“

Axe d'étude 3 > Représenter le monde et se représenter.

UNIT
REPRESENTATIONS

”
> 1 EUQITAMÉHT

Asian Americans : AA in the pop culture :

A history of affirmative action or
discrimination ? stereotype ?

AA in the
COVID-19 era :

back to the future ?

1
 AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander. The term is used to describe a diverse and
fast-growing population of 23 million Americans that include roughly 50 ethnic groups with roots in
more than 40 countries. May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month (or AAPIHM for
short), first created by Congress in 1992. AAPIHM falls in May because of several historical
milestones, including the 1843 arrival of the first Japanese immigrants, and Chinese laborers'
enormous contributions to building the transcontinental railroad, which was finished in May 1869.

The federal government defines the term AAPI to include "all people of Asian, Asian American, or
Pacific Islander ancestry who trace their origins to the countries, states, jurisdictions and/or the
diasporic communities of these geographic regions." As of 2000, "Asian" and "Pacific Islander"
became two separate racial categories on the U.S. Census, replacing "Asian Pacific Islander."
[...]
Here's what to know about who might identify as Pacific Islander, and as Asian American, as well as a
brief history of both terms.

Who Might Identify as Asian American?

The U.S. Census bureau currently defines a member of the U.S. Asian population as "a person having
origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent
including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine
Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam."

In 1968, students of Asian heritage first coined the term Asian-American in Berkeley, California, with
the intent to unify their efforts for political and social recognition—and command respect. “Historically,
we’d been called things like ‘Oriental’ and ‘Asiatic,’ or racial slurs,” says Catherine Ceniza Choy,
Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, and the author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration
in Filipino American History. “This ability to name oneself was really important.”

Choy points out that "it's difficult to honor an 'Asian-American experience,'" given what an enormous
population the category applies to. For instance, she says, "the hashtag #BrownAsiansExist is a
critique of how South Asian Americans and Filipino Americans feel that their experiences are
considered marginal to some East Asian-American experiences," such as those of Chinese
Americans or Japanese Americans. (Further, some Filipino-Americans may identify as Pacific
Islander; more on that below.)

Who Might Identify as Pacific Islander?

The Census Bureau identifies Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (NHPI) as "a person having
origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands."
Source : oprahdaily.com

1. Use the pen / draw function of you pdf software to circle

the area where Asian Americans originate.
Note: you can find the interactive map here for more info.
2. Match each figure with the corresponding information.
1843
50
1968
23M
1992
2000
2
 Asians did not start immigrating to the Asian immigrants often faced
United States until the 1800s. Workers from discrimination, or unfair treatment, from
China began arriving in the United States in whites. In addition, the U.S. government did
about 1820. A gold rush in California in the not allow them to become U.S. citizens. This
mid-1800s brought many more Chinese meant that Asian immigrants did not have
people to the West Coast. In the 1860s the same rights as immigrants from Europe.
about 15,000 Chinese workers helped to
build the transcontinental (cross-country)
railroad. Almost all the early Chinese Eventually, the government introduced laws
immigrants were young men. Many came to to stop Asians from immigrating to the
earn money but planned to return to China. United States.
Others decided to stay. In 1882 the U.S. Congress passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act. This law stopped
Meanwhile, in the 1850s and 1860s, people Chinese people from immigrating to the
from China and Japan began arriving in United States. The Immigration Act of 1924
Hawaii. They came mainly to work on sugar the stopped all immigration from Asia until
plantations, or large farms. Thousands more the mid-1960s.
Japanese arrived in Hawaii during the 1880s.
In the early 1900s workers from Korea and
the Philippines also landed to work on Despite this discrimination, many Asian
Hawaii’s plantations. Americans started families, set up
businesses, and built communities in the
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, United States.
many immigrants from Japan, Korea, and the Their children, born in the United States,
Philippines settled on the West Coast. became U.S. citizens. Many Asian
Smaller numbers sailed from India. Many Americans served in the U.S. military, during
Asian immigrants worked on farms in World War II or the Vietnam War for
California. instance.

1. Where did the first Asian immigrants in the

USA come from, when, and what for?
Which line of work did they end up working in?

2. America has often been called the "land of

opportunity". Discuss this statement in the light
of Asian American immigration history.
Imagine what the family on the photo could be
thinking about this statement, given their situation.

3
 Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinoda is an American musician, singer, songwriter, rapper, record
producer, and graphic designer. He was born and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura
Hills, on February 11, 1977. He is a third-generation Japanese American (sansei): his grandfather
emigrated from Japan in 1905.

