Talk:Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States

Hello. This page is directly copied/pasted from Ethnic stereotypes in American media. I created it because I believed this subtopic deserves its own focused page. Also, I want this new article to be able to explore racial stereotyping in all areas of public consciousness, not confined to just "media." Since it's basically a direct copy/paste it is obviously in need of extensive editing to make it an independent article, so please contribute. Thanks! --Drenched 19:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Reorganization

I really want to organize this article. I am going to brainstorm here (feel free to add, but please don't delete anything!). A rough outline:

• Intro present, needs fixing
• maybe Stereotypical physical characteristics (there are 2 labeled pictures from Life magazine during the 1940s of a Chinese and Japanese face with arrows and labels all over them, telling American readers how to tell apart Japanese enemies from Chinese people. It brings in complexion, hair distribution, nose height, eye fold, etc. and would be a great example of American stereotypes of Asian features. However, I'm not sure how to/if I can use it due to copyright issues.)
• Historical origins present, needs fixing
  • possibly split by country: US, UK, Australia, the rest of Europe
• Orientalism, Asian mysticism, exoticism created, needs expansion/cleanup
  • e.g. Confucius says, fortune cookies, honor bound, ancient ancient superstitious culture etc.
  • Asian/Indian motif is trendy, white people getting tattoos of Chinese characters even though they're unfamiliar with the language, henna tattoos, Asian prints, Asian shirt cut used in American fashion
• Model minority myth created
  • nerds, overachievers, hard working, doesn't cause trouble, good at science & math, has own communities to help itself.
• Stereotypes of exclusion created
  • Perpetual foreigner stereotype, Japanese internment, exclusion acts created
  • Racial triangulation - unassimilable created
  • Yellow Peril created
• Incomprehensible accent, communication problems - source of racist humor (e.g. Mr. Yunioshi, Ms. Swan, danny the dog) created
• Martial arts experts -Jackie Chan, kung fu etc. etc.
• Asian gangster
• Major Asian characters in American fiction history (this doesn't quite fit...it's important but I don't know where to put it/how to incorporate) created
  • Fu Manchu -intelligent but dangerous, evil created
  • Charlie Chan -intelligent but harmless, a "good" Asian created
• Stereotypes of Asian men created
  • Sexuality created
    • Emasculation (Kill Bill etc.) created, needs lots of fixing/expansion
    • sexual predator to white women (e.g. Thoroughly modern millie, Bitter tea of General Yen, WWII anti-Japanese propaganda posters) created
    • oppressor to Asian women (Miss Saigon) created, needs lots of fixing/expansion
• Stereotypes of Asian women
  • Sexuality
    • China doll -subservient
    • Dragon lady -dangerous vixen
    • Other variations: mail order bride, war prostitute, self-erasing woman
    • Other points: suitable partners to White men, often need to be rescued from Asian men, often illegitimate mistresses to White men who has a real White woman partner. (reflection of 30% Asian woman/White man couples vs. 8% Asian man/White woman couples in real life)
    • exoticism - slanted pussy, freaky in bed etc.
• Ethnicity-specific occupations
  • Korean store owner
  • Indian taxi driver
  • Chinese Laundromat
  • Asian anchorwoman etc.
• Asians in the media (ahhh I don't know where to put this...)
  • As a sidekick, foil, or archnemesis to whites.
• Action against stereotyping
  • Asian American activism, protests, performances
  • Angry Little Asian Girl, etc.

Scope: movies, television, literature, radio, art, theatre, news/current events/real life, music, etc. Somewhere there needs to be a point about the difference between AMERICAN Asian movies and ASIAN Asian movies imported, Asian American actors vs. Asian actors.

--Drenched 22:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Looks good. I'm concentrating on some other subject areas right now, but let me know if you need help. --- Hong Qi Gong 22:40, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much. It's nice to know that I'm not the only person who knows of the existance of this article! I feel slightly daunted at the moment so it'll probably be a while before I seriously attack this article. I appreciate your offer & will probably drop you a note later. --Drenched 22:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think "popular Asian woman" is reaching. There's no evidence that that's actually a stereotype or even common.

And the article shouldn't point to video games as stereotypes of Asian warriors when almost all such games come from Japan, and I'm rather doubtful that portrayal of Asian solders in historical events is a warrior stereotype.

