On Asian-ness
Cry of Balintawak by Botong Francisco, a portrait of Filipino revolutionary Andres Bonifacio leading the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
Content warning: This post discusses violent themes related to colonization and imperialism, including rape and genocide.
Even though my grandmother told me about the discrimination my father experienced from his teachers being a brown kid…
Even though I have heard the stories from my Asian and Pacific Islander girlfriends about being fetishized and demeaned by men…
Even though I saw the sinophobia, anti-Asian racism, and xenophobia at the beginning of 2020…
… I am still in shock and grieving that an idiot racist white man could buy an assault rifle in the morning, and then that evening run around Atlanta murdering eight people because he thought they owed him something. His privilege, white supremacist delusion, and access to military-grade weaponry, facilitated by an imperialist white supremacist state, allowed him to project his insecurity and shame onto Asian women. The people that died in these horrific attacks had nothing to do with him, they simply existed in Asian bodies. These women were healers, parents, partners, and community members and they had nothing to do with this man’s hysteria. He felt entitled to their lives because of his indoctrination, shame, and insecurity.
It is unthinkable to imagine the entitlement I would have to feel to take someone else’s life. Police officers do it all the time to Black and Latinx bodies for the same reasons this white supremacist patriarchal menace took these women’s lives — their indoctrination into an imperialist white supremacist patriarchal framework. In this white supremacist menace’s mind, his shame and insecurity was more important than their lives, and his dominion and patriarchal power was more important than their ability to go home to their families. I am not historian by any means, but I have compiled some of the major instances of the United States creating war and enacting violence against Asian and Pacific Islander bodies for millennia:
Chinese people were barred from immigration to the US by both the the Page Act (1875) and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), the former explicitly condemning Chinese women as a moral threat because of their perception as sex workers. An entire nationality banned because of the assumption that every Chinese woman was a sex worker.
The Spanish-American War (1898) and resulting Philippine-American War (1902) cost hundreds of thousands of Filipino lives. The Pacific theater included the Philippines and Guam — both of which currently act as US military bases. The Philippines has been engaged in the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US since 1999. Under this agreement the US retains jurisdiction over soldiers who commit crimes in the Philippines. This has resulted in a number of crimes, most commonly the rape and murder of Filipino women, to go without trial or justice. The film Call Her Ganda documents the circumstances surrounding the murder of Jennifer Laude, a Filipina, by a US marine.
Spanish colonists landed on the Hawaiian archipelago beginning in 1542, followed by British James Cook in the 1770s. American missionaries followed soon after with Christianity and diseases, decimating the native population. Hawaii was seen as an important agricultural and military colony for the US, and in 1893 Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani was placed under house arrest by the US military. In her absence, the US formed a republic and agreed to annex Hawaii as a territory of the US in 1898.
Japanese internment during World War II (1939-1945), and the massive loss of capital and genius. And then, the twin atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945) by the US. This was the first time that atomic bombs were deployed during warfare. Not only were thousands of people killed by the direct impact of these bombings, but generations have been affected by the persistent radioactivity.
After World War II the US continues to operate military bases in South Korea and Japan, in addition to the Philippines, and Guam. Similarly to the conditions in the Philippines, there are numerous instances of South Korean and Japanese women being harassed, raped, and murdered by US military members.
Vietnam and Cambodia were carpet-bombed, deforested, their leaders assassinated, their people disfigured and murdered in service of US imperialist capitalism between 1955 and 1975.
“If the white Western mind exists in opposition to that which is ‘not white’, what even is whiteness on its own? How do we heal people when their identity and ego are so tied to the power they wield over non-white and non-cis-male bodies?”
