Content warning: R*pe, SA Dear Asian Youth, In 2016, Brock Turner sexually assaulted an unconscious woman outside a Stanford University fraternity house. The prosecutor for Turner’s case asked for him to serve six years in prison as punishment for the emotional and physical trauma he inflicted on the victim. The judge, Aaron Persky, sentenced the defendant to six months. He only served three. The Guardian published a transcript of Persky’s reasoning. Masked by the judge’s flowering prose is a statement that downplays and makes excuses for Turner’s actions, depicting the incident as nothing more than a one-time mistake driven by alcohol. He emphasizes the defendant’s career as a decorated Stanford athlete and claims that a harsher sentence would cause unnecessary harm to Turner’s life. This is just one case out of many where those accused of sexual assault are let off with virtually no punishment, and the victims are unable to take comfort that justice has been rightfully served. Furthermore, it sets the precedent that there is a lack of accountability when dealing with cases regarding sexual assault. Turner’s abhorrent actions should have ruined his life, but Persky didn’t seem to think that violating another human being’s body deserved anything more than a slap on the wrist. This entire mentality can be summed up into one commonly used phrase: “Boys will be boys.” This phrase gets thrown around more often than not, especially during our youth. Everyone from teachers to parents use it to excuse inappropriate behavior from boys while holding girls to a completely different standard. It allows boys to get away with being too rough, loud, or irresponsible by acting like aggressive behavior is biological and should be expected. After all, if a girl exhibited similar traits, adults would be shocked, ready to discipline, and prepared to examine the underlying reason behind such abnormal behavior. One example of this damaging mentality is in the 1996 case of Nabozny v. Podlesny. In this case, an openly gay student named Jamie Nabozny was regularly harassed, beaten, spat on, and called derogatory slurs at his public school. In one of the alleged incidents, two boys subjected Nabozny to a mock rape in front of 20 other students. Despite constantly asking school officials to put an end to the abuse, his principal allegedly brushed off the issue by stating “boys will boys” and that Nabozny should have expected this harassment for being openly gay. This case shows that by leaving improper behavior unchecked and unpunished, others will inevitably get hurt. Although this is an extreme example, it is important to keep in mind when considering the consequences of normalizing the "boys will be boys" mentality. A much more universal case is when adults tell young girls that when boys are mean to them, it means that they like them and should be accepted as a sign of affection. This further normalizes toxic behavior, along with assault and rape culture. Instead, adults should be teaching impressionable boys to show others kindness and respect, and in turn showing all students the importance of speaking out against improper actions. The older men get, the more people stop explicitly using the phrase “boys will be boys,” but the mentality still stands through the implementation of boys’ club culture. The boys’ club is a social network of male friends primarily found in corporate environments. These men exclude women in the workplace by frequenting stereotypically male-dominated spaces such as golf courses and strip clubs. In these situations men are able to construct valuable connections that encourage them to show solidarity to one another by exclusively providing opportunities and advice to those within this inner circle. This further perpetuates the saying “boys will be boys” as this showcases that girls are held to a different standard. The boys’ club sets an unfair precedent for women by expecting them to work for their achievements without the benefits of the boys club. Not to mention that because members of the boys’ club rarely show the same amount of support for their female colleagues, women in the workplace face double standards. An article in the Harvard Business Review looked through around 200 performance reviews within a company. They found that of the employees' reviews who described a colleague as “too aggressive,” 76% of them were attributed to women while only 24% were attributed to men. The thin line between a go-getter and a taskmaster seems to depend on one’s gender. Other examples include how many women cannot be vulnerable without being called “too emotional” nor can they stand up for themselves without accusation of being “too sensitive.” However, because the workplace is traditionally seen to be a male’s domain and many workplaces allow men to get away with this behavior. All in all, a boys' club environment prevents deserving women from gaining respect in the workplace and high leadership positions. This way of thinking becomes even more problematic as violence and oversexualizing women become primary traits of hypermasculinity. As a result, sexual assault and harassment become common issues for femininity. Of course, women are also perpetrators of sexual violence and their actions should be treated with equal punishment and contempt, however the majority of perpetrators are male. In the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 98.1% of female rape victims along with 93.3% of male rape victims reported only male perpetrators. Unfortunately, males are not only the leaders of rape, but they are also the leaders of sexual harassment in the form of catcalling and groping. These attitudes, along with the normalization of rape culture, have become so common that many women are increasingly warned to be prepared to protect themselves. This is closely associated with the history that men get away with these actions through the excuse that this is a normal part of sexual development. The response to various public sexual assault allegations is representative of the issue regarding toxic masculinity. For example, in 2018, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford. The alleged incident occurred when Ford was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17. In her testimony, Ford stated that the two were at a party when Kavanaugh pushed her into a bed and groped her while putting her hand over her mouth to prevent everybody else from hearing her screams. The public immediately perpetuated doubt regarding Ford’s story. The Judicial Crisis Network went as far as to launch a $1.5 million campaign to defend Kavanaugh’s name against what they called “a last-minute smear campaign [to] destroy a good and decent man who has an unblemished personal record.” President Trump even mocked Ford’s testimony and asked audience members to “Think of your son. Think of your husband” as if Kavanuagh deserved sympathy for his situation. Following these accusations were also members of the public who simply brushed off the issue as if it was not a big deal. Image Description: Tweet from Matt Walsh, [at] MattWalshBlog that states: “If the story is true, we now have to decide whether a man is unqualified for the Supreme Court because he drunkenly groped a girl 35 years ago when he was 17. I’m going to answer “no” on that one. I don’t see how this has any bearings on his qualifications whatsoever.” Image Description: Tweet from Rod Dreher, [at] roddreher that states: “I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge. By God’s grace (literally), I am not the same person I was at 17. This is a terrible standard to establish in public life.” It’s not just random people on the internet who share this line of thinking, individuals who are in high places in our society engage, condone, and even endorse the “boys will be boys” mindset. An anonymous lawyer close to the White House stated in an interview with Politico that Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination would not be withdrawn and went on to state that “If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.” Indifferent and insensitive responses to rape and assault are not one-time issues. Ford is one of millions who never got to see justice. According to a Justice Department analysis of violent crime in 2016, 80% of rapes and sexual assaults go unreported, and of those, less than one percent result in a conviction. Not only does society excuse men for their behavior, but women are often told that they need to adjust their lives to accommodate for these actions instead. Women are told to be wary of the way they dress, what parts of town they visit, and how late they stay out in order to avoid sexual harassment. Living out of fear of being sexually harassed should not be normalized for women. This plays into the mindset that men are uncontrollable and it is up to everyone else to act in accordance with their rules. That seems to be why parents will spend more time punishing their daughters for getting home late instead of teaching their sons about consent. Or, why schools think it's better to police female students on what they can or cannot wear, as opposed to telling male students that sexualizing their classmates is unacceptable. Luckily, the public has recently begun to fight