

ination played a significant role in the early m

anifestation of college admissions.

The earliest universities in the U

nited States, like Colum

bia, Yale, H

arvard, and Princeton, dominated in popularity and credibil-

ity for their high scholarship and years of existence (Leitch). These colleges m

aintained their elite statuses because most of their students

were w

ealthy, Caucasian m

ales of Protestant Faith and often legacy students (Levine 139). Furtherm

ore, these colleges did not grant equal access for other spiritual gender, and ethnic groups. The initial prerequisites w

ere passing standardized tests, which w

ere biased tow

ard the elite that could afford adequate schooling. Once Jew

ish students started to outperform

their elite counterparts, the complex

admissions system

was created to w

eed out undesired minority

groups such as people of color, wom

en, and Jews especially (140).

The new adm

issions system, created by D

artmouth C

ollege President Ernest H

opkins in the 1920s, used nine elements

3 when review

ing the applicants (141). H

owever, societal prejudices m

ade it difficult for Jew

ish and other minority applicants by m

aking them appear less

qualified. For example, anti-Sem

itism w

as fairly strong, preventing Jew

s from participating in extra-curricular activities. B

ecause Jews

also lived in close-knit comm

unities with strong culture and tradi-

tion, Jewish applications m

ay seem hom

ogenous. President Hopkins

3. The nine-element plan consisted of the follow

ing features in order of importance:

exceptional scholarship, high scholarship, personal ratings, priority of application, the principle of occupational distribution, the principle of geographical distribution, Sons of D

artmouth A

lumni and D

artmouth C

ollege Officers, Low

Scholarship, and selection based on qualifications and not guaranteed housing (Levine).

intent was to build a diverse class, but m

any admissions officers w

ho did not share the sam

e desire to recruit more objectively biasedly re-

jected the homogenous Jew

ish applicants and selected toward Protes-

tant, White m

ales (142). Today, modern-day college adm

issions use a m

ajority of Hopkins’s nine elem

ents to select their classes. How

-ever, national attention regarding A

sian Am

erican student enrollment

in higher education did not arise until the 1980s.

Due to civil rights events in A

merican history, colleges

implem

ented affirmative action program

s to increase the number of

minority students. O

ne view looks at affirm

ative action as a way to

correct wrongs in the past, such as the discrim

ination against minor-

ity groups when Ivy League college adm

issions started in the 1920s. H

owever, affirm

ative action for Asian A

mericans peaked in 1993 and

its usage began a steady decline (Takagi 158). While m

ore liberal elite colleges such as Stanford, C

al, and UC

LA decreased the per-

centage of Asian A

merican enrollm

ent, Unz’s data show

s a striking 16%

convergence of Asian A

merican enrollm

ent at the Ivy Leagues over the last tw

o decades. Despite a 142%

increase in Asian A

meri-

can undergraduate enrollment from

1989 to 2009 (CA

RE R

eport), it appears that Ivy League discrim

ination shifted from Jew

s to Asian

Am

ericans. Whether or not Ivy League schools are in fact dis-

criminating against A

sian Am

ericans, it is important to exam

ine the negative im

plications of this “cap on Asians” by looking at those that

engage in the college application experience. IV. Finding R

easons for Negative Im

plications

In Am

erica, a 2012 Lumina Foundation study reveals that

67% of A

mericans say, “…

getting a good job is a very important

reason for getting education beyond high school” (The Lumina

Foundation). Economic success often m

otivates the pursuit of higher education. A

s a result, college applicants may endure various levels

of stress and anxiety due to the uncertainty and difficulty in access-ing college for future financial security (The Lum

ina Foundation). This influences subconscious or unusual behavior am

ong individual applicants. Stress and anxiety take m

any forms, and it is vital to

understand the origins of stress and anxiety. How

ever, the college ap-plication experience of A

sian Am

ericans is unique in circumstance,

as its historical and cultural factors play a significant role in the mag-

117116

nitude and perception of stress and anxiety. The following review

s these negative im

plications ascending in the magnitude of stress

followed by cultural explanation to distinguish the A

sian Am

erican experience. A. Practical Im

plications

High com

petition in college admissions m

ay compel A

sian A

merican applicants to attem

pt alternative racial strategies to benefit their application. M

any Asian A

merican students now

compete for

the supposed “few spots for A

sian Am

ericans” at some of the coun-

tries most com

petitive colleges. Toward the low

est level of negative im

plications, one subtle way to leverage com

petition is to carefully select or decline to state a race or ethnicity (N

g). Students, parents, teachers, and counselor som

etimes com

e into conflict about whether

or not to mark an A

sian race or ethnicity. In some institutions, a

particular Asian race or ethnicity m

ay be advantageous. For example,

some race-conscious adm

issions systems like Stanford U

niversity take into special consideration certain m

inority groups for histori-cal and political reasons, and w

ithin the Asian um

brella at Stanford, Southeast A

sian Am

ericans are advantaged (Sebro). In 2003, South-east A

sian Am

erican volunteer student organizations at Stanford U

niversity protested at the President’s office to increase and diversify the college enrollm

ent of Asian A

mericans due to indicators of bias

towards East and South A

sian Am

ericans (Ng). Southeast A

sian A

mericans have historically been a m

inority group and as a result of protests, Southeast A

sian Am

ericans are now specially considered

during the admissions process at Stanford (N

g). Educational patterns show

that Southeast Asian A

mericans often have low

er educational attainm

ent and income, w

hich can be explained by the unique histo-ries and cultures of those countries, m

ost notably the lack of em-

phasis on education (Ng). A

ccording to the former A

sian Am

erican Liaison in the U

ndergraduate Adm

issions Office of Stanford U

niver-sity, Stanford tries to recruit “m

ore highly qualified” Southeast Asian

Am

ericans (Sebro). While being Southeast A

sian Am

erican may be

advantageous, it may also im

pose a negative feeling of self-worth

because of the disenfranchised label. How

ever, Asians as a w

hole are generally disadvantageous in college adm

issions, placing more stress

on all Asian A

merican college applicants (U

nz).

Although the follow

ing is not exclusive to Asian A

mericans,

these actions are applicable to Asian A

merican college applicants.

Pressures of getting into college can influence imm

oral actions to advance one’s status in the adm

issions review. Some students m

ay take on a Social D

arwinism

approach, in which they only look out

for themselves. In a “survival of the fittest m

entality,” students may

choose to not share with others inform

ation or opportunities that w

ould benefit the application process. Some students m

ay cross the m

oral integrity such as cheating on examinations and fabricating

college applications (Winn). In rare cases, students m

ay feel the need to sabotage other students to benefit their ow

n status. In another case, fake Stanford student A

zia Kim

attended school at Stanford Univer-

sity for eight months before getting caught because she could not

confess to her parents that she was rejected (Palo A

lto Weekly Staff).

Many of these actions are products of extrem

e pressures, affecting the m

ental well being of these A

sian Am

ericans. To an even further extent, som

e Asian A

merican students w

ill run away to avoid their

families (Yoon), and som

e may even take their ow

n life. While these

implications m

ay seem applicable to all college applicants, cultural

differences distinguish the unique experiences for Asian A

mericans.

B. The Role of Filial Piety in Asian American Anxiety

W

hether the level of anxiety is minim

al or extreme, the

anxiety itself often relates to cultural aspects of the Asian A

merican

comm

unity. Although various argum

ents can be made about origins

of stress, filial piety is one of the most salient characteristics of A

sian and A

sian Am

erican culture that acts as a catalyst for the stress of the college application process and outcom

e. This section defines filial piety, or deep respect for one’s parents and ancestors (M

o & Shen),

from tw

o manifestations and show

s how it contributes to stress and

anxiety for Asian A

merican college applicants in the m

odern-day context.

From the East A

sian perspective, texts about filial piety, or devotion to the parents, can be traced back to C

onfucian origins betw

een 200 B.C

. and A.D

. 350 (15) and illustrate the unconditional com

mitm

ent for children to serve their parents. The Classic of Filial

Piety and The Twenty-Four Exam

ples of Filial Piety are two of the

main C

onfucian texts. Targeted toward school children, these books

tell stories of unbelievably valiant children prioritizing the well being

of their parents before themselves. The story of “K

uo Ju” in particu-

119118

lar dramatizes the filial love in the form

of a child sacrifice, in which

a poor man, K

uo Ju nearly buries alive his three-year-old son (17). B

y no longer needing to care for a child, Kuo Ju can save m

oney to take care of his aging m

other. This story also illustrates the didactic m

essage of intergenerational transcendence of filial piety, prioritizing the eldest fam

ily mem

ber. Nevertheless, K

uo Ju prioritizes the care of his m

other over himself and his son. M

any Asian A

merican elders

live in the homes of their children until they die, and this expecta-

tion becomes a burden for m

any families that do not have the m

eans to com

fortably care for grandparents of three generations of a clan, negatively im

pacting the mental health of these fam

ilies. Education in both A

sia and the United States provides an opportunity for so-

cioeconomic m

obility. In China, student perform

ance on the gaokao4

strongly influences future economic success (Zoninsein), as it is the

main elem

ent examined in A

sian college admissions. In the U

nited States, patterns show

that there is a positive relationship with high

education and income (B

ureau of Labor Statistics) however, scores

on standardized tests are not the only elements considered w

hen ap-plying to A

merican college. Success in education im

plies success in profession and w

ealth. Thus, entering college becomes difficult for

Asian A

merican college applicants in order to fulfill filial piety.

A

lthough obtaining a college degree carries great credibility, it is im

portant to emphasize the process in accessing higher educa-

tion, as it is key to the college application experience. The “tiger m

om” is one w

ay to characterize patterns of strict parenting styles highly com

mon in A

sian Am

erican households to raise highly suc-cessful children. Tiger parenting, coined by author of Battle H

ymn

of the Tiger Mother w

ritten by Am

y Chua

5 (Chua), is reflective of a

helicopter and a Machiavellian style of parenting. This entails con-

stant oversight of the children’s activities and fear and punishment as

means for m

otivation and performance. A

ccording to Chua, it sug-

gests that the conditions the Tiger method of parenting sets for chil-

dren to follow is uniquely A

sian in the conditions it sets children to

4. The gaokao is a college entrance exam, a type of standardized test, in w

hich the adm

ittance to certain tiers of higher education in China depends on the score of the

individual. China still relies heavily on a m

eritocratic system that is biased tow

ard the elite and m

etropolitan areas.5. D

r. Am

y Chua is a Professor of Law

at Yale University. She has tw

o daughters and is m

arried to a Jewish husband.

follow. For exam

ple, Chua’s daughters w

ere only allowed to play no

other instruments besides piano or violin. Furtherm

ore, her daughters w

ere deprived of food until the music w

as perfected. Am

ong other restrictions included attending sleepovers, having play dates, partici-pating in school plays, and receiving a grade less than an “A

” among

many others (C

hua). Because social m

obility in Asia is m

ostly meri-

tocratic, near perfect performance on tests is com

pulsory for Asian

Am

ericans. Sometim

es, parents would force their son or daughter to

retake the Chinese SAT II Subject test if they received a 790 out of

800 (Yoon). Furthermore, failure to m

eet these high expectations is unacceptable, often interpreted as sham

eful or dishonorable. One K

o-rean A

merican Stanford student, H

ye-Jeong Yoon recalls a conversa-tion w

ith her grandfather on the phone. Her grandfather says, “You

have reclaimed the honor of the Yoon nam

e,” because Hye-Jeong is

attending Stanford University, an elite college. A

lthough Hye-Jeong

has yet to graduate, her grandfather forecasts that she will find a

good job and make good m

oney, fulfilling filial piety and bringing honor to the fam

ily. Individuals who fail or do not m

eet expecta-tions deal w

ith aggressive or passive aggressive acts of guilt, which

may have detrim

ental consequences like running away and com

mit-

ting suicide (Asian A

merican Psychological A

ssociation Leadership Fellow

s Program). H

owever, it is the uncertainty of repercussions of

failing to meet expectations that em

powers the tiger parenting. Thus,

tiger parenting places high amount of stress on students because it is

designed to craft nothing less than high success.

While C

onfucian children’s literature further emphasizes

the importance of education, tiger parenting exam

ines the process by w

hich Asian A

merican children access elite colleges. B

oth sup-port the intersections of filial piety and are key com

ponents of how

Am

erican society views A

sian Am

ericans as a model m

inority and treats A

sian Am

ericans in college access. The model m

inority is a collection of stereotypes that em

phasize the extremely high expecta-

tions for Asian A

mericans to be highly successful (A

sian Am

erican Legal D

efense and Education Fund). Sociologist Thomas Epenshade

first use the phrase “model m

inority” to praise the Nikkei, second-

generation Japanese Am

ericans, for overcoming socioeconom

ic bar-riers in A

merican society in the 1960s (M

iller). Despite anti-Japanese

attitudes after World W

ar II, Japanese Am

ericans persevered and rose

121120

in education and the workplace. D

ecades later, the evolution of the m

odel minority label becam

e a monolithic view

of Asian A

mericans

that they are quiet and educated elites with high-paying professions

(Miller). This hom

ogenous view of A

sian Am

ericans compels col-

lege admissions to look beyond the m

eritocratic success of an Asian

Am

erican college applicant (Sebro). This may explain the dem

o-graphic shifts of diversifying the A

sian population at college but not necessarily increasing the num

ber of Asian A

merican students. U

n-fortunately, this m

odel minority hom

ogeneity is a challenge for Asian

Am

ericans to distinguish themselves in other realm

s beyond academ-

ics, forcing college applicants to revolutionize or at least innovate new

perspective of generations of Asian and A

sian Am

erican culture and tradition. A

lthough disparities amongst A

sian Am

ericans college students continues to persist (Pew

), it is important to acknow

ledge the negative im

plications explain the circumstances from

a cultural lens to alleviate the stressors during the college application experi-ence.

Due to strong cultural values across various A

sian Am

erican com

munities, assum

ptions made about A

sian Am

erican may distort

the ideals and actualities of Asian A

mericans college application

experience. Research over the past couple decades have show

n and have continued to show

that college application experience of Asian

Am

ericans is worthy of investigation. W

hile the current field of A

sian Am

ericans and Asian A

merican Studies is under researched,

the current literature suggests that Asian A

mericans tend to experi-

ence higher levels of mental health problem

s different from other

cultural groups (Pew). W

hile there is not much em

pirical evidence to support the negative im

plications due to cultural barriers like shame

and dishonor that prevent information from

being shared, anecdotal evidence is sufficient to suggest that a m

ajority of Asian A

merican

college applicants have distinctly unique college application experi-ence. V. C

onclusion

While the num

ber of Asian A

merican im

migrants increases

and the number A

sian Am

ericans entering higher education also increases (2010 U

S Census B

riefs), the selection amongst qualified

and diverse students at the nation’s top tier colleges continues to intensify. D

ebate over these selection outcomes, especially for A

sian

Am

ericans, continues to gain national attention. How

ever, the emer-

gence of Asian A

mericans college students in educational discourse

is subject to various interpretations.

Adopting an integrative perspective on the college applica-

tion experience for Asian A

mericans and the outcom

es of enrollment

at selective universities involves a challenge to rethink the delivery of inform

ation for applicants and those advising these applicants, as it relates to the developm

ental needs of Asian A

mericans. This

essay demonstrates the significance of increased com

petition for A

sian Am

erican college access and recognizes the imm

ediate need to ensure that fam

ilies, educators, and policymakers are aw

are of these barriers for A

sian Am

ericans. Perhaps awareness and other

forms of advocacy m

ay ease the anxieties of Asian A

merican college

applicants and their advisers and impact the overall experience of the

college application experience. Individuals should be cognizant of such high m

agnitudes of familial pressures, stereotypes, and insti-

tutional biases during the college application process, whether the

individual is applying, advising the applicant, reviewing the applica-

tion, or creating policies on how to review

applicants. Continuing to

fund research in the related fields and to execute awareness program

s w

ould hopefully take into consideration the complexity of the A

sian A

merican college application experience (C

AR

E). As a result, the

effectiveness of advocacy and awareness m

ay be reflective of the extent to w

hich the Asian A

merican enrollm

ent rates increase and diversify at elite colleges. In the end, healing and transform

ation for A

sian Am

ericans extends well beyond the college application pro-

cess and research must continue to uphold the com

mitm

ent to justice and equality. It is unfortunate that advocate for the A

sian Am

ericans in higher education m

ust deal with the “chronic burden” of “dem

ysti-fying m

yths” and “justifying research” due to the absence of knowl-

edge (Chang, 96-100). This essay provides “a contribution tow

ard m

obilizing a collective voice” (104) to educate and inform society

about the current issues, trends, and research facing Asian A

mericans

in higher education.

123122

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itchell J. “Rising to the C

hallenge of Conducting R

esearch on A

sian Am

ericans in Higher Education.” C

onducting Research on Asian Am

ericans in Higher Education. B

y Samuel D

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Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. 95-105. Print.

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my. “W

hy Chinese M

others Are Superior.” The W

all Street Journal. W

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all-Smith, R

obin. A History of U

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P, 2008. Print.

