"Asian Women, Caucasian Men" article
Christine R. Lee
Examiner). I have it all typed in. Should I post it? It's rather
long (about 5 pages), but interesting.
--
Christine R. Lee UTS Systems Software
chri...@uts.amdahl.com Amdahl Corporation
Sunnyvale, California
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Steve Wong
Please do post the entire article. Relative to postings in
other news groups, I do not believe posting five pages is
excessive.
I am also curious, has the article generated any interest?
(i.e. letters to the editor).
----
Stephen C. Wong
Kellogg Graduate School of Management
Northwestern University
st...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
Christine R. Lee
From the San Francisco Examiner, Image Magazine, December 2, 1990
Asian Women, Caucasian Men
--------------------------
by Joan Walsh
*Ana Reyes and other names marked with an asterisk in this story are
pseudonyms.
The multicultural Bay Area has long prided itself on its relaxed
attitudes about race. This spirit of tolerance extends to interracial
love - a subject that still raises blood pressure to bursting in many
parts of the country but one that's old-hat here. Few raise an
eyebrow, let alone a fist, at the sight of mixed-race couples. But as
the Bay Area grows ever more racially diverse, and intermarriages
consequently increase, new questions and tensions are emerging.
Most of them have to do with the hottest interracial pairing
these days - white men with Asian women.
Part of this trend can be attributed to simple demographics - after
all, whites and Asian's are the area's two largest racial groups. And
many mixed-race relationships are, of course, free of racial meaning -
the result of the timeless, colorblind democracy of love. But others
involve murkier motivations.
There's no better place to take the dating temperature of the Bay Area
than the personal ads section of the San_Francisco_Bay_Guardian. In
these teeming pages, being a woman of Asian descent is a marketing
plus, the female version of being a straight man who wants kids.
Unfortunately, as a 35-year-old romantic shopper named Ana Reyes*
learned, it also attracts men who might enjoy a Bangkok sex tour or
import an Asian mail-order bride - men who, in other words, have some
offensive notions about Asian women. "You should see some of the
letters," groans Reyes, a saleswoman of Philippine descent who
ventured into the personals market after a long-term relationship
ended. "Some of them made me want to write back just to tell them off."
There was the Marine who reminisced about his tour of duty in the
Philippines, where his Filipina girlfriend did his laundry. "He said
he liked Filipinas best, because they really know how to treat their
men," Ana recalls. Others were hot for the "exotic Asian look," she says.
This is 1990, in an incredibly Asian city, where Asian-American women
are visible as newscasters, judges, political powerbrokers, university
professors. But judging from the letters she received, Ana concludes,
a lot of white guys still think "we're all nice girls who cater to
men." (In fact, the notion that Asian women are "nice" may be the
1990's update on the stereotype that they're "submissive", the term is
heard so often in discussions of Asian-white dating.) Of the 60-plus
respondents to Ana's ad, all but three were white. Some seemed to be
professional personals-correspondents ("The letters looked xeroxed,
like resumes.") Some were professional Asian-daters. Ana wasn't pleased.
"When a man tells me he usually dates Asian women, I tell him I'm very
concerned about what he means," she says. "I know some are looking
for 'Cherry Blossom' girls,"inspired by the company that imports Asian
women for marriage with traditional-minded American men. "Then there
are the ones who are just into the 'exotic' look. I want to blow
their stereotypes."
Ana shatters at least two stereotypes - that of Asian women as
submissive, and personals advertisers as rejects. Analytical and
articulate, the college-educated Reyes is also beautiful, with looks
at the intersection of Hispanic and Asian. It's a look that she knows
is in vogue now, and she's ambivalent about her current popularity.
"Some of these guys who write, all they want to know is what I look
like, and it really bothers me. But I guess I'm sort of asking for it
by advertising that I'm Asian." Why did she put her race in the ad, I
ask. "Everybody else does," she says. "To leave it out would seem
dishonest." It would also be a marketing mistake. In the competitive
world of the personals ads, hyping your assets is the key, and being
Asian gets results. Ana recognizes the contradiction, and shrugs.
She's hoping to reconcile with her old boyfriend anyway.
Ana's old boyfriend, and the boyfriend before that, are white.
Despite discomfort with stereotyping, Ana and other Asian women are
dating white men in increasing numbers, leaving some Asian men and
white women watching with growing frustration from the sidelines.
High-profile women of Asian descent reflect the trend: writers Amy Tan
and Maxine Hong Kingston, newscasters Connie Chung, Wendy Tokuda and
Jan Yanehiro - all have Caucasian husbands. The phenomenon is
spawning its own jargon. White men who prefer Asian women are said to
be "like rice"; they have "Asian-women syndrome", they're
"Asian-women-aholics" or "rice queens" (a term borrowed from the gay
world, where white-Asian romance is also hot).
The high number of Asians in the Bay Area, along with their high
education and income levels, makes some of the cross-cultural romance
inevitable. In California, American-born Asians are more likely to marry
outside their own group (or "outmarry", to use the sociological term)
than any other race - in some Asian ethnic groups, the outmarriage
rate is as high as 80 percent. And when they do outmarry, their
partners are most likely to be white. But there's more to Asian-white
romance than demography. If numbers told the whole story, Asian men
would just as likely be involved with white women as the reverse.
They're not, by a long shot. A recent sampling of marriage records
for San Francisco County showed that four times as many Asian women as
Asian men married whites, says Sonoma State University professor Larry
Shinagawa; in Sacramento the ratio was 8 to 1.
Dating trends are similar. Great Expectations dating service reports
a 10 percent increase in white men choosing Asian women from its video
introductions in California over the last three years (with only a
tiny jump in Asian women members) and no such trend involving white
women and Asian men. Glance at Bay_Guardian personals and it's
clear Asians are by far the top choice of white men seeking women of
another race. And when women of Asian descent advertise in the
_Guardian_'s voice-mail personals, "they definitely get more calls than
other women," says classifieds manager Julia Loftis.
This "new" trend has very old roots, of course. Fantasies of Asian
femininity have been imprinted on the American male psyche for
generations, thanks to three major wars in the Pacific and a
constellation of U.S. military bases there. Since the 1940's, more
than 200,000 Asian women have married U.S. servicemen, helping spread
the G.I. gospel that Asians make "good wives". You can see the
exotic-erotic appeal of Asian women in American films, from The_World_
of_Suzie_Wong to Full_Metal_Jacket (albeit in stereotypes offensive
to most Asians).
