8 Asians

United We Stand: 5 Baby Steps Asian-Americans Can Take Toward Solidarity

By akrypti | Saturday, August 18, 2007 | Comments


unity.jpg I’ll get right to my point. The single most important issue our community faces today: Unity.

Ironically, where non-Asians view us as one homogenous mob of exotic, stoic, and hard-working brown and yellow people, we differentiate ourselves into countless coteries by geography, clan origins, skintone (light vs. dark), Westernized vs. Asian natives, inner-city vs. suburbanite, socioeconomic classes, and by political factions. Differences between us impress upon our attitudes so heavily that Asians discriminate against other Asians much more so than non-Asians discriminate against Asians. This leads many to throw their hands up at the idea of Asian unity and say, “It cannot be done.”

Well, it has to be done. And we can start by each taking 5 baby steps in a positive direction: (1.) Avoid disparaging one another, in jest or in rant, (2) Give one another the benefit of our doubt, (3.) Do not inherit our parents’ ethnic prejudices, (4.) Join national Asian-interest associations or networks, and (5.) Volunteer at an Asian-interest non-profit organization.

5 Baby Steps Each of Us Can Take Toward Solidarity

1. Avoid Disparaging One Another, In Jest or In Rant

Stop telling each other racist jokes about Asian nationalities different from your own. A Japanese person has no more right to make derisive remarks about Chinese stereotypes than a White person making the same. It’s just as ignorant. So stop it.

Also, if you can refrain from it, no vituperative rants against one another either, please. Even if you care nothing for Asian unity, it’s just unclassy behavior. For example, 8A readers voiced their concerns over possible homophobia, anti-Semitism, and misogyny at ModelMinority.com, which then prompted MM to create an entirely new discussion forum to address our references to them. MM members like WStallion wrote, “Why the f**k should we care about what other whorientals think?” (Note his signature block: “Kill, kill, kill the white man!”) to which another author kizoku replied, “Who said you should? I just happened upon it and thought it was interesting what ‘outsiders’ had to say.” (Again, going straight to the heart of my contention—that we care more to divide ourselves than to unite.) After that exchange, other authors like Three_Kingdoms jump in and name-call kizoku a “prostitute,” further utilizing highly derogatory language to persecute kizoku, referring to her reproductive organs in a manner more explicit than I’m (or anyone should be) used to. That was all on page 1. I did not even click forward to page 2. Exchanges like these need to stop.

2. Give One Another the Benefit of Our Doubt.

Generally, we’re so harsh and critical of one another, like how many of our overbearing parents were to us. We claim we do it because we hold ourselves to a higher standard, because at bottom it’s all out of love and sure, we can argue our hearts are in the right places, but the unyielding harshness and criticism destroy more than they mend. Stop assuming the most negative outcome possible from a fellow Asian.

For example, our banter here on 8A regarding interracial dating reveal some of our own not-so-high-minded judgments of one another for the choices we make. I am personally censurable for my cynical dicta on Asian men. Doing so never helps any cause and only polarizes members of the same community even more. Everyone tends to make sweeping generalizations, but for our own sake, when those happen to be negative against our own people, can we please take a step back to think twice on whether it’s really worth our mention?

Note: This is not to say we cannot criticize each other at all, but when you do, keep the criticism constructive.

3. Do Not Inherit Our Parents’ Ethnic Prejudices.

You can’t change what your Taiwanese mother thinks of the mainland Chinese or what your Korean father says of the Japanese, but you can control how it affects your judgments of people. You don’t have to pass on the prejudicial attitudes to your children and you certainly don’t have to repeat the hearsay to others. Rape, war, plunder, and torture went on in our mother lands, but here in America and Canada, we’re in the same plight now. So start trusting and relying on one another.