As a child, he loved to paint and his mother encouraged him to take classical piano lessons when
he was six. By 13, he expressed the desire to move toward playing jazz, blues, and even hip-hop.
He later added the guitar and rap-style vocals to his repertoire during his middle school and high
school years.
Shinoda attended Agoura High School with Linkin Park bandmates Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon.
After graduating high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design of Pasadena to
study graphic design and illustration.

A few years later, in 1999, Mike Shinoda and his alternative metal band, Linkin Park, released
their first album, Hybrid Theory, and it was an instant success.

When Shinoda created his hip-hop-driven solo project, Fort Minor, in 2004, he had already
collaborated with many hip hop artists. The Rising Tied was released in November 2005. About the
record, he says: "I was a producer and rapper before Linkin Park. Once the band took off, it was
the center of my focus. A couple of years ago, I started missing doing straight-up hip hop, and
that's when Fort Minor began. It's a hip-hop record, but it's a musician-based hip-hop record, [...]
so I wanted to write every note, record every note and play every note."

Full name: __________________________________

élevé = ________________________________________________________________________
Date of birth: _______________________________
collège = _____________________________________________________________________
Place of birth: _____________________________
Après avoir eu son bac = _________________________________________________

Origins: ______________________________________
groupe (de musique) = _________________________________________________
Qualities: ____________________________________
ont sorti = ___________________________________

a décollé = __________________________________

4
 [Intro: Mike's father]
"My father, came from Japan, in 1905.
He was fifteen when he, immigrated from Japan.
He, he, he worked until he was able to buy
To actually build a store"

[Mike Shinoda]
Let me tell you a story in the form of a dream.
I don't know why I have to tell it, but I know what it means.
Close your eyes, just picture the scene
As I paint it for you.

It was World War II

When this man named Kenji woke up.
Ken was not a soldier, he was just a man
With a family who owned a store in L.A.

That day, he crawled out of bed like he always did,

Bacon and eggs with wife and kids.
He lived on the second floor of a little store he ran.
He moved to L.A. from Japan.

They called him immigrant, in Japanese

He'd say he was called "issei".
That meant first generation
In the United States when

Everybody was afraid of the Germans, afraid of the Japs,

But most of all, afraid of a homeland attack.
And that morning, when Ken went out on the doormat
His world went black, 'cause

Right there, front page news

Three weeks before 1942:
Pearl Harbor's been bombed and "The Japs are Coming".
Pictures of soldiers dying and running. [...]

5
 [PART 2]
Ken knew what it would lead to. So now, they're in a town with soldiers surrounding them
And just like he guessed, the president said Every day, every night, looked down at them
"The evil Japanese in our home country From watchtowers up on the wall.
Would be locked away". Ken couldn't really hate them at all.

They gave Ken a couple of days They were just doing their job
To get his whole life packed in two bags. And he wasn't gonna make any problems.
Just two bags, he couldn't even pack his clothes He had a little garden,
And some folks didn't even have a suitcase Vegetables and fruits that he gave to the troops
In a basket his wife made.
To pack anything in. But in the back of his mind, he wanted his family's life saved.
So two trash bags, is all they gave them. Prisoners of war in their own damn country, what for?
And when the kids asked mom, "Where are we going?"
Nobody even knew what to say to them. And time passed in the prison town,
He wondered if he'd live it down
Ken didn't wanna lie. If and when they were free.
He said, "The U.S. is looking for spies The only way out was joining the Army, and supposedly
So, we have to live in a place called Manzanar
Where a lot of Japanese people are". Some men went out for the army, signed on
And ended up flying to Japan with a bomb.
Stop it, don't look at the gunmen. That fifteen kiloton blast
You don't wanna get the soldiers wondering Put an end to the war pretty fast.
If you're gonna run or not.
'Cause if you run, then you might get shot. Two cities were blown to bits,
The end of the war came quick.
Other than that, try not to think about it. And Ken got out, big hopes of a normal life
Try not to worry 'bout it being so crowded With his kids and his wife, but...
'Cause someday, we'll get out.
Someday, someday...
[Interlude: Mike's aunt]
"Yeah, soon as war broke out, the FBI came and
They just come through the house and, "you have to come
All the Japanese have to go".
They took Mr. Ni, the people couldn't understand
Why they had to take him because he's an innocent laborer."