But today, a merger of old and new cultural myths is making white-Asian
romance as much fact as fantasy. Asian female "exoticism", for
instance, is serving as a potent antidote to over-familiarity between
the sexes. In an age when men and women are studying, working and
parenting side by side, cross-cultural romance is reintroducing
"otherness" into relationships, for those who need it. And alongside
creepy stereotypes about Asian female passivity (or "niceness", to use
the 90's euphemism) there's a new mythology - and reality - of Asian
power, in which the energy, intelligence and economic vitality of the
Pacific Rim is personified in its women, making them objects of desire
and status.
Karen Shimoda* might be the "new" mythic Asian woman. Bright,
attractive, assertive, the 35-year-old second-generation Japanese-
American is the sales manager of a thriving consumer electronics firm.
"My mother always asks me,'In a family with three brothers, how did
you turn out to be the most driving and ambitious?'" she says. I ask
her the same question, and she thinks for just a moment.
"Probably because of my mother. She wound up divorced, on her own at 30,
with four kids to support and no clue about what to do," she recalls.
She became a legal secretary and made a decent living, but then she
married again, "a traditional Japanese guy who didn't want her to
work. And it was hard for her to break with tradition." But after
quitting her job, Karen's mother was miserable:"She thought she had
always wanted someone to take care of her, but she realized she
didn't." She filed for divorce after six months and she returned to work.
Her mother's example made Karen resolve to be independent, and her
desire for independence, she believes, rules out dating Asian men.
"There are very few Japanese men who are attractive to me. The
Chinese men are even more conservative. The cultures favor men, and
the traditional ideas seem to stick with them." In her teens, she
recalls, one of her brother's friends showed some interest in her,
"But my brother told him,'Forget it, buddy, she'd blow you away.'
It's that I'm not quiet. I argue."
Karen's fiance, 34-year-old Ted Henry*, is not your standard rice queen
- all his previous girlfriends have been white. He may be even more
typical: a white man whose dream woman just happens to be Asian.
Geisha-girl stereotypes make Ted laugh, since he does most of the
cooking and cleaning in their house. He's the one who gets up to
freshen my drink, as we sit in the dining room of their Richmond
District home. Ted is making a career transition, and only working
part-time; Karen's the primary breadwinner in the relationship. She's
serious, almost to the point of solemn; Ted, ironic behind his egghead
glasses, is the joker. "It's my job to lighten her up," he says.
Still, he's had to cope with the stereotypes of some friends when they
learned he had a Japanese-American girlfriend. "I heard a comment or
two:'Is she going to cook for you?' - that kind of thing," he says.
They don't know Karen. "She's a great equal," he says admiringly,
with a sense of being in on a happy secret.
Like Ted, my friend Eric* scorns stereotypes of Asian women as
submissive domestic goddesses. He says take-charge Asian women are
behind the surge in Asian-white romance. "White men have always
wanted to date Asian women," he tells me, with a self-mocking leer
that implies white men have always wanted to "date" anything that
moves. "But now it's the Asian women who are taking the initiative.
Ten, 15 years ago, you couldn't get the time of day from an Asian
woman. They were traditional - you know, eyes down, shy. Now it's
like women's assertiveness has caught up with them too. It's OK for
them to go after men, especially white men."
Eric, 38, speaks from experience. He dated Lydia*, an immigrant from
Taiwan, for three years and got to know her circle of Taiwanese
friends, all of whom hoped he'd fix them up with other white men.
Eric's friends thought Lydia was nice, if a little quiet, and
reasonably attractive; he thought she was a knockout. He admits to
having "a thing" for Asian women's looks: "They have the bodies that
modern clothes fit really well." Lydia, he claims, was lured in part
by rumors about the sexual endowment of white men - white men are
reputedly to Asian men what black men are supposed to be to whites.
(I heard this piece of folklore fro four white men and no Asian women,
and I was unable to confirm it personally.) Stereotypes of Asian
female subservience, Eric says vehemently, played no role in their
attraction. "She didn't cook for me. She didn't do my laundry. She
had a career. I went out with her because we had a great time together."
For her part, Lydia had left a traditional, restrictive marriage to
another Taiwanese immigrant and was looking for someone easy-going,
who extended her a measure of independence. Like Karen Shimoda, she
believed white men would allow her more autonomy than Asians. "We got
along because I treated her nice," Eric says. He's telling the story
after dinner at my house, with my infant daughter finally quiet, in
bed. The evening has been punctuated by baby-feeding, baby-diapering
and baby-coddling, much of which, to Eric's amusement, my husband
attended to.
"White women don't know how good they have it," he tells me. "In what
other cultures do you have the men cleaning up the baby barf?"
Asian women appreciate white men, in a way many white women don't, Eric
believes. And while all evening he has denied that social or
psychological factors influenced his attraction to Lydia, now he owns up
to one subterranean motive: "Dating between the white sexes is a minefield
these days. Sometimes white women just seem really mixed up. They want a
relationship, but they don't. They want a nice, sensitive guy, but they
also want a brute. They want a mellow guy who doesn't work all the time,
but they sneer at anyone who doesn't wear a suit and drive a BMW. Somehow
Asian women don't seem to get caught up in all that - or at least they
don't talk about it.
Here's where discussions of white-Asian romance get sticky, and it's time
to make some crucial distinctions. There's no proof that most white men
who date and marry Asians are fleeing white women; many, like Ted Henry,
may just happen to fall in love with someone who happens to be of Asian
descent. (Eric, in fact, wound up marrying a white woman.) But among
those who only date Asian women, or who voice strong preferences for
Asians, there's frequently an undercurrent of frustration with feminism.
Mike Arnold* describes himself as "maladroit" with women. He blames it on
his father, a child abuser he likens to Hitler. Thanks to subtle sexual
belittling - "I should write a WASP Portnoy's_Complaint," he says - Mike
didn't date until college, and then only fitfully. Now, at 42, he dates
only Asians, with chilling self-awareness about his motivations.