against sexist dress codes that target and blame female students for “distracting” their male counterparts. For example, in 2018, Floridian high schooler Lizzy Martinez was dress-coded for wearing a baggy sweatshirt without a bra. She was taken out of class, forced to wear an undershirt, and bandage her nipples to prevent causing a “distraction” for the boys in her class. Martinez’s response to this degrading experience was to start a national protest that eventually convinced the administration to relax the dress code. However, over half of American public schools still experience strict dress codes. Some common examples include regulations surrounding the length of ones bottoms and the thickness of ones straps. These dress code enforcements not only teach male students that it is okay to sexualize their classmates if they are wearing less clothing, but it also comes at the cost of the female student’s education. Taking female students out of class so that they cover themselves up sends them the message that they are expected to adapt their own behavior to meet their male counterpart’s needs. This victim-blaming mentality carries into adult life as sexual assault victims often get asked, “What were you wearing?” implying that clothing is somehow consent. We are the products of our environment. The continuous use of the phrase “boys will be boys” and the mindset that it creates only enables aggressive and improper behavior from men while expecting everyone else to adjust to their needs. While the phrase may seem innocent enough, complying with this line of thinking leads to serious repercussions. As we move forward, I hope we will be the generation that stops using the phrase “boys will be boys,” and that for those of us who have already internalized this sexist message, we begin to rethink what should be expected from our male counterparts. - Lora

Dear Asian Youth, It was early morning in Central Park, New York, when the statue of James Marion Sims was hauled away in the back of the park department’s truck. Just months before, Black female activists from the organization Black Youth Project 100 were donned in hospital gowns, standing before his figure. During their demonstration, they splashed red liquid on themselves, emblematic of the blood shed under “the father of gynecology” during the nineteenth century. Under slavery, Black people were seen as property. In 1807, Congress banned the importation of enslaved people, and as a result, enslaved women became even more important to plantation owners. Consequently, fertility was increasingly seen as an asset, capable of growing the labor force and bringing in more revenue. With the new legislation, a symbiotic relationship began between slave owners and gynecologists, the doctors who treat female ailments. Prior to this, physicians frequently accompanied plantation owners during auctions to ensure enslaved people were in peak condition. This relationship soon evolved, specializing in women’s health for slave owners who wanted the enslaved women to procreate successfully. Essentially, physicians exploited Black bodies to gain recognition within the medical community. These aspects of nineteenth century America furthered the gross dehumanization of Black women which is epitomized through the career of the “father of gynecology”—James Marion Sims. Multiple works of medical literature during this time claimed Black women to be more pain-tolerant than white women. However, these sentiments were simply a way to justify the use of enslaved women as experimental subjects. For Sims, such long-held beliefs would lead him to conduct countless painful experiments on enslaved Black women without anesthesia. Physicians tested new protocols and forcibly explored Black bodies in the name of collective wellbeing for White women. One of Sims' set of experiments was focused on vesicovaginal fistula, a childbirth complication where the vagina is connected to another organ such as the bladder, resulting in chronic leakage of urine or stool. This uncomfortable condition can lead to many complications such as sepsis, organ damage, and even death—a danger to a slave owner’s coveted labor force. Consequently, Sims made it his focus to seek a surgery to reverse the effects of vesicovaginal fistula. However, no effort to rid young women of their pain could justify the additional pain and trauma he would subject them to within what he called “sick houses.” After making arrangements with slave owners to treat the enslaved women for free, Sims took them into sick houses set up in the backyard and began countless procedures on them. Of the sixteen women Sims held captive, only three women are identified: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy. Anarcha was a seventeen-year-old enslaved girl with vesicovaginal fistula and Sims’ first experimental patient. Every day, he and his team of gynecologists and medical professionals routinely experimented on the women, seeing what procedures were fruitful and what weren’t—all without their consent and all without anesthesia, even after its use in surgery was established in 1846. After two years of futile experiments, the White medical apprentices who had initially assisted Sims stopped working at the sick houses. In lieu of their support, Sims demanded the other slave women assist him in the procedures. He taught those women how to use a scalpel to cut into each other’s uterus. Bound to beds and pinned down by other enslaved women, they received no rest from their procedures: Sims would experiment with C-sections and lacerate their vagina, while other women would be out working in his field. This rotational shift allowed him to maximally capitalize on the suffering of these Black women. It was after thirty procedures performed on Anarcha that Sims was able to successfully repair her fistula: it took thirty procedures done without anesthesia within five years for Anarcha’s suffering to finally end. Unfortunately, there were thirteen other enslaved women who Sims also experimented on, but their identities are lost to history. Soon after this successful procedure on Anarcha, the women returned to their former plantations to continue birthing more children for the slave owners. Years later, Sims would move to New York, where he’d established the Woman's Hospital of the State of New York. Because of the surgical procedure he created, as well as the speculum, an instrument he invented to examine the vagina and cervix, Sims ascended among elite medical men and was crowned the “ father of gynecology”. Sims, like countless other physicians at the time, subscribed to racist ideologies hidden under the facade of science. Yet such notions resurface today. Just four years ago, “a provocative report… noted that medical students and residents at a leading institution held… deeply mistaken beliefs [that the] skin of Black patients being thicker than skin of white patients [resulted in] African Americans having lower sensitivity to pain” (Wailoo, Historical Aspects of Race and Medicine). Understanding the perspectives of Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsy allows us to see how racism can subtly and blatantly entangle itself within an objective field such as medicine, and even why within a socioeconomic stratification, the quality of medical service can diminish drastically. Physicians working in communities of color, especially those with Black people, may inadvertently invalidate their patients’ pain, believing pain tolerance differs by race, not by individuals. This and similar beliefs perpetuate the medical disparities our nation faces today. Some Americans argue that Sims’ innovations should be highlighted, rather than the means by which he achieved them. After all, his innovations gave way to other life-saving gynecological advancements. However, to blatantly disregard the suffering he imposed on enslaved Black women is to ignore the comprehensive history of gynecology and the Black women— like Anarcha— who unknowingly advanced it. As such, it is not in spite of, but because of Sims’ significance to gynecology that makes it especially pertinent to remember women like Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsy. For a long time, the history of America has been glorified and sugar-coated to cover up the unjust actions and events that have occurred within a nation seemingly founded on freedom. But by bringing to light dark histories that have been long hidden, we can begin identifying and combating the remnants of racism that continue to pervade in medicine today. - Angela Huynh