6
 [PART 3]

Then they got back to their home,

And what they saw made him feel so alone.
These people had trashed every room,
Smashed in the windows and bashed in the doors,

Written on the walls and the floor:

"Japs not welcome, anymore!"
And Kenji dropped both of his bags at his sides
And just stood outside.

He looked at his wife without words to say.

She looked back at him, wiping tears away
And said, "Someday, we'll be okay, someday".

Now, the names have been changed, but the story is true:
My family was locked up, back in '42.
My family was there, where it was dark and damp,
And they called it an internment camp.

[Outro]
[Mike's father:] "When we first got back from camp, uh
It was pretty, pretty bad."
[Mike's aunt:] "I-I remember, my husband said
"Oh we're gonna stay 'til last."
Then my husband died, before they closed the camp."

Some web links to go further (optional):

* "Kenji" lyrics (with some explanations from Mike Shinoda):
* Wikipedia pages on the "internment of Japanese Americans":

* A Japanese American on her family's history around the WW2 era (video):

* Short videos (5 min.) explaining the internment system (English): |

* Mike Shinoda on "Kenji" song and being Japanese American: words | video

7
 Following World War II, Congress passed By 2000 there were about 12 million Asian
laws that led to fairer treatment of Asian Americans in the United States, jumping to
Americans.The Immigration and Nationality 24 million in 2021. They make up about 7%
Act of 1952 gave all Asian immigrants the of the U.S. population, and are the
right to become U.S. citizens. The fastest-growing minority in the country.
Immigration Act of 1965 allowed people from About half of them live in the West,
any Asian country to immigrate to the USA. especially in Hawaii and California.
In the East, New York has the highest
After 1965, numerous new Asians emigrated number of Asian Americans.
to the United States. Many came from Korea
and countries in Southeast Asia, especially Despite getting slightly better political and
Vietnam. These immigrants were often cultural representation since the 1990s,
fleeing wars in their homelands. But Asian even today some Asian Americans still feel
immigrants also moved abroad to find work. that other fellow Americans treat them as
For example, great numbers of Indians outsiders, or stereotype them as a "model
came to get a job in the United States as minority". And the Covid-19 pandemic has
doctors, scientists, engineers, or computer brought new challenges and old resentment
specialists. toward the AAPI communities.

1. Drawing information from the texts and charts above, analyse the evolution of Asian American
immigration post-World War II. (Point out the causes and consequences)

2. Do AAPI finally feel like they are fully part of the American nation?

Follow this link, choose 1

of the periods mentioned,
& get ready to present it /
talk about it in groups. A historical journey The full Wiki page AA history:
into AA oppression (Asian immigration) a timeline
8
 LOST IN THE '90S: STRUGGLING TO FIND ASIAN AMERICAN
REPRESENTATION WHEN THERE WAS NONE

The '90s were a magical time wherein the seeds of mainstream nerd culture started to grow,
but in retrospect, that time period grades out very poorly in Asian American representation.
Asians weren’t invisible, but the more successful characters were often regulated to tired
tropes like Mr. Miyagi [from the Karate Kid movies] — the old, exotic master — or Jackie Chan
— the goofy foreigner who’s good at martial arts.
[...]
The '90s are long gone, but Asian American representation hasn’t gotten much better. The
biggest names in pop culture still put white faces to Asian stories. Just look at Scarlett
Johansson’s Major Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton’s The Ancient One in
Doctor Strange. One day, though, hopefully soon, Asian American kids will be able to see
themselves in people and not mutated reptiles [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are technically
sons of a Japanese immigrant].
By Ariel Dean. August 1, 2020. syfy.com

What is Ariel Dean's assessment of Asian American representation in pop culture since the 90s?

Fresh off the Boat (2015 - 2020) is an American

sitcom TV series loosely based on chef Eddie
Huang's autobiography of the same name.
It depicts the life of a Taiwanese-American family
in Florida in the 1990s.
Each season poster consists of a reinterpretation
of an iconic American artistic masterpiece.
Click on the image to go through all 6 reimaginings,
then choose 1 and answer the questions below.
Compare the original art to the reinterpretation.
Imagine what the aims of the creators could be.

Watch season 2, episode 10 of

Fresh off the Boat titled "The Real Santa",
bearing in mind the following question:

To what extent are the Huangs

9
a typical 1990s American family?
 Crazy Rich Asians is a 2018 American movie featuring
an all-Asian American cast, reportedly a first since
1993's pioneering work The Joy Luck Club. It quickly became a box
office hit, turning out to be the highest-grossing romantic comedy in
a decade (and a fairly successful cultural phenomenon).