And a dragon lady is not "empowered". That paragraph should be fix Ken Arromdee 19:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. If you have the time/knowledge/sources to fix the problems that you mentioned, please do! --Drenched 19:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixing the problems simply means deleting text. Would you like me to do that? Ken Arromdee

Actually, if there are opposing POV sources that claim that the "dragon lady" stereotype is empowering, we could add that. Lacking that, however, yes, I think the mention that it is "empowered" should be deleted. --- Hong Qi Gong 14:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The fact that many console videogames come from Japan don't necessarily mean they won't put stereotypes in about other Asians, even if it's not pertinent in a U.S. centric section.

In the abstract that might be possible, but that reference was specifically about a stereotype of Asian warriors in fighting games. Those do include Japanese as fighters (often the fighters are mostly Japanese) and aren't Japanese stereotypes about other Asians being fighters. Ken Arromdee 03:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Offhand [1] talks about Chinese depictions in anime (and the concept of "otherness" and so forth, but that is tangential.). ColourBurst 00:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In addition, there's sometimes an explicit European perspective in various Japanese media, which leads to stereotyping against non-Japanese Asians. MS Saga: A New Dawn and its depiction of Tohai (a new version of Shanghai) and Li Fang (a Chinese martial artist woman in a cheongsam, depicted as naive and honour-bound). ColourBurst 00:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Filmmakers

Look, asian chicks dig guys in †he film industry. Am I wrong? ShadowyCabal 16:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that's a stereotype or that's a fact? And where is your source? --- Hong Qi Gong 17:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

A stereotype, and maybe I have it wrong. Maybe its filmmakers love asians. ShadowyCabal 20:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never ever heard of that stereotype in any of my Asian/Pacific American studies classes or even casually amongst any of my many many Asian friends or in my entire life of being exposed to American media. I can't definitively say that it is absolutely untrue, but I'm going to leave it deleted until you can verify the claim with a reputable source. I'm going to incorporate your section into the intro because Wikipedia MOS prefers prose to list format, and there are already sections that explore most of those characteristics listed in depth, making another section redundant. --Drenched 19:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't think it's limited to Asian women; fact is, most women aspiring to be actresses will dig guys in the film industry to get ahead. ColourBurst 00:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Title

This article needs to be renamed to avoid confusion. Perhaps Oriental stereotype, or Stereotypes of East Asians. violet/riga (t) 08:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

That is a UK perspective but not Australian (where I am from) and probably not US either.--Arktos ^talk 08:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This article doesn't cover "Asians" in the UK sense, and thus the title is confusing. "Oriental" may not be correct, given the US definition, but I would've thought that "East Asian" was OK - it must surely be the most unambiguous. violet/riga (t) 10:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

American POV/expansion/scope of the article

1. Tag. Thank you AYArktos for adding the global tag; I agree it's much better than the random blurb explaining scope at the beginning.

2. Indians/South Asians/UK Asians. Though this article doesn't address South Asians very much at the moment (or I guess "Asians" from a UK perspective), I don't see why it can't in the future. South Asians are mentioned slightly in some areas right now; under "Yellow Peril" (Hindoo invasion) and the Indian taxi driver stereotype. Perhaps we can create a section just for South Asian stereotypes; however, things get confusing and messy since stereotypes are often appearance-based, and a lot of the stereotypes applied to South Asians are the same as stereotypes applied to Near Easterners/Arabs (e.g. terrorists, "towel heads" etc.) found in this article: Stereotypes of Near Easterners/Arabs. So, our options are:

a. leave the article as it is and incorporate South Asians into the article subsections that apply to them

b. put the whole current article under subheading "East Asians" and then create new subheading "South Asians" to address South Asian stereotypes in an entirely separate sections

c. retitle article, and incorporate South Asians into Near Easterner/Arab article and retitle that article "Stereotypes of Near Easterners/Arabs/South Asians" or something like that.

d. any other solutions y'all can think up of.

3. Global perspectives. How can we incorporate stereotypes of Asians from the non-American Western world? The way I see it, we can either:

a. incorporate non-American countries' stereotypes under the appropriate subsections (e.g. AYArktos mentioning Prince Charles's comment in Australia under already existing "Perpetual Foreigner" section). However, there will still be a very American slant. And sections like "Historical origins" would be very problematic. Sections like "Racial triangulation theory" wouldn't really apply to non-American countries because it's based on American history. So I guess I'm not really in favor of this option, at least not in the long run.

b. Create new subheadings. Sub-head entire current article under "American POV" and make new subheadings for "UK POV" "Australian POV" etc.

c. Retitle article "Stereotypes of Asians in America" and create separate articles for other POVs. However, with options b & c there would be some redundancy & gray areas because several stereotypes are the same/similar in many Western countries. e.g. Miss Saigon opened in the UK, had French composers, and played on successfully on Broadway in America for 11 years or so.