here in Hindustan beauty is not measured by resilience here dark-skinned damsels brew mixtures of lemon and curd and yearn for a milky glow a bleached, bloodless fairness that a handsome groom searches for layer after layer remedy after remedy they look at their lighter counterparts and say strip me of this melanin and grace me with the pallid whiteness that graces your own skin here in Hindustan we associate caste with color where we have this loathsome inherent hunger for acceptance from a society that screamed colonizer, colonizer here in Hindustan we exist in a pretentious irony where we worship the mighty Kali goddess of strength raven-black hair lions and serpents at her feet her divine inky complexion yet never an example for the sun-kissed daughters of our land here in Hindustan they tell me to pick a shade of foundation three times lighter scrub gram flour on my arms to erase my so-called tan here in Hindustan we eulogise Bollywood and its vexing glorified portrayal of cream-skinned maidens here we do not teach our women that bronze skin that shines like copper is beautiful that tomato juice and banana peels are no longer the solution to this age-old problem here we rarely ponder why we love another’s complexion more than we love our own here in Hindustan we are fair, lovely, and shattered. Earlier this June, a controversy arose around India's most favoured, celebrity-endorsed fairness product, Fair & Lovely. In its decades of existence, it has propagated a message of colourism and the necessity - for women in particular - to have the fairest complexion possible in order to succeed in their occupations, find the right groom for marriage, and be accepted in society. Being subjected to this ideology myself, I have spent years of my life trying to scrub away what I like to call a "tan", and not my natural skin complexion. I think it's time we stop adhering to a custom that has plagued our society for ages and truly accept ourselves for who we are. Instagram: @akshhhatha Cover Photo Source: Deviantart

Dear Asian Youth, On the first day of eighth grade, I whipped out my new white leather Converse, the iconic star-stripe combo on either side of each shoe. I specifically remember sitting in ELA, tracing my hand on a piece of paper and covering it in treble clefs and characters from musicals. I wore the same pair when I was in the ensemble of Grease, the front of the sole stained from when we would slide downstage during “Summer Nights.” I slipped on those trusty sneakers every morning. They were comfy and simple, and they got the job done. They went with everything, and I could always depend on them to bring an outfit together. On the infamous date of March 13th, 2020, I wore the very same shoes as I said goodbye to my friends. All I expected was a longer spring break, a “Coronacation,” if you will. But the two-week respite quickly turned into months spent confined in the walls of my house. I put my favorite pair of shoes away, never wearing them again for the next few months. I spent these months listening to the same songs over and over again: “Y U Gotta B Like That” would blast in my ears as I walked around my lifeless neighborhood, and the original Broadway cast recording of Legally Blonde would play as I sat on my bedroom floor doing Algebra. At this point, all of my favorite music had grown stale, and I longed for everything to return to normal, for people to be at my side rather than miles and months away. Then, on July 24th, 2020, Taylor Swift released Folklore, her eighth studio album. I had always been too staid to listen to Taylor: All she does is write meaningless songs about her exes, I’d believed about her music for the past couple years. But the amount of praise this woman received, and the interest that I developed as a result of her spontaneity, compelled me to listen to this song cycle crafted in a time of loneliness for everybody. I loved it. The lyricism, the instrumentation, everything about this record was immaculate. Listening to “The 1” became a part of my daily routine, and my home screen layout with the new iOS 11 update was centered around Taylor’s new aesthetic. A rainy day a couple weeks back, I slipped on my trusty white Converse. As I trotted to the tune of “Betty,” I stepped in a puddle; I felt water leak into my shoe, drenching my sock, and when I sat down in P.E., I noticed a tear found between the leather and the sole. I had never realized what my shoes had been through. But now that I look back on it, the wear-and-tear on this one pair of shoes just reminded me of how much I love them. We’ve been through everything together, and now, the stars on my sneakers match the stars on the new Taylor Swift cardigan that’s wrapped around my Folklore-loving heart. Now, I just tie the laces around each other and play a new song. 2020 was a year of change. It severely deviated from anybody’s expectations. But I found new things to love and grasped them in my palms. As sung by Swift in “Clean” from her album 1989, “When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe.” So for me, this year was not about deviation. It was about growth. - Sebastian Paragas Cover photo source: https://brandcentralsolutions.com/work-playlists-for-your-work-day-at-home/

i have done it again! loved another & lost two friends, i search in bathroom mirrors only to see a sole Yellow thing staring back at me & hide when whitening sun arrives in bed i think they are lost forever this is all my fault i am so sorry that i let someone in let myself feel sun on my skin bring water to my barren lips did i ever tell you that i am sorry for how i have done it again! lost ourselves over & over & over again, i pierce wanted posters into Yellow skin & still cannot find suspects for robberies of where you went, why you’ve left i think they are apart forever this is all my fault i am so sorry that i let them crack open your chest let myself resent the dagger you left buried in my bloodied breasts did i ever tell you that i miss you for why i have done it again! misplaced myself & prayed for repentance, i kneel down to a god that may exist & implore for all my love to be absolved from my Yellowing spirit i think we are gone forever this is all my fault i am so sorry that i let myself lose you like i’m losing my hair like i’m losing all my religion did i ever tell you that i grieve you but oh, i have done it again! how i loved us, Yellow girls with all eighteen of my breaths & still lost you two at winter’s dying request Cover Photo Source: Ines Norman

There’s been a resurgence in nostalgia for BBC’s Merlin lately—it seemed fitting to recall the time I was ten and sat cross-legged in front of the TV for hours on end, starry-eyed for what essentially was my entire known idea of love at the time: King Arthur, and his queen Guinevere. There’s something inexplicably beautiful about a love story as tragic as this one, and I don’t think it’s one I’ll ever be able to take out of my heart. So, here’s a fairytale about the knight in shining armor and the queen of the castle. One. Fallen kingdom of molten bronze Two. On a bridge of wings and stars Three. Dandelions of the hilltop; cold solitude afar from the river Four. Silhouettes of light on Thanatos’ shrine Five. Tales transcending fate and time Six. Times broken Seven. Times mended Eight Legends never die, stardust in your blood and mine Nine. Tailor-made gowns of rose silk Ten. Years on ice-cold sheets and white hot glass One hundred. Vows under fields of anastasia —the rain resurrects, but it will not heal One thousand. Shades of red on her wedding dress One hundred thousand. Knights in shining armor; baptism in war sun specks in his hair blue butterfly in her hand not all that glitters is gold but when blood runs like water rust is age old once and future, time is fragile and love is forever One thousand. Universes in one million lifetimes One hundred. Drops of tears for every ten drops of hell on his soil and on his name Nine. is meaningless; asleep —as the mountains of late spring Eight. Rewind. Seven. Kisses on the sun, lonely and pure and slippery in the running stream Six. Heeded the call from the valley of once and never Five. She is a flower Four. She is of the golden sigil, he is of her heart Three. For what is and what never should be Two. Stars One soul. Cover Photo Source: The Eclectic Light Company

Dear Asian Youth, Expectations are vindictive things, Pulling and grasping and twisting At the thin lines of your limits, Warping them and then asking for more more more They are greedy, rapacious, hungry things, Eager to steal your sense of worth and value. And even when you have been wrung dry, Even when you have offered all that you have, From the oxygen that fuels your blood, To the skin that covers your palms, It is never enough. Expectations you see, Are like the purest and softest white Of the stars that glow at night. Are like the round silvery curves Of the moon that shines at twilight. Always within view, Yet never within reach. Any attempt to grasp at it, Is a futile and desperate thing. Because for each shaking breath you take, Each painful step you make, It brings you no closer to the light. How far must you run, How high must you jump, Until it is enough? Until you are enough? My blood has run dry. The light in my eyes has dwindled, A dull reflection of the world around me. My hands constantly grasp at something, Yet each time slender fingers uncurl, My palm is empty. They say that only you can determine your self worth, And yet the expectations they plaster on you, Like clouds swollen with rain, Are heavy and oppressive. They whisper and stare and herd you into a box, And act as if it is not their fault that You have found yourself confined to their judgements. In the face of their scrutiny, Of their piercing eyes that stare unyieldingly into me, That bore into my soul and pick me apart, I cannot help but hiss from the sting of Their glares. Face burning with shame When I fail to meet