As a verb--to stereotype--it was associated with fixing, stabilizing, perpetuating, and establishing, but was devoid of any social connotation. Only as an adjective--stereotyped--did synonyms move somewhat closer: trite, hackneyed, stock, set, banal, familiar, everyday, but still the contemporary usage of the word was not present.

            Then, beginning in the 1960s, all of this changed.

(Ewen, XV)

 

I can still see the word “chink” underlined and circled, glowing white on the freshly cleaned blackboard. The teacher walks in, ignoring the slur, and continues on with his lecture. I sit at my desk, my face growing redder, as he refuses to acknowledge the word. The other children snicker under their breath and it feels like they are all pointing and laughing at me. I start to cry and am sent to the principle’s office for disturbing the class. I was only nine years old at the time.

This memory is one of the many that I have of being taunted, harassed and degraded. I have tried to forget them, tried to let the discrimination roll off my back, but every day it seems I am confronted with these issues of identity. I no longer ignore it because it is an integral part of who I am today.

            During my years at UCLA, I have experimented with different ways of approaching social integration of identity issues. I have explored issues of lost identity, double identity and racial identity. I have looked at the history of stereotypes of Asian Americans to have an understanding of the stereotypes of today; I have created curious abstractions to reflect issues of ethnicity.

            Dr. David M. Brodzinsky states in his book, Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search For Self, “being adopted means different things to different people. To Ruth, fifty-five, it is the sense of always feeling unsettled, of there being an unfinished chapter to her life.
To Stuart, twenty-seven, it is gratitude at having been raised by loving and generous parents instead of by a birth mother he knows could never have given him what he needed. And to Kelli, twenty-six, it is the continuous pain of feeling different, out of place, never fully human” (Brodzinsky, 1).

Growing up in Minnesota as an adopted person left me struggling with issues of assimilation and denial. I was never “Korean” enough to fit into the Asian community or “Jewish” enough to fit into the Jewish community, nor was I ever “White” enough to fit into the surrounding community. The piece, Fresh Off the Boat, deals with issues of immigration throughout American history up to the present, while hinting towards the iconic painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware. The work also considers issues of assimilation into American culture.

“Legal” and “illegal,” “citizen” and “non-citizen,” and “U.S. born” and “permanent resident” are contemporary modes through which the liberal state discriminates, surveys, and produces immigrant identities. The presence of Asia and Asian peoples that currently impinges on the national consciousness sustains the figuration of the Asian immigrant as a transgressive and corrupting “foreignness” and continues to make “Asians” an object of the law, the political sphere, as well as national culture.

                                                                                                                                                                                                     (Lowe, 19) 

            The figures in this piece raise a conversation concerning feelings of denial, assistance and avoidance of American society; as well as being creepy and androgynous.  The porcelain clay body, as well as the racialized doll heads, reflects the history of immigration of Asians in this country.

            “In the last century and a half, the American citizen has been defined over against the Asian immigrant… “Asia” has been always a complex site on which the manifold anxieties of the U.S. nation-state have been figured: such anxieties have figured Asian countries as exotic, barbaric, and alien, and Asian laborers immigrating to the United States from the nineteenth century onward as a “yellow peril” threatening to displace white European immigrants” (Lowe, 4). While we all acknowledge that it is politically incorrect to outwardly stereotype someone by using degrading racial slurs, if composed into a joke or surrounded by humor, it is often not seen as being demeaning. “These stereotypes provided people with narratives, stories that encouraged them, without reflection, to see certain things, certain people, in predetermined ways, regardless of countervailing evidence…Stereotypes offered a habitual picture of reality, a line of defense against actual or perceived threats, protecting “our position in society”” (Ewen 8, 9). The pieces, Dragon Lady Bobblehead and Laundryman Bobblehead, deal with issues of humor and stereotypes, while also addressing a stereotype of Asians from the late nineteenth century that evolved into standard characters seen throughout motion pictures and novels.         

Living in Los Angeles, culture and news are dominated by the entertainment industry. The activities of celebrities are followed to an absurd level, often seeming that the primary purpose of an actor’s activity is the seeking of the publicity received. One of the “fads” receiving extraordinary press coverage has been celebrities adopting children from third world countries. “The most obvious issue for many of these adoptees is that they cannot escape the fact of being adopted. The great majority of international adoptees are from South Korea, the Philippines…-countries where the prevailing physical characteristics are quite distinct from those of the white Americans who tend to adopt” (Brodzinsky, 182). The piece, Thank You Madge and Ange, is a response to the publicity surrounding these adoptions which creates a “Great White Hope” environment for third world adoptions.

“The assumption was that blood and race could be broken down into precise fractions, tying a person’s present existence in a racially segregated society with a person’s purported biological ancestry” (Rowe, 225). Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees, Look At These, is reference to a rhyme that was often a part of my childhood playground experience, as is the piece Mixanese. While the rhyme seems simple and harmless, it refers to the slanted-eye stereotype of Asians and operates on the premise that one could tell certain “types” of Asians apart by pulling a certain way on the eyelid. The verse also makes a lewd suggestion at the sexuality of Asian women.

“Oftentimes, young peripheral…get their first exposure to the gang culture through various aspects of the media-news shows, movies, videos, and even through the music of various artists. Some music and movies tend to glamorize the gang lifestyle. Many kids who gravitate to gangs do so out of a need to belong to something and for the power that is gained from being in a gang. The society that we live in makes alternative lifestyles very appealing” (Nawokjczyk, 2). The piece, Throw ’Em Up, idealizes gang culture that has become so mainstream in today’s youth society. This relates to the use of certain historical, derogatory racial slurs that have become common words in today’s language. Using these words or flashing these signs allows that person to believe that they have an understanding of this romanticized, yet violent society.

“Banana” and “Twinkie”, are words used to refer to an Asian person who is “yellow on the outside and white on the inside”. These pieces explore the juxtaposition of not wanting to “act” white, but choosing to physically alter one’s appearance to “look” white. Looking at these alterations in their rawest form, one is forced to consider the irony of this conflict.

In the piece, Blepharoplasty, the figure is conducting her own surgery. Blepharoplasty is a double eye-lid surgery intended to create an extra flap on the eyelid and open the eye to be more round rather than the almond shape “Asian” eye.  The piece, Skin Bleaching, reflecting a figure scrubbing her skin with bleach, questions the sale by cosmetic companies of products geared to people of color that will “lighten” their skin. 

This body of work was started long before radio host Don Imus was fired for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos”.  It was nearly completed by the time of the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech by Cho Seung Hui, which led to a backlash on the Korean community.  These sad and recent events reaffirm my sentiments and the message of my work:  we have a very long way to go and a lot to learn when it comes to issues of race and identity in America. I did not need these stark reminders to remind me of my everyday experiences; but they reinforce my knowledge they will continue for the rest of my life.

I have chosen to express myself in this body of work because it reflects upon who I am and who I have become. It is important for me to share my experiences with others and to add to a greater understanding of these issues and their history so that there is less excuse for ignorance.
 

 

Works Cited

Brodzinsky, David M., Robin Marantz Henig, Marshall D. Schechter. Being Adopted:

The Lifelong Search for Self. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.


 
Ewen & Ewen 7. Typecasting on the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality. New York:

Seven Stories Press, 2006.


 
Lowe, Lisa. Immigrant Acts. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.

 

Rowe, John Carlos. Post-Nationalist American Studies. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 2000.


 
Street Gang Dynamics. Steve Nawojczyk. 1997. The Nawojczyk Group. 17 April, 2007

<www. Gangwar.com/dynamics.htm#top>.