Please stop saying that Shang Chi is an advancement for all Asians.
Ever since Shang Chi, the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe movie came out, my social feed has been filled with messages of how important this movie is for Asian representation everywhere.
Don’t get me wrong — I love the movie. It’s now one of my favorite Marvel movies, Tony Leong’s performance is nothing short of incredible, and any time I see Simu Liu’s abs I feel a strong desire to high-five him.
But when we say “It’s an advancement for Asians”, I can’t help but want to ask “which Asians?” Because when we say Asians, we usually mean East Asians.
We tend not to mention Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Laotian, all of whom are ALSO Asian American but might not look like me. Which is kind of ridiculous, since the SECOND LARGEST Asian-American population in the US is Indian-American, totalling 4.5 milllion, Compared to Chinese American at 5.1 million.
So when we say “Shang Chi is a major advancement for Asians everywhere!”
We’re kind of being a dick to those OTHER 14 ethnicities that aren’t Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese (what Ali Wong refers to as “Fancy Asian”). I certainly didn’t see any Thai martial arts in the film, no Pakistani actors, no Cambodian mystical creatures being ridden around.
Then there’s the fact that, with such WILDLY differing backgrounds, cultures, and nationalities, there’s a wild-ranging history of national and cultural ties. So we don’t really identify as “Asian American”, but rather “Chinese American”, “Korean American”, “Thai-American”, “Indian-American”, etc.
This is why it is that for a long time, I understood the annoyance of being asked “Where are you from?” but also understood the perfectly innocent intentions behind the question. It’s a genuine curiosity of cultural identification, even though it does perpetuate the “otherness” at the same time.
But the result is that there’s not a lot of unification behind the movements, and for very sympathetic reasons. We don’t have a shared ancestry. We don’t have a shared suffering.
And even more complicatedly ( and this may ruffle some feathers) — our non-shared suffering is often from each other. There are some deep and dark wounds in our heritage over the thousands of years of occupations, wars, and imperialism.
So when you say “we need to stand together against this common enemy of racism”, it leads to a question of “who are you talking to? And who is it perpetuated by?”
Even if we’re specifically talking about ONLY the racism perpetrated by WHITE PEOPLE in North America, against Asians, we have very different cultural ties and links to that heritage.
For example, when we talk about systemic racism, do we start with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1875, the Canadian Chinese Head Tax of 1885, the Japanese Internment camps in 1942, Executive Order 9066 (another Japanese internment camp on Ellis Island), or the rise of Anti-Pakistani sentiment after the middle-east conflicts? If I talk about racial stereotyping, do I stand with my friends against the rise of attacks against Muslims post 9/11, when they’d get “randomly searched” on 7 out of 10 flights they were boarding?
Or when I talk about modern racism, such as Hollywood’s long-held refusal to cast Asian men as romantic leads or sexual characters, or the Bamboo ceiling in the corporate world that will promote Asian-Americans to middle management, but disproportionately promote them to upper level execs, am I considering the full range of backgrounds? Am I championing the British racism against the “Pakis” (a very racist term) when I’m also championing Jeremy Lin when he was called a “Chink”? Am I allowed to?
It’s a tricky concept to contemplate, and a trickier one to vocalize because there’s so many landmines to avoid on the battlefield.
(In a lot of ways, I feel some sympathy for my really amazing, absolutely loving white friends who want to be allies, because there’s a distinct sense of “Am I even allowed to help?” that I can also relate to.)
It’s important that when we promote Asian-American concepts, or when we speak out against Anti-Asian racism, that we recognize the COMMONALITIES we share with one another, because if we take away the ancestry, we mostly experience commonality.
One of my favorite youtube comedians for example is MostlySane (Prajakta Koli), who do these hilarious sketches with her stereotypically-portrayed Indian parents.
What I absolutely love about it is how similar it is to my stereotypically-portrayed Taiwanese parents. Accents and outfits aside, they’re fairly identical.
The same thing happens when I talk to my Indian friends about their upbringing. The cultural mindset of being pushed to perfection because the competition can be so challenging, and how there’s no bottom to fall to.
Or the immigrant struggle of seeing the world through different mindsets.
We’re ultimately more alike than we are different, and we struggle through more similarities than we do differences, but it’s still important to note how representation looks in these movements. We can’t decry the lack of representation in racial discrimination and, while doing so, perpetuate the same discrimination.