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rief History: Standardized Testing.” TIM

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athleen. “Discrim

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eimin, and W

enju Shen. “The Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial

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A C

ON

FE

SSION

OF

NA

TION

ALISTIC

D

ISLOYA

LTY A

S A P

RO

FE

SSION

OF

ETH

NIC

ID

EN

TITY: TH

E P

OE

TICS A

ND

PO

LITICS O

F

DISSO

NA

NC

E IN

JULIE

OTSU

KA

’S WH

EN

THE

E

MP

ER

OR

WA

S DIV

INE

Haerin Shin

Introduction: The H

ow and W

hy in Voicing the Experience of

Japanese Internment

In her novel, W

hen the Emperor w

as Divine (2002), Julie O

t-suka tells the tragic story of a Japanese im

migrant fam

ily subjected to internm

ent and its aftermath am

idst the turmoil of W

orld War II.

A detached third-person narrator traces the traum

atic loss of home

and family from

a calm, retrospective vantage point, lending tonal

and thematic consistency to the narrative style in the course of tak-

ing in the agents, subjects and objects of the internment experience.

How

ever, as the story approaches its denouement, a passionate first

person narrator suddenly intervenes and takes a stand on a purported charge of espionage. The new

and unfamiliar voice is disorienting,

vacillating between past and present tense w

hile shaking with em

o-tion. The venue of the confession is obscured by the m

ultiplicity of the narrator’s identity, in w

hich racialized Asian-A

merican bodies

suddenly play into the trauma of Japanese-A

merican internees as

victimized innocents (142), the outpour of bitter invectives running

parallel to a blatant admission of guilt (144). Such abrupt turnabouts,

which m

ay at first appear to undermine the aesthetic consistency and

thematic focus of the preceding chapters, are in fact carefully cali-

brated tools that serve to re-center the reader’s perspective, expand-ing a specific traum

atic experience into a universal discourse and endow

ing the specter of painful past mem

ories with sustainable life

within the reader, w

ho lives in the “here,” and “now.” Otsuka sys-

tematically tears dow

n the racial prejudices foregrounded in her story by adopting a radically different narrative strategy in the last chapter, reconstituting the novel’s artistic and social significance w

ithin the current historical context.

127126

The Father: Obscurity of Personal, Ethnic and N

ational Identity

In order to see how the last chapter achieves its pivotal posi-

tion within the novel’s structural and sem

antic makeup, it is first nec-

essary to observe the elements that configure the nature and setting

of the narrative in the preceding chapters. Taken together and viewed

apart from the final chapter, the earlier body of the novel character-

izes the work as typical internm

ent literature, as the story spans over the period im

mediately before, during and after the Japanese-A

mer-

ican internment in the U

.S. during World W

ar II (1941~1945). The spatial setting is lim

ited to the family hom

e in Berkeley, C

alifornia (3); a train traveling through the desert to U

tah; and Topaz (48), the location of the internm

ent camp. H

ere, the objects of description are clear; the tale revolves around the Japanese-A

merican internm

ent as its central event, lim

iting its viewpoint to a given historical tim

e and place. The nature of the characters is also distinctly definable, as their actions are m

ainly prompted by the fact that they are of Japa-

nese descent. The matter of citizenship and national loyalties rem

ains unclear; the m

other, who recalls her childhood in Japan (94-95), is an

Issei (first-generation Japanese imm

igrant) and therefore may retain

legal as well as m

ental ties to Japan, whereas her young son and

daughter—both of w

hom are im

plied to hold no linguistic or cultural background in things Japanese¬—

most probably are N

isei (second-generation Japanese-A

merican)s, likely to be either fully naturalized

or Am

erican born. How

ever, these subtle distinctions may be disre-

garded as tangential interests, for unlike the case of the father who

was taken aw

ay (82) on specific charges of acting as enemy (Japan)

agent, the source of the family m

embers’ sufferings is the intern-

ment experience of being alienated from

their familiar surroundings

including home and the father figure as its stronghold, rather than a

conflict between dissonant national loyalties and identities. The nar-

rative as the agent of their experiences unfolds in a past tense third person perspective, w

ith scant interjections of the characters’ emo-

tions and thoughts, securing a sense of distance as an aloof reminis-

cence of what happened to “others” in the “past.” In sum

mary, the

place and time settings as the object, characterization of players as

the subject, and narrative style as the agent of the story are all clearly centered on Japanese Internm

ent as the key motif, offering a subtly

crafted voice that states a traumatic but historical and therefore once-

removed experience.

H

owever, the reader is exposed to an abrupt inversion of

such features in the last chapter, as the elements defined earlier in-

cluding time, place, identity and even narrative tone undergo drastic

change, moving from

the realm of clarity into that of am

biguity. Titled “C

onfession” (140), which in itself im

plies a more personal

and individualized development in its tone, the chapter brim

s over w

ith an unnerving mixture of passion and ironic resignation. The

voice splits into two, a m

ocking tone in italics interspersed among

the lines adding a touch of irony to the factual statements; w

hile the form

er dares the interrogators to “Drop that bom

b right here, right here w

here I’m standing” (141), the latter calm

ly reminisces: “I

went out into the yard and tossed up a few

flares just to make sure he

knew w

here to find you” (141). A hearty share of exclam

ation marks,

which the earlier third-person narrative rarely ventures to use, ap-

pears six times in the last chapter alone. Identical phrasal structures

are repeated for emphasis (e.g. “I sprinkled …

I sent … I planted ... I

set… I spied…

” 140), and the sense of distance maintained through-

out the preceding chapters is completely discarded w

ith countless “I”s dotting every page.

In addition the torrential ravings of the narrator, the reader is at a loss as to how

one may position this “I,” subjectively and

objectively. There is little hint as to who exactly this “I” refers to;

who is preoccupied w

ith addressing numerous crim

inal charges in term

s of national security (140–141), as well as ethnic traits (142)?

The opening lines of the chapter, in which the “I” recalls “w

earing m

y bathrobe, my slippers, the night your m

en took me aw

ay” (140) and refers to having a “w

ife and children” (143), offers a possible identification of the “I” as a m

ale figure, most likely the father of the

protagonist family, for he is the only character w

e know from

the earlier chapters to have undergone the experience of being spirited aw

ay in the above fashion. How

ever, this seemingly logical pos-

sibility is subject to doubt once the “I” begins to elaborate on what

he “is” (e.g. the “I” in “I am...” throughout page 142), claim

ing a variety of disparate occupations (grocer, w

aiter, and shoeshine boy) and nationalities. R

acial epithets referring to Asian-A

mericans, such

as “Nip,” “Slit,” “Slope,” “Yellow

belly” and “Gook” hint at a pan-

Asian-A

merican identity encom

passing the myriad of positions the

129128

“I” assumes. The question, then, is w

hether “I” refers to racialized A

sian-Am

erican bodies in general, which rem

ains unanswered as the

narrator sets off on rants of nearly self-destructive resignation (e.g. “So go ahead and lock m

e up. Take my children …

Freeze my assets

… C

ancel my insurance” 143) w

ithout offering any further clarifica-tion.

Other players in the narrative include “you” and “them

,” to w

hom “I” directs his “C

onfession.” Should “I” be the father from

earlier in the narrative, “you” may be the prosecuting party, the U

.S. governm

ent that had sent “them” (“your m

en”) to seize and interro-gate “I” in a “sm

all and bare” room (140). If “I” in a broader per-

spective is considered as an archetype of Asian-A

merican ethnicity,

the “tall, handsome, broad shouldered” “you” w

ho belongs to “rotary clubs and the cham

ber of comm

erce” (143) may be the stereotyped

version of the white m

ajority that imposes discrim

inatory prejudices on A

sian-Am

ericans, who in turn are view

ed as spies and crimi-

nals. Moreover, despite the introduction of ethnic and nationalistic

discourses with all the talk on spies and “yellow

bell[ies]” (142), the voice of “I” as a political body is constantly shifting, resulting in further am

biguity. “I” admits all charges, stating “I adm

it it,” “I spied” (140), even venturing so far as to “sign the dotted line” of the confession. D

oes this indicate that “I” as the father has indeed com

mitted treason against the nation-state of the U

nited States, his loyalty having lain on the side of Japan as his originating nation? The earlier chapters provide no clue as to how

the father identifies him

self amidst the violent rift betw

een his country of residence and that of birth. The reader is given an account of his w

ife’s migration

from Japan to A

merica, but the sam

e does not apply to the father, and therefore w

e as readers are forced to consider the possibility of his being a second or third-generation im

migrant. If so, it is a stretch on

the United States’ part to assum

e that he would risk a stable life in

his current settings to benefit a distant ancestral home.

Should the father indeed be innocent, he stands for all the

victims of the national paranoia to w

hich David D

. Lowm

an, former

Special Assistant to the D

irector of the National Security A

gency, testifies based on his hands-on experience as a governm

ent agent and a direct w

itness to the historical circumstances at the tim

e of intern-m

ent. Lowm

an unfolds the true reasons for President Roosevelt’s

authorization to evacuate all persons of Japanese ancestry in 1941; he explains how

the U.S. A

rmy Signal Intelligence Service found

detailed espionage plans in the process of decoding Japan’s secret com

munications. D

rawing on extensive archives, Low

man testifies

to the possibility that countless innocent U.S. residents or citizens of

Japanese descent were persecuted for being “aliens w

ho led cul-tural or assistance organizations,” “slightly less suspicious aliens,” or “m

embers of, or those w

ho donated to, ethnic groups, Japanese language teachers and B

uddhist clergy” (351). The father in Otsuka’s

novel, who m

ay inadvertently fall under one of Lowm

an’s catego-ries, could be a representative case of those w

ho suffered from false

accusations of allying with enem

y forces, charges that were levied

on the most dubious grounds in the w

hirlwinds of w

ar. He m

ay have given in after days of torturous brow

beating under constant, blinding lights in the interrogation room

. He m

ay have confessed crimes he

had in fact never comm

itted, because he was sim

ply “tired, thirsty, scared” (140), w

anted to get the questioning over and done with, to

finally return home. (142)

Model M

inority as an Oxym

oron: Com

mendable but E

ver Minor

The issue of the father’s national allegiance becom

es further obscured as he begins to display ethnic characteristics that do not fit into the context of the w

ar between Japan and the U

nited States, im

porting the element of racial discrim

ination into the sphere of in-ternational politics. H

e asks to be “inform[ed] of [his] crim

e,” which

his sardonic italicized alter ego sees as “[being] too short, too dark, too ugly, too proud.” The fact that such physical traits could be seen as grounds for incrim

ination alludes to the white m

ajority’s disdain concealed under the pseudo-em

bracing anointment of A

sian-Am

er-icans as the “m

odel minority.” C

hih-Chieh C

hou, in his observation of the subtle but inexorable racialization engraved into the concept of “m

odel minority,” asserts that the term

is a reference to an “ethnic m

inority whose m

embers are m

ore likely to achieve higher success than other m

inority groups, especially in economic advantage, aca-

demic success, fam

ily stability, low crim

e involvement, etc” (C

how

219). Chow

goes further on to analyze the socio-cultural rubrics that underlie this oxym

oronic juxtaposition of two seem

ingly contradic-tory w

ords, “model” as a positive acknow

ledgement of assim

ilation

131130

and “minority” as the stigm

atizing brand of cultural and physical differentiation. The form

er indicates that the given minority subjects

have successfully attained their position as reputable civil servants by conform

ing to the responsibilities of a desirable mem

ber of the society by displaying academ

ic, economic and therefore social excel-

lence. Meanw

hile, the latter betrays the insurmountable disadvantage

they suffer due to elements they are “born into.”

C

how points out that cultural theorists such as “Sam

uel H

untington, for example, uses cultural differences in an absolute

sense to exclude Asian A

mericans from

the nation state of the US,

unless they completely assim

ilate” (Chow

221); should this cultural difference im

plicate ethnic characteristics that incorporate not only abstract social conventions but also physical traits such as racial profiles, the com

plete assimilation H

untington had demanded w

ould be a m

ere illusion, for the minority subjects in question w

ill never be able to fully blend into the w

hite majority. In H

omi B

habha’s terms,

they will alw

ays be “almost the sam

e” as the ideal white m

ajority in that they dem

onstrate all the desirable qualities of successful model

citizens, but are never able to completely assim

ilate—“not quite”

(Bhabha 127) the sam

e—due to their society’s view

of their cultural and genetic inheritance as insurm

ountable differences.

Its entrance into the academic and social sphere can be

considered fairly “recent,” as the exact point of origin for the term

“model m

inority” only dates back to the year of 1966 when sociolo-

gist William

Petersen coined the word in his N

ew York Tim

es article “Success Story: Japanese A

merican Style” (1966) and subsequently

called attention to its attributes. The general public began to rec-ognize the concept through the outstanding perform

ance of certain m

inorities with A

sian origins in the following years. H

owever, the

racist and nationalistic sentiments em

bedded in the basic construct of the “m

odel minority” idea can be traced further back in history.

As the num

ber of Asian im

migrants m

arked an exponential growth at

the dawn of the 20th century, fear of these “little yellow

men” taking

over the economy and appropriating its fruits that should be justly

enjoyed by the founding fathers’ descendants (in other terms, the

white m

ajority) began to take on the form of a social paranoia.

In his article “Enjoy Your N

ation as Yourself!” Slavoj Žižek encapsulates this phenom

enon in the term “enjoym

ent,” which he

uses to explain the rise of nationalistic sentiments triggered by a per-

ceived threat coming from

culturally alien entities. Žižek asserts that upon encountering a substantial socio-econom

ic fluctuation due to an influx of foreign elem

ents such as language, culture or race, people suffer the fear of “others” taking over and depriving them

of their daily bread and the sense of security in fam

iliar, traditional surround-ings. In short, initial settlers of a given nation develop a fear of being deprived of socio-econom

ic “enjoyment” (Žižek 201), w

hich in principle m

ust be the sole property of those who firm

ly belong within

a solid circle of historical and cultural continuity. The prospect of “little yellow

men” invading their com

munity and m

onopolizing the fruits of econom

ic activities that should be harvested by the authentic subjects (the w

hite majority) inevitably results in a grudge tow

ards the undeserving intruders. W

ith the outbreak of Pearl Harbor, the

“alienness” found in the joint factors of both race and nationality acquires full force as a justifiable ground for reclaim

ing the lost “en-joym

ent” from the insolent Japanese-A

merican m

inority, who dare

infringe upon the White A

merican territory. In this sense, “C

onfes-sion” dictates the sorrow

s of those who are considered “m

odel” for being respectable citizens w

ith “assets, crops, house, insurance and business” (143), but are nonetheless categorized as “m

inority” for their ethnic origin and therefore inferior to the dom

ineering majority,

and their unalterable physical traits or cultural self-respect becomes

detestable social incongruity during hostile times.

Then, one m

ay safely say, the narrator as a racialized subject is calling attention to the haunting force of the long-w

ithheld racial prejudice em

bedded within the U

nited States’ domestic history as the

undercurrent of a seemingly justifiable reaction to a threat on nation-

al sovereignty. In the article “A D

ialogue on Racial M

elancholia,” D

avid L. Eng and Shinhee Han assert that “D

iscourses of Am

erican exceptionalism

and democratic m

yths of liberty, individualism, and

inclusion force a misrem

embering of these exclusions, an enforced

psychic amnesia that can return only as a type of repetitive national

haunting—a type of negative or absent presence.” (347) W

ith nation-alism

at its height upon the outbreak of war, this negative or absent

presence, the fear of those who do not fit into the m

ainstream A

meri-

can identity, leads to their systematic exclusion and persecution as

the “other,” among w

hom im

migrants w

ith distinct physical features

133132

become the m

ain target. Han and Eng go on to m

aintain that the popular stereotype of “[m

odel minority] functions as a national tool

that erases and manages the history of these institutionalized exclu-

sions” (347). In other words, the form

er term “m

odel” and its posi-tive connotation of “desirable citizens” based on econom

ic and social success acts as a foil to disguise the underlying sense of exclusion im

plied in the latter term “m

inority,” which m

ay shift its position and supersede the “m

odel” aspect upon the advent of any threat on the w

hite Am

erican “integrity.” In this light, we can see that the father’s

true “crime” is not his nationality or allegiance but ethnic origin;

not a failure of mental acculturalization but (im

possible) physical assim

ilation into white A

merica. Thus, instead of a bitter outpouring

of an individual Japanese-Am

erican who had been sw

ept away by

the ruthless tides of international politics, the father’s ironic protest becom

es a collective outcry on behalf of all Asian-A

mericans, w

ho are victim

ized by not only the international but also the domestic

socio-historical context. Should the “I” of the father so expand its body to represent racialized A

sian-Am

erican subjects in general, the enum

eration and admittance of all crim

inal charges throughout the entire chapter becom

e two-fold ironies, denunciating the absurdity of

incriminating anyone on the sole basis of ethnic identity.

Narrative A

mbiguity as a Subversive Strategy

The subjective and character-based aspects of the narrative

are thus obscured in the final chapter, and the objective settings of tim

e and place also lose their anchors. If “I” is the father, the setting could be the interrogation room

where he is questioned before being

taken to the internment cam

p, but such a reading is open to question as he describes the proceedings in the room

in past tense, saying he has already “talked” (140) about the charges discussed in the chapter. A

s his monologue continues, the narrator shifts to the present tense

for the culminating passage on A

sian-Am

erican traits, leaving the “I” suspended in a tem

poral and spatial purgatory, his plea left unan-sw

ered. Does this narration take place at the internm

ent camp w

here he is confined after the initial interrogation? O

r, should the readers choose to view

“I” as a synecdoche for the Asian-A

merican identity?

