Lesson 1: Cross-Racial Solidarity And Asians As The "Model Minority"
Yes, Asians Are Oppressed
It's shocking how eagerly people will make statements such as "Asians are basically white." Yet I can see why even another person of color might come to the conclusion. Relations between Asian Americans (or Asians of any society in the West) and other communities of color have always been strained. Black and Latino Americans are aware, and correctly, that many Asian American communities have a trait unique to communities of color: racial superiority. Native Americans are hardly acknowledged, if at all, by Asians. Most non-Asian communities of color experience systemic racial oppression far more severe and longer lasting than Asians in the West have endured.
But to see Asian communities solely from that perspective is antithetical to cross-racial solidarity for all people of color. In addition to the erasure of darker-skinned non-East Asians in this train of thought, and in addition to the fact that playing 'Oppression Olympics' has never benefited any categories of minorities, the fact remains that orientalism, or anti-Asian racism, cannot be a footnote in the history of American racism and white supremacy.
The predominant theme running through the history of Asian Americans from the very first arrivals-this is, obviously, 1830s to this day-is the Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome. This sense that we cannot possibly belong is exemplified by the internment of Japanese Americans, 120,000 individuals, two-thirds of them born in this nation and therefore citizens, that we could not be trusted, that blood will tell, that we truly would be actually loyal to the emperor of Japan or to some other sovereignty or that we could never assimilate, that we would not be Christian, could not speak English, could not truly join, did not understand democracy, were inscrutable, would not somehow wish for the same freedoms that others whose forbearers had come on the Mayflower wish for.
-- Frank H. Wu, UC Hastings College of the Law, 2016
Asian Americans, I would argue, are among the predominant cultures regarded as foreign, unknown outsiders. In a 2022 study, Asian Americans were the least likely to feel that they completely belong and are accepted in the United States (29%) compared to Black Americans (33%), Latino Americans (42%), and white Americans (61%). From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the 1922 Supreme Court decision that Asian Americans were not naturalized citizens because they were not Caucasian to the surge in anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth is that Yes. Asians are oppressed.
During World War II, 120,000 Japanese American citizens (citizens, not those on visa- citizens of this country) were uprooted and told to pack bags to internment camps for the simple crime of their ancestral origin, which alone certified their guilt in potentially being a spy. A portion of those interned (known as "Nisei" - second generation immigrant children) could not speak Japanese, and had never been to Japan. This was not done against German Americans, nor Italian Americans. They had to work unlike fellow white Americans to prove their nationality. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team composed of Japanese American Nisei remains the most decorated unit in American military history for their work in WWII Europe. But not Asia. Japanese American troops were not permitted to be sent to Asia.
Lead to the Model Minority
In 1966, a New York Times article by a white author thus lauded the hard work that prevented Japanese Americans from becoming a "problem minority". At the same time, the war on crime and criminalization of Black Americans was beginning. It was in this context that the "model minority" myth emerged, casting Asian Americans as hardworking and quiet, villainizing Black Americans. (It should be said that this does not justify the antiblackness in Asian American communities, only provides contextualization in a systemic lose-lose struggle between two communities fostered by whiteness, who continues to benefit in the end.)
Part of the reason API people avoid it is that they can see the way Blacks and Latinos are positioned… and they don’t want that, so they’ll do something different and hope for a different outcome… Those are the two big ones: a lot of pressure not to talk about it, and then a lot of pressure to disassociate from Blacks and Latinos.
-- Participant in a ChangeLab study about Asian Americans and race
Now that we're talking about #StopAsianHate, I see being both Black and Asian — the bridge between both of these communities and how similar they are. And sometimes I just get frustrated, because we're both not seeing each other's humanity and unifying as much as we should.
-- Johnathan Gibbs, Blasian activist
It is, however, crucial to remember that the 'model minority' stereotype in America very heavily focuses on East Asians, namely Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Americans. South and Southeast Asians, especially darker-skinned Asians, rarely feel a connect to the "model minority" stereotype. The demonization of dark skin and skin lightness hierarchy in Asia continues to reflect the effects of antiblackness even as an internalized system for Asians. Another notable element is mixed race Asian and Black American people (mixed race Asians of which many more lessons could be written on alone). As those who face both antiblackness and orientalism, their perspectives are especially important when considering cross-racial solidarity.
They're like, "Black Lives Matter and yes, this is happening to us too, but the root is white supremacy. But then you have this sector of the population... that are like, "Well, they don't understand that Black people have been going through this," and then they'll say, "Well, Asian people have gone through the Chinese Exclusion Act." But girl, slavery happened. Then you get into what everybody labels as the "oppression Olympics," and I don't do the oppression Olympics because there's no comparison. I say this as an Asian person, there is no comparison to what Black people have gone through in the United States of America since 1619.
And the last disclaimer is that though I said we should not play 'Oppression Olympics', in a discussion like this it is vital to acknowledge that Black Americans have been facing significant amounts of systemic racism, and it is not reducing American orientalism to a footnote to say that.
So What's the Solution? Yuri Kochiyama, Malcolm X, and Cross-Racial Solidarity
Yet despite this shared struggle, divergent goals and interests “sets our two communities apart and pits us against each other. […] Racialized disinformation […] sustains white supremacy. It can also be weaponized to disrupt cross-racial solidarity among different communities and ultimately uphold the tenets of white supremacy power structures.
-- Phan, a research analyst with the Asian American Disinformation Table.
But I have spent all this time talking about how these communities are different, oppressed differently, put differently against each other, all while focusing on differences is still not the solution.
Black-Asian solidarity is not new: Frederick Douglass argued against the Chinese Exclusion Act, political activist Yuri Kochiyama was an ally and friend of Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson stepped away from his presidential campaign in 1992 to protest the murder of Vincent Chin. Japanese Americans’ push for reparations for internment during World War II was modeled on the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s.
-- Joseph Williams, The Long History of Black-Asian Solidarity, 2023
Japanese American human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama was the one by Malcom X's side cradling his head in her lap after he’d been fatally shot at Audubon Ballroom. She had directly contributed to the passing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which guaranteed reparations for former internees of the Japanese American camps (including herself). But the majority of Kochiyama’s influence today stems from her work in cross-racial solidarity through grassroots activism.
She helped connect Asian American activism to the larger Civil Rights movement, and formed unity between diverse communities. Based in Harlem at the height of the movement, she worked directly alongside Black and Latino communities, and through her work, Kochiyama demonstrated to all that the fight for justice does not define those by their differences, but by their willingness to stand together.
The same exact playbook is being used against both Black and Asian communities. So if we don’t stick together, the playbook that wins against one of our communities will absolutely win against the other.
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