The Invisible Rice Bowl of Asian Privilege

Privilege is a special right or advantage available only to a particular person or group of people. The term is commonly used in the context of social inequality, particularly in regard to social class, race, age, sexual orientation, gender, and disability. Two common examples would be having access to a higher education and housing.  Privilege can also be emotional or psychological, regarding personal self-confidence and comfort, or having a sense of belonging or worth in society.

In Chinese slang, the phrase 鐵飯碗 (tie fan wan), meaning "iron rice bowl" refers to a job which guarantees easy money for life.  By extension, it means someone whose socioeconomic comfort is assured.  In this post I use the term "Rice Bowl of Asian Privilege" as an analogy for those unearned advantages that a person has merely by being of Asian background.

In this post, I want to give a few examples of Asian privilege in Asia.  Note that as I am a Taiwanese-American living in Taiwan, some of these examples may be particular to Taiwan rather than to Asia as a whole.

1. When I am in public, I can see individuals which resemble me.
2. I can, without restricting myself to a limited pool of individuals, arrange to meet and be in the company of individuals who share my race, language and culture without additional effort.
3. When I am in public, I am not made to feel out of place because of my race or ethnicity; nobody draws unwanted negative attention towards me simply because of the color of my skin.
4. I am able to rent or purchase housing in an area that I can afford without additional stipulations.
5. I can sign contracts for things like bank accounts, credit cards, and mobile phones without being denied simply for the color of my skin.
6. I can be reasonably sure that I will not be overcharged when I go shopping.
7. I see people of my race, ethnicity, and culture in the media.
8. Conversely, my holidays are celebrated by the public at large.
9. I can hear my language widely spoken in public and people do not assume that I do not know the local language, or know the language poorly, because of the color of my race.
10. I do not feel intimidated when discussing my political views in public; I do not have to fear people talking down or correcting me because they see me as an "outsider".
11. I do not need a job or an advanced degree to remain in my country of residence.  I do not need to fear deportation based on the color of my skin.
12. If I obtain employment, I am not "herded into" a certain profession due to my nationality or skin color.
13. Conversely, when I obtain a job I do not need to worry that my peers will think that I only got the job because of my race, nationality or skin color.
14. I do not have to fear being mistreated by the police, my employers, my neighbors, or locals because of my race.
15. I have the right to remain "ignorant" about the cultures of others, without facing a penalty for my lack of knowledge.
16. If I am a cishet male and choose to date a cishet local female, I do not have to worry about being considered a "fetishist" or "creepy".

Asian American men in tech.

Just a quick reblog before I leave.

https://medium.com/message/the-tech-diversity-story-thats-not-being-told-9a36fb40530f

This story is a bit old (from last year) but I didn't have a blog back then and I couldn't find it earlier.

This is a great piece by Anil Dash who is a blogger, entrepreneur, and technologist.  Previously an independent technology consultant and new media developer for the Village Voice, Dash was the first employee of Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, TypePad, and Vox. He served as its Vice President and Chief Evangelist until moving to Expert Labs.  He was the director of Expert Labs, a "Government 2.0 initiative that aims to connect United States government projects with citizens who want to become more involved in the political discussion".

The major tech companies finally gave in and published their statistics confirming the stark reality that the technology industry excludes workers who are African American, Latino, Native American and especially those who are women of any ethnic or racial background.
For example, California’s Hispanic population now stands at 39%. But though most tech companies are headquartered in California, their average percentage of employees who identify as Hispanic is less than 5%. Take Google, whose headquarters are located in Mountain View, CA, where Hispanics make up 21% of the population —its staff is only 3% Hispanic. The statistics are just as stark when it comes to gender exclusion: The industry average is that only 1/3 of employees are women.

Mr. Dash makes the correct, obvious conclusion:

But there’s one conclusion that is inescapable: Asian American men who work in tech are benefitting from tech’s systematic exclusion of women and non-Asian minorities. 

He gives some useful tips as well for combating this injustice.  The first two tips are:

• Listen and believe. Talk to your coworkers who belong to underrepresented groups. Listen to their stories and experiences. Don’t be defensive, just listen. And then when they’re done, believe what they’re saying. Don’t explain it away, don’t play devil’s advocate. [Emphasis my own] Believe that they know just as much as you, are as smart and capable as you, and have had experiences that you don’t know about.
• Stop ignoring the issue. Specifically, we should acknowledge that we haven’t said enough about anti-Black and anti-Latino attitudes, and that we have not articulated our complicity in industry sexism and misogyny. Indeed, we have often helped build these systems of exclusion, not merely remained silent while they were enforced.

