Who's Being Affected?
Wedding day from "Seeking Asian Female", a documentary about yellow fever and Steve, man on right's, experience with finding his perfect Chinese bride.
“Appreciation for a culture should not mean you assume that someone fits into your ideas of that culture or that someone will share your passion for the culture because they’re that race,"
- Nancy Wang Yuen, sociologist, and author of Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism
Victims of Asian Hate Crime
In 2021, the Atlanta Spa Shootings intensified fear within the Asian community. Robert Aaron Long, the main suspect in this case, claimed his actions were motivated by his “sex addiction” and that the spas were a “temptation he wanted to eliminate.” Another case includes a man from California that stalked and raped around 10 Asian women over the course of 20 years. It took so long for him to be caught and so many women to have fallen victim, that he even acquired the nickname “NorCal Rapist''.
Saki Kondo
Saki was a Japanese woman who was decapitated by her American Tinder date. Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar was considered a ‘spoiled child’ and had dreams of marrying a Japanese woman. The two met on the dating app and decided to meet in real life at his rented apartment in Japan. Moments later, Yevgeniy is seen on CCTV footage leaving his apartment carrying a bag with her severed head. The rest of her body parts were also scattered around the woods before investigators had found the bag.
Quyen Ngoc Nguyen
Quyen was a Vietnamese woman that suffer four hours of “unimaginable” torture before being raped and burned alive in her car. The two suspects, Stephen Unwin and William McFall, had just been set free from jail when they set their sights on Quyen. They lured her into one of their houses and began the torture, stealing her money, assaulting her, and ultimately ending her life. This case was concluded to be racially motivated due to texts exchanged between the suspects such as “raping the c-word.
Michelle Alyssa Go
On a casual Saturday morning in Times Square, Michelle was pushed from behind directly in front of a moving train. This incident occurred during the spike in Asian hate crimes during 2021, due to the mass hysteria brought on by COVID-19, and the racist belief that Asians, or specifically Chinese people, brought this virus to the U.S. This case traumatized people around the country, and although police have said that there was no indication that she was targeted because of her ethnicity, Asian Americans live in fear that this incident could happen to them as well.
Illustration of a White man pursuing an Asian woman while sexualizing her and her culture in his mind.
"Creepy White Guys" is an anonymous blog on Tumblr that collects and features racially insensitive pick-up lines Asian women have received from Caucasian males on online dating sites.
Here are some examples of messages Asian women have received:
“Konichiwa! I want you to know you are beautiful, like a lotus flower. I am crazy about Asian stuff, like the culture, the martial arts, the food, the anime and of course the women. I have studied many martial arts and know how to protect a woman, and how to treat her right. I would love to get to know you. Arrigatou!”
“Many women find themselves attracted to me, but I am only interested in the best: Asian women. Why is that? Could it be their fine skin and long silky hair? Could it be the fact that unlike white women, they remember what it’s like to be a woman: to be docile and submissive and respectful to a man? Could it be their delicate, playful personalities? I believe it is all of the above… and more!”
Cultural Appropriation
Cartoon of white woman doing the "fox-eye trend."
East Asian women are generalized and stereotyped as quiet, gentle, and submissive. An example of these people that fetishize are termed “weeaboos,” people who are so enamored with anime and generalize Japanese culture, in a way that is unhealthy and disrespectful, and have turned it into a fetish. Weeaboos obsess over finding someone of Asian descent that “fits the aesthetic.” In more recent times, Overconsumption of East Asian media, such as K-Pop have led people into being obsessed with East Asian culture. Trends such as the “fox-eye” look, in which people are taping their eyes back “look more Asian” are examples of Asian fishing/baiting. Many Asians with monolids and slanted eye shapes have been mocked for these features for centuries, so these actions are seen as extremely offensive.
Another instance of fetishization is cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation most often happens with clothing. Each culture has their own traditional clothing, for instance Japanese kimonos, Vietnamese áo dài’s, and Chinese qipaos. Fashion trends are always evolving, and sometimes they are influenced by other countries or cultures.
Kacey Musgraves wearing traditional Vietnamese culture during a performance.
Kacey Musgraves, a popular American country singer, decided to wear part of an áo dài, without the pants that traditionally go with the cultural garment, during a performance. People pointed out a headpiece she was wearing and accused her of throwing together “random” items in order to “look more exotic”. Asian media outlets were outraged, including Do Nguyen Mai, a Vietnamese American poet and activist, who tweeted “Please don’t further degrade this key part of Vietnamese culture and put on some pants like everyone else that wears áo dài,” and “When people do things like this, all it does is contribute to the dangerous notion of Southeast Asian femininity as inherently sexual out of subservience.”
This issue is also very common with the Japanese kimonos. Another popular celebrity, Kim Kardashian, planned to release a lingerie line under the name “Kimono”, completely disrespecting the history and culture behind actual kimonos. Even the mayor of Kyoto, Japan’s capital, sent a letter requesting for her to rethink the name. There is a long cultural history behind every country’s traditional clothing, so when one appropriates that garment/style, it is extremely disrespectful and erases the true meaning behind it.