Judging from the movie trailer,

discuss the following statement :
(200 words, +/- 10%)

"Crazy Rich Asians is your

run-of-the-mill
Hollywood movie."

* Asian American representation hasn't gotten much better.

the more successful characters were often relegated to tired tropes.

* New York has the highest number of Asian Americans. Download the pdf file
the fastest-growing minority in the country. and read through the
the most discriminatory laws were passed before the 1950s. review sheets + lesson

Asian Americans in Hollywood.

Crazy Rich Asians cast

on their characters in the A press article on present day
movie, and inspirations. Asian American representation
10 in Hollywood and streaming services
 A. TIME magazine cover. 1987 How would you describe the "kids" on the cover? How do they look?

Infer the meaning of "whiz kids" :

B. The myth of the 'model minority', The Washington Post. 2017

C.
Forexistence.
as long as I could remember, I have struggled to prove myself into
I, the modern-day scrivener, working five times as hard as others
and stillI saw my hand dissolve, then my arm [...]

In the popular imagination, Asian Americans inhabit a vague purgatorial

5. status: not white enough nor black enough; distrusted by African Americans,
ignored by whites, unless we’re being used by whites to keep the black man
down. We are math-crunching middle managers who keep the corporate
wheels greased but who never get promoted since we don’t have the right
“face” for leadership. We have a content problem. They think we have no
10. inner resources. But while I may look impassive, I am frantically paddling my
feet underwater, always over-compensating to hide my devouring feelings of
inadequacy.
There’s a ton of literature on the self-hating Jew and the self-hating African American, but not enough
has been said about the self-hating Asian. Racial self-hatred is seeing yourself the way the whites see
15. you, which turns you into your own worst enemy. Your only defense is to be hard on yourself, which
becomes compulsive, and therefore a comfort, to peck yourself to death. You don’t like how you look,
how you sound.
You think your Asian features are undefined, like God started pinching out your features and then
abandoned you. You hate that there are so many Asians in the room. Who let in all the Asians? You rant
20. in your head. Instead of solidarity, you feel that you are less-than around other Asians, the boundaries of
yourself no longer distinct but congealed into a horde.

I like to think that the self-hating Asian is on its way out with my generation, but this also depends on
where I am. At Sarah Lawrence, where I taught, I had students who were fierce—empowered and
politically engaged and brilliant— and I thought, Thank God, this is the Asian 2.0 we need, Asian women
25. ready to holler. And then I visited a classroom at some other university, and it was the Asian women
who didn’t talk, who sat there meekly like mice with nice hair, making me want to urge: You need to talk!
Or they’ll walk all over you!
Minor Feelings : An Asian American Reckoning, Cathy Park Hong, 2020.
11
 Read the extract from Cathy Park Hong's book, then answer the following questions:

1) What kind of book is Minor Feelings ? memoir / autobiography detective story

(2 correct answers) fantasy novel essay
2) l. 1-3. What idea is the narrator trying to convey through the "dissolving hand, then arm" metaphor?

3) l. 4-12. What issues do Asian Americans have to deal with at work?

4) l. 13-21. Explain why many AAPIs end up hating themselves, and point out the consequences.

5) l. 22-27. Does Cathy Park Hong witness any change within the younger AAPI generation?

GROUP ACTIVITY
Summarize what you have found out studying docs. A, B and C.:
Who is called the "model minority"? By whom?
What does the term "model minority" entail ? What are the consequences?

The full Washington Post video on

the model minority myth, including
cut out historical context and analysis.

Full article titled

"The 'model minority' myth hurts AA -
and even leads to violence."
"Explaining the
model minority myth"
"6 charts that dismantle the trope VIDEO
of AA as a 'model minority' " (Part of a 9-episode series
Very interesting analysis. (2021) on Asian Americans)

Another feature article

"The long history of US racism
against Asian Americans."
12
 As US Emerges From COVID, AAPI Leaders Say
Hate Incidents Expected to Rise.
Reported violence against Asian Americans dropped for more than two decades, data shows.
That changed in 2016, and the troubling trend has only intensified with more violent attacks.