So how do you guys think we should address these issues? --Drenched 19:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• From an Australian perspective, I don't like references to "Near Easterners" - Near to what? I think we allow the article to grow rather than allow a fork. There are more US wikipedians than their population % should reflect but many of the things from the US are global experiences. Similarly UK wikipedians are overrrepresented but their experiences add to the article. We need to build in more global experiences and that might take some time. The tag invites additional perspectives. In the mean time, it is important that the article comply with NPOV and WP:V by citing sources.--Arktos ^talk 08:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that. However, the issue of the using the name "Near Easterners" has nothing to do with this article; we can discuss the title of Stereotypes of Near Easterners/Arabs there as there is already discussion of the title on its discussion page. As for this article, are you suggesting that you would prefer to create separate headings for "American POV" "UK POV" "Australian POV" etc? --Drenched 16:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

We can keep discussing the title and scope, but right now the article only covers those that could be called East Asians. violet/riga (t) 10:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• Separate headings: No - I don't think separate headings are appropriate. It may be necessary to make clear where the perspective is coming from and it may be a perspective universally held or not. For example is the perspective held by Prince Charles common or confined to members of the British Royal family when visiting Australia? - would he have made the same error in the UK or the US or anywhere else? Do others make the same error? All we can probably put in the article is the reference to him making the error in Australia and the adverse reaction - it is up to the reader to deduce if it is a typical or an isolated stereotype. At least however it is referenced - it is probably not isolated and therefore represents the stereotype fairly.--Arktos ^talk 19:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Popular Asian Women

How is this an asian stereotype? The section of the article about this supposed stereotype uses a trio of obscure cartoons as its examples. That's not a lot of examples, nor are these examples significant or influential. I've never heard of anyone attributing Asian females to "popular" in a stereotypical fashion. If anything, these cartoons were probably trying to be PC and go against stereotypes by having cool asians, since many asians in TV/movies are geeks. I think this section should be removed, since I don't believe such a stereotype actually exists. JimRaynor55 11:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree; I don't think the popular or the critical Asian woman are legitimately recognized stereotypes. And, they're both unreferenced. I'd support their removal as well. --Drenched 16:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Move to East Asian Stereotypes

This article was originally titled Asian stereotypes, but User:Violetriga changed it to East Asian on this edit. Violet Riga claims it only mentions East Asians. I also think the sterotypes are primarily East Asian, but most of the sources that are cited use "Asian" and do not distinguish between the different types. It is original research to say that when the source said "Asian" or "Asian American" that they only meant East Asians. In a related topic, if the source says names a stereotype of Japanese Americans, it is original research to say it applies to all East Asian Americans.--Dark Tichondrias 04:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is not about Asians. It is not original research to say East Asian. It is a simple fact that AmE has a different definition for "Asian" than other English dialects do, and this title is very confusing and plain wrong to those not using the US definition. violet/riga (t) 07:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The title should be changed to "Asian American stereotypes".--Dark Tichondrias 23:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree. While the article is currently mostly about such stereotypes they are across national and continental boundaries and I think it can be a useful article without the qualification. Stereotypes apply also in Australia and there is much in common with the US perspective. On the other hand, I assume that these are not stereoptypes promulgated within Asia - I am not sure where ythat thought takes us :-( --Arktos ^talk 00:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that many similar stereotypes of Asians exist across national boundaries, which is why in drafting an intro to this article, I made the scope of the article generally "Western" rather than exclusively "American" despite its heavy American slant and the explicitly "American" angle of the parent article. Keeping the scope "Western" eliminates the problem of having different stereotypes in Asia by explicitly excluding them from the scope of this article (Although I suppose Australia isn't technically in the Western hemisphere). Of course, including all the different countries of the "West" could get quite messy. However, I think it should be fine and we can keep the sections as they are with little bits from each country in each section. The only exception is the "Historical origins" section; seeing as each Western country has a distinct history with Asians, I think it is necessary to have subsections for each country within this section. --Drenched 03:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

