NOTE: There seems to be a problem with the quote tags so I will use quotation marks to indicate my quoting from your post.

Just on the offchance that you are viewing this page, here’s my reply to your comments.

Keep in mind I had almost no contact with other Asians/AAs outside of my immediate family and a few relatives until I was in high school as I was raised in a White-Latino dominated working class neighborhood in NY. From the time was born until then, I was often one of the few Asians in an entire school. The only thing that allowed me to retain my Chinese side of my identity was a group of helpful teachers and my parents’ insistence on speaking mandarin at home. Until high school, I did not encounter anything resembling an AA community. When I did in high school, with few exceptions, I was turned off by their anti-Asian stereotyping, contempt for Asian culture, and a desire for complete assimilation into the dominant culture.

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Again, I think this because it’s easier as a male to take the path of least resistance because a particular system benefits you.

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I concede the first point. However, I do not believe it is silencing when points out a statement that treads dangerously close to essentializing a non-western culture, especially when it results in reinforcing racial stereotypes the dominant culture already has of Asians/Asian-Americans.

In the historiography class discussion on race and gender, several female Asian-American classmates brought up and facilitated the discussion of patriarchical and elitist assumptions present within their own families and the East Asian societies we were studying. During this discussion, each AA woman recounted her experiences. Though most of those accounts reflected abusive and demeaning treatment as a result of those assumptions, they all emphasized that those two assumptions should never be the defining indicative characteristics of Asian/Asian-American culture and its people.

When one non-Asian classmate asked why two AA female classmates in particular felt the need to emphasize this point, they both related how relating their accounts of patriarchy and elitist assumptions in and out of classes often caused white and other non-AA students to form racist stereotypes of Asian/AA culture as backward and retrograde compared to the “enlightened west”. They were horrified by this not only because those stereotypes were demeaning to the whole AA community and themselves, but it also caused increased problems with white asiaphiles who wanted to “rescue” and “protect” them. Due to this, they worked with the AA campus organization to do a series of combined public workshops to discuss sexism within the AA community and anti-AA stereotyping from both AA and non-Asians on campus. They are attempting to continuing this at their graduate institution.

As they were relating their accounts, they also mentioned that anti-AA stereotyping from fellow AAs was one of their biggest pet peeves as it made fighting anti-AA racism much harder for all other AAs. When they asked other classmates to relate the worst incidence of anti-AA stereotyping from a fellow AA, I mentioned a Chinese-American male college classmate who constantly equated anything Chinese/Asian as “savage” and “uncivilized” and went so far as to publicly use well-known anti-Asian slurs. It became so bad that I went bats^&t on him for his anti-AA attitudes and pointedly resolved to avoid his company. At the end of class, I personally thanked the two classmates for raising my awareness of issues I was not aware of and showing me an example of AA solidarity I found completely lacking at my undergraduate campus.

“At your university, did you spend as much time trying to combat the forces that oppress Asian women in their families or communities as you did trying to silence them?”

I would have if the AA organization on my campus was not beset by acrimonious infighting due to personality conflicts within the leadership and a long history of only desiring to represent upper-class suburban AA students who were totally assimilated into American society. As I was a working-class urban AA attending a private college on a nearly full scholarship, they showed nothing but complete disdain for my presence. While they tried to conceal it, upper-class snobbery was written all over them. This coupled with the fact I had some proficency in mandarin and my interest in studying Chinese history made me an effective persona non grata to them. In short, most of the AA at my undergrad campus rejected me based on my social-status and my interest in learning more about one part of my Chinese-American identity. As a result of this experience, I became largely alienated with the AA community on campus.

Along with other AAs with similar background and interests, we ended up associating more with Asians who were international students and other Americans. This was especially natural as my dorm happened to be the central meeting place for our group. Interestingly enough, while the AA organization on my undergrad campus continued its unproductive internal bickering and snobbish elitism, the international Asian students and AA students such as myself ended up doing far more to raise awareness of AA issues.

More importantly, since we had students who were actually from Asian societies such as India, Korea, Japan, and both Chinas (ROC and PRC), they were able to add to the level of current cultural authenticity. Thus, debunking many orientalizing stereotypes of Asian cultures as being definitively defined as “savage” “uncivilized” holdouts of patriarchy and elitism that were unfortunately held by many American students, including many of those in the AA campus organization. In the numerous close late-night discussions in my dorm’s lounge, most international Asian/working class AA women in our group gave accounts of relatively benign childhoods. While they had disagreements with their families due to patriarchical and elitist assumptions, most of their parents were reasonable enough to reconsider those assumptions after a long frank discussion. The three AA women in our group whose families were abusive and demeaning were counseled by fellow group members and counselors from the campus multi-cultural resource center. Last I knew, they all moved away from their families while remaining close by in their respective AA communities. As they saw many examples of international Asian/AA male students in our group who were not the domineering oppressors as their fathers were, however, none of them felt the need to repudiate their heritage. Instead, with the help of the Taiwanese and Korean feminists in our group, they managed to reinterpret and appropriate their heritage to fight the patriarchy and elitism within their own communities.

Again, I think this because it’s easier as a male to take the path of least resistance because a particular system benefits you. If you put as much energy as you did in your comments here trying to silence women of color about their experiences, maybe we wouldn’t have to speak up about them.