"I get some breaks from Asian women. Their standards are lower," he says
matter-of-factly. "It's a Darwinistic world, dating-wise, and I have an
inferiority complex with white women. Most of them have a big chip on
their shoulders, and I don't care how liberated they say they are, they're
not interested in someone who doesn't make much money. I eventually
realized that being white, I could make it with an Asian woman who's more
physically attractive than I am, just because she's got a cultural
inferiority complex."
Mike discovered his attraction to Asian women while living in a San
Francisco residence club favored by Japanese tourists. But in the
hierarchy of Asians, as he sees it, Japanese are at the top, and he had
little luck with them. A Chinese woman he dated was "emotionally muscle-
bound - she had a high-powered job and that's all she talked about."
Romance with a Korean woman fizzled. Now the balding, blue-eyed retail
manager mostly dates Filipinas, some of whom he meets through dating clubs
that specialize in white-Asian pairings. He's most comfortable with
recent immigrants, despite language difficulties (he speaks some Tagalog).
"Sometimes I think a wife with a language barrier might appreciate me .
more. She'd say,'Oh, he tries so hard, he studies my language, he wants
to understand me,' instead of 'Oh, he's so emotionally remote, he's an
iceberg.'"
Tom Knight* has had more luck in love than Mike has, with white women
as well as Asians, but he too finds it difficult being emotional with
some white women. "Men were raised to be tough, and though I'd like
to be more emotional, there's a fear there with women I feel too much
equality with." That's part of why he prefers dating Asian women.
"I see something of a feminist backlash in it," admits the
fortysomething art professional. "I don't really understand it, but I
know I feel less threatened by Asian women. I grew up in a culture
where men acted a certain way and women acted a certain way, and I'm
more comfortable with Asian culture, where interpersonal relations are
more ritualized, and women are graceful, polite and considerate."
Traveling in China cemented his preference for Asian looks. He started
thinking of white women as "big, overweight Amazonians, with no bra,
frizzy hair and lots of freckles. It made me feel kind of ugly myself."
When he met his first Japanese-American girlfriend, Tom recalls, "I
liked looking at her. She didn't look threatening, mean or sad. She
was pretty, but not beautiful - beautiful is threatening too. I
thought, I could live with this person." He did, for six years.
"She did a lot for me: She had tea ready when I came home, she
scrubbed me in the bathtub. I liked it - you probably would too. My
friends thought I was sick, but it made me happy. I think the
Western world is too into individuality, and with her I had a mutual
striving for harmony."
Eventually, though, the relationship ended. "There's such a thing as
too much 'otherness'. We couldn't communicate. We weren't mental
equals. Her whole world was her relationship with me." His new
girlfriend is Japanese-American too, but she's a high-powered
broadcasting professional who is also "really nice". Tom confesses:
"I want everything."
To some white women, Tom's quest for a "nice" career woman and Mike's
dating Darwinism confirms their worst fears - that white men are going
AWOL from the battle of the sexes by dating Asians, leaving them alone
with the cold comforts of asexual equality.
Sherrie Thompson*, for instance, moved to the Bay Area from the
Midwest, where Asians were few. But in the night clubs of San
Francisco, she discovered that Asian women were numerous, attractive
and in high demand. The 27-year-old organizational consultant was
unprepared for - and not too proud of - her negative reaction.
"I have to admit I felt threatened," she recalls. "Asians seem kind
of like what a man would say 'the ideal woman' is - you know: small,
thin, fragile, almost doll-like." At five-foot-one and 110 pounds,
Sherrie is no Amazon herself. But some men prefer Asians because they
seem more chic, exotic," she says. "I know it's my own insecurity
talking, and that behind their appearance they're probably smart,
interesting women, with ideas, with opinions. But I just felt like
most guys were into their appearance - and stereotypes about how they
treat men."
Sherrie isn't alone. At the University of California campuses in
Berkeley and Los Angeles, where Asian enrollments have climbed sharply
in the last decade, the hottest interracial pairing is white men with
Asian women - to the chagrin of some white women. Both white and
Asian students at Berkeley told me about white guys signing up for
Asian-language courses and joining the Asian Business Association,
just to meet Asian women. "We call them eggs - white on the outside,
yellow in the middle," says Serene Ngin, a Berkeley student. (Asian
women who date white men are sometimes dismissed as "twinkies",
yellow on the outside, white within.)
Their new popularity is a shock to a lot of Asian women. "Until I
came to Berkeley, I never felt like white guys were interested in me.
I felt like Asian women weren't that attractive," says Karen Co, 21, a
Berkeley senior of Chinese descent, who is in fact strikingly
beautiful. "When I got here and saw all the white guys with Asian
girls, I couldn't believe it. I would just stare at these couples
walking through campus, holding hands."
For white women, the surprise is similar and not entirely pleasant.
Some talk of an "Asian-women fetish" that is spreading among white
men, some of whom are quite open about preferring Asians.
Researchers at UC Berkeley's Diversity Project found strong
resentment of the trend among some white women who "feel that they've
been displaced by Asians as the fantasy object of desire," says
sociologist David Minkus.
Of course, white women _are_ disadvantaged by the defection of white
men for Asian women - unless they're willing to date Asian men in
comparable numbers. And generally, they're not.
"It's Asian men who really get the short end of the stick," admits
Elizabeth Crandall, 20, a member of Berkeley's Alpha Phi sorority.
"Asian women are with white men, but white women don't date Asians."
That's not exactly news to Asian men at Berkeley. Doug Nishida,
president of the predominantly Asian fraternity Lambda Phi Epsilon,
pulled together a group of his friends to talk about the Asian
women-white men phenomenon. Our conversation flashed back and forth
between sociological theories and personal angst. Of the four, only
Doug has a girlfriend right now, a trend they attribute at least
partly to the preference of Asian women for white men.
"It's a big deal," says Doug, who is a 21-year-old integrative biology
major from Monterey Park. "Whenever Asian men get together these
days they talk about it, make jokes about it." Dave Nakamura cuts in
sharply: "I don't think it's funny."
All four have discussed the trend with friends, with family, in
Asian-American Studies classes. They believe American culture - white
culture - has sought to emasculate men of color, and see the same
impulse that insulted black men with the term "boy" neutering Asian
men. "Look at the _Rambo_ movies, or _The_Karate_Kid_," says Bryan
Nobida, whose heritage is half-Chinese, half-Filipino. "Look at all
movies and TV. Asian men are either celibate, sexless or else we're
rapists, someone that a white man should save a woman from. The Asian
never winds up with the woman."
