#chinese american

[profeminist]

Happy Lao ban Santa Day!

#fresh off the boat #lao ban santa #fotb #chinese american #immigrant #immigrant experience

[americaisdead]

ding-how restaurant, opened in 1957. closed since 1995. amarillo, texas. june 2023

© tag christof

#tag christof #america is dead #on the road #route 66 #chow mein #chop suey #vernacular architecture #chinese american #chinese restaurant #1950s #fujifilm gfx

[joshualunacreations]

In 2022, Corinne Tan was announced as the American Girl Doll of the Year and heavily promoted as a way of raising awareness about anti-Asian racism during COVID. But what message did her story send?

When Corinne Tan debuted, AsAms were offended by the synopsis and how it centered a white man in what's supposed to be a COVID racism story. Once I heard the book had been fast tracked for two live-action specials on HBO Max and Cartoon Network, I knew more harm was coming. In the rare instances Western media talks about anti-Asian racism, it's downplayed. Instead, narratives are used to reinforce the 1) Model Minority Myth, 2) Asian gender divide, and 3) "correct" levels of assimilation. Unsurprisingly, Corinne Tan’s story does all of these.

There's a place for stories about divorce and blended families, but this story isn't it. COVID racism is specifically about the threat of AAPI being verbally or physically assaulted by non-AAPI. The author's choice to emphasize conflict within an Asian family is inappropriate.

Instead of empathizing with David Tan's inability to work during the pandemic—a real problem that has devastated many AAPI families and businesses—it's the reason Judy divorces him. The story not only erases racism as a reason for AAPI pandemic joblessness, but victim-blames. It implies her parents have an antagonistic relationship because her dad isn't white and rich, and that makes him an inferior romantic partner. Despite referencing a slur meant for Asian men, the story never acknowledges that her dad experiences racism too.

Another appalling aspect is how Corinne, an 11-year-old girl, is responsible for teaching a grown white man to empathize with her experiences of racism—because her mom won't. Not only does Judy never talk to Arne about racism, she lets him gaslight Corinne in front of her. Judy seems fixated on wealth and achievement over her daughters' emotional safety. When the family lived with David, the walls were decorated with the daughters' artwork. In Arne's house, Judy is concerned with protecting the aesthetic chosen by Arne's professional decorator.

This is why the Eileen Gu poster becomes such a sticking point. While David encourages his daughters to embrace Chinese culture in everything, Judy seems to apply it only to her restaurant. Is it because Arne tells her he hoped marrying a chef would mean never buying takeout?

Meanwhile, Arne, a rich white businessman—who calls himself Goldilocks and whose behavior the author describes as "clueless" racism—gets sympathetic treatment. His fear of heights and dogs is equated to Corinne's fear of racists, as if it's a phobia to overcome via willpower.

Recall that the purpose of Corinne Tan's story is to educate about AAPI experiences with racism during COVID. Mattel, owner of American Girl, hired a panel of AsAm academics and consultants to tell her story with "authenticity and accuracy." So how did it turn out so harmful?

It's because the AsAm consultants for this project and many similar projects—like Dr. Jennifer Ho—are out-of-touch with our community. Insulated by wealth and/or whiteness they've chosen, they think they've acknowledged their privilege, but their work shows they're still reinforcing it.

The broader problem is that racist and misogynist white men control media. Regardless of gender, sexuality, or marital status, AAPI are given media power only when they internalize and repeat white men’s messaging. This isn't limited to fiction—it affects real-life activism too.

A picture says a thousand words, and it speaks volumes that Stop AAPI Hate chose to literally center white men in the photo accompanying their hate crime data report summarizing the past two years. Of those "thousands of voices," it isn't hard to guess who's prioritized. Stop AAPI Hate pushes the same message as Corinne Tan's story: racist white men deserve more humanity and sympathy than actual AAPI male victims. Hating and erasing AAPI men is required to show that you're a "safe" Asian deserving of resources and support. (see my data thread about how hate crime data is manipulated to erase AAPI men as victims)

It's bad enough that an entire gender is being cut out from resources and empathy, but what Corinne Tan’s story reveals is another disturbing trend: AAPI youth are being groomed into normalizing having racist white men in their lives, specifically in their families and homes.

Corinne Tan is a middle grade story (ages 8-12). For its consulting, Mattel partnered with AAPI Youth Rising, a non-profit led by AAPI middle schoolers. At the time, Dr. Ho was president of the Association for Asian American Studies, which helps shape AsAm studies in schools. It's not a stretch to think Corinne's mom Judy, who puts Corinne in harm's way by refusing to address her white husband’s "clueless” racism, is reflective of the behavior of AAPI adults involved in Stop AAPI Hate and other AsAm orgs—they gave the story their stamp of approval.

