As mentioned in the opening post of this two part series, there is a disproportionately smaller number of Asian American men and White women married couples in the United States. What is it about the perception of Asian men that makes them unpopular suitors for White women?
In a recent study on online dating interactions, it was found that in order for a male of Asian descent to receive a similar number of messages or requests to interact as a White male, the Asian male would need to make nearly $250,000 more per year, all things held constant. This study, compiled by economist, Paul Oyer, is bad news for Asian and Asian American men. But it is not just online dating that men of Asian descent struggle with. In another study performed at University of Cardiff in Wales, U.K., cognitive psychologist Michael Lewis asked 20 males and 20 females of varying race (three broad groups, White, Asian, Black) to rate 600 Facebook photos of White Europeans, Black sub-Saharan Africans, and East Asians all within higher education. It was found that women consistently voted black men as most attractive and Asian men as least attractive, and for men, Asian women as most attractive and Black women as least attractive. Why is there no love for the Asian men?
In order to wrap our heads around this phenomenon, the history of the marginalization of Asian American masculinity will be explored, followed by unpacking the associated stereotypes seen with interracial White female/Asian male couples, and finally the cultural, social, and political significance of these representations. This investigation will delve into the Asian American as a desexualized, non-masculine figure and why this image persists today.
The United States and East Asia, A History
In order ground this analysis of the phenomenon of marginalized masculinity for Asian American males, we must take into consideration the history and politics surrounding Asians in the modern world.
Relations between the United States and Asia have had a long history of ups and downs. In the late 1700s, the U.S. had its first contact with Asian people through trade. During this time in history Filipino sailors settled in current day Alabama, and some of the first Asian settlers made their homes in Hawaii throughout the late 18th Century. Early on in the 19th Century the U.S. and China were heavily connected through trade, especially of opium. By the mid 1840s, the first Opium war between China and Britain broke out. Around this time, the California gold rush was occurring, which attracted many Asians, especially the Chinese to come to America to try to get rich. As the gold stock dwindled, so did the American’s toleration for the Asian foreigners. Not long after the gold rush, Chinese laborers were recruited to work as laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad.
Feelings of animosity grew among Americans about these immigrant Chinese men due to their willingness to do menial work for little pay. Many people in the American labor unions felt that these laborers were taking jobs from established Americans and were driving wages down far too low. By 1875, an act of legislation called the Page Act barred people of Asian descent from immigrating to the U.S. under the pretense of forced labor or as prostitutes. This act had little impact on Asian males but heavily affected Asian women from entering the U.S. By 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed which made it nearly impossible for Chinese people to immigrate to the U.S. and made Asians already within the nation’s borders aliens. Additionally, further acts made it clear that once an Asian left the U.S. they could not come back, and that Asians still in America must carry residence permits at all times or face deportation. These acts, as well as the widespread of employment of Chinese immigrants in laundries, restaurants and other feminized jobs and other factors put Asian American males in a subordinate position to White men, which negatively impacted not only women’s perceptions about these men but also the Asians’ perceptions about themselves.
Additional acts including the National Origins Act continued to prevent any Chinese or Japanese person from entering the U.S. This law in combination with other acts of legislation were a result of U.S. sentiments about the Yellow Peril, the notion that the East will rise up and defeat the West. This was the beginning of caricatures of Asian men as forces of evil that are trying to take over the world.
During World War II, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base in Hawaii. This attack led to further conflict between the United States and Japan. It also led to relocation and incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent living on the West coast. Over 100,000 people were imprisoned in there internment camps, many of which were second and third generation American citizens. This forced relocation was done in order to ensure Japanese Americans would not be able to assist Japan in further harming the U.S. With the aid of propaganda, the fear of Yellow Peril and the perceived evilness of Japanese men was spread far and wide. After the war, there was a period of feminization of the reputation of Japan by the U.S. in order to speed up the acceptance of working with Japan after a long and resentful war.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Asian Americans were a part of the civil rights movement where they campaigned for ethnic studies to be taught in university, to end the Vietnam War, and to give reparations to Japanese Americans that were placed in internment camps during WWII. This is an indication of how Asian Americans have sought to take control of how they are treated and seen in the U.S.