4. Join National Asian-Interest Associations or Networks.

Special interest groups tailored to our ethnic community have the power and potential to apply political pressure on our government. That strength, however, comes in numbers. The U.S. Census Bureau reports there are about 10.7 million Asians in America and projects the numbers to grow by 213% in the next 50 years to 33.4 million. If every one of us joined the Asian American Institute, for example, AAI would have twice as much political sway as the NRA, which currently has about 4.3 million members. Your. Name. Counts. Supporting these groups also fortifies them with the capital and resources they need to instigate change on our behalf.

These associations and networks often send their members newsletters or frequent updates on significant events in our community. By enlisting as a member, we’ll have access to knowledge directly pertinent to us and we stay informed. Nothing else furthers a democracy like informed citizens.

A Few National Asian-Interest Orgs to Consider:

5. Volunteer at an Asian-Interest Non-Prof.

Diasporic Asians may fare better economically as a whole than many other minority groups, but do not let this divert your attention from those of us trapped in the cycle of poverty. Before I demand the rest of North America to pay attention to our indigent friends and families, I ask our haves (those of us who actually do represent a “model minority”) to give a little to our have-nots.

Most of us reading this blog currently lead an economically privileged lifestyle, but our parents were struggling immigrants once, and there’s a new wave of struggling immigrants now. Pay respect to our humble beginnings. Spend a weekend helping immigrants fill out citizenship papers, or help them file their tax returns, or volunteer at activity centers to mentor our youth. No one is asking you to quit your day job for this. Just spend one or two weekends each year volunteering in the Asian community. Is that really asking a lot from you?

Sources for Finding Volunteer Opportunities:

Even if you never participate in a public demonstration or protest on behalf of the Asian Diaspora or openly object to everyday discrimination against members of your community or even stand up for yourself when you’ve been marginalized on sole account of your ethnic identity, if in the alternative you merely fulfill these 5 enumerated steps, you will have had a greater impact on the progress of our community’s social and political empowerment than you can even begin to fathom.

Postscript. If readers have additional links, information, or ideas on how we may forge solidarity among all Asians, then please contribute.

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  • You are absolutely right: unity is important.

    But how do you get past "#3: Do Not Inherit Our Parents’ Ethnic Prejudices" when you agree with them philosophically? I don't mean to say that I'm ethnically prejudiced, since I don't judge mainland Chinese based on what others have said about them. But I do know one thing: I disagree with most of them on the issue of Taiwanese independence. I've had classmates from China who have stopped speaking to me because they have seen the screen saver on my laptop pop up declaring my support for "One China. One Taiwan."

    I usually just try not to get into arguments over this with people I know to disagree with me; but "looking the other way" all the time doesn't sit well with me. Sometimes Chinese-Taiwanese assume wrongly that I am for "One China" and will then begin to disparage anyone who disagrees with them. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't stand up and let them know where I stand.

    Just by sheer numbers, I'm guessing that the Chinese/Chinese-Americans who support "One China" greatly outnumber the Taiwanese/Taiwanese-Americans who believe in independence.

    There are some things I refuse to stifle for the sake of "unity" or "the greater good" because sometimes the minority is right.

    At some point, the issue of Taiwanese independence will be a global issue, that Asian Americans *can't* ignore. Lines will need to be drawn, hopefully not at the expense of the Asian American community.

    Regardless, how do you suggest "getting past" this?
  • Hey Joz,

    If your Chinese classmates ceased talking to you simply because they became aware of your political beliefs that conflicted with theirs, then they're the ones not fulfilling step #3. You, on the other hand, did no more than exercise your First Amendment right. Go ahead and stand up for our cause, especially since I believe in it with you 100%. Every time someone advocates One China, be right there with an equally strong voice showing them another perspective. However, as long as we never let those political beliefs discourage us from still helping one another when we're in need, then all is well.