Anti-Asian hate crimes against AAPI should've brought the community closer together. Instead, we've been segregated further, and the AAPI who hurt the community the most have hoarded the empathy, media attention, and resources for themselves. How can any of us heal like this?

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal.

https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304 https://patreon.com/joshualuna https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/JoshuaLunaComics

#corinne tan #american girl #american girl doll #mattel #aapi #asian american #chinese american #asian american representation #racism #anti-asian racism #hate crimes #covid racism #stop aapi hate #white men #gaslighting #grooming #fil am artist #my art #artists on tumblr #joshua luna #josh luna

[nuktia]

Too Chinese; Not Chinese Enough

#artists on tumblr #lion #digital art #illustration #adoptee voices #adoption #chinese american #chinese adoptee #nuktiadraws

[myasianfetish69]

Lulu Chu

#lulu chu #chinese american #cute #sexy #wmaf #yellow fever #asian female

[humanrightsconnected]

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Find out today from the following 5 organizations how you can support the AAPI community!

➡️ 18 Million Rising (18MR) 

➡️ AAPI Women Lead

➡️ Asian American Federation (AAF)

➡️ Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC)

➡️ The Asian American Foundation (TAAF)

📸 by Katie Godowski on Pexels

#asian pacific american heritage month #asian #asians #asian american #asian americans #pacific islander #aapi #chinese american #korean american #filipinx #pinoy pride #asian lives matter #stop asian hate #stop aapi hate #anti asian racism #protect asian lives

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

for the movie

Stephanie Choi

#alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry #poem #poetry #poems #poet #poets #anthology #tumblr poetry #poem of the day #poetry blog #Stephanie choi #the lengest neoi #everything #everywhere #all at once #everything everywhere all at once #grandmother #poemblr #poetblr #literature #book worm #Chinese #Chinese American #immigrant #family #poems on identity

[wmaf-world-international]

WMAF couple # 26 - Both American 🇺🇸

Dane Johnson and Pearl Liang Johnson got married in 2022. He's a former model who currently works as a health coach and she's an influencer. They have two sons: Their firstborn Jayce was born in 2020 and their second son Kaden was born in 2024

#wmaf #white male asian female #interracial #interracial love #interracial couple #international couple #international love #afwm #wmaw #awwm #white guys asian girls #white guy #asian girl #american #american guy #american girl #asian american #american asian #couple #couples #couple love #couple goals #mixed couple #异国恋 #american chinese #chinese american #🇺🇸🇨🇳 #🇨🇳🇺🇸

[thelcsdaily]

Orange Chicken

A traditional dish from Chinese-American restaurants, orange chicken consists of crispy fried chicken mixed in a tangy, sticky citrus sauce. But, others would argue that if you've just ever ordered it for takeout or delivery, you've been losing out.

There is much to be said for the delicate balance of orange chicken prepared in the style of takeout when it is first removed from the pan. You simultaneously experience the crunch and the savoriness. But after 30 minutes, forget it. Just out of the pan, it tastes so much better. Thankfully, it's simpler than you may imagine to bring the staple of Chinese takeaway home.

"Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go." - Anthony Bourdain

#food #asian cuisine #chinese cuisine #chinese american #chicken dishes #orange chicken #homemade #home cooking #home cooked meal #my photography #food photography #original photography #thelcsdaily

[autisticchineseamerican90]

Sometimes I get really jealous of people, maybe neurotypicals, because they set a goal and can reach that goal. I can achieve little goals like getting out of bed, but when it comes to career goals, I’m just lost and I lose momentum 1/4th way there. I don’t know if I will ever have a career. I just hope I can get a decent job that I enjoy with good coworkers and not get laid off in a few years.

#autism #30s #lost #asian american #journaling #nobodycares #chinese american #autistic #autistic women #asian autistic #unemployment #unemployed

[linisiane]

Cant stop thinking about that time I went on Reddit to ask for makeup advice, hoping to achieve that kbeauty soft makeup look (as in making me look soft, not as in more natural looking) and instead got replies telling me that I looked like a model, that people would get surgery to have eyes that looked like mine, that the makeup in the photo is unattainable.

The thing is that I don’t look like a model at all. I just look like a young Asian woman. It reminded me of when make up artists started saying fox eye make up was in style now and then started pulling their eyes back.

A dissonance of understanding that they didn’t mean any harm, but caused it anyway because of the system of beauty they work under: one where parts of our body come in and out of style.

From small butts to BBLs. From big eyes to fox eyes. White to tan to black to white again. Our culture rewards them for finding new features to exotify.

Let me walk it back. Why did someone calling me a model feel like a micro aggression?