Are the settings m

erely an abstract social context within w

hich racial discrim

ination stands problematic? A

gain, no clear proof is given.

A

t this point, both the tone and content of the book’s nar-rative have undergone com

plete mutations, the internm

ent of the Japanese-A

mericans as the object, subject, agent and governing

motif of the novel having been pushed aside to the peripheries. It has

been noted that the causes underlying the internment no longer per-

tain to international conflict alone, but also branches out to the idea of A

sian-Am

erican racialization in a wider socio-historical fram

e by the “I” w

ho alludes to the lurking presence of racial discourse. H

owever, from

an aesthetic standpoint, the sudden emergence of

cacophonic Asian-A

merican voices in the final chapter of the novel

seems rather abrupt, seeing that the preceding chapters offer scant

grounds for such a generalized ethnic perception of the internment.

Otsuka disrupts the aesthetic unity of her narrative, discarding the

subtlety and ironic distance so strenuously maintained throughout

the novel. If the confession indeed belongs to the father, why not

give him a clearer voice earlier in the book? If the racial discourse is

connected to the subject of internment, w

hy is this not more firm

ly established w

ithin the concrete historical setting? What overall effect

does Otsuka achieve w

ith all the uncertainties?

Again, the dissonance found both in term

s of the narrator/father’s national and ethnic positioning as observed above, in rela-tion to the concept of “m

odel minority,” is the key to answ

ering this question. The clashing narrative voices and settings, in their am

bigu-ity, becom

e a strategy of protest against the black-and-white logic of

ethnic and national identification, invoking the active involvement

of the reader at a level far deeper than mere vicarious sym

pathy. H

omi B

habha asserts that “ambivalence” can serve as a subversive

strategy that upturns the dominating discourse of the subjugating

force; importing the term

“mim

icry” to specify the nature of “bound-ary breaching” in the colonized subject’s linguistic and behavioral assim

ilation with the colonizer, B

habha argues that “the discourse of m

imicry is constructed around an am

bivalence; in order to be effective, m

imicry m

ust continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (B

habha 122). Should one venture to equate Bhabha’s

“mim

icry” to the concept of “ambivalence” on w

hich he claims the

construct of mim

icry stands, the latter may substitute the form

er in the follow

ing passage “the authority of that mode of colonial

discourse that I have called mim

icry” (Bhabha 122), consequently

135134

acting as a “representation of a difference that is itself a process of disavow

al. Mim

icry [hence, ambivalence] is, thus, the sign of a

double articulation; a complex strategy of reform

, regulation, and discipline, w

hich “appropriates” the Other as it visualizes pow

er” (B

habha 122). Applied in a slightly different—

in that the given case of the father rests in the intricate rubric of international and dom

estic issues of racialization rather than an overt pow

er imbalance betw

een the colonizer and the colonized—

yet essentially identical formula of

subjection and counteraction, the ambivalence in the last chapter’s

narration blurs the boundaries between fixed categories of perpetrator

and victim, thereby underm

ining the dominating discourse of nation-

al allegiance and ethnicity as criteria for of one’s identity.

Trauma: Initiating the “I” into a W

ider Historical C

ontext

Another w

ay to understand the contextual function of the last chapter is to set aside questions regarding the chapter’s independent m

eaning, and instead focus on its significance in its interrelation to the earlier chapters. If the reason w

hy certain aspects of the narrative, such as the subject, object, and agent of internm

ent in the former

chapters are designed as they were, and w

hat they do or do not achieve could be determ

ined, the reader may then be in a better posi-

tion to understand what bearing their deliberate disruption in the final

chapter has on the aesthetic and thematic com

position of the entire w

ork.

The first and fundamental question the readers m

ay face is w

hy Otsuka chose to obscure the father’s position in addressing the

issue of Japanese-Am

erican internment by m

ooring his voice in a neurotic outburst, instead of allow

ing him to present his case in a

clear and logical fashion. In Trauma and Recovery, Judith Lew

is H

erman sheds light on this subject by observing fem

ale hysteria and w

ar veterans, analyzing how the perpetrating m

ajority tends to silence the traum

as suffered by the victimized m

inority. Herm

an presents the histories and social reception of three types of traum

a: fem

ale hysteria, war veterans’ Post-Traum

atic Stress Disorder

(PTSD), and sexual and dom

estic violence wom

en suffer. She notes how

each of these types of trauma has the potential to underm

ine or incrim

inate the dominant patriarchal force that has repeatedly sub-

jected the victims to “episodic am

nesia” (7), as “secrecy and silence

are the perpetrator’s first line of defense.” (8) Herm

an asserts that to sustain the healing efforts of therapy and prevent the vicious cycle of resurgence and repression of painful but necessary discourses, a social clim

ate ready to embrace the sufferers’ afflictions is crucial.

Trauma originating from

the superstructure must be addressed at the

level of systematic rem

edy, instead of being individually diagnosed and confronted, since “w

ithout the context of a political movem

ent, it has never been possible to advance the study of the psychological traum

a” (32). In the case of the father, we m

ust note that the para-doxical effect of self-silencing his am

biguous stance produces is in fact an accurate reflection of the “system

” itself. Instead of serving as a potential venue for and channel of politicized discourse, the com

munity he once belonged and eventually returned to w

as itself a traum

atized subject, mentally reinforcing and further enacting the

silencing mechanism

the government had em

ployed in the form of

physical internment.

Enforced collective am

nesia can indeed be witnessed

throughout When the Em

peror was D

ivine, as the family’s old friends

who had shunned contact w

ith the family as “enem

ies” greet the son and daughter w

ith kind words upon their return to school (121); the

vandalism com

mitted upon the fam

ily goes unnoticed (123); and the father’s outburst of rage, strongly suggestive of PTSD

, is eschewed

even by his children and thus is reduced to a hollow echo (134).

Moreover, as Judith B

utler warns in Precarious Life: The Pow

ers of M

ourning and Violence, the experience of victimization blinds one to

its retroactive re-lash at the purported and therefore possibly innocent group of perpetrators, creating a vicious circle. W

ith the mem

ory of Pearl H

arbor still vivid in mind, and im

mersed in resentm

ent towards

the enemy faces because of w

hom their fathers and sons “never

came hom

e” (127) or “came hom

e but [were no longer] the sam

e m

an” (127), the neighbors of the protagonist family are by no m

eans ready to open their ears to any appeal for sym

pathy. As H

erman says,

repressed wounds m

ust be spoken about and their pain vented to an attentive and receptive audience in order to be healed, w

hich is why

trauma tend to resurface in history after a prolonged interval w

hen social conditions are ripe for a m

ore receptive atmosphere (32). R

e-visiting the experience of internm

ent not only in light of the Am

eri-can governm

ent’s breach of civil rights but also the deep-set wounds

137136

that dictated the lives of its own (A

merican) subjects, therefore, is a

form of therapy that perm

its space and time for a bilateral process of

healing for both the system and its m

embers.

C

athy Caruth provides another perspective in her article

“Violence and Tim

e: Traumatic Survivals,” seeing the undesired re-

visitations of traumatic experiences through recurrent nightm

ares as the m

ind’s effort to recover its integrity and peace by fully realizing the fact that it has indeed survived a near-fatal blow

(25). Draw

ing on Sigm

und Freud’s trauma theory, C

aruth explains that the inexpli-cable resurgence of traum

atic experiences in the form of nightm

ares springs from

the discrepancy in time experienced by the m

ind and body. N

oting that “not having truly known the threat of death in the

past, the survivor is forced, continually, to confront it over and over again” (25), C

aruth interprets the reliving of trauma as, not an addi-

tional aggravation of the wound, but the self’s struggle to overcom

e the traum

atic experience by healing the rift between body and m

ind, creating a foundation from

which literary narratives of traum

a may

draw their im

port. According to this view, internm

ent literature may

be understood as more than m

ere recollections of a sad history; by addressing the historical experience of internm

ent, these narratives function as utterances that bridge the chasm

between em

pirical im-

mediacy and reflective realization of traum

a.

How

ever, it is still unclear as to why the protagonist fam

ily’s tale of hurt is told from

a distant third person perspective adopted by the author and not in the first-person voice of the victim

s themselves.

How

can a traumatized subject be healed if the cure is practiced not

by the subject who holds the specific m

emory, but by another w

hose physical and psychological distance m

ay well serve to further alien-

ate the victimized and thus risk rendering the subject into m

ere ob-ject? H

ow can the narrative voice in W

hen the Emperor w

as Divine

be defined as a true agent of the protagonists, if it is remote in agency

as well as in objective tim

e and space? Again, C

aruth offers a clue in her article “U

nclaimed Experience: Traum

a and the Possibility of H

istory,” asserting that “history, like the trauma, is never sim

ply one’s ow

n, that history is precisely the way w

e are implicated in each

other’s’ traumas” (192). In Freud’s unconventional understanding of

Moses w

ithin the context of Jewish history, C

aruth sees a project for reshaping the points of arrival and departure in the fram

ework of the

Jewish D

iaspora and persecution. This process is anchored in the no-tion of history as the form

ation, processing mechanism

and survival of collective traum

a. Pointing out that “history, like the trauma, is

never simply one’s ow

n, that history is precisely the way w

e are im

plicated in each other’s’ traumas” (192), C

aruth locates a reflexive interplay betw

een trauma and history in Sigm

und Freud’s Moses and

Monotheism

, reading it as a creative attempt at self-placing rather

than objective reconstruction of facts or reification of an illusory state of w

holesomeness.

W

ith Caruth’s understanding of history as a collective

fabrication—w

hich Freud himself calls “historical truth” (201) in

contrast to the belief in historical objectivity (“material truth”)—

and the role of traum

a in its process of formation, the m

onolithic formula

of victim-persecutor in the case of Japanese Internm

ent falls apart. A

longside the persecuted stands the accuser; the dynamics of injury

is mutual, so that one person’s story of hurt becom

es that of others, and the traum

as of the persecuted as well as the persecutors becom

e indistinguishably entangled w

ithin the historical context of intern-m

ent. While a direct voice of a first person narrator m

ay be more

vivid, thereby invoking further sympathy, a distanced view

allows

the readers to pause before being fully absorbed by the protago-nists’—

in this case the interned family’s—

feelings and perceive the tale as m

ore of a historical account that incorporates multi-faceted

dynamics rather than a personal ventilation. This kaleidoscopic view

-point is critical, since internm

ent, as the object of the narrative, must

be treated as a collective experience and must therefore be perceived

as a subjective, “historical truth” that reflects a desire to understand rather than prove.

The “Phantom

Effect”: Incorporating the Fictional, Individual

“I” into a Historical, C

ollective “We”

Speaking of “context,” it has now

been identified why the

given subject, object and agent of the internment m

otif have been elected to serve their roles in constructing the novel’s function as a testim

ony to historicized trauma, a distanced and therefore a m

ore objective w

indow to the socio-historical circum

stances. I now inquire

into their connection to the context in which the given novel as their

carrier is physically placed, and why the form

of fiction may fulfill

139138

the purpose. We m

ight argue that the effect of trauma narrative as

therapy or configuration of the interplay among its historical subjects

may be achieved by non-fictional m

emoirs or academ

ic researches, their venue of realization not lim

ited to the realm of fiction as a form

of art. Then, it is only just to assum

e that there must be som

ething unique to w

hat fiction as art achieves, positioned in between the level

of involvement or inform

ation each provided by direct recollections or (purportedly) objective recordings of history.

In The Mirror and the Lam

p: Romantic Theory and the C

riti-cal Tradition, a classic w

ork of literary criticism that had m

arked the point of distinction betw

een the differing roles of audience, art works

and artist as crucial components of artistic creation, H

. M. A

brams

maintains that a w

ork of art must dialogue w

ith not only the textual or historical but also the present reality, or in other w

ords acknowl-

edge the present historical settings in and through which the audience

as its key constituent (12) inhabit and view the w

orld. Historical les-

sons may be told and the traum

as of history addressed, but the reader living here and now, w

ho may not identify w

ith either the persecutor or the persecuted in the internm

ent narrative, must be able to place

the story within one’s ow

n historical and personal surroundings to derive m

eaning from it. O

therwise, the tale, how

ever appealing, rem

ains a mere specter on a distant silver screen.

In his article “N

otes on the Phantom: A

Com

plement to

Freud’s Metapsychology,” N

icholas Abraham

offers a possible expla-nation to this conundrum

that has been ceaselessly haunting trauma

literature. Abraham

observes the case of a son who unconsciously

internalizes the father’s shameful personal history and fantasizes it as

his own, the phenom

enon of which he calls a haunting by a “phan-

tom” (172). W

hereas Sigmund Freud’s concept of m

ourning and m

elancholia concerns an ode to or longing for the desirable aspects of the once-loved, now

-lost object, the phantom returns to haunt the

unconscious with the “burial of an unspeakable fact w

ithin the loved object” (172). “M

aintain[ing] that the ‘phantom effect’ progres-

sively fades during its transmission from

one generation to the next” (176), finally to disappear, A

braham yet presents the possibility of

exceptions, and concludes that phantoms that are brought out into

the public sphere may live on, acquiring a trans-generational force.

The concept of historically inherited/constructed trauma in C

athy

Caruth’s “U

nclaimed Experience: Traum

a and the Possibility of His-

tory” is reminiscent of A

braham’s ideas.

G

ranted that certain readership standing beyond direct in-volvem

ent with the internm

ent experience may still fully internalize

and sympathize w

ith the traumatized voices of Japanese internees or

the historical conditions that rendered them victim

s, “the ‘phantom

effect’ progressively fades during its transmission from

one genera-tion to the next” (A

braham 172), finally to disappear. The w

ounds having been voiced and the need for healing thus addressed, w

ith w

ar time m

emories progressively becom

ing hazed over the passage of tim

e, the story of Japanese internees may eventually disappear

behind the curtains of history, unless it retains a trans-generational resonance that tears at the hearts and grasps the attention of new

readers inhabiting changed tim

es. This is the point where the im

por-tance of the last chapter is revealed, as it endow

s historical phantoms

with flesh and blood, a pulsating vitality that undergirds the novel’s

artistic and socio-historical constitution.

The objective settings for the “Confession”, as observed

above, remain ungraspable w

ith the “I”, “them” and “you” shift-

ing in meaning, and the “I” continuing his ethnic identification in

present tense (142). This in turn means that the narration could be

occurring “here” and “now” w

here the readers reside in, instead of certain points that fall into the tem

poral and spatial range covered by the previous chapters. M

oreover, as the problem of A

sian-Am

erican racialization raised by the narrator still lives on to the present-day society, there being “florists, porters, w

aiters, Nips, G

ooks and Slants” (142) suffering discrim

inative treatment at unseen corners,

the narrator’s voice obtains a sense of universality and urgency that successfully engages contem

porary readers. In this way, the narra-

tor’s wounds are no longer subject to the fate of dissipating into the

relentless tides of time as a distant historical phantom

, but are given life as m

ore readers may identify w

ith the issue raised by the elusive “I”.

As “I,” “you” and “them

” branch out from characters w

hose historical footings are expanded to encom

pass broader examples

of a pan-Asian-A

merican identity, the narrator and the im

aginary audience the “I” is addressing shed their fetters of fictionalization and are opened up to personal identification for the readers. R

eaders

141140

may see a m

irror image of them

selves in the narrator, whether he/

she is Asian-A

merican, a victim

of any kind of discrimination, or

even a mem

ber of the social majority that im

poses or condones racial prejudice. Through its versatility, the narrative transcends itself, its story being transform

ed from a lim

ited account of a specific histori-cal event set in a certain tim

e and place to a universal discourse on racialization and its subsequent victim

ization, as well as the societies

that enforce, overlook or engineer such injustice.

The reader therefore becomes a crucial actor in constructing

the work, and plays a vital role to play in the narrative’s function of

healing and bridging diverse historical players. This effect becomes

sustainable over a longer term, as the traum

a of the protagonist fam

ily can be felt by any reader who m

ay identify him or herself

with these issues in our present social setting. Thus, the traum

a of internm

ent constantly reproduces itself, demanding to be retold and

touched upon again. As the reader joins force w

ith the narrative voice, its rem

edies “turn inward, not to a healing of the ‘self’ but

of the ‘selves’” (Shiu 16). Through a studied ambiguity, the object,

subject and agent of the narrative acquire wider applicability in the

last chapter.

Closure: R

evisiting and Reclaim

ing History as a Point of D

epar-ture

A near-fatal w

ound cannot be healed instantly and on the spot; it m

ust be properly dressed and time allow

ed for the torn skin to close around m

ending organs. And even after full recovery, these

wounds leave behind scars, records of their presence, w

hich testify to one’s struggle as a proof that life has em

erged victorious over a deadly assault. The scar’s function also reaches beyond personal ben-efit, since records that retell past traum

as can serve as beacons and reference points that allow

s the source of pain and to be identified, rem

edied or avoided. This is how the phantom

of another being’s hurt is given substance and rendered truly ours.