Like many Asian men (and some women), all four believe an urge to
assimilate is behind the attraction to white men among Asian women.
For Japanese-Americans in particular, the bitter experience of internment
during World War II led to "shame about their culture and a strong
desire to assimilate," Doug says. His parent were interned, as were
Dave's. Both believe that traumatic experience helps explain an
outmarriage rate of over 70 percent among Japanese-American women, and
it disturbs them.
"If a Japanese-American man wants to preserve his culture, his choices
are becoming increasingly limited," observes Dave, who has two uncles
who are bachelors. "As an Asian-American, I can't complain," he says,
because he thinks all races should be free to date whomever they want.
"But as a man, I get very upset. It wouldn't be as bad if white women
were dating Asian men, but they aren't." Of the four - all
good-looking, funny, articulate - only Doug has ever dated a white
woman, which shocked me, even though I know the statistics.
"So it's pretty upsetting," Dave continues. "It's a sexual thing, it's
very primal - it's like your turf is being invaded, and it makes you angry."
The others laugh at his bluntness, but they mostly agree. "It
wouldn't bother me as much if Asian women were also dating black men
or Latino men," Bryan says. "But it's white guys. I've heard Asian
women say they only date white guys. And it's because we live in a
white culture. They do it for status. It's self-contempt."
Bryan's friends agree that the preference for white men among large
numbers of Asian women reflects a self-loathing born of racism. Their
consensus is a little too glib - it reminded me of gripe sessions with
my girlfriends, in which we trash wayward boyfriends and other feckless
men for "being threatened by strong women","not being ready for a real
relationship" and other mantras of self-protection, to mute the pain
of personal rejection. But I felt for these guys nonetheless.
Ana Reyes and I are sitting over soft drinks at the Blue Danube, that
Caucasian island on Chinese Clement Street, trying to analyze her
preference for white men over Asians. At times, she's almost pained
by it as Doug Nishida and his friends. "I'd like to at least have a
balance, date some Asians, date some whites," she says. "I mean, how
thoughtless can I be, just seeing whites? I know it has a lot to do
with socialization - the images of masculinity in our culture are
definitely not Asian."
But, reluctantly, she blames some of it on Asian men. There's the
sexism problem, but most important, for Ana, is what she calls Asian
"conformity". Most Asians, she believes, are striving "for a
mainstream life. They're heading towards yuppiedom. They're
materialistic." Just then a horn starts blaring outside the cafe. A
cherry-red Mazda RX7, just off the lot, has a short-circuit and the
fade-coiffed Chinese-American youth at the wheel seems embarrassed but
a tiny bit proud at the attention his new car is getting. We have to
laugh. "See what I mean?" she jokes.
Yet the stereotyping Ana and I indulged in can feed on itself. It
also gives white men more credit than they deserve: There are plenty
of white guys driving around pricey phallic objects, but nobody ever
thinks it's particularly white of them. "People tend to compare all
Asian men to the top one percent of white men - the most elite, the
most sophisticated," observes Sonoma State's Larry Shinagawa. "They
aren't less sexist or whatever because they're white, but because
they've had more social opportunities than Asian men, and they're not
limited by stereotypes."
Shinagawa has a theory about intermarriage that is near-heretical, in
a country that scorns ideology and idealizes romance. Where most of
us see only love and attraction, Shinagawa sees hierarchies of race,
class and gender mucking around in our marriage decisions. The high
outmarriage rate of Asian-American women only points up the ambiguous
social status of Asian-Americans in this country, he believes: On the
one hand, that whites marry Asians far more than any other race shows
the extent to which Asians have "arrived"; on the other hand, that it's
mostly white men marrying Asian women shows how prejudice and
stereotypes persist, despite progress.
Shinagawa and colleague Gin Yong Pang, a doctoral candidate in Ethnic
Studies at UC Berkeley, have coined their own term, "hiergamy", to
explain intermarriage patterns, including the tendency of
Asian-American women to marry white men. Hiergamy, says Shinagawa,
holds that in marriage, people "try to maximize their status
opportunities, and their sense of wholeness, in the context of a
society that's stratified by race, class and gender."
That's a mouthful, but it works like this: Given a choice between
Asian men - who have some economic clout but less social status - and
educated white men - who have economic clout and social status, as
well as the more liberal attitudes acceptance can bring - many Asian
women would choose the latter. The concept also explains why many
white men marry Asian women, Shinagawa says: "They are bright,
educated and articulate women, but in the racial fantasies of white
men they have always been portrayed as submissive, domestic and sexy -
qualities they think white women have abandoned for feminism." White
men, in other words, are trading a little public status for some
private happiness, a reasonable compromise under hiergamy.
Shinagawa's theories have been interpreted as implying that Asian
women are social climbing by marrying white men, an inference he
vehemently rejects. It's easy to see how he's read that way, though,
since he tends to stress socioeconomics in explaining how hiergamy
operates. He believes the improving fortunes of Asians-Americans, for
instance, can be measured in rising rates of inter-ethnic Asian
marriage - Chinese-Filipino or Korean-Japanese - and in stagnating
outmarriage rates for higher status Japanese-Americans, who were once
thought to be in danger of fading into white America. "It's mainly
socioeconomic," he says - or in other words, Asian men are becoming
better catches.
But hiergamy governs everyone, Shinagawa says. "We all marry to make
ourselves happy and to maximize our opportunities," he notes. "Asian
women, like Asian men are responding to the way society treats them.
No one can second-guess their choices."
Some people do, at least a little. At UC Berkeley, where assimilation
is politically incorrect, so is interracial dating. Though it's
increasingly popular, some Asian women are bucking the trend.
"I don't see how Asian women can take Asian-American Studies courses
and learn about how American culture has 'feminized' Asian men, and
then continue to date white men," says Susan Kim, 21, a Korean-American
Berkeley student who only dates Asians and wishes more Asian women
would do the same. She gathered a group of her friends to share her
beliefs for a frank conversation on Asian-white relationships.
Susan seems to see a little of Mike Arnold, dating Darwinist, in every
white man. "I'm not comfortable with white men," she says. "I don't
know why they're asking me out and I don't trust them. I know the
media images they put on me."
