Jeremy Lin, Star Trek, Top Chef, and The Walking Dead: Reflections On Asian Americans In The Media Today

By Guest Writer | Tuesday, February 14, 2012 | 29 Comments

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8a 3 Jeremy Lin, Star Trek, Top Chef, and The Walking Dead: Reflections On Asian Americans In The Media Today

By Elliott Wang

My buddy Terry burst into Pho So 1 (best pho in Van Nuys!), iPhone in hand, exclaiming incredulously, “Thirty eight points!” I looked at him blankly. He blurted, “JLIN! Versus the Lakers! Knicks won!”

The idea of it took me a moment to sink in. Being Taiwanese American myself, I’d obviously hoped for the best. Indeed, just being an American, I’d hoped for the best, swept up as many Americans have been in the double underdog (Lin + Knicks) story. But hope is so often dashed, and this wasn’t the pathetic Nets, the middling Jazz, or even the sorta-decent Wizards. This was none other than the Los Angeles Lakers… against whom Lin produced thirty-eight points and seven assists to lead his team in a stunning victory. I turned to Terry and said, “This is it.” This time, it was he who looked at me blankly. “This is the big break for Asian American men.”

I’d said much the same thing the night before to my fiancée, but with considerably less conviction. She, being an Asian American actor in Hollywood, is as keen an observer—if not more so—of AA trends in American mainstream culture as I. It’s no secret to those in our camp that, aside from such new-media YouTube sensations as KevJumba and FreddieW, prominently sexy AA men onscreen in traditional outlets are few and far between. Even guys like John Cho, in prominent roles like Star Trek’s Sulu, are rendered near asexual: sure, Sulu is a great role for an Asian American man, but despite his masculine competence as a martial artist, he holds no romantic interest for any women in the film and clearly lacks the swashbuckling swagger of studs like Chris Pine as Kirk or Karl Urban as Bones. The way I see it, guys like John Cho mostly make AA girls swoon: most non-AA girls might regard him well, would respect his skills and his talents, but then would probably place him squarely in the friend zone. It’s great progress, but it isn’t the uncompromised equality that we AA men ultimately seek. We want the next Captain Kirk to be AA, the next Joe Black to be AA, the next Rocky, the next Bourne, the next Bond to be AA. Anyway, that night, I posited to my fiancée that within two to three years, we will start seeing Asian American men in more-or-less unadulterated manly-men roles. I think, at that point, she remained somewhat skeptical, as she hadn’t fully caught Lin fever… yet.

Back to the restaurant: as excited as he was over Lin’s performance, Terry didn’t buy it either, but that was for another reason. “There are plenty of hot Asian males in American media!”

“Like whom?” I asked. “Bruce Lee? Jackie Chan? Jet Li? Rain? They’re all Asian Asians, not Asian Americans. There’s a key distinction.”

“I guess…” Terry reluctantly drawled.

I think most 8Asians readers easily recognize this distinction. For me, however, it wasn’t until tonight that I realized its true significance. It’s not just that those yellow-skinned imports don’t Linspire us AA men because we grew up in totally different worlds and share totally different backgrounds. It’s not how—even in their ass-kicking roles—they rarely get the girl, or any other facile thing as, say, their textbook FOB attempts at speaking English.

It’s that they’re Asian, and we aren’t. We’re Americans.

The Jay Chou’s, the Chow Yun Fat’s, and the Beat Takeshi’s aren’t excellent at being Americans; they’re excellent at being Asian. They’re excellent at being monks and Yakuza assassins, at kicking ass in a platonic way and then being all brooding and mysterious and exotic. On the other hand, if you judge them using a checklist of All-American criteria, they make for really crappy Americans. They can’t speak English, they don’t “get” our culture, they’re ignorant and sometimes borderline sociopathic in this American context.