At your university, did you spend as much time trying to combat the forces that oppress Asian women in their families or communities as you did trying to silence them? Again, if more Asian American men fought alongside their sisters, there would be less of a needd to “frame the discussion of Asian cultural patriarchy as that of an Oriental Despotism that needs to be fixed by an enlightened West.”

You shouldn’t try to silence two women on a feminist site. After all, feminism is for all women not just white.

Spend some time combatting sexism in Asian American communities and culture and Asian American men won’t feel the need to silence women of color who “frame the discussion of Asian cultural patriarchy as that of an Oriental Despotism that needs to be fixed by an enlightened West.”

It’s similar to what One Brown Woman said in her third post here:

Sometimes my posts, my discussion of race&gender, my specifications of women of color, alienate some white people and make them uncomfortable and guilty and defensive. I have encountered this while blogging, in classrooms, and in public. I’m beginning to believe more and more that this is about doing my work. My work right now is to talk about these things because it keeps me sane. Because there are people who leave me wonderful comments that say “I totally feel that way”.

I am not sure whether the sense you are feeling silenced is coming from my comments or from other Asian/Asian Americans you have encountered or from my own comments.

All I was stating was that one needs to be careful of placing total blame on the “Chinese” or “Asian” heritage when the causes are a complex confluence of patriarchical and elitist assumptions from a given Chinese/East Asian immigrant families finding traction in their American analogues, however different in degree or kind they may be. In speaking out abour one’s negative experience with one’s familial culture, it should be done in such a way that it does not inadvertantly aid “American”/Western racists who cite various “Oriental Despotisms” to further justifying the dominant culture’s tendency to marginalize Asian and other non-western cultures. This is especially when the same racists are often just as misogynistic and elitist, albeit in different guises. Didn’t know about the pervasiveness and severity of it until several female Asian-American classmates mentioned it in an East Asian Historiography class discussion on race and gender.

If women of color can’t speak about their experiences in communities of color or within the feminist movement, where do you recommend women speak out about their issues?

Several of the previously mentioned classmates were deeply involved in speaking out about Asian-American issues and being WOC at their undergrad and grad institutions. Most of the issues that are discussed in this posting and comments were discussed in many Asian-American organizations both at my undergraduate institution and at the school where I took the grad historiography course.

Unfortunately, I found many within the Asian-American club at my undergrad were too content to frame the discussion of Asian cultural patriarchy and elitism as that of an “Oriental Despotism” which needed to be fixed by an “enlightened West” (Read: White). Fortunately, the Asian-American community at my grad institution are cognizant of the dangers of framing such complex problems in an oversimplistic essentializing manner.

Do you think women of color speaking up about their issues in communities of color helps communities of color become more inclusive? Do you think women of color speaking up about their issues in feminist communities helps feminism become more inclusive? If neither communities of color nor feminism cares about women of color, what do you suggest women of color should do?

Any ideas?

It’s really funny. I’ve been on feminist blogs for a year and a half now and no one knows why I’m so incredibly feminist. There are more posts about woc these days which presents more opportunities to speak about our experiences. I don’t think anyone’s reading this thread any more but the only person in the feminist or progressive blogosphere I’ve told about my family experiences is a white feminist blogger who doesn’t read blogs any more. I emailed Bitch|Lab back and forth last Christmas about how I was feeling similar to the subject of the post. Two weeks with my entire family had me panicked and in extreme despair.

I’m incredibly feminist because of my horrifically oppressive Chinese American family similar to Janet’s experience. Now everyone should know this about me because the topic never came up in the blogosphere or even in communities of color. Increasing posts and topics about women of color offer opportunities to speak out. Asian American communities should offer these opportunities but communities of color are as sexist as feminist communities are racist. Women of color should speak out about their experiences to raise awareness.

Exholt, are you male or female? It can make a slight difference in your response to Janet and this thread.

Donna Darko,

While my being male may have something to do with my reaction, I think a larger part of my reaction has to do with having to deal with anti-Asian stereotyping from growing up to the present. While growing up in a working class ethnically mixed neighborhood in NYC, I also went through a period where I felt so ashamed due to incessent racist bullying that I wanted to forsake the Chinese side of my cultural identity. Fortunately, my elementary school teachers and a social worker helped me through to the point of encouraging me to embrace both my Chinese and my American cultural identities.

As I matured and got to know more Chinese and East Asian students and their families in high school and college, I was disturbed at how extensive anti-Asian/Asian-American stereotyping was among Asian-American classmates. Male or female, many openly stated they wanted to become “American” (Read: White) and expressed contempt for their family’s culture. Part of my reaction to Janet’s post was from the fact the tone of that post eerily mirrored that of many of my Asian-American classmates, regardless of their gender.

Though I was alienated from my family’s culture as a young child, my way of dealing with this conflict of identity between being Chinese and American was to attempt to learn as much as I could about both cultures. Part of that process was to meet and interact with many Chinese/Asian-American families both in the US and in China/Taiwan. While still a neophyte in this process, I learned one usually cannot attribute behavioral traits to a given culture, especially when they are present in many other cultures in different guises. The American culture is no exception in this regard.

Do you have male siblings who weren’t scapegoated?

Exholt, are you male or female? It can make a slight difference in your response to Janet and this thread.

Later, when my mom caught me waving at a group of boys who told me to start acting like a girl, the FUCK became some kind of weird floral pattern. Oh well.