    You know, there was this mainland Chinese student in one of my classes once who would say a lot of things regarding cross-straits politics during lecture that I entirely disagreed with. I always spoke up to refute his points. He didn't like me much, which is okay, because he wasn't exactly my favorite person in the world either. However, one day during a presentation he did, his "Chinese pride" thing came on a little too strong in a mostly-White classroom and people basically just ganged up and attacked him and his beliefs, and the professor stood back and watched, clearly agreeing with the class. In actuality, I agreed with the rest of the class, but that didn't mean they had the right to attack him in such a hurtful and overwhelming way, so I defended his position, which, trust me, was at its least, REALLY WEIRD for me. After that episode, he came to be more open to my political beliefs and even though we still disagreed--him one China, me pro-independent Taiwan--we came to develop a mutual respect for one another. THAT is all I'm asking for.
  • Bertie
    Er, I think the best lesson in life is learning to agree to disagree.
  • You know? If Taiwan does declare independence, it's going to be really weird for me.

    As I've explained to Akrypti, I'm of the thought of a more free China versus Communist China. Much like North Korea/South Korea. If Taiwan claimed independence, then I'd basically have no homeland. Which is why it's weird.

    Why? Because Taiwanese independence declares more in the cause of the native islanders than the former, at least in my eyes. Most Taiwanese/Taiwanese Americans all speak Taiwanese. I don't. So where does that place me? Sucks.

    I'm all for First Amendment, and the rest, but I don't see the whole One China, One Taiwan argument. I've always seen it as Two Chinas.

    Best analogy here is if Republicans declared an offensive, and Democrats fled to California, but the Californians started to declare independence. So would you still be an American? A Californian? What exactly? It's interesting that people on either side take stands, but those that are sort of in-between basically get screwed either way you have it.

    My two cents, seeing that most of the 8A writers are mainly Taiwanese descent.
  • Hey Darkmoon,

    Your analogy applied to Taiwan and China's relations don't work too well because those who want independence didn't flee there during the Cultural Revolution from China; no, to the contrary, we've been there all along, oppressed by different imperialist groups at different times in history. If I may be frank, the Nationalists fled to Taiwan and Taiwan could not ward them off because we were weak at the time and the KMTs overpowered us, took over our government, usurped our lands without compensation, and even committed unspeakable atrocities to the Taiwanese natives. True, the KMT also contributed to the rapid economic development of Taiwan, but that is not enough for KMTs to claim Taiwan as its homeland. In fact, it doesn't. KMTs claim ALL of China as its homeland, and still hold on to the hope that one day, Nationalists will take over all of China once again.

    Both political parties in Taiwan need to get their acts together, however. I don't even understand why those who consider themselves Chinese and part of the Nationalist Party living in Taiwan currently even want to be in Taiwan if they want to be a part of China so badly. If you're that adamant that you're Chinese by nationality, then go back to China. If you're in Taiwan, then you're Taiwanese.

    This is so off-topic now, lol. I motion for Joz to start a new post introducing this issue! Go Joz!
  • bob
    Don't forget Enigma sampling the Taiwanese without their permission in their song Innocence! I don't think Taiwan will ever declare independence since China will most likely run over the island like the US ran over Iraq. Except the Taiwanese are a little less suicidal. What I do think will happen is a creation of an Asian Union to counter the European Union. Soon we'll be buying stuff with Asios.
  • Bertie
    I think some of you are confusing ethnic stereotyping with policy and politics. Yes, I think we should drop the idiotic ethnic stereotypes like "Korean dudes are bad-tempered and beat up their wives," but i think some of you are arguing about policy/politics rather than "ethnic stereotyping" instead, which is another topic altogether. Asking people to abandon their politics is like asking them to abandon their religion. Try convincing a Republican to vote for Hillary, for example. Anyway, I think that we should just learn to agree to disagree about things like "One China" or "Taiwanese Independence."
  • Bruce
    I think China will politically evolve eventually to the point where Taiwan will be part of China again. It may take another 50 years, but 50 years of stability and prosperity will be the key getting Taiwan back into the fold. But, we'll have to wait and see.