Well, the advice they gave me on the subreddit was all very centered around western beauty, so I think it was less a matter of false flattery and more a matter of them having genuinely no idea how to frame my face in western beauty standards.

The photo I used for my bare face vs the advice they gave me.

Similar to the way people say Asian women date ugly white men and white men date ugly Asian women—it’s not that they’re fetishizing the other for their race (although sometimes they indeed are doing that), but that what they each think of as beautiful is different based on exposure.

So my eye shape is a unique (exotic) feature to capitalize on to them, but to me, I look like a normal Asian person.

This was reinforced by the model they said I reminded them of: Devon Aoki.

I totally get where they’re coming from with this! I do look similar to her in face shape, but I think it’s really notable that Devon is Wasian. Half white half Asian, which is pairing a lot of people say makes the prettiest babies.

What I hear when they say that, however, is that racial ambiguity is beautiful.

“The Instagram look is racially ambiguous, as it includes many features commonly found in Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color. However, BIPOC women who naturally have these features, compared to rich white and white-adjacent women who have gone through cosmetic procedures to achieve the same features for aesthetic’s sake, are rarely given the same level of acclaim or endorsements for their natural beauty.”

Again, it’s about a system where parts of our body come in and out of style, where proximity to whiteness is really key to determining what part is just an ‘ethnic’ feature and what will be trendy. So although what’s on Devon makes her look like a high fashion model, my features will always read as an un-notable Asian woman.

Ariana Grande was accused of Asian fishing. I don’t think she was doing this on purpose. It’s just that she likely got a face lift done that, as a side effect of pulling her face back, reduced her upper lid crease, making her look more Asian.

So yeah, I don’t doubt that people would get surgery to get eyes like mine. But that’s a monkey’s paw! One where, even though people are literally getting surgeries to have the “privilege” of having feature like mine, those features on my face will never have the same appeal.

The last thing is the idea that this makeup is unattainable. I find this very sweet to say, as obviously took my wording to mean I thought she had very little makeup on and wanted to reassure me that she was artificial.

However, most times when people talked about this style of makeup, they use soft to mean “looking sweet” rather than literally a soft amount, so it was really frustrating to see a cultural barrier hamstring the advice I got. Again, most of it was along the lines of the Western Baddie look rather than the more ‘soft’ makeup tutorial I was looking for (which I later found when Douyin makeup tutorials got translated).

The image I asked for advice on, the "soft" pic I posted for their reference, and a later, more skilled try (that I figured out myself by watching Douyin makeup tutorials).

It also reminded me of the way people jump on anything vaguely positive about China as a ploy by Chinese spies or propaganda by the coerced citizens. The way they pit China against America and use them as a measure of 'real' state propaganda.

Obviously it’s not the same—she clearly was wearing filters and they were misunderstanding my language in the first place—but it also made wonder about how much they’d have said had I asked about advice on getting a more Gigi look or a more Kardashion makeup style?

Sure, there would’ve been people calling out their photoshop/surgery/filters, but would their advice also have been more actionable? More understanding that I was interested in the technique of their makeup, like the Kardashian contour or the 2016 brows or Gigi's fox eyes for instance, rather than assuming that I’d been brainwashed by extreme Asian beauty standards?

I understood, even then, that her look would be unachievable on account of my face shape and skin color (and whew boy that’s its own can of ‘Eurocentric beauty standards and colonialism’ worms), but I also knew that my makeup skills were beginner at best, and that I could be achieving more similar results with the right advice, which I later did.

Anyways, I appreciated all of the advice!!!! They were all super nice, and some of the tips I did end up following!

But America's beauty culture makes it impossible to conceive of beauty unrelated to whiteness -- Western/white beauty tips, Wasians are the prettiest babies, I am a 'high fashion' model, surgery to have my eyes, extreme Asian beauty standards -- like the way orientalism fails to conceive of the East beyond a reflection of the West.

#orientalism #my thoughts #imperialism #asian american #beauty standards #chinese american #ABC #colonialism #eurocentrism #eurocentric beauty standards #undescribed

[bitter69uk]

This intriguing image cropped up on my Tumblr feed with the cryptic caption “Anna May Wong was a tattoo artist at The Pike in Long Beach in the 50s.” I thought – really? How fascinating! When the movie roles for the truly great trailblazing Chinese American screen diva of the twenties and thirties dried-up, did she keep the wolf from the door by diversifying into tattooing as a sideline? There are notorious Hollywood Babylon-style examples of washed-up former stars (like Louise Brooks and Veronica Lake) discovered working as sales assistants or bartenders once they hit hard times. How come I’ve never read this anywhere? Tell me more! But some Googling clarified that the image relates to a 1958 episode of the TV series Climax entitled “Deadly Tattoo”. (Synopsis: “A detective is assigned to investigate a series of murders in which the killer left a heart-shaped tattoo on each of his victims”). Which is kind of disappointing – I love the idea of Anna May Wong as a tattooist! Two years later, Wong would appear in her final film Portrait in Black (a demeaning supporting role as a sinister housekeeper) before dying aged just 56 in 1961.