In America, a yellow man can find easy acceptance and veneration as a sushi chef, or maybe some sort of “fusion” or “Asian”-inspired cook, but when was the last time you saw a Takayama helming a famous “Western” kitchen (I can think of exactly one… at Mélisse). Even on Top Chef, where Asian Americans have truly been outperforming, AA chefs often fall back on their “unique Asian perspective” to compete with their counterparts, which somehow makes the AA cooking seem less… full-bloodedly American. Yet in our day-to-day lives, most AA men (at least those of us who’ve gotten over our earlier life identity crises) aren’t trying to sell our Asian American-ness. We aren’t trying to garner the respect of our white, black, and brown friends by bringing more Asian-ness to the table. We want to kick ass, take names, and be respected for being unashamedly, unabashedly American. We want to sear steaks and flip burgers and drink beers with the best of them, to lift weights and ride Harleys and log trees, Paul Bunyan-style. We shouldn’t have to consistently fall back and rely on the Asian part of Asian American to stand out in America.

Which finally brings me back to Lin. He’s done it. Forget the rest of the season, the rest of his career; his name is already in the history books, for having bested Iverson and Shaq and Jordan by accumulating the most points in by any player in the history of the NBA in his first four career starts. He’s done it, and it has nothing to do with his yellow skin. It has nothing to do with his Taiwanese heritage, much as the folks on that faraway island are clamoring to share in his glory. It’s got nothing to do with any of that. Sure, his Asian-ness is a bonus, what with the Harvard and the humility and the hard work and such. But in any other context, we’d call him nothing more than an exemplification of the model minority. The only reason why we care about him, the only reason why we celebrate every detail of his life and his background, is because he’s beaten every other color of American at—literally—their own game. He isn’t a ping-pong player, or a golfer, or a tennis phenom. He is an amazing basketball player, a star point guard in the NBA, and that’s about as American as it gets. His truly inspiring underdog story is one for which all Americans can root, and his skills on the court are something to which seemingly all American men aspire. He is the first Asian American leading man.

The Walking Dead’s season 2.5 premiered this past Sunday. The moment I saw Glenn and Maggie, I was transported to a pre-Linsanity state of nostalgia, when Steven Yeun’s conquering of the White Woman had become a near-scandalous cause célèbre for Asian American men on the Internet, with indignant, racist (presumably) white American men on the opposing side. It was considered a groundbreaking effort—by Kirkman when it presented in the comics, then by the showrunners when it appeared on TV. Now… it just seems quaint.

Elliott Wang was born in NorCal, grew up in Taipei, went to college in Philly, and now resides in LA. He considers himself a generation 1.667 Asian American, though that number is subject to adjustment without notification. He often times has nothing better to do.

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Elliott

I should mention here that I really didn’t follow basketball much, so–as my buddy Keane (whose article on JLin got published on Slam Online) told me–I got a bunch of judgements on bball wrong, namely that the Wizards suck, the Jazz don’t, and that a Canadian actually invented bball, not an American.
Elliott

I’m gonna go ahead and shamelessly plug his article here, too, just cuz if you’re like me, you are scouring the web for *anything* half-way decently written on Lin… and his piece is much better written than mine!

http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2012/02/hoop-dreams-jeremy-lin/
http://thylacine.livejournal.com/ ErikaHarada

The Linsanity has given me a chance to get into the Knicks, who are supposed to be my team (technically it should be the Nets, I guess, but they just are so horribly sad to watch…) — love it.

Can’t wait to see normalized, non-stereotypical representations of Asian-American women too, by the way. Baby steps.
http://www.erniehsiung.com/ Ernie H.

@ErikaHarada “Can’t wait to see normalized, non-stereotypical representations of Asian-American women too, by the way. Baby steps.”