But the most important point is that this article does not look at "Asians"! It looks at "Orientals"! violet/riga (t) 09:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

From your perspective. We define those terms differently in our respective countries. "Orientals" where I come from is a politically incorrect term, and "Asians" refers to East Asians, South Asians, South East Asians, and basically everyone in the continent of Asia. I'm not opposed to renaming this article "Stereotypes of East Asians" as you did before, simply for the sake of clarity since "East Asians" (as far as I know) denotes the same group of people all over. However, doing this would explicitly eliminate South Asians from the scope of this article. --Drenched 22:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I know it is from my perspective, and that was the point I was trying to make. violet/riga (t) 23:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, one problem though; if we rename the article "Stereotypes of East Asians," that would also exclude South East Asians (i.e. Vietnam), which is pretty huge in this topic. Perhaps a better solution would be to keep the article name as it is and explicitly define "Asian" in the intro to avoid confusion. According to Wikipedia's definition of Asian, this article is indeed about Stereotypes of Asians. --Drenched 00:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but I disagree with your interpretation of that article. "Stereotypes of South and East Asians" must be the way forward, else we'll have to go for something stupid like "Stereotypes of Asians using the American English usage of the word"! violet/riga (t) 07:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree as well. The Wikipedia article about Asian (people) wikilinked in the intro of this article very clearly states, "The term Asian (also Asians, Asian race, Asian people) refers to people with ancestral origins in East Asia, Southeast Asia or South Asia." The article also explicitly lists which countries are included in these regions. Therefore, use of the term "Asian" in Stereotypes of Asians is accurate and consistent with Wikipedia's main article definition of "Asian." In my opinion, "Stereotypes of Asians" is our best (although not perfect) option for an article title because it is the broadest umbrella term giving us the greatest scope & flexibility, and it is concise. Even though "Asian" may be confusing to people using UK English, it is generally accurate for the majority of the Western world (not just Americans!) listed in Asian (people) using American, Australian, and Canadian English. I do understand your concern about varying international definitions of the word, so again, I think that explicit clarification of terminology in the article's introduction would solve the problem. Otherwise, we'd have to deal with a ridiculously cumbersome title like "Stereotypes of East Asians, Southeast Asians, and South Asians" which I'd really like the avoid. --Drenched 19:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

But this article is not about all of those groups of Asians, hence the problem with the title. violet/riga (t) 19:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The article mentions South Asian Americans for the appearences they make on American TV. When Southeast Asian Americans have media portrayal, they will be in the article too. If British Asians have stereotypes in the UK, then you, Violet Riga, can add these stereotypes. --Dark Tichondrias 19:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

This article is about Asians in general, including all those groups. Although the article does use examples of East and Southeast Asians much more heavily, it does also mention South Asians too albeit briefly (e.g. "Hindoo invasion" under yellow peril, Indian taxi driver, Harold & Kumar). The model minority myth, perpetual foreigner stereotype, orientalism, and racial triangulation theory apply to all groups of Asians including South Asians. Adding more South Asian content would probably make the title more accurate from your perspective, which is great! If you have content to add, please do. I have some South Asian content (post 9/11 racial profiling etc.) but I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment as I just researched and wrote 9 sections of this article from scratch with many more to go and classes are starting up again. --Drenched 20:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I just think that the stereotypes of "Asians" and "Orientals" is so vastly different that they couldn't possibly be covered by the same article. violet/riga (t) 20:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Oriental in UK is generally Asian elsewhere - Oriental is not a term we use in Australia for example. see Asian#Orientals_and_the_Orient I think we are arguing at cross purposes here and perhaps some clarification on the lead paragraph could be proposed.--Arktos ^talk 23:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Stereotyping is a messy topic; some stereotypes overlap across groups and some don't. Once we have enough content to viably split off South Asians into its own article, we can discuss that option (unless you want to stub it). However, at the moment, South Asian stereotypes doesn't have a home and doesn't exactly hurt article length or flow, so it might as well stay here for now. I'm going to fix the intro to clarify definition of "Asian" as per above. --Drenched 20:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Every Asian group has its specific stereotypes