    It is disgusting to see Asians put each other down no matter what background, be we Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian or Indonesian.
  • Akrypti
    Bertie,
    Thank you for articulating so precisely what I was thinking. I didn't recall saying in my post that we should only support political manifesto that calls for literal unity of, like, I dunno, all of Asia or something, but it could have very well been misinterpreted to mean that if I didn't write out my point clearly.

    Oh and on a completely unrelated note that doesn't have anything to do with this nor does it support any argument presented here...I know someone who is Republican and seriously contemplating voting for Hillary Clinton. ;-)

    Bruce,
    I agree with you, yet I also understand how it IS difficult to first identify and then set aside hostility toward each other when we've grown up hearing stories about how some imperialistic group ravaged our grandparents and inflicted so much pain on so many people we know and love. How do we, as a community, address that? That's a question I can't find an answer to... Sometimes ethnic stereotyping is so entrenched with policy and politics that we by ourselves don't have the rationality to distinguish the two, as Bertie was mentioning.
  • I don't know ... I seriously tried reaching out to other ethnic communities - because I feel that there is such a divide and that no one is talking to the other communities about similar issues they're facing - but I get met by suspicion and sideways looks constantly when all I'm trying to do is be a facilitator.

    Case in point - most would just see me as a Chinese-Canadian but unless you actually spoke to me, you wouldn't know that I lean more towards the Filipino culture my parents were born and raised in. So then of course, I would get involved in the Filipino community events only to find that I'm not completely welcomed. (There is a rather torrid history between the Filipino and the Chinese in the Philippines.) There is only so much a person can take before they throw their hands up in the air and give up. And I only have a limited amount of personal bandwidth.

    It really truly is a great idea - this Asian Unity - I just don't see it happening in the near future because everyone wants to assert their own distinct culture apart from the others.
  • courageous kiwi
    Two points:

    1. Why the hell did some idiot bring up Taiwanese independence? Oh shit, I just violated rule #1.

    2. Are there chicks at Asian non-profits?
  • Akrypti: heh.... the problem with your and my views? Perspective. 1) I have no relationship to KMT. Nor did my parents, or my grandparents, or many friends and relatives. No, we fled Communists. Period.

    So in fact, my analogy stands. What you're doing is taking the political view (top down) to debate my perspective from the ground up. So basically from a larger perspective since you're focusing directly on KMT's oppression, then you ignore the fact that there are any other people outside of KMT. That's.... well.. not cool.

    I have no issues with the Nationalist oppression. Fine. So what? You still don't answer the question of what happens to those of us that are Chinese and are not Taiwanese. It's like saying... hey... you're not really American, because you weren't born here. Your argument comes off similar to the whole black oppressive state in the South. If a black person beats up a white person, it's called assault, but vice versa, it's a hate crime. That's a terrible perspective to take since it generalizes everything.

    Like I said before, the whole independence thing, no one has bothered to think about some of the other people effected by it outside of the whole "independent" group and the people that don't want it (mainland). What about us? Yeah... just as I thought, no one bothered to think about it.
  • Akrypti
    Hey Darkmoon,

    Your analogy still doesn't work exactly because Taiwan's culture is different from China's. It IS a lot like an independent country already, not just another state.

    Second, it doesn't matter if you came to Taiwan from Guatemala and consider yourself Guatemalan; when in Rome, do as the Romans, though you may retain your mother culture and that may in turn influence a fusion in the local area...regardless, if you stay in Rome long enough, at some point you must abide by Roman law and if that means changing your citizenship to Taiwanese, then so be it. You'd be Roman Taiwanese. Or something. So in your case, you may be a bit more prudent in considering yourself Chinese Taiwanese.

    Third, if people really want to duke this issue out, I'm sure there are plenty of previous posts discussion China and Taiwan or we can start a new "post" that directly relates to cross-straits relations. This place here, however, may not be the most appropos forum for it.