The above list of aggressions only touches the surface of contemporary violence enacted by the US, and does not include the extent to which the US has colonized, or is currently colonizing, Asian and Pacific Island countries. It also does not include the widespread acceptance of damaging stereotypes perpetuated through mainstream media, or the way in which children abuse one another with racial slurs and prejudice, passed down from their parents, without consequence. The US is a fairly new country, and imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchy was not invented here, we just do it best. Imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchy fomented within the quagmire of white European conquests. Explorers, supported by the stolen wealth of feudal monarchies, took off with the explicit goal of exploitation. Global patterns of exploitation and inequity persist because imperialist white supremacy is baked into the capitalist patriarchy upon which the global economy is built. As early as the 1500s, explorers were sailing around the world with diseases, weapons, and a mandate from the crown. If we consider colonialism and European/white supremacist aggression as the ancestor of contemporary hate crimes and violent racism, the legacy is quite extensive:
British in
Malaysia (1771-1957)
Hawaii (1778-1795)
Burma (1824-1948)
Hong Kong (1841-1997)
India & Pakistan (1858-1947)
Maldives (1887-1948)
Singapore (1946-1963);
French in
India (1664-1954)
Polynesia (1768-)
Vietnam (1887-1945)
Cambodia (1887-1953);
Laos (1893-1953)
Germany in Palau (1899-1945);
Netherlands in
Taiwan (1624-1668)
Indonesia (1800-1949);
Portuguese in
India (1505-1961)
Macau (1557-1999)
Maldives (1558-1573)
Timor (1702-1975);
Spanish in
Micronesia (1521-1903)
The Philippines (The Philippines is named for King Philip II of Spain — 1565-1898)
Palau (1574-1898)
Taiwan (1626-1642);
The above list details European colonial conquests in Asia Pacific, although there was rampant European aggression and colonization across Central Asia, the Americas, and Africa throughout these periods as well. I feel compelled to note that this extensive list of colonial periods does not capture the rebellions and revolutions that persisted throughout these periods of aggression. Asian and Pacific Islanders (nor any other colonized group) were never willing subjects of colonialism, but these narratives are rarely taught as part of colonists’ history. Considering that exploration and its resulting imperialism of Asia Pacific began in the 1500s, the white Western mind has had about 500 years to metastasize delusional ideas of white supremacist patriarchal ideals. Europeans showed up with diseases and weapons, patriarchy and Christianity, dead set on using the former to reinforce the latter. If the white Western mind exists in opposition to that which is ‘not white’, what even is whiteness on its own? How do we heal people when their identity and ego are so tied to the power they wield over non-white and non-cis-male bodies?
The history of aggression, violence, murder, genocide, rape, and imperialism exists because the Western mind saw otherness as something to squash, conquer, and exploit. Is it any wonder that Asian-ness has been a punchline, a fetish, an other? The effects of colonization changed the course of these cultures and civilizations, resulting in decimated native populations, indentured servitude, and chattel slavery. Flash forward to 2021, Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) elders and families are intensely targeted by white supremacist violence amplified specifically by an openly white supremacist, misogynist, ableist, homophobic, and transphobic president. How do we heal ourselves when an imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarchal society tells us our non-white, non-cis-male, differently-abled, and neurodivergent bodies will never be enough?
I have been reading Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo and just finished The Will to Change by Bell Hooks. The former details very visible and specific instances of how mediocre white men in the US have been able to build a deluded mythology around themselves and their whiteness which makes violent, racist, misogynist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, and exploitative behavior permissible. The latter examines white supremacist patriarchy in a very specific and compassionate way, providing very intimate examples of white supremacist patriarchy in action. Hooks is encouraging about the ability of people of all genders and backgrounds to examine and silence the imperialist capitalist white supremacist patriarch in oneself.
I do not have a particularly poignant or instructive conclusion for this post. I am sobbing while writing, cracking open after a week of dissociation. I think I am finally able to process this grief because I attended an AAPI bike ride, put together by a wonderful organizer in Seattle. It was a community space I did not even realize I needed — and so many other people said the same. Before this week I felt that as a mixed Asian-American person, who is usually perceived as Latinx, that I would never need this type of grieving space. However, being around other AAPI who saw me and my experience, could laugh about how intensely pinay titas feed the people they love, how our families never say ‘I love you’, and feel the same grief and terror for their families and friends. I did not know I could have this type of space, it felt strange but familiar, novel and necessary, I rode home feeling like I was on a bubble of joy. I am so disgusted by the legacies of imperialism that continue to shape the capitalist white supremacist patriarchy that suppresses our myriad bodies, spirit, and expressions. However, I now know that I want and need this type of specific community-building space to heal.