Unlike Other Chinese
Never good enough for parents; or even for strangers.
April was such a whirlwind I forgone my posts here, and contemporary politics moved on. For the first April post, I intended to review Viet Thanh Nguyen’s essay from late January: “Palestine is in Asia: An Asian American Argument for Solidarity”. That expression for solidarity had moved from social media posts and articles to the campus encampment.
The face of the Asian intifada campers, however, is overwhelmingly female. While a brown woman with curly hair could be a Tamil, Arab, or even Caribbean behind her keffiyeh and mask, the jet-black hair and fair skin of East Asian women are unmistakable. They even add glasses to complete the stereotype.
It’s understandable. For at least a decade, American women from East Asian backgrounds have been active in feminist journalism and activism. They have written about food and identity, media representation, and trans-Pacific literature. They joined Occupy Wall Street, MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and now Free Palestine.
The question, coming from conservatives and centrists, is where the line is drawn. Standing with unarmed black civilians is one thing. Supporting a foreign rapist terror group is another. But the ideology was set a long time ago. Activism must be intersectional, and what matters for Palestine matters for Brooklyn too, so the slogan goes.
The women did their part. They became marshals, the frontline bodies before the brutal cops, the far-right journalists, and the Zionist counter-protesters (and as nobody dared to say, between the campers themselves with their fear and agenda). They joined the teach-in to explain why North Korea is a friend of Palestine. They got arrested and unmasked. They were judged as CCP agents or mindless nerds. On the other hand, professional journalists and activists declared admiration for them. Represent.
Hence my surprise is that for some other Asian Americans and Muslim Americans, the sacrifice is not enough. The Asian campers are not representative enough. There are too few of them. Ironically, while last year I argued that the Jews were universally reviled while the Chinese became more respected, in this encampment politics, the opposite happens. Friendly journalists and organisers insist that Jews are prominent and play an important part. Jewish students were quoted to say that they felt safe and accepted.
While no journalist accuses the Asians of not doing their part, X accounts with K-pop and anime avatars, and Palestine and watermelon emojis do. They kvetch (sorry) that Asian students remain the apolitical, selfish people enjoying their model minority chains. They only care about boba and EDM while a genocide is happening. To my surprise, no one brings up the church or another Asian student community.
Whether in Indonesia or the United States, Chinese activists always seek external explanations for their community’s lack of interest in politics. In Indonesia, it’s the memory of military dictatorship and its neo-corporatist system that channelled the Chinese to be traders instead of civil servants, sealing them out of politics. In the United States, it’s the model minority system designed by white supremacists, to uphold capitalism and to divide the Chinese from other oppressed people, especially Black people.
In the social media parlance, it’s just cope, whether presented as an academic paper or an infographic. The Chinese (and other Confucian cultures, from Korean to Vietnamese) stay out of politics because it’s the nature of Confucianism, and because there are much more important things than activism.
Look, I am a Chinese Indonesian who is into politics, but for too many people, this is a wrong choice. My presence is wrong. My comment is wrong. My conclusion is wrong. My liberalism is wrong. My conservatism is wrong. My Christianity is wrong. My positive impression of Europeans is wrong. My nationalism is wrong. Maybe even my heterosexuality is wrong.
I prefer a Chinese person to stick to boba (no, don’t drink it too much) and EDM than being a communist who is into North Korea and Hamas; or being a far-right who is into conspiracy theories and misogyny. Hey, politics is as personal as pizza toppings and music taste. A Chinese doesn’t have to be political just like a Malay, an Arab, an Irish, a Jamaican, or a Hawaiian political commitment is never questioned.
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Just like the camp isn’t really about Palestine but about America, the woke Asians’ anger at their peers isn’t about their peers, but about themselves. Why can’t they be feared and respected the way Africans and Arabs are? Why are they stuck with that Asian image and baggage? Why are they born in America as Asians?
The reactions from white conservatives remain the same. The women hate these ‘libs’ for being annoying. The men pity them. One way to put it is that Chinese Americans are Jews without assimilation and power in the media. Nobody wants to see ‘The Asian Seinfeld’, and Jerry himself is cancelled, so that’s an outdated example.
Of course, it’s more complex than that. Jewish Americans make fun of their inability to become professional athletes, and Israel is never a sporting powerhouse in Europe. There are Jewish American actors and directors, but not singers and models. Most Jewish women think they are not as desirable as Chinese women. These days a Chinese American woman has a bigger chance to become a noted singer or athlete than her Jewish-American peer.
But you know the story. Chinese Americans are not the market-dominant minority in North America the way their cousins are in Southeast Asia, and they keep on carrying that baggage of feeling alienated and pressured. The burden of the model minority is created by themselves, not by the Republicans.
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Indeed, the Asian American campers and activists have joined the model minority game. I’m not like other Asians. I’m queer. I’m for trans kids. I hate white people. I’m for Palestine. I’m for abolition and liberation. I call out my inconsiderate siblings.
I’ve played this game most of my life. I’m not like other Chinese, I like Britpop. I loved white girls. I studied politics. I talk about politics at the dinner table. I get along with Muslims. I make good jokes. I was a male feminist. I get along with white conservatives and libertarians, with Zionists even.
There might be something about conformity in our DNA that even we rebel in conformity, and we’re dying to become rebels, even when we are not. The tones of Asian writers are the same on X and its links, whether in the US or Southeast Asia. The same progressive politics, the same anti-Americanism (while dreaming of working in Manhattan), the same romanticism of pan-Asian culture, the same snark against the homophobic and patriarchal Asian governments.
The silver lining has been proven again and again. Most Australians were not into the Voice. Most Indonesians were happy with the current politics. As the activists themselves imply, most Asian American students (and even faculties) have other things to do than revolutionary roleplay.