Barker’s (2001) article, “The Asianization of America” discusses the influence of Asian culture in the US in the early 21st century, investigating whether or not Asian-Americans have finally “broken through” in US mainstream culture. Personally, I found the perspectives in the article to be fairly interesting. Barker (2001) claims that, in today’s culture, “it's not hard to imagine someone, freshly wakened from his futon and clad in a T-shirt emblazoned with Chinese calligraphy, ducking into Starbucks for a cup of chai before popping over to Blockbuster for Jet Li on DVD (para 4).” I feel Barker could have also just as easily mentioned that this person could have gone to dinner at P.F. Chang’s, and then gone home to play his Nintendo Wii. Of course, whether or not this is true integration of Asian culture is certainly debatable. All of those things are commercialized for mass appeal- our hypothetical hero likely had no idea what the symbols on his shirt meant, watched his movie in English, eaten fortune cookies (an American food) at P.F. Chang’s, and played a WWII game about the Pacific Front. None of these things imply any real understanding of Asian culture on any real level. After all, grabbing lunch at Taco Bell does not mean that you are celebrating Mexican culture (or maybe, in keeping with the lumping together of all Asian cultures, Hispanic culture as a whole).
However, as stated in Barker’s (2001) article, some Asian-Americans may feel that that a misrepresentation of Asian culture is better than no recognition of it at all. People of Asian descent have long been discriminated against in the US- from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to Japanese Internment during WWII, Asian-Americans have a history of being marginalized and cast aside. In fact, limitations on allowing people of Asian descent to become US citizens existed until the late 1940s. Perhaps, for some people, ignorance is better than being ignored.
I feel that because of this long-standing discrimination, many people still see Asian-Americans as an “other,” something foreign and different. This is echoed by Leonard (2003), in his article “Yo, Yao! What does the "Ming Dynasty" tell us about race and transnational diplomacy in the NBA?” Leonard claims that American fascination with Yao Ming focuses on his foreign-ness, as illustrated by arenas distributing fortune cookies to celebrate his arrival to the NBA, as well as commercials that focus on his difficulties with the English language. Through this, one could easily see how his arrival in the NBA was, in many ways, exploited, thus illustrating the difficulties of celebrating and embracing Asian culture in the US.
I really like what you said about eating at P.F. Chang's and Taco Bell. Unfortunately I think we do still live in a society that is blind to the fact that what we want from other cultures (food, style, entertainment) is not always represented in a way that is authentic to the culture. Both of these articles did a great job at explaining that there is a need for a revamp in the American societies views of Asian culture.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read this article, some 10 years ago, I remember it being eye-opening to think about all the ways that "Asian culture" pervaded U.S. culture. You brought up a great point when you said that so many of the things that are highlighted in this article "are commercialized for mass appeal." In my view, that is another example of what I referred to as "commodity racism."
ReplyDelete