I will let the rest of Anil Dash's article speak for itself (once again, you can read it here).  Please take a look at the article and educate yourselves!  And remember, as a wise man once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"

Off to Asia!

Yes, folks, I'm off to Asia until about early November!

I'll be spending the vast majority of my time in my parent's ancestral homeland of Taiwan but I'll also have the chance to go to Japan and perhaps Hong Kong and Thailand.

I'll try to update the blog regularly while I'm there and maybe even post a few insights about Taiwanese society, politics and culture!

Ciao!

Homophobia in Asian communities

While cishet Asian males love to harp about supposed injustices against them, homophobia and the plight of LGBTQIA Asians frequently goes ignored and brushed under the rug.   Whenever the issues of gay and lesbian Asian-Americans are brought up, they are readily dimissed by cishet Asian men who seem more concerned about their "right" to be over-represented at the nation's top universities or the right to date non-Asian women (as if somehow this should be guaranteed simply by being a cishet man).

Too often AAPI activism focuses ONLY on the issues of cishet Asian men, with Asian women and LGBTQIA Asians being forced to take a backseat.  If we believe the cishet-Asian-male metanarrative then we'd end up believing that they're the only victims of a supposed anti-Asian racism while in fact not only are East Asian cishet males the most privileged, they are guilty of perpetrating discrimination against those who are not like them and are often themselves GUILTY of anti-black racism.

But I digress slightly.  Asian homophobia is real with 90% of LGBTIA Asian-Americans experiencing homophobia in their lives.  This is often exacerbated by religious beliefs especially among those who identify as Christian or Catholic.  Political leanings also have much to do with homophobia.  Unsurprisingly Asians who identify as Republican expressed homophobic ideas as did Republicans of all races but so did Chinese-Americans who have positive views of the current Chinese regime.  One of the original sponsors of the bigoted Proposition 8, was of Chinese background (Hak-Shing William Tan), while Korean-Americans by and large supported it.

Whether these Asian homophobes are claiming that they're spokespeople for "God" or whether their homophobia is a result of totalitarian government brainwashing or willing ignorance we may never know.  What they should do however is do some real research rather than simply play a game of bias reinforcement.

Isn't it about time that ALL Asian-Americans were treated with respect as human beings?  Then we need to speak out against homophobia in the Asian community.  In the meanwhile, LGBTQIA Asians do not owe any loyalty to the very people who are excluding them and in many cases suppressing them.  To do so is to go against the very principles of equality.

Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders Seek Unity, Stronger Voice

A bit of an older post, but worth re-blogging anyhow.

Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders Seek Unity, Stronger Voice

Americans celebrate Asian-Pacific Heritage Month in May. This year, the White House sponsored an unprecedented event that has drawn thousands to the nation’s capital.
Nearly 2,000 government officials and community leaders from around the country gathered Tuesday at George Washington University for the first White House summit on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Jake Fitisemanu, one of the newly appointed commissioners on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, told VOA that the summit is “a chance for everyone to get together and to meet and to see how we can pull resources and really provide a collective effort and unified front to the issues we all face together.”
The U.S. Department of Labor defines Asian-Pacific islanders as people with origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the Pacific Islands.
Fitisemanu, wearing Samoan traditional attire for the occasion, claimed, “I’m Asian and Pacific in one package.” His father came from Samoa, and his mother is half Korean and half Chinese; he was born in New Zealand and grew up in Hawaii and Utah.
The population of Asian-Americans and Pacific islanders is growing faster than any other ethnic group in the U.S. By 2060, it’s projected to double and reach 47 million.

Larger political role

As the population grows, Asian-Americans and Pacific islanders are playing a bigger role in the political process.
U.S. Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, cited the Senate race in Virginia last year as an example, when Democratic Senator Mark Warner was struggling in the race. She said, “Senator Warner made a very concerted appeal to them that paid off. An overwhelming 68 percent of API supported him. Senator Warner won by less than 1 percent. APIs were clearly the margin of victory.”
More Asian-Americans are running for office, too. In last year’s midterm elections, more Asian-Americans than ever were elected to Congress, including Representative Mark Takai, a Democrat from Hawaii.
He told VOA that Asian-Americans need to have their voices heard while “standing up and speaking out and being part of different communities,” and “that’s really the message.”
Chu said Asian-Americans have been serving in the Cabinet, in the Congress and as business leaders. “Wouldn’t it be great to finally have an Asian-American on the U.S. Supreme Court?” she asked.
The summit also addressed issues such as cultural barriers and stereotypes facing the Asian-American community. One of the biggest stereotypes is Asians as a “model minority.”
Takai said he is proud of the hardworking spirit of Asian-Americans. “It’s true to some extent, especially in Hawaii. Many people in the API community, my parents’ generation, my grandparents’ generation, who came to America with a dream of succeeding — they all have to work hard,” he said. “I’m proud of my Asian-American heritage, and I think part of that is built on hard work.”