The last chapter of When the Em

peror was D

ivine is a scar in itself, inviting the readers to identify w

ith the victim(s) through a

strategy of obscuring and ambiguating, challenging them

to decon-struct the specific and therefore lim

ited subject, object and agent of the internm

ent narrative. In this way, the unidentified “I”’s voice in

the last chapter bridges past and present, self and others, transform-

ing a historical experience of wounds inflicted on a certain Japanese-

Am

erican family of internees into our very ow

n story.

Works C

ited

Abraham

, Nicolas. “N

otes on the Phantom: A

Com

plement to

Freud’s Metapsychology.” Trans. N

icholas Rand. C

ritical Inquiry 13.2 (1989): 287-292.

Abram

s, H. M

. The Mirror and the Lam

p: Romantic Theory and the

Critical Tradition. N

ew York: O

xford University Press, 1971.

Bhabha, H

omi K

. The Location of Culture. N

ew York: R

outledge, 2004.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: the Pow

ers of Mourning and V

io-lence. London, N

ew York: 2004.

Caruth, C

athy. “Unclaim

ed Experience: Trauma and the Possibility

of History.” Yale French Studies 79 (1991): 181-192.

---. “Violence and Tim

e: Traumatic Survivals.” Assem

blage 20 (1993): 24-25.

Chou, C

hih-Chieh. “C

ritique on the Notion of M

odel-Minority: A

n A

lternative Racism

to Asian A

merican?” Asian Ethnicity 9.3(2008):

219-229

Eng, David L. and H

an, Shinhee. “A D

ialogue on Racial M

elancho-lia.” Psychoanalytic D

ialogues 10.4 (Aug. 2000): 667-700.

Freud, Sigmund. M

oses and Monotheism

. Trans. Katherine Jones.

New

York: Vintage B

ooks, 1967.

Herm

an, Judith Lewis. Traum

a and Recovery. New

York: Basic

Books, 1997.

143142

Lowm

an, David D

. Magic: The U

ntold Story of U.S. Intelligence and

the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the W

est Coast during

WW

II. San Rafael, C

alif.: Athena Press, 2001.

Otsuka, Julie. W

hen the Emperor w

as Divine. London: V

iking, 2003.

Petersen, William

. “Success Story: Japanese Am

erican Style.” The N

ew York Tim

es Magazine Jan 9. 1966: 180.

Shiu, Anthony Sze-Fai. “O

n Loss: Anticipating a Future for A

sian A

merican Studies.” M

ELUS 31.1 (2006): 3-33.

Žižek, Slovoj. “Enjoy Your Nation as Yourself!” Tarrying w

ith the N

egative: Kant, H

egel, and the Critique of Ideology. D

urham, N

C:

Duke U

niversity Press, 1993. 200-237.

AN

EVA

LUA

TION

OF

THE

HA

ND

S-ON

C

ON

CILIA

TION

PO

LICY

AN

D P

RA

CTIC

E O

F

THE

PH

ILLIPP

INE

CO

NSU

LATE

GE

NE

RA

L IN

HO

NG

KO

NG

Michael Tayag

Abstract

This research evaluates the hands-on conciliation of the

Philippine Consulate G

eneral in Hong K

ong, by which Filipina

migrant dom

estic workers in H

ong Kong can m

ake claims against

agencies that have charged them illegal placem

ent fees to work in the

country. By looking through case files and other data on victim

s of illegal fees, interview

ing case officers of the Mission and its clients,

interviewing the Philippine O

verseas Labor Office (PO

LO) of the

PCG

, sitting in on a conciliation, and conducting supporting inter-view

s (with em

ployers, a lawyer, and an academ

ic), I examine the

effectiveness of the hands-on conciliation process and suggest how

it can be improved to offer greater protection from

illegal collection to Filipino/a foreign dom

estic workers in H

ong Kong. This study

will focus on Filipina m

igrant domestic w

orkers who applied to an

agency in the Philippines with a counterpart in H

ong Kong (as op-

posed to workers w

ho had already been working in H

ong Kong and

found new em

ployers by applying directly to Hong K

ong agencies).

IntroductionFilipina M

igrant Dom

estic Workers in H

ong Kong

In recent years, the Philippines has prioritized debt-servicing

to keep in good standing with the International M

onetary Fund1, a

prerequisite for obtaining loans from foreign lending agencies. To

generate revenue, government expenditures in econom

ic and social services have been cut (Parrenas, 2006). M

eanwhile, m

iddle and low

er class Filipinos incur higher taxes, increased cost of living, low-

1 The International Monetary Fund, or IM

F, is an international organization whose

stated objectives are “to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial

stability, facilitate international trade, promote high em

ployment and sustainable

economic grow

th, and reduce poverty around the world” (International M

onetary Fund). It loans m

oney to poor countries with certain requirem

ents. This leaves many

countries in deepening debt.

145144

er-quality public services, and monopoly control of prices (IB

ON

, 1997). O

ne strategy the Philippine government has used to com

bat these issues is the Labor Export Policy (LEP) 2, w

hich established the Philippine O

verseas Employm

ent Adm

inistration (POEA

) 3 to facili-tate labor m

igration. In 2009, approximately one m

illion Filipinos m

igrated out of the country, largely on an economic basis (H

ong K

ong Imm

igration Departm

ent, 2011). Studies indicate that 34-54%

of the Philippine population is directly dependent on the remittances

of overseas family m

embers, com

prising 10% of the G

DP (M

ission, 1998).

Hong K

ong, one of the most econom

ically important cities in

Asia and the w

orld, represents a major destination for these m

igrant w

orkers. According to the H

ong Kong Im

migration D

epartment, the

population of foreign domestic helpers w

as 273,609 (approximately

48% from

the Philippines) as of March 31, 2010. A

s many as 99%

of the H

ong Kong m

igrant workers from

the Philippines are wom

en. H

ere I integrate information from

background research and inter-view

s to highlight the issues encountered by this significant popula-tion of Filipina m

igrant domestic w

orkers (MD

Ws) in H

ong Kong.

My research focuses on the conciliation process through w

hich m

igrant workers pursue settlem

ent of exorbitant fees charged by foreign and dom

estic recruiting agencies.

Overcharging and Illegal C

ollection

Am

ongst foreign domestic w

orkers in Hong K

ong, the prob-lem

s of overcharging and illegal collection are rampant, as individu-

als pay recruitment fees up to H

K$21,000 in order to m

igrate for w

ork. These issues are related to the illegal practices of recruitment

agencies in both the Philippines and their principals in Hong K

ong in forcing w

orkers to pay high fees. Because of these practices,

agencies continue to make enorm

ous profits and increase in number,

despite the steep fees they themselves m

ust pay to the government in

2 The Philippine government established the Labor Export Policy, or LEP, in the

1970s to provide stable wages for the im

poverished Filipino/a people and to service its foreign debt. It established the Philippine O

verseas Employm

ent Adm

inistration and targeted one m

illion Filipino/a workers to be deployed annually.

3 The Philippine Overseas Em

ployment A

gency, or POEA

, is a Philippine govern-m

ent agency whose stated objectives are the regulation of industry, the regulation

of employm

ent of Filipino workers, and the protection of Filipino w

orkers abroad (Philippine O

verseas Employm

ent Agency).

order to operate the business (Mission, 2009).

The D

epartment of Labor and Em

ployment (D

OLE) Sec-

retary Marianito R

oque issued a mem

orandum effective in 2009

that banned the direct hiring of foreign domestic w

orkers, in which

employers and w

orkers can enter into a contractual working relation-

ship independent of an agency. This mem

orandum forces w

orkers to pass through recruitm

ent agencies, where they are illegally charged

as much as PH

P100,000 or more (M

ission, 2009).

According to the Philippine O

verseas Employm

ent Agency

(POEA

) Guidelines for H

ousehold Service Workers (H

SWs), effec-

tive Decem

ber 16, workers should not be charged any placem

ent fees. H

owever, underm

ining this policy, agencies continue to charge blatantly excessive fees, yet do not refer to them

as “placement fees.”

Workers are charged insurance fees, an often unnecessary num

ber of overpriced m

edical examinations, and “training fees” (also know

n as a “broker’s fee”) w

hose amounts are arbitrarily set by the agency.

The activities undertaken during training vary by agency, but all of the w

orkers I interviewed stated that they only review

ed basic and com

mon sense skills like w

ashing dishes and cleaning, instead of skills like operating a dishw

asher or vacuum cleaner, w

ith which

they may not have been fam

iliar. Some w

orkers have even stated that, as “training,” they w

orked as maids (w

ithout payment) for

some tim

e in the home of their agency’s ow

ner, or those of his/her relatives. W

ith agencies sidestepping the no-placement fee policy,

a survey conducted by the Mission for M

igrant Workers (M

FMW

) in 2008 indicates that, of w

orkers who passed through recruitm

ent agencies (som

e before the effective date of the POEA

Guidelines,

and some after), 46%

had to pay between PH

P60,000 to P100,000. A

bout 8% paid m

ore than P100,000. Only 14%

paid PHP25,000, the

approximate legal am

ount of placement fee before the im

plementa-

tion of the POEA

Guidelines (M

ission, 2009).

Some w

orkers are able to find some m

eans to pay off their agency fees, in w

hich case they usually borrow m

oney from friends

and/or family. The m

ajority of migrant w

orkers, though, who leave

the Philippines in the first place to make m

ore money than they can

in their own country, do not have access to tens of thousands of pesos

in order to complete the application process. A

gencies force them

to take out loans in their own nam

es, usually with fam

ily mem

bers

147146

and/or friends as co-signer(s), with loan com

panies in connivance w

ith the agency. Once the m

igrant begins working in H

ong Kong,

she pays these loans either to a financial institution in Hong K

ong, or has relatives in the Philippines pay to one there. M

oney is split betw

een the recruitment agency and loan com

pany. These compli-

cated loan schemes are used by agencies to cover their tracks for the

illegal placement fees they charge. A

ll of the workers I interview

ed w

ere not given receipts for the fees they paid to the agency, including those w

ho specifically asked for the receipts. With personal loans in

workers’ nam

es and no documents proving that their loan paym

ents go to the agency, agencies can deny that the w

orker is paying illegal placem

ent fees, despite the obvious connections between the agen-

cies in the Philippines and Hong K

ong and the loan company. The

fact that the Philippine agency can waive the w

orker’s loan after conciliation (discussed in the next section) is one indication of such relations.

Hands-O

n Conciliation through the Philippine C

onsulate General

For Filipino/a m

igrant workers, one m

ethod offered by the Philippine C

onsulate General (PC

G) of “finding justice” for these

illegally high fees is hands-on conciliation. The hands-on concili-ation m

ethod is the way in w

hich workers m

ake monetary claim

s against agencies via the consulate, w

hether or not they have balance rem

aining on their loans. In these conciliations, a consulate official m

ediates a meeting betw

een a worker, often alone, and an agent from

her recruitm

ent agency. The PCG

has boasted that, through concilia-tion, it has been able to facilitate the return of m

illions of Hong K

ong D

ollars to victims of illegal collection. W

hile the PCG

has boasted of the m

ethod’s quick process of “delivering justice” by reimbursing

workers for som

e of what they have paid to the agencies, the N

GO

M

ission for Migrant W

orkers (MFM

W) expresses concern about the

validity of the process.

The Mission asserts that the handling of the hands-on concil-

iation reinforces the current system of illegal fee-paying, dim

inishes the culpability of erring recruitm

ent agencies, and places workers at

a disadvantage during the negotiating process. The Mission argues

that the conciliation pacifies victims of illegal recruitm

ent fees with

the illusion that they are being given reparations for the fees, when

in reality the workers often get less than half of w

hat they are owed

– fees from w

hich the Philippine government should have protected

them in the first place. The Philippine governm

ent does not protect w

orkers pre-departure, and once workers are in H

ong Kong, belittles

their systematic struggle w

ith recruitment agencies by tagging such

cases simply as a labor issue. This “quick fix” schem

e, which evades

any question of prosecution, dissuades workers from

filing cases with

the Philippine government, w

hich could win them

a larger portion of w

hat they are owed and has the potential to punish erring recruitm

ent agencies.

The system under w

hich the conciliation operates places w

orkers at a disadvantage. Should a worker choose to settle, she

must sign a docum

ent waiving any right to pursue further claim

s from

the agency; on the same docum

ent, the settlement am

ount is referred to as “financial assistance” from

the agency. In this way, the

settlement is considered final and recruitm

ent agencies can avoid any further litigation and continue their illegal practices w

ith other w

orkers. On the other hand, if w

orkers want to find w

ork again in H

ong Kong, they m

ust pay (illegally high) recruitment fees to other

agencies, virtually all of which charge sim

ilar fees. In upholding the legitim

acy and effectiveness of the conciliation process, the Philip-pine C

onsulate covers the illegality of agencies’ actions, perhaps sug-gesting connivance betw

een agencies and the Philippine government.

This Study

This research evaluates the hands-on conciliation of the Philippine C

onsulate General in H

ong Kong. B

y looking through case files and other data on victim

s of illegal fees, interviewing case

officers of the Mission and its clients, interview

ing the Philippine O

verseas Labor Office (PO

LO) of the PC

G, sitting in on a concili-

ation, and conducting supporting interviews (w

ith employers, a

lawyer, and an academ

ic), I examine the effectiveness of the hands-

on conciliation process and suggest how it can be im

proved to offer greater protection from

illegal collection to Filipino/a foreign domes-

tic workers in H

ong Kong. This study w

ill focus on Filipina migrant

domestic w

orkers who applied to an agency in the Philippines w

ith a counterpart in H

ong Kong (as opposed to w

orkers who had already

been working in H

ong Kong and found new

employers by applying

149148

directly to Hong K

ong agencies).

Methodology

This study includes both qualitative data in the form

of interview

s and observation, and quantitative data derived from the

MFM

W’s case files. I interview

ed:•

Five case managers and com

munity organizers from

MFM

W

for a fuller picture of the conditions of migrant w

orkers in Hong

Kong, the Philippines C

onsulate, and the practices of the latter;•

seven workers for anecdotal evidence;

• tw

o employers;

• tw

o professors working at universities in H

ong Kong (one of

which w

as also an employer);

• a H

ong Kong law

yer currently handling a case regarding workers

made to take out loans by their recruitm

ent agency;•

and two officials from

the Philippines Consulate G

eneral, one w

ith some purview

over the hands-on conciliation.

All of the above interview

s were recorded on tape for later

review. Through one of the consulate officials I interview

ed, I was

allowed to sit in on an actual conciliation and take notes.

I also conducted inform

al interviews talking w

ith workers

congregated on the streets of Hong K

ong on Sunday (the rest day for m

ost HK

domestic w

orkers).

Lastly, I went through M

FMW

’s database and case files, both for the quantitative portion of m

y research and also for extra notes on the m

odes of operation of the PCG

and the agency officials during conciliation.

I conducted this field research in Hong K

ong from m

id-July to the end of A

ugust 2011.

How

Conciliation W

orks

When a w

orker’s contract is terminated or pre-term

inated (under a one-m

onth notice), or in rare cases has been allowed by her

employer to pursue conciliation w

ith an agency, the worker m

ust first file a com

plaint with the Philippine O

verseas Labor Office of

the Philippines Consulate G

eneral in Hong K

ong. The consulate staff w

ill then set an appointment for the w

orker, first calling her agency as to w

hat day and time it can send a representative to the concili-

ation. 4

On the day of the conciliation, the w

orker will go to the

consulate and meet w

ith the conciliator and an agent or representa-tive from

the Hong K

ong counterpart agency who w

ill call an agency official from

the worker’s Philippine agency. The w

orker and agent/representative sit side by side in front of the conciliator, w

ith the conciliator’s desk in betw

een. The entire conciliation takes place verbally, usually involving a discussion of the w

orker’s circumstanc-

es and her pleas for a larger settlement, in opposition to the agency

representative’s negotiation for a smaller one. W

orkers, caseworkers,

and even an official from the PC

G have all likened the conciliation

process to haggling at a market.

C

onciliations can range from a very short tim

e (10-20 m

inutes) to hours. Regardless, by the end of the conciliation, the

worker chooses either to settle there or be endorsed to the Philippine

Overseas Em

ployment A

gency (POEA

) in the Philippines to pursue a greater settlem

ent there. Depending on the w

orker’s place of stay in the Philippines, she w

ill file a case with the nearest PO

EA office,

where she w

ill face another series of (3) conciliations. If her case is still not settled by the end of these conciliations, she w

ill then be endorsed to the N

ational Labor Relations C

ouncil (NLR

C), w

here a court hearing w

ill take place and the agency’s license can be sus-pended if found to be charging illegal placem

ent fees.

Quantitative D

ata

The purpose of the quantitative data is to answer the follow

-ing questions:•

How

many w

orkers chose to settle at the conciliation? How

m

any chose instead to file in the Philippines? How

do these two

numbers com

pare?•

For those who did settle, how

much of their claim

s did they actu-ally receive? H

ow do these num

bers compare?