their expectations. I cannot help but look at the people around me, And only see reflections of my faults. The distance between my fingertips and their expectations, Is like a never ending abyss. Like a yawning gaping chasm, The distance continues to stretch infinitely Despite my desperate attempts. Every time I fail to grasp at the stars, Something in me seems to flicker and fade away with it. Their disappointment tearing and ripping at my self worth, Shattering it like the fragile glass that it is, Until there’s nothing left but bloody hands and broken shards But worse is, Is that every time my vermillion stained fingertips Somehow stretch beyond themselves, Lightly brush against the stars, And their eyes turn from disappointment into grudging approval, A shiver of hope and desperation runs through me That I hold and clutch at with a fierceness Only known to a dying man. It is like a rain storm in the midst of a drought, And as the blue grey liquid slides, Over the soft curves and angles of my face, In place of my tears that have run dry, A bitter laugh wracks my throat. How desperate I am, For their approval. With trembling fingers and bloody nails, I achingly glue myself back together. Cracks and fractures only building As I ignore the possibility that one day, There will simply be nothing left of me. - Feileen Cover photo source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/124693483417223364/

Dear Asian Youth, If you follow Asian creators on TikTok, you might be aware of the recent controversy that truly hit home for many Asian Americans. The controversy came about when one TikTok creator, named Dallas (@dallasofkoty), created a “clapback” video in response to another creator, Young Kim (@youngquim). Kim is a Korean American creator that creates content commonly surrounding the Asian American experience. He created a video that called out people who move to Asian countries and act as if they know everything about that culture or people. The video addressed the problematic culture of those studying abroad in foreign countries who return home to perpetuate harmful stereotypes of a culture or country based on their short time there. While it was not directed towards anyone in particular, @dallasofkoty, after being tagged by multiple users, created the “clapback” video that essentially blamed Asian Americans for being “whitewashed” and out of touch with their own culture. Now, to provide some context, Dallas is a White American living abroad in South Korea. While I don’t want to get too much into the details of the drama, the “clapback” video struck a chord, not just with me, but with many people in the Asian American community. As a third-generation Chinese American, I have struggled with my cultural and ethnic identity my entire life. I vividly remember the first time I was called “banana.” I was in middle school and I was sitting with some friends discussing our families. Most of my friends were second-generation, and I was considered a lot more “Americanized” than them because my parents had been raised and educated in the U.S. The comment was said in jest; however, it has stuck with me to this day because I have often felt ashamed and embarrassed over not being “in touch with my culture.” The fact that I never learned to speak Chinese fluently, or that I felt that I was being dragged away from my cultural roots living and growing up here. A part of me has always rejected my “Americanness” because I felt that my American identity was the antithesis of my Chinese identity. Growing up,I sometimes felt like I was blamed for being the way I was. This is why it often hurts so much to be called whitewashed or a banana. I was blamed for not learning Chinese, for being Americanized, and for being “white”. My peers shamed me for not being “Asian enough” while refusing to understand why. While so many people are quick to play the blame game, we need to truly understand why so many Asian Americans are “out of touch” with their cultural roots. My family immigrated to the U.S. in the 1940s and 50s. This was before the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allowed many highly-skilled Asians to immigrate to the U.S. Many of my family members wouldn't have been considered skilled workers, so my family came to the U.S. for a better opportunity and to support their village and family in China. My family members had to come through Angel Island and other countries to get here. To them, the U.S. was a land of plenty, a land of opportunity to climb the social ladder compared to how things were in China then. When my family came to the U.S. They arrived in the post-WWII era, post-McCarthyism, post-Japanese internment. There was considerable pressure to assimilate to American culture. Although Asian Americans were finally granted the right to citizenship in 1952, there was still a lot of anti-Asian sentiment stemming from government propaganda demonizing Japan during WWII. At this time, there was considerable pressure for Asian Americans to assimilate to American culture and be seen as all-American, to reject their cultural and ethnic roots to avoid racism and discrimination. My maternal great grandparents exemplified this in many ways and deeply instilled this sentiment within many of my great aunts and uncles. The push to speak English, to get a college degree, to be “successful” in all things deemed American. For them, it was not only a show of pride in their new home country but in some ways, it was also a survival response to racism and discrimination faced by Asians, as well as wanting to forget the trauma and horrors of WWII in China. My grandparents, eldest of their siblings and Chinese-born, had even greater pressure to assimilate to the culture in the U.S. Unlike their younger siblings who had the opportunity to be educated here, they either lacked the resources to go through higher education or were deemed too old to attend school here. My parents faced a lot of struggles with being second-generation Americans growing up. Having to learn English in elementary school because they grew up in a Chinese-speaking household, having to help my grandparents fill out job applications and government forms, having to navigate the college application process as the first in their families to attend college. By the time I was born, my family was pretty “Americanized” in numerous ways. We spoke English at home; we watched American movies and TV shows, and we celebrated American holidays. The fact that my grandparents have lived with my family since I was young kept me connected to my cultural roots; I grew up eating my grandmother's dishes, celebrating Chinese holidays, and listening to my grandparents speak Chinese with my parents and other relatives. When I think of the struggles that my family went through and the struggles many immigrant families go through, it pains me when another person blames me for being “whitewashed” and when a person, especially a white person, blames the Asian American community for being “out of touch” with our culture, regardless of the context. When you call me “whitewashed”, you erase the trauma my great grandparents and grandparents went through, fleeing violence, war, and persecution during WWII in China. You forget the struggles that my family had to go through to immigrate to the U.S., seeking a better life for their children, grandchildren, and me. You forget the racism and discrimination they faced because of anti-Asian propaganda and racial scapegoating. You discredit my family’s struggles to assimilate to American culture not necessarily because we wanted to, but because we had to survive. You also discredit every moment I have had growing up in a multigenerational and multicultural household, every Chinese dish my grandmother cooks, every trip to Chinatown, and every Chinese holiday and tradition my family celebrates. You reawaken the inner turmoil that so many Asian Americans experience when we feel that we are losing touch with our culture because we cannot speak our native language or understand our ethnic roots. Many of us wish we knew more about our home countries, but we grew up in a country that was founded based on racial and ethnic cleansing and assimilation. Just because you have the privilege and opportunity to live abroad doesn't mean that you understand that culture or the experiences of growing up and living in it. So don't blame me for being “whitewashed.” Sources: https://www.tiktok.com/@youngqim/video/6901418859358637318?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@dallasofkoty?source=h5_m http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration_Act_of_1952/ Cover photo source: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2020/04/13/dont-call-me-whitewashed-not-now/