Asian Opposition to Affirmative Action - And Why It's Wrong

It's no secret that a significant portion of Asian-Americans oppose measures that would give all races equal opportunities in jobs and education.  A poll conducted in 2012 for instance showed that more than 30% of Asian Americans were against equal-opportunity measures, while compared to 81.4 percent of Latinos, 83.1 percent of African-Americans supported affirmative action.  Breaking this down on the basis of Asian ethnicity, things become even more problematic: Nearly 40% of Chinese-Americans in the state of California and more than 50% of Korean-Americans oppose Affirmative Action.

A number of Asian groups are demanding that universities rely on what they call "meritocracy" in order to admit students.  This word in itself is very broad but usually what these Asian groups - many of whom are composed of newly arrived Asian immigrants - want when asking for "meritocracy" is to have admissions that would largely be based upon standardized test scores and grades, as done in many East Asian countries.  This system would be faulty for a few reasons.  First standardized test scores tell little about academic potential other than, well, the ability to take a test.  They cannot measure for things like creativity or personality - and a quick glance at the educational system in many Asian countries will immediately tell you about the level (or rather lack thereof) of creativity in that part of the world.

Secondly it ignores the huge possibility of cheating that happens at all levels among Asian and Asian-American students.  Such test scores then have little correlation with actual ability in Asian and Asian-American students.  In other words, Asians rarely embody the sterling academic credentials they include with their applications.  Even when cheating is factored out, again it falls back to money - high-scoring Asians and Asian-Americans are usually those who can afford expensive tutors and SAT training sessions where they learn to 'game' the test without having to, for instance, learn vocabulary definitions.  In essence consideration of "standardized test scores and grades" in effect might give many Asian or Asian-Americans an unfair advantage over other minorities.

It is true that some Asian communities might benefit from admissions standards that are solely based on test scores and school report card grades.  However, this does not mean that it is a just system; people are more than   numbers on a piece of paper.  Each individual is unique, with personality traits and abilities which do not always correlate to paper.  Furthermore, just because a system helps one's own race does not make it the correct one to advocate.

Much of Asian opposition to affirmative action comes from a pervasive anti-blackness within Asian communities and racist sentiment among Asians in general.  This ignores the fact that Asians have benefited from both the civil rights movement and, ironically, the fruits of white privilege simultaneously through the "model-minority" myth.  That is to say that while Asians were willing to sit on the sidelines and reap the rewards of civil rights, they also embraced anti-blackness and were accorded a sort of "Asian privilege" from the political structure of the time.  Part of that privilege was the ability to participate in certain areas white civic life, including education.  This lead to Asians being in fact overrepresented at top universities - with nearly 21.3% of Harvard undergraduates coming from Asian or Asian-American backgrounds, despite Asians making up less than 5% of the total US population, while African-Americans are still under-represented by a factor of 10% at Harvard.  Yet despite this, racists within the Asian-American community still want to increase the proportion of Asian-American students at the expense of other minorities.

Opposition to Affirmative Action also ignores the historical injustice faced by blacks, which was NOT similarly faced by Asians.  This is a huge historical ignorance on the part of Asians who rather than showing solidarity with oppressed black people selfishly promote their own racial goals at the expense of everyone else.

Rather than anti-blackness and unwittingly (or sometimes wittingly) throwing other minorities under the bus, Asians must be compassionate and show solidarity with African-Americans and Hispanics. Rather than advocating for test-based admissions, Asians need to address issues of cheating and academic dishonesty in their own community.  Rather than attempting to turn elite university into little Chinatowns or Little Tokyos, Asians should be advocating for a equitable admissions policy for all.

Hello world!

My name is Paul Yang.  I'm a Taiwanese-Asian-American graduate student, activist, and writer currently living in California and studying sociology.  I was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States at the age of 5.  I originally studied molecular biology but later became involved in a variety of social issues and AAPI activism.  I have since decided to become more involved with Asian and Asian-American issues, first by going into East Asian Studies and then Sociology.

I am very proud to launch this new blog, AAPI Journal as a platform to discuss Asian-American and Pacific Islander Issues, as well as global Asian-Pacific issues.  I hope you'll join me in this unique exploration of AAPI Issues.