Eddie Huang on Asian American Masculinity
01/14/2017 08:51 PM
In response to Steve Harvey, Eddie Huang wrote an NYT op-ed:
“Before ever reading about the history of discrimination against Asian-Americans — from the “yellow peril” to the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Japanese-American internment camps to the model minority myth to Vincent Chin and Pvt. Danny Chen – every Asian-American man knows what the dominant culture has to say about us. We count good, we bow well, we are technologically proficient, we’re naturally subordinate, our male anatomy is the size of a thumb drive and we could never in a thousand millenniums be a threat to steal your girl.
As a kid, you believe the things you’re told about yourself. But as I grew, I started to see things unravel. I wasn’t subordinate, I didn’t count good, I hated bowing, and outside downloading GIFs of Daisy Fuentes, I was terrible with computers. My first reaction, and the reaction of everyone at Chinese language school as well, was that I was defective and destined for life on a rack at T.J. Maxx begging to get chosen despite my imperfections. So many Asian-Americans I grew up with bought into the expectations the dominant culture placed on them and did everything they could to meet them. I recognized from a young age that I couldn’t and began to plan for life on the margins.
I realized that people on the margins aren’t afforded the privilege of being complicated, whole, human beings in America; we have to create that existence ourselves, and it is that experience that I feel fundamentally binds us. Over time, I began to find solidarity with my singularity and difference.”
“Before ever reading about the history of discrimination against Asian-Americans — from the “yellow peril” to the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Japanese-American internment camps to the model minority myth to Vincent Chin and Pvt. Danny Chen – every Asian-American man knows what the dominant culture has to say about us. We count good, we bow well, we are technologically proficient, we’re naturally subordinate, our male anatomy is the size of a thumb drive and we could never in a thousand millenniums be a threat to steal your girl.
As a kid, you believe the things you’re told about yourself. But as I grew, I started to see things unravel. I wasn’t subordinate, I didn’t count good, I hated bowing, and outside downloading GIFs of Daisy Fuentes, I was terrible with computers. My first reaction, and the reaction of everyone at Chinese language school as well, was that I was defective and destined for life on a rack at T.J. Maxx begging to get chosen despite my imperfections. So many Asian-Americans I grew up with bought into the expectations the dominant culture placed on them and did everything they could to meet them. I recognized from a young age that I couldn’t and began to plan for life on the margins.
I realized that people on the margins aren’t afforded the privilege of being complicated, whole, human beings in America; we have to create that existence ourselves, and it is that experience that I feel fundamentally binds us. Over time, I began to find solidarity with my singularity and difference.”