Dear Asian Youth, This year, we have seen the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. As the movement gained mass support worldwide, emerged opposers to this cause just as widespread as its followers -- white supremacist groups making public statements in direct hostility towards BLM, or in family and friend arguments debating the meaning and the purpose of what “Black Lives Matter” truly encompasses. It is not unknown that Asians have prejudices against other minorities. Many of our relatives and friends may even oppose and condemn BLM themselves. As a BIPOC community that is under the same shackles of white dominance as so many others, we ask ourselves, why is it so hard for our community to come together and support BLM? Why have we faced so much division this year upon the surface of this question? We can trace these prejudices back to the infamous Model Minority Myth -- a narrative pushed upon the Asian community to portray them as impassive, agreeable, and superior in school and work. It was pushed during the 1960s that signified a dramatic change in the way Asian communities in the U.S. were treated and viewed, this reverent and respected image of the AAPI community contrasted with the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese concentration camps just years prior. Unashamedly, it was promoted in the media to essentially garner sympathy of Asian Americans and encourage assimilation lest they be stereotypes and shunned, which resulted in a sharp division in unity between the Asian American and African American communities, both of which were struggling for their rights and visibility at that point in history. In light of the BLM movement, Gen-Z has brought significant attention to their own issues of internalized racism in their own loves, and have taken steps in the effort to dismantle something so ingrained in our community. But as we see Gen-Z tackle these issues, efforts of the youth are counteracted just as readily by older generations that fail to see the harms of this myth. Gen-Z is significantly more open-minded, accepting, and outspoken when compared to previous generations, swept up in a sociopolitical and health crisis -- forcing us to unlearn, learn and educate each other. Racism, homophobia, transphobia fail to pass as easily they did in past years. We hold each other accountable. Still, we see older friends and relatives oblivious to the implications of the Model Minority Myth. They pride themselves in this false notion that they are the “model” racial group in the face of Western society, that they are inherently smarter than any other minority, that they are the ones who remain calm, agreeable, and impassive. They find themselves stuck in this false narrative and pressure themselves in holding themselves to it, even though these stereotypes are in no way accurate nor fulfillable. In these unattainable standards, Asians harbor feelings of superiority and can tint their image of other minorities. In believing that they are the “model minority,” any other racial group can seem inferior, subordinate. Here, we see the risks of ignorance towards the harms of the Model Minority Myth -- the possibility of Asians wanting to fulfill it, instead… laying foundations for the pitting of the Asian community against other minorities and the enforcement of racist mindsets. The Model Minority Myth pits minorities against each other and creates division between those oppressed under the same institutions and the workings of white supremacy. It is counteractive towards the unity in Asian communities and other racial groups and harbors hostility in Asians towards “lesser” or “inferior” races, reflecting the ideas that the Model Minority Myth enforces. As Asians look upon themselves as the “model” or the “better” race, it only sets the stage for them to look down upon other racial groups as not successful, agreeable, or intelligent as them. There has been noticeable racism in the Asian community against Black people. Asians look at the Black community of individuals that are “inherently” violent, and stray away from those that look “suspicious” and have prejudices and preconceived notions about Black men, in particular, above any other demographic. Stemming from systematic racism from slavery and forward, the myth of Black racial inferiority has manifested itself in the beliefs and everyday practices of Asians worldwide. Being violent is not something that is inherited genetically. It is a trait that is nurtured through one’s environment, and is definitely not just limited to the Black community. Generalizing an entire racial group off a single stereotype enforces racism and racial profiling, contributing even further to the systemic and systematic struggles that Black people face every single day. The Asian community has those that are violent, that are addicts, that are unstable, that are struggling, that aren’t smart, and more -- just like any other racial group. Asians are not a “perfect” minority. When that is acknowledged, it opens one’s eyes to the universalities of imperfectness, of human adversities. When human struggles are tied to a single minority group, it criminalizes them and puts them at a disadvantage in the eyes of the law and at the hands of the general public. The mass outlook on the Black community is something that cannot go unnoticed. Racism has its origins. It doesn’t appear out of thin air. We have heard our relatives say “all lives matter,” not understanding the context and the need for a statement like “Black lives matter.” We have heard it time and time again, we have repeated it endlessly -- all lives can't matter until Black lives do. We see Black people getting shot, killed, harmed and the justice system does not do them justice. People are mad. People are tired. If George Floyd was an Asian man, if Breonna Taylor was an Asian woman, if Tameer Rice was an Asian child… we might finally understand sympathy, as a community. We would get a glimpse into the years of oppression and frustration that the Black community fights every day. We would understand why they shout “Black lives matter” in the streets. It does not need to happen directly to us for us to care. It is the goal of the Model Minority Myth to alienate us, to make it seem like we cannot sympathize with oppression because we are intelligent and resilient, grouping us into a false standard that jeopardizes our mental health and cultural beliefs. Yet we can’t sympathize with our white counterparts, either, because we are still oppressed under a white-dominated society and institutions built off years of hatred and hostility towards BIPOC. It is our job to fight these myths and narrow this gap and division that colonization has created between us and other minorities that need our support and help. As the Asian community, we have to stop being complacent with white supremacy and check ourselves and our internalized prejudices. We have to see in what ways colonization has affected our society culturally, and dismantle the harmful effects of imperialism in our everyday lives. We have to own up to our own faults and misconceptions and realize we are not a “model minority,” and we are not any more “white” or “privileged” than any other racial group. We can look to Yellow Peril for Black Power as the Asian community reclaimed a condescending term that was used against us for years to empower and uplift those that were being silenced and oppressed. A phrase once used to alienate Asians from the Western world, Yellow peril is no longer a term of shame and cowardice, it has been morphed into one of renewed pride and zealousness, joining with the Black community to express it’s support, first spoken by Mao Tse-tung on behalf of the Chinese community in 1963: I call on the workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, enlightened elements of the bourgeoisie and other enlightened persons of the world, whether white, black, yellow or brown, to unite to oppose the racial discrimination practised by U.S. imperialism and support the American Negroes in their struggle against racial discrimination. BLM is not the first time African Americans have spoken up about the injustices and flaws in the institutions in the U.S., nor is it the first time we have seen mass opposition to this fight. BLM has been labeled as a terrorist organization, an extremist group. We cannot let these accusations sway us. What we need is cooperation and support amongst minorities. Hatred, fighting and prejudice will not get us anywhere. This is what we need to see in our society, the unity between those fighting against a system that has been made to quiet our cries for help and screams in protest. We win nothing from hatred, we win nothing from hostility. At the end of the day, we are all still fighting against race-based violence, xenophobia, police brutality, imperialism, and more. We have so much more that joins us than what divides us. - Lana SOURCES: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/10/history-of-the-model-minority-myth-in-the-us/ https://blackhammer.org/2020/06/19/yellow-peril-supports-black-power-the-unification-of-struggle/ George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police this year sparked the rise of the BLM movement, starting a record-breaking wave of global support through protests, petitions, donations, and advocacy. Though as much as there was alliance and coalition, we saw major pushback and opposition to the BLM movement. As a member of the Asian community, this year forced us to introspect and uncover our own prejudices, ones most likely fueled by the long standing Model Minority Myth. By dismantling these views, we open our minds and hearts to unity and sympathy with the Black community in their struggle for visibility and justice. Instagram: @lanaaisabel Cover Photo Source: Medium