I originally voted this article for AFD because I thought many of its stereotypes of particular Asian groups do not extend to other Asian groups and every source was pure opinion. East Asian stereotypes do not exist. In America, Chinese and Japanese are portrayed in movies as a separate culture with separate stereotypes. Everyone knows that Kung-fu, shaolin, China dolls, Chinese dragons, and yin-yangs come from China. Everyone knows, business men, samurai, ninja, and sumo come from Japan. Even Mongolians are not portrayed under an overarching "East Asian" set of stereotypes. Disney's Mulan and South Park's portrayal of the Mongols makes this clear. --Dark Tichondrias 05:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Stereotypes such as "martial artist", "not really Americans", and "speaks English poorly" get applied to people from more than one Asian country. Some stereotypes are country-specific, but others aren't. Ken Arromdee 20:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It is true that ethnicity-specific stereotypes exist, but I disagree that overarching East Asian stereotypes are non-existant. The stereotypes that Ken Arromdee mentioned, Model Minority stereotypes, and perpetual foreigner stereotypes are all stereotypes that have affected all East Asian groups, not just one ethnicity in particular. For example, the perpetual foreigner stereotype has affected Japanese Americans through WWII internment, as well as Chinese Americans through immigration exclusion acts, etc. There have also been hate crimes against Asians in which an Asian of one ethnicity was killed because he was mistaken for another Asian ethnicity. In any case, it may be helpful to have a separate section to address ethnicity-specific stereotypes, but there most definitely are stereotypes of East Asians in general. --Drenched 04:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not think Southeast Asian stereotypes exist. The only Southeast Asian group portrayed are the Vietnamese in Vietnam War movies. Since they are not portrayed with character roles in these movies, no stereotypes exist for them.--Dark Tichondrias 05:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that South Asian steretypes exist. India is largely the only South Asian group ever portrayed on US TV. Most Americans do not care about the concept of South Asia. Like the purported "East Asian sterotype", any stereotype labeled South Asian is just an attempt to engender a sense of people-hood among South Asians. I doubt most Americans would apply Asian Indian stereotypes to Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, but certainly anybody who knows they are a different people would not.--Dark Tichondrias 05:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Stereotypes of Asian women

In Australia we have had a controversial deportation case of Vivian Solon. An Australian citizen she was deported to the Phillipines. Because she was Asian, it was assumed she was "Smuggled into Australia as a sex slave. Wants to return to the Philippines. Has been physically abused." DIMIA officials acted acted on unfounded assumptions about Solon (no evidence has been revealed that she was ever a sex slave - they just thought Phillipino -> sex slave). Before adding this "sex slave" stereotype, just wanted to check if any views about how to be added. Sexual slavery is obviously an awkward topic but I think not unique to Australia.--Arktos ^talk 00:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like this information would belong under "Stereotypes of Asian women" under "Sexuality." However, do you feel that this topic and its related stereotype needs its own separate subheading, or should it go under the "China Doll" heading as a variation/extension/manifestation of the sexually submissive Asian woman? --Drenched 04:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Farfetched... and why is there no other stereotype article as thorough as this?

I find it amusing yet not so suprising that this article is so ridiculously long. I agree with much of these stereotypes, but many seem to be simply half-baked stereotypes made up by some angry asian man. For Godsake, every role in a movie or book portrayed by an asian is stated as a "common" asian stereotype. If an asian was portrayed as a baker in a movie, it would probably be put down on this page as the "Asian Baker Stereotype," or if an asian was portrayed as a normal guy walking down the street, it would be put down as "The Normal Guy Asian Stereotype." You have to admit, some of the stereotypes on this page are very farfetched. But that is beyond my point. My point is, whereas this page has dozens of stereotypes listed, whether they are farfetched or not, the African and Latino page have almost NO stereotypes listed. I don't find this that strange, as it probably represents the high percentage of Asians using the computer over other minorities (How's that for a stereotype?)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.13.204.162 (talk • contribs) .

• I find your comments offensive - I am not Asian or of Asian descent. Australia has a long history of discimination agains Asians - see White Australia policy for example and most recently the Vivian Solon case. It seems our experience is mirrored in the US at least. The prejudices that are revealed by these government actions derive from stereotypes. I am sure there is room to correct the balance of articles on stereotypes related to other ethnicities - the answer is {{sofixit}}.

Your suggestion to delete this article based on Low on sources, heavy on original research. Beyond cleanup. is inappropriate. 38 footnotes is not exactly low on sources. If there is a specific assertion, or series of assertions, you find unsubstantiated, please highlight here on the talk page. Your rant about movies is insufficient for anybody to act on.--Golden Wattle ^talk 19:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)