In order to isolate the data to be used to answ

er these ques-tions, I review

ed the electronic and paper copies of the Mission’s

case files. Since the Mission did not have follow

-up information for

4 Sometim

es the worker’s agency insists that she settle at the agency rather than

attempt a conciliation, but this is usually a trap that leaves the w

orker at gravest disadvantage. B

oth migrant w

orker-serving organizations like the Mission and the

agency official whom

I interviewed discourage w

orkers from doing this.

151150

every client (due to several reasons, e.g. the worker could not be

contacted in the short time betw

een the conciliation and her flight hom

e), I went through the electronic spreadsheet to identify records

indicating 1) that the worker chose to be endorsed to the PO

EA, or

2) the worker’s final am

ount settled at the conciliation. I then found these w

orkers’ case files in the Mission’s paper records to confirm

the accuracy of the num

bers on the electronic spreadsheet and to get m

ore detailed information about their cases.

The M

ission has workers include fees for PO

EA process-

ing, Philippine Overseas W

orkers Welfare A

dministration (O

WW

A)

mem

bership, and PhilHealth health insurance in the calculation of

their placement fee, to be w

ritten on the client intake form. W

hen am

ounts were indicated in H

ong Kong D

ollars (HK

D), I converted

the HK

D am

ount to Philippine Pesos (PHP) by m

ultiplying the HK

D

amount by 5.9.

The limitations of these m

ethods should be addressed:•

The sample of clients’ case files w

ith complete follow

-up data w

as relatively small (27).

• Since there is no record of the agency’s final offer at the concili-ation before the w

orker chose to be endorsed to the Philippines, the effect of this am

ount on the worker’s decision w

hether or not to settle, cannot be determ

ined.•

Mission’s case files did not indicate how

much the w

orker had already paid to the agency before the conciliation and the re-m

aining balance on her loan. We do not know

, for example, if

she is just getting the rest of their loan waived, or if she is being

reimbursed for illegal fees she had already paid. Such data is

highly variable, depending on the circumstances of the w

orker.•

For the “placement fee” am

ount as indicated on the workers’

case files, it cannot be confirmed w

hether or not interest on the w

orkers’ loan (if the worker paid via a loan) w

as included in the calculation.

The quantitative research I conducted produced the following results:

• For all of the 27 w

orkers included in the sample, the average

amount paid w

as PHP 91,840.41.

• O

f 27 workers, 4 chose to be endorsed by the PC

G in H

K to the

POEA

. This shows that around 15%

of workers w

ho attend con-ciliation at the consulate choose endorsem

ent over settlement.

• For the 23 w

orkers that chose to settle after the conciliation, the average am

ount paid in placement fees w

as PHP 92506.74, and

the average amount settled from

conciliation was PH

P 41991.04. The latter is 45.39%

of the former, m

eaning that workers w

ho choose to settle at the consulate settle for less than 50%

of the total am

ount they paid to agency.•

For the 4 workers w

ho chose to be endorsed by the PCG

in HK

to the PO

EA, the average am

ount paid in placement fees w

as PH

P 88,009.

According to these results, w

orkers receive as settlement a

relatively small percentage (45.39%

) of the amount that they paid to

the agencies in order to work as dom

estic workers in H

ong Kong. It

should also be noted that the workers reflected in this data are clients

of Mission, w

ho, prior to the conciliation, are briefed as to the run-ning of the facilitation, w

hat they can say to help their case, and how

to defend against comm

on tactics by agency officials/representatives to low

er the settlement am

ount. It is likely that other workers w

ho participate in conciliation w

ithout being prepared beforehand in such a m

anner receive even less from the settlem

ent.

Despite this, few

workers (15%

) choose to pursue their cases further in the Philippines, w

here they can potentially receive greater am

ounts and have the licenses of erring recruitment agencies

suspended. The low num

ber of the workers w

ho continue the fight for justice in the Philippines can partly be explained by the agency’s tactics in convincing w

orkers to settle for whatever they can during

conciliation, and the facilitation of the conciliation by the Philippine C

onsulate.

Evaluation of C

onciliation

As aforem

entioned, the PCG

in Hong K

ong claims to be

proud of the conciliation as a quick and fair means to w

in justice for m

igrant workers. H

owever, m

y research has shown that there exist

fundamental problem

s with the facilitation of the conciliation that

leave workers at a disadvantage w

hen facing the agency. This sec-tion w

ill explore the positive and negative aspects of the conciliation from

the perspective of a worker w

ho has been charged high illegal placem

ent fees.

153152

Benefits•

If the worker m

akes herself aware of agency tactics and how

she can respond to them

, and remains determ

ined to fight for justice and her m

oney despite the high-pressure circumstances

of a conciliation, she can at times obtain a considerable portion

of the money she is ow

ed. For example, one case w

orker recalls a w

orker who w

as able to win PH

P67,400 out of her PHP78,633

claim. This, how

ever, also depends on how m

uch the agency is w

illing to negotiate with the w

orker. Although a few

outstanding cases w

here a worker received alm

ost all of her claim com

e to m

ind for each caseworker, such cases are obviously not com

mon.

• For w

orkers who are determ

ined to find another employer in

Hong K

ong, the conciliation provides the quickest way to settle

their cases and move on to other em

ployers. This, however,

comes at som

e expense, since the worker is virtually guaran-

teed to lose money and w

ould inevitably be contributing to the perpetuation of this rotten system

, as they re-apply to work as a

domestic w

orker with the sam

e or another agency and must once

again pay an enormous placem

ent fee.

Points for Improvem

ent•

A worker’s com

plaint is only entertained when her contract is

terminated or pre-term

inated.The consulate official stated that this is a security m

easure, for the worker, if her em

ployer is not supportive of her participation in the conciliation, m

ay risk the term

ination of her contract. That is, if the agency is close to the em

ployer, who does not support the w

orker, it can encourage the em

ployer to terminate the w

orker’s contract and hire a new

worker through the agency. O

n the other hand, the consulate states that the w

orker can participate in conciliation even if she is em

ployed, but she must approach her em

ployer about the issue and m

ake sure that he/she is supportive. How

ever, one worker

in this position whom

I interviewed has faced som

e difficulty in entering the conciliation process, explaining that the consulate is requiring her to solicit a letter from

her employer of his/her

approval. In sum, usually only w

orkers whose contracts are pre-

terminated or already term

inated can participate in conciliation; the process is rather difficult and bureaucratic otherw

ise.

• The consulate schedules the conciliation very close to the w

orker’s departure date, in some cases even on the day of her

departure.The consulate official stated that this was because the

workers com

e in too late (as in only a couple days before she is scheduled to leave for the Philippines), but one case w

orker said that the consulate m

aintains this practice even when the w

orker com

es in well ahead of tim

e (as in one or two w

eeks). If the w

orker is set to leave in two days, one day, or even on the day of

her conciliation date, this places her in a precarious and insecure position during the negotiation process. She w

ill not have the chance to ask for another conciliation date if the negotiations are against her favor or w

ishes, and she will have m

uch less time to

thoroughly contemplate her decision and understand its conse-

quences, with tens of thousands of pesos at stake. I surm

ise that this practice, w

hile decidedly disadvantageous to the worker, is

beneficial to the consulate; by setting a conciliation date near the w

orker’s date of departure, it can prevent further conciliation m

eetings with the sam

e worker and m

ore quickly clear its own

schedule.•

The consulate does not allow w

orkers’ friends and caseworkers

from sitting in the conciliation to provide m

oral support and/or counsel to the w

orker. The consulate reasons that it maintains

this policy because the conciliation is solely between the w

orker and the agency, and that other people cannot speak to the cir-cum

stances of the case. How

ever, by the nature of casework, a

caseworker becom

es very familiar w

ith the worker and her case.

Because a casew

orker is likely more fam

iliar with the rights

guaranteed to a migrant dom

estic worker in H

ong Kong, he/she

can provide sound counsel to the worker and help her defend

herself against agency tactics. In fact, each of the caseworkers I

interviewed w

ho, before this policy was im

plemented, had the

chance to join a worker during her conciliation, believed that he/

she was able to help w

orkers increase the amount they received

from their agencies, or help them

make the decision to continue

the fight for justice in the Philippines if unsatisfied with the

settlement am

ount in Hong K

ong. For example, one casew

orker said that w

hen the conciliator discouraged the worker from

filing in the Philippines, the casew

orker silenced the conciliator and the

155154 agent by rem

inding them that, should the w

orker pursue the case in the Philippines, it could potentially lead to the suspension of the agency’s license. Such assertions rem

ind all parties involved that the w

orker also has power during the negotiations and does

not just have to take whatever she can get from

the agency. This helps create the ideal situation in w

hich the conciliation is a ne-gotiation betw

een two equal parties. A

lthough the worker cannot

have another person in the room, the consulate allow

s agencies to send agency representatives in the place of agency officials w

ho deal with w

orkers. If the PCG

is maintaining this policy on

the basis that the conciliation should be between only the w

orker and the agency, w

hy does the PCG

not require the agent who

processed the worker to attend in person, like the w

orker?•

The agency is in a position of power during the conciliation

because of its money and its officials’/representatives’ fam

iliar-ity w

ith the process. Because the agency has the m

oney, it in a better position to negotiate the am

ount it gives to the worker.

Furthermore, since agencies are used to attending these concili-

ations, the officials and representatives who often participate in

conciliation do not have any uncertainties about the process, can anticipate w

hat the conciliator and the worker m

ight say, and can over tim

e develop strategies to minim

ize the agency’s payment

to the worker.

• The consulate m

ay proceed through the conciliation too quickly, such that the w

orker may not fully understand everything to

which she is agreeing. U

pon signing the settlement agreem

ent at the end of the conciliation, the w

orker waives any right to pursue

the agency further. One w

orker states that, although the concilia-tor m

ay have explained this to her, the conciliation proceeded so quickly that she w

as not able to take in all the information. From

w

hat I have observed from the w

aiting area for the conciliation room

, many w

orkers become very em

otional, even crying, dur-ing the conciliation due to their lack of pow

er to win a just settle-

ment; in such a case, it is understandable that the w

orker (not as fam

iliar with the protocol as the conciliator or the agent) does

not register every piece of information given to her by the con-

sulate official, especially if it is facilitated very quickly. Again,

perhaps the consulate officials continue this practice in the spirit

of wanting to clear their schedules, despite the disadvantages to

the worker.

• The conciliator allow

s the agent/agency representative to m

islead the worker during the conciliation. In reference to the

agency tactics earlier explained, the conciliator does not cor-rect the agent or representative w

hen he/she gives the worker

false information, if not encouraging the w

orker him/herself to

listen to the agent/representative. For example, one casew

orker explained that in one case, w

hen the agency told the worker

that it could not refund her for past payments because she has

already worked so long, the conciliator said som

ething like, “Yes, com

e on. Don’t ask for too m

uch, you’ve already had the chance to earn that m

oney by working.” This does not account

for the fact that the worker should not have been m

ade to pay such illegal fees in the first place, and that she is entitled to this m

oney whether or not she has already earned it back through her

labor. Such actions on the part of the conciliator help perpetuate the agencies’ system

ic exploitation of Filipina migrant dom

estic w

orkers in Hong K

ong.•

The consulate allows (or, according to one case w

orker, some-

times even advises) the w

orker to go to the agency to settle her claim

. As aforem

entioned, if the worker goes to the agency to

“negotiate” her settlement rather than participating in concili-

ation, this would place her in an even m

ore unstable position to assert her rights. A

t the agency, she might be forced to sign

documents stating that she has received all of her m

oney even though she has not in reality, or that she w

ill no longer pursue the agency, etc. A

lthough the consulate official I interviewed stated

that she strongly insists that workers participate in the concili-

ation rather than going to the agency in person, both casework-

ers and domestic w

orkers have attested that the neglect occurs nonetheless. O

ne worker, for exam

ple, spoke with her agent on

the phone while at the consulate. W

hen the agent said that they should talk further at the agency, the consulate staff agreed. N

o m

atter the circumstances, this obviously goes against the con-

sulate interviewee’s (stated) strong position that all discussion

between the agency and the w

orker about her case should be conducted at the consulate.

157156

• The conciliator discourages w

orkers from filing cases in the

Philippines. In the case of almost every dom

estic worker I inter-

viewed, the conciliator encouraged the w

orker to take whatever

she can get from the agency at the conciliation. If she tries to file

in the Philippines, the domestic w

orker said, the process would

take too long, it would cost a lot of m

oney to pay for her travel to and from

the POEA

, she might not be able to find a job w

hen she goes back hom

e to the Philippines, etc. Indeed, these statements

are in many cases true, but conciliators also ignore the w

orker’s opportunity to potentially receive a higher, m

ore just settlement

in the Philippines and/or to take judicial action to suspend the agency’s license. To discourage the w

orker, conciliators also say that the w

orker cannot continue the case in the Philippines if she is not there in person, w

hich would effectively prevent her

from supporting her fam

ily by working abroad. This statem

ent is untrue. D

omestic w

orkers with a claim

against an agency can file for a special pow

er of attorney for someone else to represent

them in their case, preferably a relative, but possibly also a repre-

sentative from a com

munity organization like G

abriela Philip-pines or M

igrante Philippines. Why does the consulate uphold

this practice even when it m

ay be in opposition to the worker’s

fight for justice? One reason is m

ade clear by the consulate of-ficial’s explanation that the conciliation in H

ong Kong is the first

step in a worker’s fight for her claim

, a way for the Philippine

government to “de-clog” its system

. That is, the more w

orkers the Philippine C

onsulate can encourage to settle in Hong K

ong, the few

er they will have to entertain at the PO

EA and N

LRC

. A

nd the more quickly the consulate can process w

orkers in Hong

Kong, the m

ore it can “de-clog” its own schedule. This is decid-

edly not pro-worker.

• D

uring the conciliation, workers felt that the conciliator w

as on the side of the agency. The conciliator, for exam

ple, might say

that the worker is sim

ply asking for too much—

“Oh, com

e on, don’t you think that’s a bit m

uch?” he/she would say in a tone

friendly and appealing, if not condescending. In a similar vein,

the conciliator from the consulate m

ight coax the worker into

just accepting the agency’s offer so that she can move on w

ith her life. In one instance that m

ade the worker feel that there

was a certain closeness betw

een the agency and the conciliator, the conciliator, as per the request of the Philippine em

ployment

agent on the phone, kicked out of the conciliation room an agen-

cy representative that surprisingly was strongly pleading w

ith the w

orker not to accept such a low settlem

ent and demand a higher

one. After the agent on the phone and the w

orker had reached a settlem

ent, the conciliator took the phone and said to the agent, “See, didn’t I tell you everything w

ould be OK

?” Another ex-

ample is the postponem

ent of a conciliation meeting w

hen the agent or agent representative does not show

up, with apparently

no penalty; on the other hand, one worker I interview

ed who w

as late to her m

eeting was scolded by the conciliator. I do not m

ean to say that the conciliator should have pardoned the w

orker for being late, but if such is his/her treatm

ent of the worker, w

hy does he/she not scold the agent or agent/agent representative (w

ho in some cases does not show

up at all, forcing the consulate to reschedule the conciliation) in the sam

e way? The consulate

official I interviewed said that the conciliator is sim

ply moderat-

ing a negotiation between tw

o equal parties. But is the w

orker truly treated as if she is on equal footing w

ith the agency? When

I asked the caseworkers w

hy they think consulate does this, they suggested that the consulate and the agency m

ay be working

together, that they both have an interest in the current system

of migrants’ cycles of debt. B

ecause agencies pay a very large chunk of m

oney to the government to receive agency licenses,

the government can profit from

the sustained growth of the

industry and the establishment of new

agencies. Furthermore,

agencies, which connect Filipino/a w

orkers to employm

ent abroad, play an integral role in the governm

ent’s continuation of the Labor Export Program

(LEP), on which the Philippine

economy has becom

e dependent for remittances. Perhaps for

these reasons, agencies are protected from greater governm

ent regulation.

• The settlem

ent agreement, also know

n as the Affidavit of Desis-

tance, Waiver and Release and Q

uit Claim

, takes blame aw

ay from

the agency and fully protects it from further action by the

worker for her claim

s. As if rubbing salt on the w

ound, one point of the settlem

ent agreement (as of M

arch 2011) which

159158 the w

orker signs after the conciliation (if she chooses to settle) states: That after carefully evaluating the facts and the circum

-stances surrounding the filing of com

plaint/case, I have come

to realize that filing thereof was a result of plain and sim

ple m

isunderstanding and misapprehension of facts betw

een me

and [agency] or its officers, directors.” Previous versions of the settlem

ent agreement refer to the settlem

ent amount as “financial

assistance” from the agency. Such statem

ents belittle the worker,

while taking blam

e away from

the agency, in the latter case even creating an im

age of it as helping the worker. These w

ords may

serve another indication of the consulate’s stance between the

agency and the worker, and w

hich party it favors.

Conclusion

N

aturally, this is not an exhaustive explanation of all of the different tactics adopted by agencies during the conciliation, or all of the good and bad points of the process. D

epending on the case, depending on the day, despite general patterns, all parties involved ultim

ately improvise during the hands-on conciliation and m

ay veer from

the patterns aforementioned. R

egardless, the consulate, pro-mi-

grant organizations, society at large, and especially workers them

-selves all have a role in asserting the rights and w

elfare of migrant

workers in light of (or in spite of) the concrete conditions they face,

and the current state of the hands-on conciliation as the consulate’s sole m

ethod for entertaining workers’ m

onetary claims.