Susan bluntly questions the motivations of Asian women who date white
men. "I know you can't generalize, but what I see is a lot of Asian
girls dating white guys to be accepted, to assimilate," she says.
Reluctantly, she agrees with other Asian women that white men "are
less sexist than most Asian men. There's an extreme devaluing of
women in most Asian cultures." Susan is involved with Doug Nishida,
the Lambda president, and she finds Japanese-Americans "less
patriarchal than Korean men." Even dating Doug required some
soul-searching on her part, because of traditional Japanese-Korean
enmity as well as "a sense of guilt" over high outmarriage rates among
Japanese-Americans.
Many of Susan's friends share her commitment to dating only Asians.
"I want someone who speaks Chinese, someone who family is really
important to," says Karen Co. She also shares Susan's squeamishness
about lurid white-male fantasies of Asian women. In fact, most of
the women seemed to harbor stereotypes of whites - males as well as
females - as sex maniacs, as contrasted with modest Asians. "Whenever
you see couples making out on campus, or at a shopping mall, they're
always white," says Karen. "It's a really white thing to do." Betty
Chiu, 20, recalled how "in the dorms, the whites all had a _lot_ more
sexual experience than I had, or most of the other Asians had. I was
really kind of shocked."
But some on campus are beginning to be bothered by the stigma attached
to white-Asian couples. Cindy Nakashima, 27, an Asian-American
Studies doctoral candidate whose mother is white, is pained by it.
In an increasingly multiracial California, where intermarriage will
only become more common, such attitudes are "dangerous", says
Nakashima, who has started a support group for mixed-race students and
those in interracial relationships. "Instead of focusing on what's
wrong with interracial dating and marriage, maybe we should look at
what's right: that some people haven't been so distorted that they
can't fall in love with somebody who isn't like them," she believes.
I mostly agree with Cindy Nakashima, but I think we're both a little
naive. Increasingly, "what's wrong" with interracial romance has less
to do with old-style racial prejudice than with cultural anxiety
produced by dramatic demographic changes. Soon no racial group will
hold a majority in the state, and many Asians, blacks and Latinos are
pushing to retire the melting pot of assimilation. There will be
more, not less, criticism of intermarriage from the politically
correct in the coming years.
Many white women are at a loss to respond to California's new
demographics of love. Openness to intermarriage has been a badge of
white liberalism; but jealousy is precisely the reaction of many white
women bugged by the "Asian-women syndrome" among white men -
jealousy and a sick feeling that the "syndrome" is a new name for an
old malady, the inability of men to have intimate relationships with
women they see as equals. Then, too, educated Asian women are
formidable rivals, and some of the tension may reflect the larger
anxiety - felt by white men and women alike - about losing
socioeconomic status to up-and-coming Asians.
It's a weird spectacle: men and women bickering, but casting their
complaints in terms of race. But in California, race is a growing
part of the bedroom dialogue. Whether innocent or influenced by
subterranean motivations, relationships between white men and Asian
women are increasingly a part of the contemporary sexual landscape -
one that's here to stay.
--
Christine R. Lee UTS Systems Software
chri...@uts.amdahl.com Amdahl Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
David Ching
>From the San Francisco Examiner, Image Magazine, December 2, 1990
>
> Asian Women, Caucasian Men
> --------------------------
> by Joan Walsh
>
>
>...... "It
>wouldn't bother me as much if Asian women were also dating black men
>or Latino men," Bryan says. "But it's white guys. I've heard Asian
>women say they only date white guys. And it's because we live in a
>white culture. They do it for status. It's self-contempt."
If asian women date/marry caucasian men for status, do asian men date/
marry caucasian women for status?
I have never dated a caucasian women, but I have been influenced
(bombarded) by the media's perception of beauty. Ninety-nine
percent of our "beautiful" role models are white.
I hope that the asian women who do not date men of their own culture
are not doing it because they (the men) will always be available.
(i.e. taken for granted)
dave
Gary L Dare
>
>I hope that the asian women who do not date men of their own culture
>are not doing it because they (the men) will always be available.
I also think that there are more dimensions to this matrix than one
generalized newspaper article to the unwashed masses could present.
The phrase "their own culture" applied to my sisters, for example,
could include being fans of Canadian football and college hockey,
worlds in which both have friends.
One thing I noted from this article was that although there were
mention of Asians of different backgrounds and origins, the North
American born/raised people were lumped together with everybody else
by merit of racial background when for many of them, "their own
culture" encompasses what people would like to call "white".
However, there is no guarantee that Ryan Kuwabara of the Montreal
Canadiens would ask my either of my sisters out if his team were
in town. (They lost 4-2 to the Winnipeg Jets last saturday night;
Kuwabara is still with the Habs minor league team at the moment.)
gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare "Ich bin *ein Berliner*!"
> g...@cunixD.cc.columbia.EDU <I am a donut!>
> g...@cunixc.BITNET - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Brian Yamauchi
By popular demand, here is the article:
From the San Francisco Examiner, Image Magazine, December 2, 1990
Asian Women, Caucasian Men
--------------------------
by Joan Walsh
Overall, this struck me as a balanced and intelligently written
article. Thanks for posting it.
However, it seemed ironic to me that some (or perhaps just one) of the
women fighting the stereotype of the quiet, submissive Asian woman
would at the same time propagate stereotypes of traditional,
culture-bound Asian men, as in the following quote:
Karen Shimoda* might be the "new" mythic Asian woman. Bright,
attractive, assertive, the 35-year-old second-generation Japanese-
American is the sales manager of a thriving consumer electronics firm.
Her mother's example made Karen resolve to be independent, and her
desire for independence, she believes, rules out dating Asian men.
"There are very few Japanese men who are attractive to me. The
Chinese men are even more conservative. The cultures favor men, and
the traditional ideas seem to stick with them."
The majority of the Asian-American men I've met (at least in my
20-something generation) couldn't care less about Asian traditions --
just as the majority of white American men of my generation couldn't
care less about the various traditions of their European ancestors.
Most traditional cultures are male-oriented. This is true of many
European, Asian, African, and Arab versions and probably others as
well. But I haven't seen evidence that nth-generation Asian-Americans
are any more tradition-bound than nth-generation Americans of any
other ethic group.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester
yama...@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department
_______________________________________________________________________________
Norman Matloff
>The majority of the Asian-American men I've met (at least in my
>20-something generation) couldn't care less about Asian traditions --
>just as the majority of white American men of my generation couldn't
>care less about the various traditions of their European ancestors.