Dear Asian Youth, When I was young, all that I ever wanted to do was please others. I wanted to be the popular, sociable girl that everyone thought was their friend. I wanted to be the hot, white girl that all the boys wanted in the movies. In reality, I was the frail and awkward snaggle toothed girl that only could dream of being the main character of her own story. I yearned for the acceptance of my peers, wanting to consistently make sure that they liked me, and hoped that their validation would grant me the satisfaction and happiness that I had been craving for so long. I started putting on a bit for some of my friends in my math class with an Asian accent, to which they got a laugh out of. I would emulate the accents and broken English that I would hear in my own home, mispronouncing words and changing sentence structure to make it seem that I could not speak English properly. This translated outside of my friends in math class, as I carried it with me as a tool to get other people to like me. I thought it had made me seem more approachable and funny. It was something that made me feel like for once I was likeable. It was a bit that they always laughed at, and continued to laugh at for years. Largely in the media, the use of the Asian accent is represented in the light of a joke. This comes at the expense, however, of those Asian American people who have to deal with their struggles being portrayed as a joke. There are many instances of casual racism in American television and media. Besides the recent “fox-eye trend”, or the profiting off of traditional cultural items, the casual racism that Asian Americans are subjected to everyday has created an environment where other people feel that they are allowed to perpetuate the same racist acts seen in the media. In an article by Vox, the author says, “Continuing to push forward sure feels like the goal for me and millions of Asian Americans and other minorities who were born here but are consistently othered by comedy, whether offensive or lazy, and the first-generation immigrants who will continue to arrive here and be marked as foreign by how they look and talk” (Kumar). The idea of making fun of Asian Americans for their differences to everyone else is an idea largely normalized in society, to the point that we have also become used to the mockery. The Asian accent, and other subtly racist Asian remarks is something that many deal with trying to assimilate with other peers who are majority white. Everyone wants to fit in when they are younger, and we are taught that we should, or else we will be punished for it. It wasn’t until freshman year that I contextualized what I had done to not only myself, but my parents, my family, and my heritage. I was giving them permission to laugh at something that they should not have. They had grown comfortable with laughing at Asians, because I had made it seem like it had been okay to laugh at it. I had created a space in which my white peers could freely express their prejudice against my community in the name of comedic exercise. They had not been laughing with me, but at me. They were laughing at my family, and the sounds that they would make trying to utter difficult words in a language that was foreign to them. They were laughing at my parents, who as hard as they tried to cultivate a peaceful life in a strange place, would encounter racism. They were laughing at me, and the ethnicity that I thought I had been proud of but was realistically trying to actively hide as part of my identity. My parents have always been proud and set in their identity, and made sure that even though they lived in America, would keep Vietnamese traditions for our family, and make Vietnamese dishes. I grew up in a larger vietnamese population than others. Even though I know this, I still can not grasp the privilege of being surrounded by those who look like me in comparison to others who may not know even a single Asian kid in their school. I was raised to love and know my culture, and yet had attacked it without any other thought committing an act of casual racism against my own people and those that had loved me. My parent’s broken language was a result of trying to learn english at a late stage of immigrating to the U.S., trying to find themselves jobs, cars, education, money, and a better future. They had tried their hardest to make a better future for my brother and I, and I had taken their hardship and utilized it to get a laugh from people that I have not talked to in years. They had immigrated later than many, and had to find ways to make ends meet quickly. My mother went to cosmetology school in order to get her certification fast to get enough money to provide for herself, her 5 other siblings, and her mom. The hardships that families go through during and after immigration, are ones that we as children born in America may never come to completely understand. My mother had sat me down with my brother at one point, and explained how sad it had made her feel that we had mocked her accent, and how much she has struggled to learn English throughout her life. The countless amounts of racist encounters that she had at work, on the streets, and when meeting other people. I had grown up privileged enough to know other people that were the same ethnic background as me, and also know that I had ways to express my culture. Even with all of that support, there was a way in which I still had expressed my self loathe and my culture in order to make myself appear just like everyone else. Growing up Asian American, the feeling of wanting to be white, or being made to feel embarrassed of one’s culture is something that many can relate to. We want to both appease our peers and be everything that they are, but at the same time, reflect the ideals that our parents came to this country with, and our culture. We are forced to be the same as our white peers, in fear of being bullied for being different, even though we have a world of culture in our background. In the midst of all of the jokes, I had realized my own internalized racism towards my own ethnicity had contributed to an environment where my parents could be laughed at, and bullied for something out of their control. The small amount of validation that I had been seeking every time I had mocked broken English didn’t seem worth it anymore, as they were at the expense of my loved ones. The validation that I had grown up wanting from other people was not that I wanted anymore, and I recognize now how much I love and value the culture that I was born into and how much my Asian heritage means to me. The use of an Asian accent, whether in the media, or just between yourself and others is unjustifiable. By setting the precedent that Asian Americans will no longer take the casual racism that we were made to receive, our peers will understand that they can’t and should not make those jokes anymore, as they reflect the bias and prejudices that they have against those that are different than themselves. - Joshlyn Sources: Kumar, Naveen. “Asian American Racism Is the Unfunny Joke the Comedy World Needs to Reckon With.” Vox, Vox, 15 Jan. 2020, www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/1/15/21065939/comedy-racism-asian-american-rosie-odonnell-shane-gillis-awkwafina-ali-wong. This piece is meant to give my opinion and experience with the mocking of Asian accents, as it is used many times in media, and how that may affect those that do have accents and broken English in America. Biography: Hi! I'm Joshlyn Khuu, a 19 year old college student attending University of California, Riverside. I am currently majoring in Political Science and was drawn to this page based on its content and writings that were relatable to many different asian americans such as me. Instagram: @joshlynkhuu Cover Photo Source: NPR

Dear Disney Channel, 550 million viewers. That is how many children watch your channel. 550 million little kids learning how to conduct themselves, how to acclimate to society, and how to engage with others through your screen. 