Which only means one thing: WAIT FOR THE WNBA SEASON TO BEGIN.
Biffer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXOOsZ9q9Rc
kclb

I totally disagree with the comments about the Asian American chefs on Top Chef. No one on the show is cooking 100% “American” food, whatever the heck that means. All of the chefs’ cooking styles are influenced by their upbringing and other cultures.
Elliott

@kclb

I really don’t want to argue about this, cuz it’s so obvious…

The “traditional” concept of All-American is inclusive of all the European heritage that the Italians, Irish, Germans, French (Cajun/Creole), etc etc have brought over from Europe. “New American” cuisine now exists, which incorporates a lot of Asian influences, but the fact that it’s labeled as “New American” as opposed to “Traditional American” cuisine says all there needs to be said. Also, while strictly French or German cooking isn’t exactly “American”, it is definitely much closer to American cuisine than, say, ma-po tofu or sushi. If you don’t think that the judges like Colicchio or Gail Simmons are much more versed and trained in Western styles of cooking, and that AA chefs gain an advantage by presenting food that is relatively exotic to their palates, food on which said AA chefs would be considered much more an authority than the non-AA judges… well then we’re probably watching entirely different shows. I’m talking about the one on Bravo TV.

Also, if you’re trying to argue that there doesn’t really exist a tradition of cuisine that can be labelled distinctly as “American,” or “Traditional American”… well then you’re either not a foodie, or just an intellectually lazy foodie. “American” food exists. Period.
mwei

@Elliott to me, chop suey is more “quintessentially American” than apple pie and hot dogs.
mwei

@Ernie H. the cheering crowd of 7 people awaits eagerly for butch women to yell at one another.

this is why beach volleyball beats WNBA.
Elliott

@mwei “culinary mythology”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chop_suey
Elliott

@mwei

To me, the idea that Chinese American dishes are more American than classically “American” dishes is just revisionism gone way overboard. Let’s take hot dogs. Most people who say hot dogs aren’t “American” will try to assert that they came from Germany. Well sausages have existed in Italy and Greece since BC. Germans have their version, and ours is an adaptation of theirs. Similarly, raw fish on rice was “invented” in China and spread to Japan, but ask anybody anywhere today what kind of cuisine sushi is and they’ll tell you it’s Japanese. The issue isn’t one of origin: it’s of identity and ownership. And it certainly isn’t one of consumption either: Americans in California probably eat more egg foo young AND more sushi than actual Chinese or Japanese, but that in itself wouldn’t make those foods “American”.

Just take the global perspective: go anywhere in the world from Europe to America to China, take anyone off the street, give them a choice to categorize egg foo young or chop suey or General Tso’s chicken as either American or Chinese, and 99% of the time they’ll go with Chinese. The only peculiar demographic that would ever think to say it’s more “American” than apple pie are overly-culturally-sensitive Asian Americans. Now I’m not saying that egg foo young IS Chinese food… but it certainly isn’t traditional American food. It’s Chinese-American.There’s a difference

… ALL of that said… this whole discussion has been irrelevant to the article. When was the last time you saw an Asian American chef make chop suey or egg foo young on Top Chef? The Asian influences they draw on ARE actually legitimately Asian influences.
mwei

@Elliott you should look up that Jennifer 8 video on General Tsao’s chicken given to the actual General Tsao’s descendants.

and Egg Foo Young is also quintessentially American; because they don’t exist in China and by your appropriation logic it should be classified as “American food.”

the reason you and most people in the US think they’re Chinese and foreign is because of the connotation with Asians being perpetual foreigners.

it’s not culturally sensitive APAs like me who label it “American” but it’s simply invented in America and not found anywhere in China. so how are you going to label something “Chinese” when it doesn’t even exist in China?

this is why Panda Express opening up a store is like turning my world inside out with the almond chicken, pineapple chicken, etc. ingredients that didn’t even exist in China only a decade ago.
Elliott

@mwei I’d pretty much take issue with just about every statement you made in that last post, but I’m not going to cuz I’m gonna refer you to my last paragraph:

… none of this current discussion has to do with Top Chef, which is what the article’s about. Top Chef AA chefs use legit Asian influences.