I agree. There is no question that *some* influence is retained, but as
I have said before, I think there is at least intracultural variation
among people as there is intercultural variation.
Ironically, one of the Asian-American women who was quoted in the article
as NOT wanting relationships with white men apparently had just the
opposite opinion, i.e. she seemed to think the Asian-American men do
retain their Asian traditions. She said that she wants someone who
"speaks Chinese and cares about family." [I guess I qualify, then. :-) ]
One thing missing from the article which I consider vital is a distinction
between marriages and casual dating. I can imagine some white guys on
college campuses who date a woman more for her Asian background than her
individual character. But I do NOT see that in marriages.
The article certainly gives new meanings to the phrase "politically
correct." :-) That one Korean-American interviewee, in a masterful
broadstroke of political correctness, managed to touch 3 bases in one
statement: She doesn't date white men, due to the "feminization" of
Asian-American men by American society; she supports women's rights by
dating Japanese-Americans instead of Korean-Americans; but she feels
guilty about potentially contributing to the high outmarriage rate
among Japanese-Americans! :-)
Oh, one more thing: What was that woman referring to when she said she
had learned about the "feminization" of Asian men in American society?
Isn't the stereotype of the Asian man an engineer? Engineering still
has a male image in general, so what's so feminine? And what about
some of the other popular images, Bruce Lee, kung fu, Shogun, samurai,
etc.? Those images are silly, but if one wants to talk about how Asian
men are viewed by society as a whole... Is there some "wimp" image I'm
not aware of?
Norm
Joe Huang
>> had learned about the "feminization" of Asian men in American society?
>> Isn't the stereotype of the Asian man an engineer? Engineering still
>> has a male image in general, so what's so feminine? And what about
>> some of the other popular images, Bruce Lee, kung fu, Shogun, samurai,
>> etc.? Those images are silly, but if one wants to talk about how Asian
>> men are viewed by society as a whole... Is there some "wimp" image I'm
>> not aware of?
>>
I believe her terminology is imprecise, and that "neuterization"
may be a better description than "feminization".
My assumption is that what she was referring to is not your "wimp"
image, but the "nerd" image. None of the popular images that you
mentioned carry any positive romantic or sexual connotations.
Even your stereotype of the Asian man as engineer only reaffirms
the image of a workaholic asexual "nerd". In the movies and on
television, Asian males are rarely portrayed with any sex drives,
while white heartthrobs like Tom Cruise, etc., just ooze sexual
charisma. Just as a contrast, note that the popular images of
Asian women are full of these romantic and sexual connotations,
and often little else. Particularly in this country, where romance
and sex play a large role in male-female interactions, the Asian
males are often dismissed as potential sexual partners.
>> Norm
>>
>>
Norman Matloff
% Oh, one more thing: What was that woman referring to when she said she
% had learned about the "feminization" of Asian men in American society?
% Isn't the stereotype of the Asian man an engineer? Engineering still
% has a male image in general, so what's so feminine? And what about
% some of the other popular images, Bruce Lee, kung fu, Shogun, samurai,
% etc.? Those images are silly, but if one wants to talk about how Asian
% men are viewed by society as a whole... Is there some "wimp" image I'm
% not aware of?
>I believe her terminology is imprecise, and that "neuterization"
>may be a better description than "feminization".
>My assumption is that what she was referring to is not your "wimp"
>image, but the "nerd" image. None of the popular images that you
>mentioned carry any positive romantic or sexual connotations.
>Even your stereotype of the Asian man as engineer only reaffirms
>the image of a workaholic asexual "nerd". In the movies and on
Well, I think your explanation might make more sense but since she
said she had "learned" this in her Asian-American studies class,
it would seem that this was a direct quote from the class, i.e.
that she really meant feminization (which had quotation marks
around it in the article).
Norm
Alan Hu
>Well, I think your explanation might make more sense but since she
>said she had "learned" this in her Asian-American studies class,
>it would seem that this was a direct quote from the class, i.e.
>that she really meant feminization (which had quotation marks
>around it in the article).
>
> Norm
>
Asian-American male", which captures Joe's assertion of "neutering" rather
than "feminization".
In general, "emasculation" more accurately captures the media image,
rather than "feminization", as Norm correctly points out. As for the
quoted UC Berkeley student, maybe that's the word she learned, maybe she
was misquoted (I know I've been severely misquoted before.), or maybe
she just misremembered. (How many of you can recite the time-dependent
Schrodinger's Equation without making a mistake?)
--Alan J. Hu
P.S. Sorry if this posting looks bad. I'm using a buggy terminal emulator
over noisy phone-lines. :-(
tim...@public.btr.com
|
|From the San Francisco Examiner, Image Magazine, December 2, 1990
|
| Asian Women, Caucasian Men
| --------------------------
| by Joan Walsh
|
|
|Some people do, at least a little. At UC Berkeley, where assimilation
|is politically incorrect, so is interracial dating. Though it's
|increasingly popular, some Asian women are bucking the trend.
|
|"I don't see how Asian women can take Asian-American Studies courses
|and learn about how American culture has 'feminized' Asian men, and
|then continue to date white men," says Susan Kim, 21, a Korean-American
|Berkeley student who only dates Asians and wishes more Asian women
|would do the same. She gathered a group of her friends to share her
|beliefs for a frank conversation on Asian-white relationships.
|
|Susan seems to see a little of Mike Arnold, dating Darwinist, in every
|white man. "I'm not comfortable with white men," she says. "I don't
|know why they're asking me out and I don't trust them. I know the
|media images they put on me."
[most of these replies is commentary on the attitudes of the persons
quoted in the article, not the writer or quoter of the article]
The above statements are basically as racist as not trusting the
black people who just walked by because "they might be thieves."
I.e. applying one's observation of a small portion of the group on
all members of the group.
|Reluctantly, she agrees with other Asian women that white men "are
|less sexist than most Asian men. There's an extreme devaluing of
|women in most Asian cultures." Susan is involved with Doug Nishida,
|the Lambda president, and she finds Japanese-Americans "less
|patriarchal than Korean men."