By Nina Lin and Andrew Williams - Published May 18, 2021 • Updated on June 30, 2021

Asian Americans have long been subjected to bias in the United States. But anti-Asian bias attacks
have taken a more violent turn since Covid became a reality for Americans under a president bent on
scapegoating Asians for the pandemic.
[...]
“[Asians] particularly face more racism during periods of pandemic, periods of war and periods of
economic downturn. Last year we experienced three things,” Dr. Russell Jeung said. “We had the
pandemic. We had economic distress because of the pandemic. We had a US-China cold war. So
those three factors are just the perfect storm conditions for racism to occur amidst those conditions.”
[...]
The latest statistics from Stop AAPI Hate, a group dedicated to filling the gap in data related to bias
incidents against Asian Americans, showed that self-reported incidents of racism and hate crimes
jumped from a cumulative 3,795 between March 2020 and February 2021 to 6,603 within just one
month in March 2021. [...] Many of the incidents included slurs, references to race and to the
coronavirus. The most horrifying incidents involve unprovoked attacks against the elderly. [...]

San Francisco has seen the highest number of documented

attacks in a city in California. In one case, an Asian American
father was walking with his 1-year-old child in a stroller when
he was knocked over and repeatedly punched in the head outside
of a grocery store. That same day, two elderly Asian women, 63
and 84, were stabbed as they waited for a bus. Both incidents
occurred near each other along 4th Street. In a viral case of
AAPI violence, an elderly Asian man was robbed and attacked
for the recyclables he had been collecting near a housing project
in Bayview, San Francisco.
Throughout the incident, bystanders laughed at and taunted the
man. One person can be heard saying, "I hate Asians."

1. Who is the "president" referred to in line 2? What was his message?

2. In your own words, explain and expand on the three reasons Dr. Jeung gives for the rise in
Anti-asian hate crime?
3. Drawing on the text and the line graph provided, compare the numbers of incidents stemming
from bias against Asians over the entire year of 2015, and the month of March 2021.

4. Translate the add-on text from "San Francisco has seen..." down to "... along 4th Street".

13
 Watch the video dealing with the
"Stop Asian Hate" movement
a couple of times, take notes,
and be ready to talk about its essential points.

(If you need help, click on the 'note' sign)

14
 Nearly a year to the day after I wrote that journal entry, a white man walked into three spas
HUFFPOST PERSONAL
15 in Georgia and fatally shot eight people. Six of them were Asian women: Xiaojie Tan,

I’m An Asian American Woman. The Daoyou Feng, Soon C. Park, Hyun J. Grant, Suncha Kim, and Yong A. Yue. The other two
victims, Paul Andre Michels and an unnamed woman, were white.
Sexualized Racism I Face Is Terrifying. What are the odds of me being the target of a hate crime? That depends on what you
“I’ve been called racial and sexual slurs until I started crying, only to find that the
consider to be a hate crime; incredibly, many don’t think the recent killing spree counts, with
person harassing me enjoyed my tears.”
20 “sexual addiction” and the perpetrator having “ a really bad day ” being proposed as the true
By Christine Liwag Dixon 03 /19 / 2021 09:00 am ET I Updated Mar 19, 2021 cause. Statistically, the odds of being the victim of physical or sexual violence as an Asian
American woman are quite high; 21% to 55% of Asian women in the U.S. have reported
being victims.

These shootings are far from the only acts of violence that have been committed against
25 Asian women in the past year. Of the 3,795 crimes against Asian Americans reported to Stop
AAPI Hate from March 19, 2020, to February 28, 2021, most were against women; Asian
American women 2.3 times more incidents than men.

It’s not surprising that women are so often targeted, especially when you consider how
Asian women are viewed in America. We are perpetual foreigners; regardless of citizenship
THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
30 or where we are born, there will always be people who see us as exotic specimens plucked
-
ATLANTA, GEORGIA MARCH 17 Gold Spa, one of three locations where deadly shootings happened yesterday at three day
.. .
spas, in Atlanta, Georgia, U S March 17, 2021 (Photo by Chris Aluka Berry for The Washington Post via Getty Images) from the East for their enjoyment. We are viewed as sexually voracious Dragon Ladies or as
eager -to-please sex dolls. Either way, we are sexualized and objectified and it puts us in
danger.
When the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic and I found myself in lockdown, I
decided to keep a journal to chronicle my experience. I abandoned it after a few weeks, as
I’ve experienced it too many times to count, and it’s incredibly normalized. Once, I was
pandemic fatigue set in, but not before writing about the fear that gripped me in those early
35 standing in line to renew my license when a man behind me asked, “Excuse me, but can I
days.
ask what you are? Would you happen to be Pacific Islander ?”