#anna may wong #lobotomy room #chinese american #old hollywood #golden age hollywood #tattoos #tattoist #tattoo culture #kitsch

[artistsonthelam]

Happy Chinese New Year's Eve! Annual CNY lunch tradition: Mom's making fried turnip cake! My favorite food. 😋 Sound on for that sizzle! // (c) Jenny Lam 2024

#food #turnip cake #dim sum #chinese food #cny #cny2024 #chinese new year #year of the dragon #home #chinese #chinese american #chinese culture #lunar new year #happy chinese new year #happy lunar new year #video #satisfying #oddly satisfying

[todaysdocument]

Affidavit presented by a Chinese Inspector to the U.S. Circuit Court in New Jersey requesting that twelve Chinese men, arrested in Weehawken, New Jersey, be detained.

Record Group 85: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization ServiceSeries: Chinese Exclusion Act Case FilesFile Unit: Case File 19/1490: File for twelve Chinese men

This document is filed with the Chinese Exclusion Act smuggling case file involving twelve Chinese men.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY. ) HARRY R. SISSON, being duly sworn on his oath says: that he is an inspector, duly ap- pointed by the Treasury Department of the United States, (now acting under the department of commerce and labor) [appears to be typed in post writing] under the Chinese Exclusion Act; that on the morning of October second, nineteen hundred and three, at about seven A.M., twelve Chinese persons arrived at Weehawken, New Jersey, on the West Shore Railroad, from Frankfort, New York; that deponent, having been informed that she said defendants were being unlawfully introduced into the United States, found that they had no certificate entitl- ing them to admission into the United States, as required by the Chinese Exclusion Acts and - - - - - by law; and that they are laborers; and from the informal- tion and belief which deponent has, said persons are un- lawfully in the United States, to wit: Li Du, Lun Mong, Gong Don, Kan Tai [Kan is handwritten over typed name], Jung Huio, Jung Way, Ong Non, Jung on Yo, Yeo Hok [y is handwritten over typo], Yee Mon [y is handwritten over typo], Wong Wah, Chu Sing; deponent there- fore prays that said twelve Chinese persons may be de- gained until their right to come into and remain in the United States be determined. Sworn and subscribed to before me this 2nd day of October, A.D., Harry R. Sisson. 1903, at Hoboken, N. J., Edward Russ, U. S. C., N. J.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT. The United States of America vs Li Du and thirteen others. COPY OF AFFIDAVIT. I hereby certify that the within is a true copy of the original affidavit. U. S. Comr. as set forth within. [typed] EDWARD RUSS UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY [stamped]

#archivesgov #1900s #Chinese Exclusion Act #immigration #immigrants #chinese american

[reimeichan]

Had a bit of a revelation today that even though the system is Chinese American, each of our relationship with that aspect of our identity is quite different.

Green, for example, is one of the alters most connected to our Chinese heritage and the one most in tune to the interplay of Chinese and American cultures in our lives. He’s the one most likely to talk about the racism we face in the US along with also being seen as a foreigner in China.

Cobalt, on the other hand, is just as in tune with his Chinese heritage but in a different way. He’s the one most likely to engage in cultural exchange and encourage the people in our lives to explore Chinese culture and heritage, from the food to the language to the music. Cobalt is less aware of our American heritage, though, and tends to speak in Chinese when he can.

I, Pink, am involved with what Chinese American culture specifically looks like. While I’m aware that Chinese American culture has influences both from Chinese culture and American culture, we do have a pretty unique culture separate from either of those. And sure, there’s overlap. But there’s also something about being Chinese American that you can’t find in either Chinese nor American culture themselves.

And our final example is Cyan, who will regularly forget that he’s of Asian descent and then he passes by a mirror and goes, oh, right. It’s not that he seems himself as white, but it’s more that the Chinese or Chinese American identity is so far down his own perception as self that he doesn’t even think that he’s “different” from the white-majority people around him. But even so, he recognizes that he’s Chinese American, or at least will call himself “Asian”.

I dunno, I just thought that was an interesting little thing for us to think about.

#actuallydid #actually did #system stuff #race #identity #asian american #chinese american #by pink #about green #about cobalt #about cyan #also I am an ABC and I'm proud of that

[qweenofurheart]

please be kind

#everything everywhere all at once #suuch a good movie #i love the characters so much i feel like this movie really transcended everything hollywood has established #screencap redraw #everything everywhere all at once fanart #chinese american #my art #do not repost