Well, let's see, the average generation level for Japanese Americans
is greater than that of Korean Americans => more Americanized =>
less Japanese => less likely to be sexist.
I suppose she's reluctant to say that people of her own race can
be sexist or otherwise undesirable, though she is quite willing
to criticize other races. Sounds familiar.
| Even dating Doug required some
|soul-searching on her part, because of traditional Japanese-Korean
|enmity as well as "a sense of guilt" over high outmarriage rates among
|Japanese-Americans.
Uh, isn't this another racist argument? Why should "traditional
Japanese-Korean emnity" (which is either just racist BS or stupid
government policies) affect who one chooses to date, especially
if both people are Americans! And the "sense of guilt" is just
a way of appeasing the racist "purity" types.
Note: 80% outmarriage is not high -- if Japanese Americans chose mates
randomly with respect to race, it'd probably be higher.
|Many of Susan's friends share her commitment to dating only Asians.
|"I want someone who speaks Chinese, someone who family is really
|important to," says Karen Co.
Will she accept a white person who speaks fluent Chinese? Or, better
yet, ask her if she will accept a BLACK person who speaks fluent Chinese.
|I mostly agree with Cindy Nakashima, but I think we're both a little
|naive. Increasingly, "what's wrong" with interracial romance has less
|to do with old-style racial prejudice than with cultural anxiety
|produced by dramatic demographic changes. Soon no racial group will
|hold a majority in the state, and many Asians, blacks and Latinos are
|pushing to retire the melting pot of assimilation. There will be
|more, not less, criticism of intermarriage from the politically
|correct in the coming years.
So does this mean that we've come around to a full circle?
When will people realize that cultures do not remain static and that
it is desirable and inevitable that they evolve, merge, and fuse
into new cultures[*]. Artificial social or governmental barriers can
only increase the likelihood of conflict and decrease the likelihood
of harmony. Seems as though the "politically correct" are
becoming just as racist as "old-style" racists.
[*] I mean the combination of aspects of many cultures growing into
a new one (or more), not the widely derided idea called "assimilation"
where one culture remains static and others disappear upon contact with
it.
Joe Huang
>> black people who just walked by because "they might be thieves."
>> I.e. applying one's observation of a small portion of the group on
>> all members of the group.
>>
It's naive to think that we have no preconceived images of different
ethnic groups. It's only a problem when we let these vague images
dominate and block out any feedback from person-to-person interactions.
You seem to find skepticism about the intentions of white men to be
racist, but then are not troubled by her generalization that Asian
men are more sexist, and actually repeat the charge yourself. Is it
okay to make racist generalizations about Asians but not about whites?
>>
>> Well, let's see, the average generation level for Japanese Americans
>> is greater than that of Korean Americans => more Americanized =>
>> less Japanese => less likely to be sexist.
>>
>> (portion deleted)
>>
>> Will she accept a white person who speaks fluent Chinese? Or, better
>> yet, ask her if she will accept a BLACK person who speaks fluent Chinese.
>>
Why put all the burden for nonracist behavior on just the Asians?
I wonder how many white women would accept a Chinese man who speaks
fluent English? How many white men would accept a black woman who
speaks fluent English? If you say 100% or even 50%, I would say you're
naive (We're speaking here of romantic liaisons, not socially correct
behavior).
tim...@public.btr.com
|>> The above statements are basically as racist as not trusting the
|>> black people who just walked by because "they might be thieves."
|>> I.e. applying one's observation of a small portion of the group on
|>> all members of the group.
|
|It's naive to think that we have no preconceived images of different
|ethnic groups. It's only a problem when we let these vague images
|dominate and block out any feedback from person-to-person interactions.
|You seem to find skepticism about the intentions of white men to be
|racist,
No. The skepticism isn't racist (if the actions which cause the
skepticism are true) -- it is the USE of this skepticism to exclude
ALL white men (without determining if they hold the quality that
induces the skepticism from consideration that is racist.
| but then are not troubled by her generalization that Asian
|men are more sexist, and actually repeat the charge yourself. Is it
|okay to make racist generalizations about Asians but not about whites?
If she excludes Korean men (which she apparently doesn't) on the basis
of her observations of sexism then she would also be racist against
Koreans.
|>> Well, let's see, the average generation level for Japanese Americans
|>> is greater than that of Korean Americans => more Americanized =>
|>> less Japanese => less likely to be sexist.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Note the use of "less likely to be" instead of "less" in reference to
"sexist"! "Less sexist" carries the implication that all Japanese
American (or whatever ethnic) people are sexist to some degree and
therefore implies that a person being Japanese American determines
the level of sexism s/he holds. "Less likely to be sexist" states
only that a random pick among Japanese American people would be less
likely to be sexist, but does not mean that a person being Japanese
American determines whether or not and how much s/he is sexist..
And you might recall that she uses her observation to completely
exclude certain people because of their race. The "less likely
was not meant to imply that one should include or exclude someone
solely on the basis of race.
|>> Will she accept a white person who speaks fluent Chinese? Or, better
|>> yet, ask her if she will accept a BLACK person who speaks fluent Chinese.
|
|Why put all the burden for nonracist behavior on just the Asians?
|I wonder how many white women would accept a Chinese man who speaks
|fluent English? How many white men would accept a black woman who
|speaks fluent English? If you say 100% or even 50%, I would say you're
|naive (We're speaking here of romantic liaisons, not socially correct
|behavior).
There is no intention to "put all of the burden for nonracist behavior
on just the Asians". It's just that many people of ALL racial and ethnic
groups are quick to put nasty labels on other groups (as whole groups)
but are reluctant to criticize individual evil persons within their
own group (such as the sexist Korean persons that a person in the
article ran into).
Well, let's see, we could take a poll:
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a white MOS?
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a black MOS?
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a asian MOS?
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a latino MOS?
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a native MOS?
Would you be willing to marry or have a romantic liason with a ... MOS?
MOS -> "member of opposite sex" | "member of own sex"
(if straight or bisexual) (if gay or bisexual)
Well, I guess it would only work for a confidential poll, since most
people who would say no wouldn't answer an open poll.
David Rahfeldt
is that they have become emasculated and not strong anymore...
Manytell stories of how their previous Japanese boyfriends did not have strength
of character to stand up to parents or employers etc.