But then again, if you think that I think those dishes should be labeled–given only the two choices–Chinese instead of American because of my connoting that Asians are perpetual foreigners… you clearly haven’t read the article, or at least not closely enough.
kclb

@Elliott It’s absurd to assume that the Asian American chefs currently on Top Chef are at an advantage just because they cook Asian influenced food. I could make the same argument that Lindsey or Sara are at an advantage because they cook Mediterranean or Italian influenced food and it’s exotic to Padma. If being AA and cooking legitimate Asian food on Top Chef is such an advantage, then why hasn’t there been more AA finalists in past seasons?

And I never said that “American” food did not exist; I only meant that American food is hard to define. In the article above, you only used the word “American” to describe the food, not Traditional American.

And don’t get me wrong, I understand what you’re trying to say, I’m just saying I don’t agree with you. I don’t think they are “falling back” on their unique Asian perspective to win. Which of the past chefs on Top Chef cooked “Traditional American” food? Shouldn’t your argument be that NO ONE is cooking Traditional American food anymore, and not just the AA chefs?
Elliott

@kclb Now I don’t know Padma personally… but I’d be more than willing to realistically bet, oh, say, $1200 that she’s eaten more Italian food than Chinese food in her life, or more French than Korean. $500 if you take that ratio up to 2 to 1. You can go ahead and double those numbers if referring to Colicchio or Gail Simmons. Triple, even, and I’d still take the bet.

Also, again, I don’t know what show you’re watching but Asian Americans have been doing fantastically relative to percentage in the population. We’re around 4~5% of the population, we’re in the 9th season, and we already have a winner, while in this season, 3 of 5 of the final five were AA, and now exactly half of the finalists are AA.
kclb

@Elliott Glad to see you’re answering all of my questions.
Elliott

@kclb Not sure what questions I haven’t answered yet, but I think we should watch an episode of Top Chef together, break it down. This discussion isn’t gonna go anywhere without concrete examples, of which, as it happens, I’ve brought a couple up already but have yet to see any from you. Also, that way in person, I can explain some of the philosophical underpinnings of how to categorize things vis a vis ontological distinction that I *really* am not gonna get into here.
Elliott

@kclb Dude, u’know what, at this point I gotta ask in all earnestness… do you even watch Top Chef? Have you been keeping up, or is this just a knee-jerk reaction to some premises I’ve laid out in my article? Cuz every Asian or Asian American person I’ve talked to who watches the show agrees with me, and tells me that it’s something that’s always bugged them about AA representation on the show, ie that only the Masaharu Morimoto’s succeed on the show, but not so much the Hiroyuki Sakai’s.

Thing is, the sentiment which you and mwei are expressing I’m not unsympathetic to. I long for the day when all Americans can feel some sense of ownership over Kung Pao chicken or even Rockin’ Sushi Rolls as much as they do pizza, much as Brits do towards chicken tikka masala. The reality of present day America, though, is that they don’t, and insofar as issues of perception and identity by definition have only to do with subjective consensus and bear no relationship with objective or scientific facts, what mainstream America deems is American is, by definition, American.

I actually know of this charter school in Sherman Oaks that serves sushi rolls to their kids for lunch some days. I can imagine them growing up, and proclaiming proudly that sushi is “their” food (Koji’s article notwithstanding). I can even imagine them being, by and large, as discerning towards Japanese food as Japanese are. But the indisputable fact is that we’re not there yet. That America isn’t here yet.
mwei

@Elliott I don’t disagree with your article’s overall thesis and sentiment; but I do agree with kclb on that small point.

call it nitpicking than anything else. great article overall.
mwei

@Elliott but it’s already “American” like when they say they’re eating spaghetti is “Italian” – because it has nothing to do with the native countries.