The main takeaway from this abbreviated history is a constant perceived feminization or desexualization of Asians, especially in America, due to previous conflicts between China, Japan, and the U.S.
What is the origin of this desexualization of Asian American ?
As outlined in the history of interactions between Asian and U.S. powers, the perceptions of Asian Americans by other Americans and themselves have been negatively impacted in a number of ways.
The first way in which Asian Americans have been desexualized or disadvantaged relationship-wise was when recent Chinese immigrants were laborers in the early 1800s. These men were considered the lowest of the low which in turn took a toll on these Asian Americans’ opinion of themselves. Additionally, with the Page Act in full effect, there were very few Asian American women in the U.S. in which to try to get partnered with. As a result, many of these men remained single.
Asian American Males in the Media
Asian and Asian American men have very few role models in American movies and TV shows.
One of the examples that is mentioned often is Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles. This character, played by Gedde Watanabe, is an Asian foreign exchange student who throughout the movie adheres to many of the stereotypes that characterize Asian American men. In this movie Dong does end up with a white female, Marlene the “Lumberjack,” that is stereotyped to be butch and much taller than him. In the scenes that follow their meeting, Marlene and Dong are straddled on a bike together as if they are going to be intimate but Marlene is really exercising. This portrayal of sexual deviance and appearance that only virgin but outside of the norm women would date an Asian. Also making Dong much shorter than Marlene plays into the effeminate image of Asian American men. Of course this film is full of other stereotypes involving Asians as bad drivers, use of a gong sound whenever Dong says something humorous.
Other negative portrayals of Asian Americans as either nerds, antisocial, awkward, feminine, and unattractive are found in numerous TV shows and movies. This is a problem because what people see and hear on TV can translate to real life, especially negative stereotypes about a certain group of people.
Some positive examples of strong Asian male leads include the kung-fu master that Bruce Lee plays and Harold, a Korean American, from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. In the former, Bruce Lee plays a very strong, confident, and muscular character. He is someone to look up to but in the context of this paper, Bruce Lee’s character has no interest. As for the latter, Harold, has apprehension about approaching the white woman he likes. He breaks out of the mold set-up for Asian Americans like him in that he does not subscribe to the model
minority characteristics. Even though characters in the movie stereotype against him, Harold and his Indian American friend Kumar continue on towards their goal of getting White Castle food. At the end of the movie, Harold finally has enough courage to talk to the woman he liked and is not rejected.
A notable Asian male and White female couple in the media is the rising star, Lourde, and her boyfriend James Lowe. As Lourde, born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor, has risen to fame through her coming of age songs, her young age, and Gothic influence on her clothing style. Last year she made headlines after it came to light that she is dating James Lowe, a photographer from New Zealand. Lourde has a history of making fun of other musicians and she mentioned that Justin Bieber and the members of 1 Direction are not attractive. When it came to light that she is dating a male of Asian descent, a Twitter war broke loose with hatred and racism towards the couple. Many of these haters emasculated Lowe and stereotyped him based on his features.
Asian American Male Stereotypes
Stereotype: Asian American Males are feminine and Asian cultures in general are feminine.
This is a difficult stereotype for young Asian American men to come to terms with because it castrates them before they even have a chance to try to attract someone of another racial background. Researchers propose that Asian cultures have been depicted as feminine because of the contrast between Confucian values of the East like conformity, cooperation, lack of ego display and honoring tradition compared to the American behavior which is characterized by aggression, rationality, and dominance.
Stereotype: Men of Asian descent have small pensises, and thus will be poor sex partners
This stereotype is meant to make Asians feel inadequate about their size compared to the white standard in which all minorities are compared to. But this stereotype has little basis in fact, according to a large compilation of 12 studies that measured the penis size of over 11,000 men since 1942, they found that the size variation between different races is minimal at best. Thus this stereotype is more about ethnic body policing and not on facts.