    In the spirit of this post, I second Bertie and we can all agree to disagree.
  • One other thing....
    "If you’re that adamant that you’re Chinese by nationality, then go back to China. If you’re in Taiwan, then you’re Taiwanese."

    Why have heritage at all then? Why call ourselves Asian Americans? Seriously. If we're here, then we're Americans. The point is that there are some that look at the historical views differently outside of the oppressive states that you're looking at it. Without an open mind to even other views, then it's no different than any other relationship. If it's about oppression, then dang.... we might as well call the US, the United Tribal Nation since that's who the Europeans oppressed. Or if we go back further, we could basically break it down to the mongloid, caucazoid, and negroid bases. Society itself has always been a strong over weak scenario, regardless.

    Politics in Taiwan itself? Nuts. Totally messed up. I'm done with this topic cuz it's pretty stupid and I personally hate politics because it doesn't solve anything but creates a bunch of retarded issues. Just look a bit closer to home.
  • Oh yeah... unity topic = good. China vs. Taiwan topic... BLEH.
  • Wangus Khan
    You write about asian unity, but competition in general makes us stronger. Look at how quickly european countries developed past asian countries. Conflict constantly forced those countries over there to develop technology and organize in a way that surpassed asia. In China, the greatest times of flourishing were directly after great conflicts. If we can apply this same idea to all the individual asian groups, then it follows that the more conflicts the better we'll be.

    Uniting under a banner of general asian unity isn't a strong enough adhesive and will probably cause light to apathetic participation at most. The big complaint is that asians simply don't care. Why is that? We really have it pretty good. Sure there are some stigmas out there, but asians have the highest median income, highest levels of education, and generally a higher quality of life than the rest of america. There is no serious conflict that we have to fight off. No great war to bring us all together. The African Americans had slavery to overcome and they have the most united front in all minority interest groups. Japanese Internment camps, Chinese exlusion act, and building the railroads (which have almost no after shock on us today) are not 'drastic' enough to bring us all together. Sure it pisses me off that such things have happened, but there's virtually no aftershock to all that.

    We're the most prosperous group. Group unity won't stick over a few abercrombie shirts, asian male desexualization, and asian female fetishes. We need more conflict before any kind of unity can be expected.
  • kizoku
    Hi Akrypti/8A crowd,

    I stumbled onto this blog and liked alot of the topics and articles. Good stuff. I'm sort of a feminist, and i tend to be very blunt so a lot of the sexist guys on MM hate me that's why i get comments like that.

    As for the article you wrote:

    I agree in concept with most of what you have written, but i have an issue with being lumped together by others (non-"asian") as well as by each other. My parents/mine culture is invariably different than, say, an indian person's, i think it would be a disrespectful choice to just say we are the same- I mean asia's a big place.

    I also agree with Wangus Khan's post.. many asians are well-to-do, or in the process of attaining that status. They (from all ethnicities) generally wont want to 'rock the boat' just because of a few bad portrayals of AMs.

    Anyway,

    *hugs*
  • Wangus,
    There's a difference between competition and rivalry. Guess which one I discourage.
  • Confuse_Us
    I came across your site by accident and found this article particularly interesting. It seems to me that the issues of disunity amongst Asians in America go far deeper than your article would suggest. It's the Asian family itself that seems fractured and disunited. How can Asians unite when Asian women are routinely and unabashedly expressing their disinterest/disdain for Asian partners? What does this kind of attitude imply about these women's feelings for their own brothers, fathers or sons? This is a disunity of a profound kind. How does one tackle the disunity of an inter-generational and cross cultural barrier that may exist between immigrant parents and fully acculturated offspring. The isolation and disconnectedness (stemming from harrassment or racism) experienced by young Asian Americans is often beyond the scope of experience for immigrant parents to deal with or understand. It seems to me that to create a unified Asian American voice requires a healing of the divisions within self and family. Political unity should follow with ease.
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