550 million children idolizing your characters and absorbing their behavior. I would expect with such preeminence one would be more attentive or at least conscious of the impact their characters and plot have on the cultural, personal, and social development of our youth, yet almost the opposite has been happening. I, like the majority of my generation, grew up watching shows like Jesse and Phineas and Ferb which attempted at displaying a diversity of cultures, namely mine, Indian culture. One of my first encounters with Indian representation was with Ravi from the show Jessie. There was so much excitement when I first saw him, for the first time ever, someone who looked like me on the screen. I watched as he was always the outcast and portrayed with the most typical Asian stereotypes: extremely smart, weak, and socially inept. In addition to his stereotypical character, he was the laughing stock of the group, always being mocked or used. Looking back, the bigotry is overwhelming. At such a young age, unknowingly, I accepted the anti-Indian sentiment of your shows to be how all of society views my culture and the rightful way to treat ethnic cultures. I had unintentionally become conscious and embarrassed of my ethnicity. I never talked about my good grades, played dumb, and hid when my mom packed me Indian food because I was too scared to fit into the deprecating stereotypes you had accentuated. This fear of becoming the Asian stereotype was not all in my head. Your shows had and still do create an environment in which micro aggression towards ethnic cultures are normalized and accentuated. Growing up as one of the only South Asian students in the classroom, one of my many experiences of these microaggressions was having different academic expectations than my peers. It was presumed that I always had my homework completed early and my classmates could convince me to share answers. It is intriguing to think about the similarity between Ravi and the character Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb. The issue with having the only two South Asian characters in your network be portrayed as perfectly fitting into the Asian stereotype of awkward and smart, having thick Indian accents, and being disrespected is that it creates connections for the viewer that leads to unconscious stereotyping and groupings of South Asians. One of Ravi’s greatest characteristics was his accent. Perhaps if you had glorified Indian accents as you do French or British, mocking Indian accents would not be normalized and tolerated. What particularly angers me is that with the misrepresentation of my culture, with the mocking of our accents, and with the belittling of South Asian religions, you couldn’t even correctly pronounce your characters names- conveying to an entire generation that the bare minimum of respecting one's name is unnecessary. Now, having a corrected perception of Indian culture, I am able to recognize the direct impacts of your channel to my life and equally to that of my peers. I have talked about Ravi from Jessie but the show contains many other stereotypes as well: Emma is presented as the shallow, rich, dumb blond, Zuri as the loud, sassy black girl, and Luke as the popular but dumb and messy white boy. It doesn’t stop there, the spinoff, Bunk’d, has Tiffany Chen who is an asian that plays violin, is always worried about her studies, and has strict parents. And this is just one show. I simply can’t understand why it is acceptable to have shows that perpetuate such stereotypes that terrifyingly overpower and categorize our youth by their looks and ethnicity, stunting their individuality and creating unnecessary apprehensions. So Disney Channel, as a fifteen year old Indian American I have experienced normalized microaggressions and direct stereotyping an unacceptable amount of times and I blame a large portion of this normalization on you. It breaks my heart that my journey to becoming proud and confident of my identity was so long and full of doubt. When I told my friends about this letter, they had their own experiences and thoughts to add- all my friends, of different cultures and backgrounds, had faced some sort of mistreatment that they correlated as a result of what your network presents. My hope is that you can work towards more respectful and correct representations of all ethnic cultures so future generations don't feel the need to hide parts of their identity to fit in. I do recognize these efforts in new shows like Mira The Detective; I appreciate how it displays the beauty of Indian culture and there is a South Asian main character that is well rounded. But in order to move past shows that were not as cognizant, I feel it is necessary to recognize the faults and ignorance of them- these shows are still widely available and still do affect our youth. - Raina Koshal This piece was meant to be a way to reflect on industries that perpetuate deprecating stereotypes that constantly affect underrepresented ethnicities. I specifically wrote this to start a conversation about microaggressions that are normalized through Disney channel and have affected mine and other Asian youth's lives. Biography: Raina is a sophomore at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago. She enjoys painting, playing lacrosse, and educating herself and others on social justice issues. Raina is interested in both medical and business fields and her end goal is to lead a global non-profit for child orphanage trafficking. Cover photo source: https://elestoque.org/2020/09/12/special/special-features/indian-misrepresentation-in-media/

TW // mention of rape The steam of the shower envelops your body in a warm embrace. You close your eyes, allowing the droplets to cascade down your face. Lathering shampoo into your scalp is normally a therapeutic process, but this time, something is off. You look at—but don’t quite see—the stream of water taking the dirt and grime from the day down the drain. A dense fog has engulfed your mind, clouding any remnants of rational thought. You twist the shower handle shut and grab a towel from the hook. Stepping out onto the bath mat, you stare into your mirror. Although the steam has fogged over the glass, you can still make out the frown etched onto your face. You moisturize your skin, brush your hair, and clean your teeth, all while staring at your reflection. Like always, you’re tired after a long day, but the hunch of your shoulders seems a touch more pronounced, the bags under your eyes a dash more evident. Finally, you collapse onto your bed, where you decide to check your phone one last time. The time on your lock screen reads 11:27, but your eyes are drawn to your wallpaper. You had set it a couple of weeks ago to a picture of you and your boyfriend—your dark locks, pale countenance, and brown eyes in stark contrast to his blonde waves, sun-tanned skin, and baby blues. Immediately, the frown returns. Just that morning, that picture had brought you joy, but now, all you can focus on is the clenching of your stomach and the shiver running throughout your body. Yes, you just showered, but you still feel dirty. That night, you lie still underneath the covers, willing yourself to drift off into dreamland, but your mind refuses to rest. As the soft moonlight seeps through your windowpane in fragmented beams, you can’t help but wonder: Is he attracted to me because of who I am as a person, or because I’m Asian? Staring up at the ceiling, you mentally run over various scenarios, each one unearthing a plethora of questions and uncertainties. Number One. All of his past girlfriends have your exact features—the same inky hair, creamy skin, and almond eyes. Number Two. When you had called him, voice shaking as you recounted being catcalled by a group of older men sporting identical beards speckled with gray (“I’ve never been with an Asian before, can you be the first?”), he had insisted that you were overreacting. Number Three. That very afternoon, when you had been intimate for the first time, he had focused only on his wants and needs, paying no regard to those of your own. Your mind keeps circling back to Number Three, and you’re transported back into that very moment, reliving a memory you want nothing more than to forget. You remember the hair raised down your arm, every cell in your body screaming in discomfort. You remember being reduced to nothing more than an object. You remember feeling used, feeling dirty. Now, in the middle of the night, you realize: yellow fever has struck once more, and you’re its latest victim. Another pandemic is ravaging the world. It’s one that has existed long before the coronavirus, so long ago it’s seen as normal. It’s a disease that’s hundreds of years in the making, one that’s bled into the very framework of society. Yellow fever, paraphrased from an article published by Cambridge University in 2016, is a person’s exclusive or near-exclusive preference for sexual intimacy with Asians, predominantly Asian women. Yellow fever, born from a twisted and complex history, has caused unspeakable horrors and unparalleled pain for millions (particularly for women) over the course of history. Its effects are still very much real and very much damaging for the Asian women of the modern-day, in numerous ways. Something so pervasive, so normalized, and so glorified will never be good, no matter which way the misogynistic narrative attempts to spin it. . The origins of yellow fever can be traced back to the late 1800s, when Victorian men, upon visiting port cities in Japan, became enraptured by geishas, highly-respected hostesses whose duties were to entertain men, most typically with conversation, dance, and song. These men, captivated by the sensuality of these “exotic” women, returned to the Western world and immortalized the geisha through a one-dimensional perspective. This respected role, rooted in rich cultural tradition, was perverted by the view that the Asian woman—seductive, yet docile—had one sole purpose: to pleasure and entertain men through sexual gratification. Hollywood and the American media’s false representation of East Asian individuals cemented the misconceptions Victorian men had initially perpetuated about the sexual nature of Asian women. Through what is known as “physical, social, and psychological distancing,” these corporations presented the idea of a mythological “Other” to enforce Western imperial dominance. Through their surface-level understanding