Stereotype: Asian Americans are not really American and cannot be assimilated into the dominant white culture.
Between you and me we know that this statement has two fundamental flaws: that a person who lives in the U.S. cannot by biology or culture become an American, and that assimilation into white culture is even the goal of new citizens. Because Asian Americans tend to have more culturally distinct features some people believe that they will never “fit in” the dynamic group that is America. Many Asian Americans that are second and third generation Americans have found that people still say “You speak English really well!” when it seems obvious that they would speak English as well as any other native born American. This notion that all Asians are exotic and outsiders of U.S. culture doesn’t help with the Asian American man’s game on the dating scene. White women may be hesitant to get to know Asian men due to fear of perceived or actual language and cultural barriers which we will explore in the next section.. This stereotype leads us to the cultural, social, and political significance of Asian man and White women relationships.
Significance of cultural, social and political impacts of intermarriage
So far we have discussed the history of the United States’ interaction with East Asian nations, the origins of the marginalization of Asian American masculinity, and Asian American stereotypes. From this we can delve into why it is that we don’t see as many Asian American men with White women.
Culturally: Fear of ruining “racial purity” of family
One of the principle reasons we presume that there are less Asian American men with White women is that in Chinese and other Asian cultures, the sons stay with their own family, and the daughters leave to join her husband’s family. This leads to fears that if an Asian male marries someone outside of their own race, they may lose some of the cherished cultural components of their ancestors, according to the parents at least. On both sides of the family, there are great risks of losing one’s family because of racial mixing.
Culturally: The desire to be white.
An internal unrest experienced by many second generation Asian Americans is a desire to be more white. Some Asian American men feel that if they can marry a more American woman, they will gain a one way ticket to the white middle class. This idea is complex because you would think that there would be more Asian American men-white women couples but this is not the case. There is likely something else at play, likely socially as we will see below.
Socially: Asian American men may not interact with enough white women or be confident enough to attract these women
At the college level it is not hard to see that people of the same race or ethnic background tend to stay together. The methods in which Asian men try to woo white women may come off as less confident than white men who are rewarded for being confident to the point of being cocky at times. This seems to make sense for Asian Americans of first or second generation but does not account for those who are more culturally integrated into the United States.
Socially: The model minority myth plays into the hardworking stereotypes of Asian Americans and this negatively affects their ability to attract partner until recently.
Interestingly, up until recently Asian Americans had been underrepresented in the highest ranking official positions in the U.S. But the times are changing and more and more Asian Americans are reaching these highest ranks. This results in higher pay. Some Asian American men then try to exchange the financial capital to gain social capital via a wife that is in line with ideal American beauty standards.
Politically: To this day, stereotypes about the Asian male have influenced how the U.S. interacts with Asian nations.
As outlined in the history section, the U.S. and Asian nations have had a very rocky past. This has the potential to influence how the U.S. interacts with Asian nations today.
The Big Picture:
The aim of this article was to analyze the discrimination and stereotypes that are presented among interracial couples, (Asian Americans and Caucasians) who are continually degraded within the United States today. By unpacking each commonly displayed stereotype of both Asian American males and Asian American females, we have a better understanding of how these negative connotations are implemented to destroy any chance of Asian Americans being socially, culturally and politically accepted within the U.S. Through this evidence-based analysis we hope to raise awareness about the commonly viewed stereotypes among Asian American and white couples throughout this country. Although the United States has come a long way in moving away from these stereotypes, there is still much more improvement that needs to occur in order to change the representations that are commonly associated with minorities and interracial couples whom are living in the “land of the free.” (Well, that’s ironic)
Anyway friends, this concludes our article. I hope you enjoyed reading our blog on interracial couples in the United States. Until next time!
Written by Katie Garrison and Kristen Monti