The current conditions of Filipino/a m

igrant workers not

only in Hong K

ong, but also in other parts of the world, are incontro-

vertibly tied to the Philippines’ lack of national industry (and there-fore jobs) and em

phasis on the export of human labor. The consulate

official I interviewed stated that one of the purposes of the hands-on

conciliation is to “de-clog” the system of w

orkers making claim

s against agencies and corporation. B

ut this system can never truly be

“de-clogged” if the Philippine government continues its current poli-

cies of debt servicing, dependence on foreign economies, and labor

export. Thus, Filipino/a workers both in and out of the Philippines

should fight for fundamental change in their country, one that places

the interests of workers above corporations and foreign econom

ies, and fosters consulates that are truly “for the Filipino/as abroad.”

Works C

ited

Mission for M

igrant Workers. “O

vercharging: the past, present and future foe of O

FWs.” (2009) W

eb. <http://ww

w.sunw

eb.com.hk/

Story.asp?hdnStoryCode=4272&

Menu=4&

hdnSectioncode=FEATUR

ES>

Mission for M

igrant Workers. “Filipino W

omen M

igrant Workers’

Summ

it Hong K

ong 2006: Report and R

ecomm

endations.” (2006). W

eb. <http://ww

w.m

igrants.net/_resources/files/FWM

S2006-Final_R

eport.pdf>.

Hong K

ong Imm

igration Departm

ent. (n.d.). Imm

igration Depart-

ment A

nnual Report 2009-2010. R

etrieved April 11, 2012, from

http://w

ww

.imm

d.gov.hk/a_report_09-10/eng/ch1/#b5_6

IBO

N. (1997). “In the C

ycle of Debt.” People’s Policy and Advocacy

Studies Special Release (September): 9

International Monetary Fund. A

bout the IMF. (n.d.). R

etrieved De-

cember 8, 2012, from

http://ww

w.imf.org/external/about.htm

Mission, G

. (1998). “The Breadw

inners: Female M

igrant Workers,”

WIN

: Wom

en’s International Net Issue, 15A (N

ovember)

Parreñas, R. (2006) “C

aring for the Filipino Family: H

ow G

ender D

ifferentiates the Economic C

auses of Labour Migration.” M

igrant W

omen and W

ork. By A

nuja Agraw

al. New

Delhi: Sage Publica-

tions, 2006

Philippine Overseas Em

ployment A

dministration. A

bout the Phil-ippine O

verseas Employm

ent Adm

inistration (POEA

). (n.d.). Re-

trieved Decem

ber 8, 2012, from http://w

ww.poea.gov.ph/htm

l/abou-tus.htm

l

161160

EX

PO

SING

AG

EN

T OR

AN

GE

: TRA

CK

ING

P

HO

TOG

RA

PH

IC LIN

EA

GE

S TO

RE

EN

GA

GE

VIE

WE

RS W

ITH TH

E

ON

GO

ING

EN

VIR

ON

ME

NTA

L AN

D

HU

MA

NITA

RIA

N C

ON

CE

RN

Natalia D

uong “H

ow do w

e cope with our exposures to A

gent Orange?”

—Susan Schw

eik

A

t a recent conference on Agent O

range and Addressing the

Legacy of War in V

ietnam on O

ctober 29, 2011, English professor and A

ssociate Dean of A

rts and Hum

anities at UC

Berkeley Susan

Schweik posed the question, “W

hat else can we do about A

gent O

range?” In her speech, Schweik delineates three different types of

exposures that surround the history of the herbicide Agent O

range in V

ietnam and in the U

nited States. She speaks of the exposure to the actual chem

ical, Agent O

range, and the dioxin therein, the exposure of bodies affected by A

gent Orange to the public eye, and lastly, the

general public’s exposure to the story of Agent O

range. In this paper, I extrapolate on this notion of “exposure” to consider the role of traum

a photography in relation to bodies affected by Agent O

range. W

hile photographs of people affected by Agent O

range originally aided in exposing the public to the ongoing environm

ental and hu-m

anitarian concern, some photographs of people affected by A

gent O

range fix bodies perpetually in a mom

ent of exposure to dioxin, thereby denying know

ledge of the chemical’s progressive effects and

a present health condition, thus foreclosing future potential for reme-

diation. Alternatively, photographs that trace a lineage of exposure

through generations require longer processing and thus engage the view

er not only in personal histories but also the imm

ediate humani-

tarian concern in the present.

The Vietnam

War, referred to as the A

merican W

ar by the V

ietnamese, w

as the first war to have a sim

ultaneous visual presence in A

merican hom

es. The war w

as broadcast as a “television war,”

overtaking the evening news and show

ing Am

erica’s boys complet-

ing their duties. How

ever, as the war began to turn, im

ages began to reflect the failures of A

merica’s efforts. Though im

ages of Am

erican deaths w

ere rarely shown, photographs of V

ietnamese people as

victims becam

e iconic of the war. O

ne such photo, often referred to as “N

apalm G

irl,” (Figure 1) captured by photojournalist Nick U

t, exposed the horror of w

ar to the public eye, in particular the destruc-tion caused by napalm

. This photo continues to share this narrative though it has been 40 years since it w

as taken. How

ever, it would be

decades before photography would capture the destructive potential

of Agent O

range, as its most extrem

e effects would not appear until

second and third generation descendants of those exposed were born.

Vietnam

ese and Am

erican soldiers and civilians alike are still haunt-ed by the recurring trace of w

ar as transmitted by A

gent Orange.

Initial Exposure: T

he Spraying of Agent O

range

Agent O

range is an herbicide that was sprayed by A

merican

soldiers, primarily in South V

ietnam, from

1961 to 1971. It is esti-m

ated that approximately 12 m

illion gallons of Agent O

range were

sprayed at over fifty times the suggested concentration for defoliation

over five million acres of forests and crops in V

ietnam1. The A

spen Institute now

estimates that 4.5 m

illion Vietnam

ese people and hun-dreds of thousands of A

merican veterans w

ere exposed. How

ever, because the chem

ical is not water-soluble and continues to exist in

the environment in V

ietnam, dioxin has m

ade its way into the food

chain thereby continuing to affect populations in the present. In the past few

years, clearer links have been drawn betw

een exposure to A

gent Orange and consequent health effects in persons exposed to

the chemical, as w

ell as second and third generation descendants of those exposed. A

study by Michael K

. Skinner et al. (2012) found that dioxin (TC

DD

), the main contam

inant present in herbicides such as A

gent Orange, prom

otes epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of diseases in unexposed progeny of fem

ales exposed during gesta-tion

2. This essentially implies that fem

ales exposed to Agent O

range

1 “History of A

gent Orange and D

ioxin in Vietnam

,” The Aspen Institute, accessed A

pril 11, 2013, http://ww

w.aspeninstitute.org/policy-w

ork/agent-orange/history.2 M

ichael K. Skinner, M

ohan Mannikkam

, Rebecca Tracey, and C

arlos Guerrero-

Bosagna, “D

ioxin (TCD

D) Induces Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of

Adult O

nset Disease and Sperm

Epimutations,” PLoS O

NE 7, no. 9 (2012): e46249,

http://skinner.wsu.edu/toxnew

s/Dioxin%

20PlosOne%

20Skinner%202012.pdf (ac-

163162

during their pregnancy will epigenetically transm

it related diseases to their offspring. The sam

e study found similar effects in second and

third generation descendants as well. Thus, w

hile this particular field is still nascent, studies suggest that A

gent Orange is, in fact, geneti-

cally transmitted through the m

ediated expression of DN

A. Further-

more, though the health effects of A

gent Orange range from

physical disabilities to various cancers, the m

ajority of the associated diseases are represented phenotypically—

in other words, the effects are vis-

ible. Thus photography, as a primarily visual m

edium, becom

es an im

portant tool in representing the transgenerational transmission of

Agent O

range as a residue of war.

A

s trauma has been considered the “past m

ade present,” the reproduction of photographs as w

ell as the development of these

photographs over time, repeat the continuing effects of the herbi-

cide today. Sigmund Freud in Rem

embering, Repeating, W

orking Through, has considered an individual’s repetition of past traum

a in the present from

a psychosomatic perspective. Freud w

rites, “As

long as the patient is in the treatment he cannot escape from

this com

pulsion to repeat; and in the end we understand that this is his

way of rem

embering.”

3 In other words, Freud considers the process

of repetition to be the patient’s manner of coping w

ith past trauma

in the present. Thus, the repeat becomes a form

of understanding the aporia of traum

a. Alternately, Eva H

offman in A

fter Such Know

l-edge considers the transgenerational transm

ission of trauma betw

een individuals as a culturally em

bodied experience. Hoffm

an explains the generational effects experienced by H

olocaust survivors and their descendants w

ho can either be a source of potential renewal

or an icon fixed at the mom

ent of trauma. She w

rites, “The second generation after every calam

ity is the hinge generation, in which

the meanings of aw

ful events can remain arrested and fixed at the

point of trauma; or in w

hich they can be transformed into new

sets of relations w

ith the world, and new

understanding.”4 Thus, H

off-m

an describes the potential for the “hinge” generation to reinterpret past traum

as through a contemporary perspective once the traum

a cessed D

ecember 4, 2012).

3 Sigmund Freud, “R

emem

bering, Repeating, W

orking Through” in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, (N

ew York: W

.W. N

orton & C

ompany, 1990), 150.

4 Eva Hoffm

an, After such knowledge: m

emory, history, and the legacy of the H

olo-caust, (N

ew York: Public A

ffairs, 2004), 103.

has ended. Future generations can therefore escape the repetition of traum

a. How

ever, those affected by Agent O

range complicate this

potential because they continue to physically and literally exhibit the em

bodied proliferation of war in the present. H

ealing through “new

relations and understandings” is harder to accomplish w

hen physical disabilities due to herbicide exposure continue to reappear. A

s such, photography perform

s the compulsion repetition that fixes the subject

in a mom

ent of victimhood rather than arousing the potential for

renewal that H

offman describes.

Exposure as Shock

Early photographs of bodies affected by A

gent Orange fixed

the referents at the point of trauma. Schw

eik summ

arizes, “Viet-

namese people w

ith disabilities became the em

blems of ecocide.”

5 O

nce the health effects of Agent O

range were exposed to the public,

Vietnam

ese people with disabilities lost their individual subjectivities

in exchange for a collective identity as victims of chem

ical warfare.

Ulrich B

aer, in Spectral Evidence, analyzes a similar occurrence in

the photographs that Jean-Martin C

harcot took of wom

en thought to be suffering from

hysteria. Baer notes that C

harcot took the pictures as a w

ay of analyzing the ailment, how

ever, the wom

en were cap-

tured by the flash at the height of the illness and therefore forever exposed as icons of the condition. B

aer writes about how

photogra-phy as a m

edium “freeze-fram

es and retains the body in an isolated position that can be view

ed and theorized about outside of a temporal

continuum.”

6 How

ever, while this flash capture of catalepsy m

ir-rored the effects of hysteria, and therefore illum

inated the condition, the atem

poral depiction of bodies affected by Agent O

range obscures the transm

ission of health effects through time. The photographs

of those affected by Agent O

range arrest the symptom

at its height, rem

ove the bodies from the to the past, and consequently ignore the

present condition through a continual temporal distancing from

the now

. The mom

entary exposure of bodies through photography masks

the most detrim

ental effect of the herbicide: that it is transgeneration-5 Susan Schw

eik, “What else can w

e do about Agent O

range?” Agent O

range and A

ddressing the Legacy of War in V

ietnam, Ford Foundation, R

otary Club Interna-

tional and Active Voice, U

niversity of California B

erkeley, October 29, 2011.

6 Ulrich B

aer, Spectral evidence: the photography of trauma, Paperback ed. (C

am-

bridge. Mass.: The M

IT Press, 2005), 39.

165164

ally inherited.

Moreover, the initial photographs taken of bodies affected by

Agent O

range removed all subjectivity of the referents represented

within the photos. They portrayed the m

ost extreme cases of physi-

cal disability that seemed to occupy a realm

of fantasy as opposed to reality. There w

ere twin headed stillborn babies in form

aldehyde filled jars, babies born w

ith extreme skull contortions and m

issing w

hole limbs. The bodies w

ere excessive in some parts and seem

ingly lacking in others. This first set of photographs exposed the effects of the herbicide through shock. 7 A

s a result, viewers often turned aw

ay from

the photograph within seconds of experiencing its prim

ary shock as affective response. Judith B

utler, in Frames of W

ar, address-es how

photographs transmit affect:

For photographs to comm

unicate effectively in this w

ay, they must have a transitive function: they m

ust act upon view

ers in ways that have a direct bearing on

the kinds of judgments those view

ers will form

ulate about the w

orld. Sontag concedes that photographs are transitive. They do not m

erely portray or represent—they relay affect. In fact, in tim

es of war, this transi-

tive affectivity of the photograph may overw

helm and

numb its view

ers. 8

Butler contends that photographs can shift individual’s

perspective of war through the transm

ission of affect. How

ever, this “num

bing” affect can also inhibit political or social action when the

photographs overwhelm

the viewer. Thus, photographs that shock

viewers allow

them to retreat from

the photograph, rather than en-gage w

ith the larger political or social concern.

The shocking nature of the photographs rendered the bodies im

mediately abject—

as they represented neither subject nor object; the photographs denied the I/eye. 9 C

onsequently, viewers carried

7 I have explicitly chosen not to reproduce these “shock” photos in this paper as I do not support the averse affect that they induce. H

owever, m

any can still be found by searching for “A

gent Orange” in a G

oogle image search.

8 Judith Butler, Fram

es of War: W

hen Is Life Grievable? (London: Verso, 2009), 68.

9 Julia Kristeva, Pow

ers of horror: an essay on abjection. (New

York: Colum

bia U

niversity Press, 1982).

this adverse affect onto their readings of the larger issue of Agent

Orange and dioxin in the environm

ent. Thus, the Am

erican public could turn aw

ay from the environm

ental and humanitarian concern

just as they did from this first set of expository photographs. The lack

of visible subjectivity in the photographs forgives the lack of human-

itarian response. The numbing affect produced by the photograph

paralyzes its viewer w

hile evading the current severity of this issue in the present. A

s the bodies portrayed were considered abject, the

images of people affected w

ere cast aside just as those affected by A

gent Orange w

ere cloistered in centers for people with disabilities

outside of the public’s eye. Moreover, because people w

ith disabili-ties in V

ietnam are considered to be suffering karm

ic punishment for

the deeds of their ancestors, they are often ignored and considered a burden to the developm

ent of society. 10 Thus, the abject nature of the photographs produced an affective response that licensed the contin-ual “pushing aw

ay” of bodies affected by Agent O

range. The photo-graphs require only a distal engagem

ent with the subjects portrayed

and therefore remain a flat protective skin behind w

hich the mem

ory of w

ar can remain repressed.

Circulation: T

he Spread of Agent O

range

How

ever, like the transgenerational health effects of Agent

Orange, the im

ages of affected bodies kept returning. The process of creating a photograph ensures its reproduction: the photograph is inherently repeatable, lending itself to the w

idespread circulation of its m

ultiples. Thus, the spread of images m

irrored the ongoing spread of A

gent Orange in the environm

ent. Butler m

akes a similar claim

about photographs taken of torture victim

s at Guantanam

o Bay. She

writes, “The indefinite circulability of the im

age allows the event to

continue to happen and, indeed, thanks to these images, the event

has not stopped happening.”11 In other w

ords, the spread of images

mirrors the spread of dioxin, propagating the traum

atic event into the present. H

owever, the isolation of the shocking im

ages from a

lineage of photographs implied that the developing severity of the

condition was not reflected in consequent developm

ents of the pho-tograph. Therefore, w

hile the photographs were circulated, and its

10 Irmo M

arini, Noreen M

. Glover-G

raf, and Michael M

illington, Psychosocial Aspects of D

isability, (New

York: Springer Publishing Com

pany, 2012), 76.11 B

utler, Frames of W

ar, 86.

167166

exposures multiplied, the im

age circulated captured bodies affected in a m

oment of exposure to the chem

ical without referencing its pro-

gressive nature. The bodies were view

ed as things of the past rather than people of the present. The photographs’ repeats did not reveal the w

orsening nature of the health concern.

This circulation of images that freezes the victim

at the height of traum

a is exacerbated in the contemporary m

oment w

here digital photographs are instantly captured and shared at greater speeds than ever before. Search engines scour the Internet, retrieve im

ages from w

ebsites, and present the amalgam

ation of images w

ith-out context. A

Google im

age search of “Agent O

range” reveals a host of decontextualized photographs—

often of the shocking nature—that

overwhelm

the viewer. There are only m

asses of bodies without

names or (hi)stories. The overw

helming collection of abject im

ages also allow

s them to be pushed aw

ay from view. Thus, the instanta-

neous relation to photographs engendered by Internet search engines denies a sustained response to the condition portrayed. B

odies are circulated as petrified in disease w

ithout any index of the progressive nature of the disease or the potential to protect future bodies from

exposure to the chem

ical.