They are tired of being socially obligated servants and do not seek to find men
who are themselves also second class citizens not only of role but in personal
character strength.
I heard this complain so consistently that it was stated as common knowledge
that Japanese men get "weaker" and Japanese women get "better educated, better
travelled, and more prosperous... and stronger "....
I think many Japanes emen thought that it is a size issue ( size of body or
muscles or penis or whatever ) but actually it is a size of character problem
only for most women there...
and I would assume same here...
david
gno...@hardy.u.washington.edu
Ellen Mitsue Eades
generalizable truths in it.
In article <11...@public.BTR.COM> tim...@btr.com (Timothy J. Lee) writes:
>chri...@uts.amdahl.com (Christine R. Lee) quotes:
>|Susan seems to see a little of Mike Arnold, dating Darwinist, in every
>|white man. "I'm not comfortable with white men," she says. "I don't
>|know why they're asking me out and I don't trust them. I know the
>|media images they put on me."
>The above statements are basically as racist as not trusting the
>black people who just walked by because "they might be thieves."
Not true, unless a *very* high proportion of the black people you have inter-
acted with every day of your life stole something from you. I'm talking
75% or so. My experience is that at least that high a percentage of white
males *do* have strange and shallow notions of what Asian women are like.
Starting from kindergarten/primary school when I got the catcalls of "Chink"
or "Jap" in the schoolyard, or even before that, when white adults came up
to me in grocery stores to tell me how cute, like a little China doll, I was,
I've been inundated with white images of Asian women. Then, suddenly, during
adolescence, the catcalls ceased and those *same* people started pursuing
me. Can you imagine what kind of impact that made on my self-image? I knew
I was still strange-looking and alien, but at the same time I was suddenly
desirable -- it made me feel like a whore. I think a lot of my anger at men
stems from this projection of conflicting desires and repulsions at me.
However, the fact is that there are a lot of white people out there -- more
than Asian people, more than black or Hispanic people. And by sheer numbers,
many Asian women end up dating them. All my lovers have been white, and
I'm somewhat embarrassed by it, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I
am not in college any more, there aren't many Asian people around where I
work, and there *are* many whites.
I would like to date Asian, black, Hispanic people ... but I can't
find them. I'd like to have a lover who understood the cultural mix that I
come from. But I don't know where they are. My activities seem not to
interest many Asians. I don't hang out at the local JACL office. My
friends are almost exclusively white and I'm as Americanized as the average
Nisei. What percentage of Nisei men date white women? Probably a lot.
I only know one, and he's had relationships with two white women in the
time I've known him. So I'm feeling culturally adrift and alone, often
hostile about white racism but surrounded by white friends, and I'm not
Japanese enough to fit in with the Japanese culture, either.
I found a lot that rang true with me and gave me food for thought in that
article. Thanks, Christine, for posting it.
--
"Some of my best friends are white."
UUCP: {sun, uw-beaver, apple, uunet, fluke}!microsoft!ellene
Nicholas Byram
>
>In article <11...@public.BTR.COM> tim...@btr.com (Timothy J. Lee) writes:
>>chri...@uts.amdahl.com (Christine R. Lee) quotes:
>>|Susan seems to see a little of Mike Arnold, dating Darwinist, in every
>>|white man. "I'm not comfortable with white men," she says. "I don't
>>|know why they're asking me out and I don't trust them. I know the
>>|media images they put on me."
>
>>The above statements are basically as racist as not trusting the
>>black people who just walked by because "they might be thieves."
>
>Not true, unless a *very* high proportion of the black people you have inter-
>acted with every day of your life stole something from you. I'm talking
>75% or so. My experience is that at least that high a percentage of white
>males *do* have strange and shallow notions of what Asian women are like.
Here in the San Francisco/Oakland area, a high proportion of black
people DO commit much crime, often heinous (and often against Oriental/Asian
American folk, I might add.) I have run into one too many stereotypical
"lazy black SOBs". Does that make assumptions about blacks right?
>Can you imagine what kind of impact that made on my self-image? I knew
>I was still strange-looking and alien, but at the same time I was suddenly
>desirable -- it made me feel like a whore. I think a lot of my anger at men
>stems from this projection of conflicting desires and repulsions at me.
I'm neurotic in many ways too, but I try to fight it.
>However, the fact is that there are a lot of white people out there -- more
>than Asian people, more than black or Hispanic people. And by sheer numbers,
>many Asian women end up dating them. All my lovers have been white, and
>I'm somewhat embarrassed by it, but I'm not sure what to do about it.
Accept it, and work hard at making the relationship work! You are NOT by
nature evil I don't think. What is there to be embarrassed about? Good luck!
Nick Byram (nby...@ocf.berkeley.edu)
The views expressed in no way reflect those of the University of California,
Berkeley, and that's a damned shame.
"I've fallen and I can't get up!"--Mrs. Fletcher
Lui Sieh
mat...@gandalf.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) writes:
> Oh, one more thing: What was that woman referring to when she said she
> had learned about the "feminization" of Asian men in American society?
> Isn't the stereotype of the Asian man an engineer? Engineering still
> has a male image in general, so what's so feminine? And what about
> some of the other popular images, Bruce Lee, kung fu, Shogun, samurai,
> etc.? Those images are silly, but if one wants to talk about how Asian
> men are viewed by society as a whole... Is there some "wimp" image I'm
> not aware of?
This reminds of a workshop held at last year's MAASU Conference at
Purdue. During the workshop about perceptions/stereotypes, one
adjective to describe Asian American men was "asexual". My first
reaction was of incredulity.
I think that the "wimp" factor arises exactly from the "traditional"
Asian dominance in engineering which evoks images for many people a
geek/nerd who isn't into sports (where sports == macho, strong, virile)
and has glasses etc.
Sports activities are IMO, held secondary by their parents who "force"
their children during their formative years into academics and doing
well there. It's that "education before all else" philosophy/phenomena.
This isn't the first time that Asian American men have been slammed on
and despite hearing this from many women of various backgrounds, I still
have a hard time with this.
It's bizarre.
-Lui
ARPA: ls2r+...@andrew.cmu.edu USnail: CMU
BITNET: ls2r+asian%andrew@CARNEGIE P.O Box 242
UUCP: ...!harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!ls2r+ Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Above may or may not reflect the *true* feelings of the author