of Asian women solely providing sex and service, Hollywood and the American media established the archetype of the “China Doll:” both infantile and hypersexual, with a primary role of indulging in the colonial fantasies of fragile and diminutive Asian women. This docile characterization portrays a “dominant/submissive” power play between the white man and Asian woman. Moreover, as Japan rose in economic power during the 1980s, the media—fuelled by xenophobic attitudes—introduced the idea of the “Dragon Lady:” domineering and impersonal, yet still promiscuous in nature. By creating this archetype, these corporations capitalized off of “yellow peril,” finding creative liberty from the public’s fear of the threatening, taking over, invading, or “Asianizing” of society and culture. Ultimately, this binary representation instills a subconscious expectation for Asian women to embody a one-dimensional standard. Throughout history, sexual violence against women has routinely been weaponized in militaristic scenarios. During World War II, Japan captured approximately 200,000 Asian women, including those of Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesian, and Filipino descent. Forcefully exploited as sex slaves, these controversially-named “comfort women” were the victims of the largest human trafficking case in the twentieth century. Even after Japan surrendered to the United States, the system continued under a network of Japanese brothels. Young girls were raped up to multiple times a day, unwillingly fulfilling the idea that the role of the Asian woman was to serve a man through sexual means. This idea extends even further through the rise of “war brides;” during the Cold War, American GIs (military personnel) brought home Asian women they met while stationed in Japan and Korea. During this time, the Western public distinguished between white European women and East Asian women: while the former was typically seen as marriage material, the latter were predominantly viewed as sexual partners. The Victorian man’s initial perception of Asian women had now expanded to all of the modern Western world. This superficial characterization of Asian women has only been reinforced and exacerbated by the rise of mass media. The sexualization of Asian women is evident in anime, manga, video games, and even pornography—in 2016, “Japanese” and “Asian” were among the top 20-most searched items on Pornhub. Moreover, the sexual perception of Asian women even transcends to an act as innocent as eating. Take a look at the sensationalized mukbang (“broadcast eating”), which originated in South Korea as a way to facilitate “digital commensality” amongst individuals eating alone. As the practice has become popularized in Western culture, so has the sexualization of Asian female mukbangers. As Donnar (2017) relates, overweight male individuals (the predominant demographic of viewers) eroticize these women, turning the collective hungry gaze upon eating—an innocent act yet relatively vulnerable state of being. For the Asian woman, unsolicited fetishization seeps into every aspect of daily life. Additionally, this sexualization has become both amplified and normalized by the actions of celebrities. In June 2019, Kim Kardashian donned the brand name Kimono for her new underwear line. In November 2013, Katy Perry dressed up as a geisha for her performance at the American Music Awards. It’s even seen in fast fashion: an individual searching the web for a new qipao will find themselves bombarded by sexified, inaccurate variations. Universally, fashion is a means through which an individual can choose the way they want others to perceive them. However, for people of Eastern cultures, it’s also a way to honor their heritage. When sensationalized media stars tonelessly don Asian apparel, they’re disrespecting tangible symbols of culture, and they’re worsening the public’s association of Asian women with a sexual nature. Everyone must remember that there’s a thin line between appreciation and appropriation. Every single one of these factors contributes to the fetishization of women in this day and age, and it’s most prevalent in the dating realm. Historical stereotyping has caused Asians to be recognized as shy, soft-spoken, and submissive, leading to the “gendering” of the Asian race as feminine. While this degrades the sexual capita of Asian men—as evidenced by the rarity of relationships between Asian men and white women—this produces what is known as the “double feminization” of Asian women, and thus the widespread nature of yellow fever. Many people claim that this inclination to be attracted to Asian women is “just a preference.” They say that their attraction for certain sexual phenotypes (such as hair color, eye shape, etc.) is purely superficial and non-racialized, and thus morally sound. Yet this isn’t true. It’s the twenty-first century. Society doesn’t remember a time before the “China Doll” and the “Dragon Lady” were popularized through film media. People can claim that we live in a post-racial world. They can declare that we live in an era where color doesn’t matter—but they are blind to the truth. All of us, when looking upon an individual for the very first time, hold implicit biases based on our first impression. Sure, we eventually get to know them as people—removed from their outward appearances—but in that first split second, we take in their physical characteristics: their hair, their skin, their eyes, their nose. Our initial subconscious perception of others is shaped by our lifelong exposure to racial stereotypes—and in the case of Asian women, the normalization of their fetishization. While yellow fever doesn’t afflict every white man, this demographic is frequently affected. However, the real victims are all of the Asian women objectified by these aforementioned men. Exotic. Foreign. Whether subjugation to crude language on dating apps, the reception of unsolicited catcalls while walking down the street, and even unwarranted comments from acquaintances, the ramifications of collective fetishization seep into every facet of life. Through such characterizations, Western society as a whole has alienated and otherized Asian women from the rest of the world, allowing misogynistic attitudes to prevail. Every person is born as a blank slate, shaped by the environment surrounding them. From day one, Western society is force-fed a narrative fueled by the centuries-old xenophobia of the Victorian colonizer. We grow up with depthless notions about our race and our gender, notions that have shaped both our interactions with others and how we perceive ourselves. There’s no quick fix, no sudden cure to a disease with primarily psychological side effects, but there’s hope. Change starts today. We’re sick of yellow fever. We have all of the tools we need to get rid of it: our knowledge, our community, and our voice. The fight is far from over, but together, we can eliminate this pandemic for good. We can’t erase the past. We can’t gloss over the role yellow fever has played in our lives, and the lives of our mothers, and their mothers. But we can learn. Reversing a narrative that has been perpetuated for centuries will not happen overnight, but every day, we take a step in the right direction. With each person speaking out against yellow fever, with every individual supporting those who have personally been affected by this perilous disease, we’re slowly but surely writing a new story—fighting for a world that is long overdue. I hope for a society that’s free from objectification, sexualization, and fetishization. I wish for a day when an Asian woman finally lives without perverse, outdated expectations clouding wherever she goes. I believe in a time when my children, and their children, and all generations to come are free from yellow fever. The future is uncertain, but it’s not set in stone. The actions of today determine the world of tomorrow. - Justine Torres Cover photo source: https://celesteziehl.medium.com/yellow-fever-the-problem-with-the-sexual-fetishization-and-exotification-of-eastern-asian-women-7808601619c0 Sources: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/96D2F19F052E8A2625968037BE756FEA/S2053447716000257a.pdf/why_yellow_fever_isnt_flattering_a_case_against_racial_fetishes.pdf https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=bridges_contemporary_connections https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2005615X.2013.11102901 https://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/S22%20-The%20Malleable%20Yet%20Undying%20Nature%20of%20the%20Yellow%20Peril.htm https://www.huffpost.com/entry/comfort-women-wanted_n_4325584 https://www.armstrong.edu/history-journal/history-journal-the-representation-of-asian-war-brides-through-a-cold-war-l https://www.vice.com/en/article/xyvyxn/the-other-yellow-fever-why-are-some-men-exclusively-attracted-to-asian-women https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-019-00211-0 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19392397.2016.1272857?journalCode=rcel20 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/fashion/kim-kardashian-west-kimono-cultural-appropriation.html https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cultural-appropriation-katy-perry_n_4337024