Furthermore, the repeatability of photographs ensured that

the photograph outlived those who w

ere represented within the

photograph. Just as photographs capture a mom

ent that has occurred in the past, and represent it in the now, the photograph also reveals the im

manence of death for all lives represented w

ithin it. Butler

explains: If we are not haunted, there is no loss, there has

been no life that was lost. B

ut if we are shaken or

‘haunted’ by a photograph, it is because the photo-graph acts on us in part through outliving the life it docum

ents; it establishes in advance the time in

which that loss w

ill be acknowledged as a loss. So

the photograph is linked through its ‘tense’ to the grievability of a life, anticipating and perform

ing that grievability. 12

12 Butler, Fram

es of War, 98.

Thus, B

utler articulates the melancholic nature of photo-

graphs to perform the loss of its referent. The photographs of those

affected by Agent O

range, particularly the iconic pictures of mothers

and their affected children, enact a greater tragedy as the mothers

will often outlive their children w

ho are affected, and the photograph w

ill outlive both referents. Many of these photographs reenact a

Pièta posturing, like the Western art historical trope of M

adonna and Jesus, alluding to the im

minent dem

ise of the child. For example, a

photograph taken by Nick U

t elicits this feeling of helplessness as Pham

Thi Thuy holds her grandson Dinh D

ai Son as he lays inactive in her arm

s (Figure 2). This photograph is haunted by the pend-ing death of the child even though the child portrayed is still alive. The photograph fixes the outcom

e; the child’s death is presented as unavoidable. This type of photograph continues to deny an active response from

its viewer, as it portrays the certain death of the child,

removing his subjectivity and agency to control his ow

n future. The photograph also forgives the view

er for her lack of engagement as it

recalls a larger historical precedent that seems insurm

ountable. Thus, the form

of the photograph inherently contains a drive towards death

through the document’s ability to outlive the life it portrays.

Photographs that fix the outcom

e of its referents allow view

-ers to further disengage from

the environmental and hum

anitarian concern. W

hile some fram

es highlight the humanity of the subjects

photographed, photographs that produce an aversive response, or that rem

ind viewers of the im

minence of their death, allow

the viewer to

disengage from the photograph and the concern being represented.

Butler refers to this fram

e as “foreclosing responsiveness”:

There are ways of fram

ing that will bring the hum

an into view

in its frailty and precariousness, that will

allow us to stand for the value and dignity of hum

an life, to react w

ith outrage when lives are degraded

or eviscerated without regard for their value as lives.

And then there are fram

es that foreclose responsive-ness, w

here this activity of foreclosure is effectively and repeatedly perform

ed by the frame itself—

its ow

n negative action, as it were, tow

ard what w

ill not

169168

be explicitly represented.”13

Thus, through its repeatability and reproducibility, the

photograph imm

unizes its original shock effect rendering the envi-ronm

ental and human effects of A

gent Orange banal. B

ecause the subjects w

ithin the photos are not regarded as subjects, the frame of

the photograph does not implicate the view

er in relation to those por-trayed, rather the view

er remains outside. The photograph forecloses

response by repeating a determined outcom

e. Schweik reiterates,

“The poster child is both obsessed-about and utterly ignorable.”14

Developing the Photograph: C

onstructing photographic lineages

If photographs inherently arrest the symptom

s at its height, and repeat this m

oment of exposure in the present, w

hat types of photographs do not foreclose a response, but rather actively engage the view

er with the photograph? Photographs capture a m

omentary

situation, thus singular photographs do not necessarily relay a causal effect. They m

ay transmit affect, but how

could they reveal the transm

ission of trauma through tim

e? There are not clear before and after pictures of the bodies affected by A

gent Orange like there are

of the landscape as the transmission of effects is intergenerational

and individuals do not reflect the cumulative deterioration in a single

body (Figure 3). Photographs of bodies do not exhibit causal relation as easily, even w

hen they are individually marked. C

onsequently, the trace of transm

ission must be m

apped between m

ultiple representa-tions: across generations, borders, and m

ediums. A

s such, recent photojournalistic tributes to A

gent Orange have begun to restore

subjectivity to the bodies portrayed while tracing the genetic trans-

mission of the herbicide through a lineage of photographs.

Though U

lrich Baer desires to read photographs through

a Dem

ocritean lens, where tim

e is considered as isolated flashes and bursts, in the case of photography of bodies affected by A

gent O

range, this perspective obfuscates the cumulative nature of the

herbicide’s effects. To read an image of a body affected by A

gent Or-

ange void of its temporal context m

isses the point that these bodies are still, in the present, being affected by this chem

ical. Thus, what

would it be to consider a H

eraclitean “river” of photographs that, like

13 Butler, Fram

es of War, 77.

14 Schweik, Lecture.

Eadweard M

uybridge’s action photos, represent the effects of this herbicide as causally linked over tim

e?

Diana Taylor traces the perform

ative lineage of political action through photography’s doubles in Julio Pantoja’s photographs of the A

rgentinian H.I.J.O

.S., the children of the disappeared. Taylor suggests that the children of the disappeared hold the photographs of their parents to insist on their presence w

ithin the political discourse, despite their physical disappearance. In one photograph, Los H

ijos, Tucum

án veinte años después, the daughter of a disappeared man

holds a portrait of her father in front of her face, partially obscur-ing herself in exchange for foregrounding her disappeared father’s portrait (Figure 4). Taylor w

rites, “These portraits illuminate the

political hauntology I sensed at the escrache…The faces in both

sets of photographs (Pantoja’s and the ones the children are holding) dem

and a double-take…The portraits, how

ever, indicate that the chil-dren, both genetically and visibly, resist the tugs of surrogation.”

15 Thus, Taylor articulates how

the photographs engage the viewer by

visually marking the generations affected by A

rgentina’s Dirty W

ar. Through the doubling of the fram

e, the photograph presences both the daughter of the disappeared m

an and the man him

self. More-

over, the double frame links the tw

o bodies without collapsing their

separate identities. The photograph indexes the social and political genealogy that extends outside of the captured fram

e.

A sim

ilar photograph, captured by Lisa DeJong, cites this

photographic lineage by featuring Heather B

owser holding a photo-

graph of her father who w

as an Am

erican soldier assigned to spray A

gent Orange over V

ietnam during the w

ar (Figure 5). Bow

ser holds the black and w

hite photograph in her hand that is missing several

fingers. Her birth defects have now

been linked to her father’s ex-posure to the chem

ical. While her father, the referent of the internal

photograph is portrayed as whole even though he is not present,

Bow

ser is only partially visible in the photograph. The black back-ground of the photograph denies a tem

poral or spatial localization, rather the abyss extends infinitely. The fram

e performs this endless

extension of the condition into the unforeseeable future. Where is the

solution? The color of Bow

ser’s flesh stands in stark contrast to the

15 D

iana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing C

ultural M

emory in the Am

ericas, (Durham

: Duke U

niversity Press, 2003), 183.

171170

black and white photograph and the black background; the color of

her hand asserts her presence in the “now.” Bow

ser’s hand draws the

viewer into the photograph. O

ne imagines that if B

owser’s m

iss-ing fingers w

ere present they would be pointing tow

ards the viewer,

implicating her in the fram

e. The presence of Bow

ser’s hand holding the photograph, in its partiality, indexes the continued lack of aid and support. This photograph, like Pantoja’s, engages the view

er to ques-tion w

hat, or who, are m

issing.

How

ever, unlike the escraches performed in A

rgentina with

the aim of politically exposing the perpetrators of their disappear-

ing crimes, there is not a clear perpetrator to blam

e for the effects of A

gent Orange. W

hile the Am

erican government ordered the dispersal

of the herbicide, the Am

erican soldiers who sprayed the chem

ical are now

also suffering the effects of being exposed. Lawsuits have been

filed against Dow

Chem

ical and Monsanto, tw

o companies respon-

sible for the manufacturing of A

gent Orange, and a rem

ediation plant has recently been constructed in D

anang, Vietnam

, near one of the areas m

ost affected by the herbicide. Yet, the chemical rem

ains in the groundw

ater and the bloodlines of comm

unities. The continued exposure of people to A

gent Orange today is an environm

ental and hum

anitarian concern that can be addressed. Therefore, a photo-graphic lineage that traces the transgenerational effects of the herbi-cide can reengage view

ers with the fact that the herbicide continues

to exist in the environment in V

ietnam, and that new

bodies continue to be exposed. W

hat could a third, fourth, or fifth generation multi-

plying of the frame perform

? Would the bodies continue to disappear

or reappear as time progressed?

Future Exposures: R

egaining Subjectivity

While som

e photographs capture bodies affected by Agent

Orange, fixing them

as victims, other collections of photographs ex-

pose the transitive effects of the herbicide. Still, what types of repre-

sentations could be exposed to the public that would point tow

ards a curative future? B

aer argues that photographs possess an ontological futurity that allow

s for the potential of redemption, “[Photographs]

open up a future that is not known and, because it is unknow

n, might

yet be changed.”16 Indeed, contem

porary tools of photography,

16 Baer, Spectral Evidence, 182.

including digital manipulation, have opened up doors for im

ages of the past to be altered. This alteration of the im

age, and potentially the future of exposures of A

gent Orange in the environm

ent and on bodies, first requires an in-depth engagem

ent with the photographs

of the past and the people depicted within them

. The viewer m

ust be im

plicated in the frame and the fram

e must point tow

ards a future outside of itself.

How

ever, I would also propose an engagem

ent with bodies

affected by Agent O

range in live performance as the physical pres-

ence of people affected reestablishes their subjectivity. Bodies seen

as people, with nam

es, identities, and active lives that include living w

ith the effects and affects of the herbicide in the present can expose audiences to a different understanding of the proliferated effects of the herbicide in the present. H

ow w

ould a somatic relational engage-

ment, beyond the flat protective surface of a photograph, require an

observer to experience an empathetic affective response as opposed

to one of shock and aversion? Perhaps then, the problem that is seen

as fixed in a past mom

ent can be viewed as fixable in the future.

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gent Orange in V

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ork/agent-orange/health-effects.

Aspen Institute. “M

ake Agent O

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akeagentorangehistory.org.

Baer, U

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trauma. Paperback ed. C

ambridge. M

ass.: The MIT Press, 2005.

Butler, Judith. Fram

es of War: W

hen Is Life Grievable? London:

Verso, 2009.

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emem

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orking Through” in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. N

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an, Eva. After such knowledge: m

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legacy of the Holocaust. N

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Kristeva, Julia. Pow

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niversity Press, 1982.

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raf, and Michael M

illington. Psychosocial Aspects of D

isability. New

York: Springer Publishing C

ompany, 2012.

Schweik, Susan. “W

hat else can we do about A

gent Orange?” A

gent O

range and Addressing the Legacy of W

ar in Vietnam

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otary Club International and A

ctive Voice, University of

California B

erkeley. October 29, 2011.

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annikkam, R

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los Guerrero-B

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AN

EVA

LUA

TION

OF

RA

CE

CO

NC

OR

DA

NT

DO

CTO

R-PA

TIEN

T RE

LATIO

NSH

IP A

S A

ME

THO

D O

F E

LIMIN

ATIN

G C

ULTU

RA

L B

AR

RIE

RS IN

THE

VIE

TNA

ME

SE A

ME

RIC

AN

PA

TIEN

T PO

PU

LATIO

NPhuong Vy Le

A

s the medical field diversifies w

ith more professionals of

different racial and ethnic backgrounds, patients now have m

ore choices w

hen choosing healthcare providers. When available, pa-

tients tend to select physicians of their same race (LaVeist and Jeter

2002). In fact, when patients have the opportunity to select a health

care professional, they are more likely to choose people of their ow

n racial or ethnic background and are generally m

ore satisfied with the

care they receive (Am

erican Association of M

edical Colleges).

B

ehind this preference lies the presumption that a race-

concordant doctor, that is, a doctor with sim

ilar racial background, w

ould understand the patient’s needs and concerns more accurately

since there are no language or cultural barriers. One m

ay speculate the sam

e trend in the Asian A

merican population, or m

ore specifi-cally, the V

ietnamese A

merican population (G

ordon et al.). This paper seeks to access the factors contributing to a patient’s positive experience of a race-concordant relationship w

ith his or her physi-cian in the older V

ietnamese population. W

hile language barrier may

appear to be the greatest determinant, other cultural factors, such as

differences in social values and beliefs, were show

n to also play a substantial role in the quality of an older V

ietnamese patient’s visit to

a race-concordant doctor visit.

The Im

portance of the Patient-Doctor R

elationship in the Heal-

ing Process:

Patient-physician relationships have been shown to consti-

tute an important factor in encouraging people to take a m

ore active role in their health care (D

eBenedette 2011). W

ith the increase in the patient-doctor race discordant visits, or relationships involving patients and doctors of different races, m

ore investigations are be-

175174

ing carried out to study the effect of such a relationship. In general, patients of m

inority backgrounds are less likely than whites to rate

relationships with their physicians positive, as characterized by ef-

fective comm

unication, partnership, and trust (Doescher et al. 2012).

These patients, however, reported better relationships w

hen seeing physicians of their ow

n race or ethnicity. For example, A

frican-A

merican patients w

ho visit physicians of the same race rate their

medical visits as m

ore satisfying and participatory than do those who

see physicians of other races (Cooper et al. 2003).

In m

ore recent studies, even though race-concordant visits appeared to be longer and characterized by m

ore patient positive effect, no conclusion w

as reached regarding the association between

higher patient ratings of care in race concordant visits and patient-centered com

munication (C

ooper et al. 2003). Such findings sug-gest that a V

ietnamese patient seen by a V

ietnamese doctor does not

necessarily receive higher quality of care. Besides the fact that the

physician is race-concordant with the patient, other factors, such as

differences in patient and physician attitudes, may m

ediate the rela-tionship as w

ell.

The V

ietnamese Patient Population:

In order to understand the V

ietnamese A

merican popula-

tion, their imm

igration profile needs to be examined. V

ietnamese

Am

ericans are one of the fastest-growing m

inority groups in the U

nited States, with a projected population of 3.9 m

illion by 2030 (O

ng 1994, Bouvier 1985). The V

ietnamese population im

migrated

to Am

erica in three major w

aves (Pham). The first w

ave occurred w

hen military officers and their fam

ilies came at the end of the

Vietnam

War in 1975. V

ietnam w

as soon seized by the Com

munist

government, initiating the second w

ave of imm

igrants. To escape the C

omm

unist oppression, many V

ietnamese traveled by boat to arrive

in Am

erica in the early 1980’s; hence the term “boat people.” This

second wave of im

migrants also includes prisoners released from

the C

omm

unist “re-education” camps in the 1990’s. Finally, the third

wave refers to the recent and on-going population of V

ietnamese

imm

igrants coming to A

merica under fam

ily sponsorships. These m

ajor imm

igrating waves, according to Jenny D

ang, explain the high concentration of elders w

ithin the Vietnam

ese population in Am

erica,

as this older generation is also experiencing an extended life longev-ity (2012).

As explained, the V

ietnamese population is subdivided

mainly by generations. Every V

ietnamese patient, therefore, signifi-

cantly differs from others in term

s of their experience in Am

erica and the level of their cultural assim

ilation. When the 2003 C

alifornia H

ealth Interview Survey w

as conducted on the older Vietnam

ese population in A

merica, ninety nine percent of the V

ietnamese respon-

dents were born outside of the U

nited States, seventy four percent had lived in the U

nited States for at least 10 years, and eighty percent reported having lim

ited English speaking proficiency (Sorkin 2008). Such high percentages im

plies that even though the older population m

ay have resided in Am

erica for a long period of time, they are not

very assimilated to the A

merican culture, but rather still retain m

any of their traditional beliefs. C

ultural assimilation is defined precisely

as the degree in which im

migrants adopt the language, custom

s, and other cultural patterns on host country (M

in and Kim

1999).

Generally, V

ietnamese people tend to be excessively polite

and delicate. Frank honesty and the act of speaking up are therefore often considered disrespectful and inappropriate (G

ordon et al.). This tendency to keep their feelings to them

selves may hinder an effec-

tive doctor-patient relationship, as a Vietnam

ese patient may refrain

from an honest discussion w

ith the doctor regarding their illness. Furtherm

ore, Vietnam

ese culture values collectivism over individu-

alism (Pham

). Individuals within a com

munity, therefore, often are

extremely considerate about their ow

n actions to ensure that they are not im

posing a burden to the collective group. This is then the reason w

hy, according to Pham, new

s of a serious illness is often kept a secret am

ong family m

embers. It also further discourages an elder

patient who is not fluent in English to seek fam

ily mem

bers for help translating or navigating the A

merican healthcare system

(Pham).

Though w

ell informed of W

estern medicine, the older V

iet-nam

ese population generally still prefers to adhere to their traditional health m

odel instead. For instance, while life-saving antibiotics and

some disease causations, nam

ely the germ theory, are popular w

ithin the realm

of healthcare, Vietnam

ese are still foreign to the idea of preventative, long term

treatment (G

ordon et al.). The reason for this is because V

ietnamese seeking m

edical care often aim to relieve

177176

symptom

s since many believe m

edicine should be able to cure an illness right aw

ay. Patients, therefore, are likely to either discontinue m

edicines after symptom

s diminish, or seek other alternatives if

symptom

s seem to persist. W

orse yet, Vietnam

ese patients may even

assume an absence of illness if there are no observable sym

ptoms.