5 “I’ m scared to leave my house, not just because there is a virus out there that no one can
I answered, “ I’m Filipino.”
control but because my face is not safe in this pandemic,” reads my entry from March 22,
2020. “I am scared to go outside because I have seen my friends and relatives blamed for “Ahhh, that explains it. I was stationed in the Philippines when I was younger. Most beautiful
this sickness, because I have been told to go back to China even when the world wasn’t women I’ve ever seen in my life.”
choking. We cannot tame this virus but we also cannot tame the racism that has
10 accompanied it.” 40 He said all this not to my face but to my breasts, and as his wife stood right next to him. It
was a long line and he was standing too close; I left and returned the next day.
The rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans was already starting, but it was getting very
little mainstream attention. Sometimes I wondered if I was overreacting. What were the odds Women experience misogyny every day, but being
of me being the target of a hate crime, anyway?
Asian adds an additional layer of dehumanization.
______________________ = épidémie ________________ = maîtriser, dompter the target = _________________ regardless of = ______________ ___________ = dans les deux cas
____________________ = confinement already = _________________________ ____________ = folie meurtrière _______________ = citoyenneté stand in line = _______________
gripped = ________________________ ___________________ = me demandais most = _____________________ ______________ = cueillis, ravis ____________ = en poste (milit.)
15 _______________________ = proches ____________________ = la probabilité ________________ = étrangères enjoyment = ________________ _____________ = seins, poitrine
 Men have often told me what they “ know ” about my body. They swear that my pussy is ____________________ = jurent ______________ = les éconduise worry = ___________________
tighter than a white woman’s and that they’d love to “stretch it out.” They tell me that I taste = _____________________ ugly anyway = ______________ ________________ = irrésistible
haven’t known real pleasure because Asia doesn’t have real men. They say they want to ___________ = plus doux / sucré layer = ____________________ ___________________ = lié par
45 taste me because chocolate nipples are sweeter than pink ones.
lift up = ____________________ ________ = harceler (dans la rue) shared = ___________________
____________________ = bridée ________________ = en proie à __________________ = chagrin
I' ve been offered money for sex because “that’s all Filipino women are good for anyway.”
woo = _____________________ pepper spray = ______________ speak up = _________________
I' ve had men try to lift up my skirt “to see if your c **t is as slanted as your eyes.” I’ve been
called racial and sexual slurs until I started crying, only to find that the person harassing me
50 enjoyed my tears.

Many of the men are aggressive, but some of them have tried to woo me — at first. They
beg me to whisper ancient Chinese secrets in their ear, vow to treat me like an empress,
The official AAPI Heritage Month (May) website
offer to lay cherry blossoms at my feet. Until I turn them down. “Asian women are ugly
anyway,” they say.

55 The hypersexualization of Asian women plays a huge part in the violence we face. Knowing
how violent men can be when they’ve been rejected makes me think about the shooter, Fresh Off the Broke
who said he saw his victims as a “temptation ” that needed to be removed. A podcast series by and for Asian immigrants.
Women experience misogyny every day, but being Asian adds an additional layer of
dehumanization. A misogynist might catcall, “Hey, nice tits.” But a man who is targeting me
60 on the basis of my race and my gender is more likely to say something like, “Wow, I’ve never Asian American politician Andy Kim on his children
seen an Asian woman with big boobs.” facing racism, political representation & ideas,
recent hate crime surge, being American, etc.
I don’t want to live my life in fear, but I find myself grappling with anxiety every time I have to
leave the house. I wear dresses with pockets so that I have a place to stash my pepper
spray. A couple of my friends have admitted they’re thinking of buying a gun, “just in case.”
Interactive map of reported incidents of
65 We don’t want to think of the unspeakable happening, but every time we hear of another Asian American-targeted hate.
one of our sisters being targeted, we worry we will be next. There’s an overwhelming sense
of solidarity among Asian American women right now, but it’s not the kind of solidarity I ever
wanted to see. Who would ever choose to be bonded by shared trauma?

But then, that’s what it’s like to be an Asian woman in America. We are bonded by trauma
70 and grief, but also by anger. We are angry that our voices are often silenced. We are angry AAPI Data website Stop AAPI Hate website
that the racism and misogyny we have experienced our entire lives so rarely gets attention.

We are angry that it took six Asian women being killed for people to finally start talking
about the rise in racism we have been living with for the past year.
13 great maps and charts that
explain immigration to the US.
“Why do you think Asian women have finally started speaking up?” people have asked me.

75 We’ve been speaking up all along. You just haven’t been listening.
16