I haven’t followed those cooking shows, but I imagine the idea of “exotic flavors” is more a gimmick than anything else.
kclb

@Elliott I do watch the show, I just don’t think being AA on Top Chef gives you some sort of advantage if you cook Asian influenced food. Is it wrong to have a different opinion? You are talking about the judges as if you know what’s going through their heads when they’re judging.

Okay, we’re 4~5% of the population, but what does that have to do with AA chefs? Isn’t it possible that the percentage of AA chefs among chefs in America might be higher?

Answer this questions for me, please:

1. Which of the past contestants who have done well on the show were cooking “Traditional American” food?

After all, your argument in the article above was that none of the AA chefs who are doing well on the show are cooking Traditional American food.
Elliott

@mwei thanks for that, mwei. much appreciated.
Elliott

@kclb man… look, i’m gonna stop right here. it’s taking way too much of my time. suffice it to say that there’re MANY more points that i could and i actually quite wanna make, but 1) i don’t think it’s gonna make a difference in changing your mind and 2) i’ve wasted way too many words on this here debate already. lol just look at the word count… excluding the article itself, i’ve put down maybe what, like, around 3 times what you have? which like, i’m not trying to say that means anything about you or me or our respective arguments or whatever, except just to say that i’ve really spent waaay too much time/effort on this: it’s not like i’m getting paid for it, LOL. and precisely because it’s nothing personal–ie, i don’t know you and i don’t quite care enough about what you think to put any more time into this–i’m just gonna let it go.

maybe if we ever meet one day (the community is only so big), we can get into it in person. talking is much more efficient. cheers.
Pingback: Don’t Give Idiots a Microphone — Asian American Action Fund
DuncanMitchel

“conquering of the White Woman”? darlin’, I’d say you’re already thoroughly assimilated: you see women as their men’s property and indeed their land, to be fought over to establish ownership. Like Eugene Hum Chang’s poem “Hypnogenocide”: “How can I quench this hate, forget the past / In a land where / I am a victim / And my women occupied.” Occupied. Of course the white men who get furious about male Asian / female white pairings have exactly the same belief.
Elliott

@DuncanMitchel … Really? Oh lordy lord…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
Blamster

Own it and game it, those are universal ways of winning and no less American. Which is why I think it’s valid to see the distinction between Asian Americans and Asians, and the difference between traditional and let’s say non-traditional Asian food, yet own all of it with pride as Asian Americans.

I don’t have cable but I’d like to see an AA chef make some high brow egg foo young and present it with pride as an American dish on one of these cooking competition shows. At the same time I would also cheer on the same chef to make some rockin’ beef chow fun and present it with equal pride and as a Chinese dish in the same American sense of Italian pasta. It doesn’t matter if this wins, nor if others immediately think or feel the same way, it’s about advocating for ourselves. Please tell me if someone has already done this.

We should feel just as proud to be stir frying with a wok right by the BBQ grill on July 4th. If we don’t stand up for chopsticks and ourselves being as American as forks and knives and Irish-, Italian-, or Jewish Americans then we should expect no less than some non-Asian American co-opting chopsticks and “Asian”-ness as their New Age invention.
Elliott

@Biffer

Jesus Christ, give it a rest:

“While in the car, Lin’s uncle volunteered his views on one of the most contentious questions on the Internet about Jeremy Lin and his family: whether they are Taiwanese or Chinese. “For sure, they are Taiwanese,” Lin Chi Chung said. “I spoke to Jeremy Lin’s father, who is my younger brother, and he said, ‘Make sure you point this out.’ ””

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/sports/basketball/jeremy-lins-grandmother-watches-along-with-taiwan.html?_r=1

If you speak Mandarin Chinese, you should know that the English word “Chinese” stands in for everything from 中國人 to 漢人 to 華人. Let me know the next time you see a PRC flag waving at a Knicks game. In the meantime, enjoy all the 青天白日滿地紅.
Krantzstone

Well stated.

8 Asians