Physicians when giving care to the V

ietnamese population m

ust con-sider these general cultural traditions.

Vietnam

ese Healthcare Professionals – T

he Younger Generation:

W

ith such a contrast between W

estern medicine and the tra-

ditional Vietnam

ese health model, the m

ost effective solution sought to elim

inate the cultural barrier in healthcare for the Vietnam

ese population has been to increase the num

ber of Vietnam

ese doctors (D

ang 2011). In fact, the high demand of a doctor race-concordant

relationship in Vietnam

ese patients has partly driven the increase in the num

ber of Vietnam

ese physicians (Dang 2011). This sharp

increase is particularly evident in the number of A

sian Am

erican m

edical school applicants growing from

986 in 1974 to 7,622 in 1999, w

ith Vietnam

ese being one of the major categories (A

merican

Association of M

edical Colleges 2012). M

ore specifically, there are currently m

ore than 4,000 Vietnam

ese Am

erican physicians prac-ticing in the country (V

ietnamese A

merican M

edical Association

2012). The increase in the number of practicing V

ietnamese doctors

naturally enables more race-concordant visits of the V

ietnamese

patient population, and hence is often perceived as progress toward

closing the cultural barrier between a patient and a doctor (C

ooper et al.). Such effort, how

ever, will only be effective under the assum

p-tion that a V

ietnamese doctor shares sim

ilar cultural beliefs as their V

ietnamese patients. In reality, this is often not true, and the key in

accessing the validity in such an assumption lies in the distinction of

two different term

s - race and ethnicity.

The term V

ietnamese A

merican carries both racial and ethnic

implications, and the m

ain distinguishing characteristic of the young-er V

ietnamese A

mericans to the elder generation is often the basis of

the younger generation’s ethnicity (Min and K

im 1999). Even though

ethnicity is often used interchangeably with race, the tw

o are entirely different, yet closely related concepts. R

ace is somew

hat biological, differentiating people according to their appearance and geographical

origin (Ford and Haraw

a 2010). Ethnicity, on the other hand, “en-com

passes the aspects of social life and personal identity that people w

ithin some collective group chooses to share (Ford and H

arawa

2010). Doctor Lisa Low

e, a professor of Com

parative Literature at the U

niversity of California, San D

iego, in fact emphasizes the need

to recognize the heterogeneity within the A

sian Am

erican comm

unity (2004). A

sian Am

erican, or any single racial label, constitutes “a so-cial and political construct, w

hich only serves as one modifier for the

many individuals classified ” under the label (Lott 1997). O

perating on sim

ilar reasoning, one can conclude that although Vietnam

ese A

merican as a racial label, like other racial categories, m

ay provoke certain cultural presum

ptions, the term does not serve to specify an

individual background or beliefs. There is no single definition to be “V

ietnamese,” and there certainly is no single experience entirely

shared by all Vietnam

ese Am

ericans. (Lee and Zhou 2004, and Low

e 2004).

Not having participated in the earlier im

migrating w

aves w

ith the older generation, the younger Vietnam

ese generation, one that constitutes the m

ajority of current Vietnam

ese practitioners, will

not share the same sense of ethnicity as the older generation. In fact,

Asian A

merican youth, w

hich includes Vietnam

ese Am

ericans, have been show

n to base their personal identity not from their racial iden-

tity as being Asian, but rather, on a social identity form

ed in relation to the process of adjusting to the A

merican society w

here they are trained as m

edical professionals (Lee and Zhou 1999). Social identity entails “an aw

areness of one’s mem

bership in a social group that has a com

mon culture,” but that culture is not determ

ined by an individ-ual’s race (A

hearn et al. 2002). Therefore, individuals from the sam

e racial backgrounds in A

merica, such as V

ietnamese A

merican, m

ay form

a social identity on the basis of other social identifying factors. In the case of V

ietnamese A

merican m

edical school students, this social factor lies heavily in the environm

ent in which they receive

training.

The E

ffect of Medical School Training on V

ietnamese A

mericans

Sense of Identity:

Medical schools seek driven leaders w

ho can show com

pas-sion to others (A

merican A

ssociation of Medical C

olleges 2012).

179178

Such traits obviously contrast with the values in w

hich a Vietnam

ese A

merican w

as raised , such as being a reserved individual. In fact, M

edical Professor Soslan notes that the respect foreign-born Korean

or Vietnam

ese students in medical schools have tow

ard their facul-ties are “beyond reality” (cited in Le 2001). Professor Soslan further observes that the faculty’s casualness w

ith the medical students “w

as unacceptable to them

because they thought it was an effrontery to

showing respect.” This observation suggests that w

hile many A

sian A

mericans still uphold their traditional values, those values m

ay in turn hinder their subsequent advancem

ent in the medical field (Le

2001). Professor Soslan did in fact confirm this notion in his speech

at an Asian Pacific A

merican M

edical Student Association confer-

ence, discussing how behaviors pertaining to traditional A

sian values and culture -- to respect elders, to talk only w

hen spoken to, to be passive, and not question authority -- “m

ay be perceived as uncar-ing or uninterested in health care.” B

ecause of such traits, they som

etimes are even labeled as follow

ers, not leaders, despite other skills they m

ay possess (Le 2001). Given the specific expectations

demanded by the m

edical field, it is then fair to declare that medical

students of a Vietnam

ese background must som

ewhat consolidate

their traditional values at home w

ith those taught at the university.

A study done w

ith Vietnam

ese imm

igrants aged 50-70 years old identified three categories of them

es concerning the patients’ experiences w

ith cancer in a health care setting (Nguyen and H

olmes

2007). The three themes include: attitudes about addressing screen-

ing with providers, problem

s comm

unicating with physicians about

cancer, and language/translation difficulties. The results yield sub-stantial overlap betw

een patients who m

entioned each theme cat-

egory, along with the 40 percent w

ho mentioned all three. In addition

to suggesting that the older Vietnam

ese generation, though having lived in A

merica for a considerable am

ount of time, still have yet to

assimilate to the A

merican w

ays of life, the result also shows that the

language barrier is only a part of the story. While the last category

seems m

ostly racial, as it can be solved by having a Vietnam

ese-flu-ent doctor, the first tw

o seem m

ore cultural, characterized by differ-ent attitudes and personal beliefs of both the patient and the doctor. A

s shown earlier, having a V

ietnamese doctor does not guarantee

that the cultural barrier will dim

inish, since while the doctor and

the patient maybe V

ietnamese, their cultural identity, or ethnicity, is

likely to differ.

Conclusion:

Though having resided in A

merica for a long period of tim

e, the m

ajority of the Vietnam

ese older population still closely adheres to their traditional healthcare m

odel, one that contrasts with the

modern W

estern medicine. This cultural barrier m

ust be minim

ized to ensure an effective quality of care for m

edical seeking patients in A

merica. Efforts are being m

ade to accomplish this goal, but m

ainly in the form

of increasing the pool of Vietnam

ese doctors. After an

analysis of the generational differences in the older Vietnam

ese pa-tients and the younger practicing doctors, it is evident that even w

hen language barriers are rem

oved, as when V

ietnamese patients are

seen by Vietnam

ese doctors who are fluent in the native language,

there still exists a great amount of cultural barriers betw

een the two.

These findings imply that to enhance the quality of health care for

the Vietnam

ese populations, improving cultural com

petence among

physicians may prove to be m

ore effective than simply seeking a

race-concordant patient-doctor relationship.

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ultiple Identities. W

alnut Creek, C

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183182

AB

OU

T THE

AU

THO

RS

Kyle A

braham, class of 2015, is a sophom

ore majoring in A

sian A

merican Studies, concentrating in policy, organization, and lead-

ership studies in higher education. Kyle is very active in the A

sian A

merican com

munity at Stanford, holding leadership positions in the

Pilipino Am

erican Student Union and K

ayumanggi Filipino Folk,

and living in the Okada A

sian Am

erican Theme D

orm as a priority

resident. In his free time, you can find K

yle singing with Testim

ony C

hristian A C

appella and dancing with the U

rban Styles Dance C

om-

pany and Dv8 H

ip Hop D

ance. In the future, Kyle hopes to becom

e a professor or higher education and organizational change and A

sian A

merican Studies.

Sandy Chang is a senior at Stanford U

niversity majoring in English

with an em

phasis in Creative W

riting. She is a current columnist for

ALIST, a m

agazine dedicated to Asian A

merican leadership. Sandy

hails from M

innesota, but because she does not know how

to swim

, cannot enjoy M

innesota’s 10,000 lakes. Despite this flaw

, Sandy is an avid reader, talented w

riter, and champion eater!

Kelsey D

ang is pursuing a degree in Science, Technology, and Soci-ety w

ith a concentration in Sustainable Product Design. In 2011, she

was part of the W

orkshop Com

mittee for Stanford’s annual Listen to

the Silence Conference on A

sian Am

erican Issues. She considers her 2010 A

sian Am

erican Issues Alternative Spring B

reak trip to be one of her m

ost powerful and unforgettable undergraduate experiences.

Kelsey w

ill graduate from Stanford U

niversity in 2014.

Tiffany Dharm

a, class of 2014, is a computer science m

ajor on the biocom

putation track. With academ

ic interests at the intersection of healthcare and technology, Tiffany has conducted research on design-ing m

edical interfaces with the com

puter science department, volun-

teered with Stanford H

ealthcare Consulting G

roup, and earned her Em

ergency Medical Technician license. In her spare tim

e, she enjoys reading The N

ew Yorker, visiting art m

useums, and brew

ing green tea.

Natalia D

uong is currently finishing her MA

degree in Performance

Studies at NY

U after having graduated from

Stanford in 2010 with

a degree in Psychology and Dance. Since then, she has focused her

research (both artistic and scholarly) on people affected by the herbi-cide A

gent Orange.

Mark Flores is a freshm

an planning to double major in English

(with a creative w

riting emphasis) and B

iology, maybe. O

ften mis-

construed as a recluse, he regularly ventures outside his room and

goes off the internet to take short walks (not runs) to contem

plate the m

ysteries of the universe. He (day)dream

s of mountains w

hile traversing m

olehills, writes volum

es of stories in a single paragraph, and is an expert at taking care of his fake plants. N

eedless to say, he dearly hopes that people find him

interesting.

Justin Lam

is senior at Stanford University m

ajoring in art history, w

hich can’t get him a job, and m

inoring in education, which can’t get

him a job either, so he’s also prem

ed. Grow

ing up in Toronto, Justin has alw

ays had a love of writing, draw

ing, and stationery, and could often be found w

ith a duotang of loose-leaf lined paper on which he

would scribble dow

n the beginnings of many a story. N

ext year, he w

ill be going to medical school in Toronto.

Iris A L

aw is a the author of a chapbook, Periodicity (Finishing Line

Press 2013); the editor of Lantern Review

; and a Kundim

an Fellow. A

Stanford alumna (‘08) and a graduate of the M

FA program

at the U

niversity of Notre D

ame, she currently lives and w

orks in Lexing-ton, K

Y.

Phuong-Vy Le is a sophom

ore pursuing a major A

nthropology (w

ith a Medical A

nthropology emphasis) and a m

inor in Chem

istry, at Stanford U

niversity. She currently serves as a student staff at the Stanford A

sian Am

erican Activities C

enter, as well as a research

assistant for Dr. Eunice R

odriguez in the Stanford Medical School

Nurse D

emonstration Project. Vy enjoys w

riting, sewing, and espe-

cially participating in international medical service trips!

185184

Henry W

. Leung is a K

undiman Fellow

and the author of Paradise H

unger, which w

on the 2012 Swan Scythe Press Poetry C

hapbook C

ontest. He earned his B

A from

Stanford, during which tim

e he studied abroad at Peking, C

ambridge, and O

xford Universities. H

e is currently w

orking toward com

pletion of an MFA

in Fiction at the U

niversity of Michigan. H

is prose and poetry have appeared in such journals as B

oxcar, Cerise Press, and ZY

ZZYVA

Ngoc L

uu received her undergraduate degree in English at UC

B

erkeley and completed her M

FA in C

reative Writing at U

C R

iver-side. She w

as given a full scholarship to attend the Summ

er Poetry in Idyllw

ild in 2004 and was offered m

erit scholarships by the Summ

er Literary Sem

inars in 2005 and 2006. She was a K

undiman Fellow

in 2004, 2006, and 2007. A

dditionally, Ngoc has been published in

Mahfouz, an anthology of poetry published by P4P Press, N

aranjas y N

opales, a poetry broadside, and Here is a Pen, a chapbook pub-

lished by Achiote Press.

Christina N

guyen is a senior majoring in International R

elations. O

n campus she is a part of the Stanford V

ietnamese Student A

s-sociation and helps out w

ith Listen to the Silence, the annual Asian

Am

erican Issues Conference. She enjoys reading, traveling, w

riting, sketching, and learning (astronom

y, cultural studies, history, coding).

Born in Subic B

ay, Philippines, Mg R

oberts teaches writing in the

San Francisco Bay area. She is a K

undiman Fellow, K

elsey Street Press m

ember, and M

FA graduate of N

ew C

ollege of California

(where strange tricks w

ere added to her bag). Her w

ork has appeared and or is forthcom

ing in Bom

bay Gin, D

iaphany: A Living B

ook of N

ature, The New

Delta R

eview, Web C

onjunctions, and the anthol-ogy K

uwento for Lost Things. If she w

ere not a poet she would be a

snake handler, or maybe just a good speller.

Bushra R

ehman is the co-editor of C

olonize This! Young Wom

en of C

olor on Today’s Feminism

which w

as recently ncluded in Ms.

Magazine’s “B

est 100 Non-Fiction B

ooks of All Tim

e.” Her first

novel Corona, a dark com

edy about being South Asian in the U

nited States and poetic on the road adventure w

ill be released August 2013

through Sibling Rivalry Press.

Matthew

Salesses was adopted from

Korea at age tw

o, married a

Korean w

oman, and is raising a bilingual daughter. H

e is a columnist

and editor at The Good M

en Project, and has also written for The

New

York Times parenting blog, N

PR, The R

umpus, H

yphen Maga-

zine, Glim

mer Train, W

itness, Am

erican Short Fiction, and others. H

e is the author of the novel, I’m N

ot Saying, I’m Just Saying, and

the novella, The Last Repatriate. H

e tweets @

salesses.

Haerin Shin is a Ph.D

. candidate in comparative literature at Stan-

ford University, w

orking on contemporary A

merican, K

orean and Japanese literature, culture, critical theory and other form

s of media

(such as film, anim

ation and graphic narratives). The title of her dis-sertation is “D

ialectic of Spectrality: A Transpacific Study on B

eing in the A

ge of Cyberculture, 1945~2012,” and she w

ill be starting her post-graduate career as an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt U

niversity this fall. Her research focuses on the relationship betw

een technology and ontology, cognitive literary theory, psychoanalytic criticism

, the posthuman, speculative fiction, traum

a studies and A

sian Am

erican literature.

Michael Tayag is a graduating senior in C

omparative Studies

in Race and Ethnicity. O

n campus, he is involved w

ith the Asian

Am

erican comm

unity through the Pilipino Am

erican Student Union,

the Stanford Asian A

merican A

ctivism C

omm

ittee, and the Asian

Am

erican Activities C

enter Advisory B

oard. Interested in the issues of m

igrant workers, and dom

estic workers and caregivers in particu-

lar, he works w

ith the National A

lliance for Filipino Concerns and

the Pilipino Association of W

orkers and Im/m

igrants to organize and advocate for the issues of im

/migrants and w

orkers.

“Da Pidgin G

uerrilla” Lee A

. Tonouchi stay da writer of da book of

Pidgin short stories Da W

ord, author of da Pidgin essay collection Living Pidgin, com

piler of Da K

ine Dictionary, and editor of B

uss Laugh: Stand U

p Poetry from H

awai‘i. H

is latest book Signifi-cant M

oments in da Life of O

riental Faddah and Son: One H

awai‘i

Okinaw

an Journal won one A

ssociation for Asian A

merican Studies

186

book award.

Aldric U

lep class of 2014, studies Public Policy (Environmental

and Energy Policy). Being involved w

ith various green groups and program

s on campus, he strives to engender a m

ore environmentally-

conscious world. H

e fancies music of all kinds, and aside from

sing-ing a cappella and doing m

usical theater, he also plays the piano and com

poses.

Yael Villafranca is a poet based in the San Francisco B

ay Area. She

has had fellowships at K

undiman and V

ON

A, and holds degrees

from the U

niversity of San Francisco and California Institute of Inte-

gral Studies. More info at: about.m

e/yaelv

Nujsaubnusi C

assandra Vue is a sporadic writer w

ho mostly enjoys

crafting creative short stories and poems. She is inspired by her

experiences as a Hm

ong Am

erican female because she w

ishes to ex-plore and understand the intersection of culture on a variety of levels. She hopes to m

aintain her passion for writing throughout the rest of

her life.