My parents’ diets have significantly changed throughout their lives. They grew up eating vegetarian, home-cooked Indian meals,  but as they adjusted and assimilated to America, they began to incorporate meat and fast food into their diets. During my lifetime, I have never struggled with food insecurity, but my parents did upon immigration to the United States in their late childhoods. Especially in the predominantly White areas where they settled, there was little access to the grains, vegetables and spices that made up their daily meals in India. Fresh foods were overall more expensive and weren’t the reasonable options to purchase during grocery store runs. My dad has told me of how his school lunches would often consist of white bread occasionally containing a filling such as cheap lunch meat, or leftover Indian food, which prompted teasing and bullying. Sustenance became a topic of shame, reflecting and reminding of poverty, of a new country, and of their inability to take care of themselves – a broken food system hidden within the immigrant struggle. 

Food insecurity continues to be a major public health issue in the United States and is more prevalent among minority, poor and immigrant communities. Despite the model minority myth, which defines the Asian American community as affluent and high achieving, this is not the case within our diverse and expansive diaspora. Asian Americans come from more than 20 countries, speaking countless languages and carrying unique cultural traditions. Oftentimes, these different subcategories of the Asian American community are grouped together and individual experiences are erased. Not every Asian American subgroup has the same resources or experiences. Our community is not homogeneous. Society assumes that due to the perceived wealth status of Asian Americans, we do not struggle with health issues. This is internalized within our community, creating shame and fear of admitting burdens; Asians are less likely to seek out aid or report their struggles, impacting their quality and receipt of care. In a national survey published by the National Library of Medicine, Asian Americans were less likely to receive counseling and less likely to report positive interactions with their doctors than white participants. Compared to other racial and ethnic groups, Asian Americans are least likely to report having a personal doctor. In fact, 19.4% of Asian adults compared to 12.9% of whites report being without a usual source of health care.

Lack of research regarding food access in our communities has led to an underreporting of this issue. But food sustains our communities and is more than just a requirement of survival. It creates connections and gives us threads of our histories to hold onto. 

Factors that contribute to food insecurity are language spoken at home, knowledge/accessibility to food aid, and immigration status. Though there is a limited amount of research available, speaking English or speaking a foreign language corresponds to hunger in homes. Data collected by KFF summarizes that 16% of Asian people reported that no one in the household aged 14 and older spoke English well, compared to only 1% of white people. Overall, Asians tend to have households that speak languages other than English. The study concluded that the highest prevalence of food insecurity was found among the Vietnamese subgroup (16.42%) and lowest among the Japanese subgroup (2.28%). Similarly, the Vietnamese subgroup had the highest prevalence of speaking only a foreign language at home (52.36%) whereas among the Japanese it was the lowest (4.95%). Furthermore, among the Chinese subgroup, speaking a language other than English at home was associated with 7.24 times higher prevalence of being food insecure, as compared to speaking English only. The connection is disheartening. Is assimilation required for households to have equal access to food? 

Asian people have the highest number of non-citizens at 26%. In general, non-citizen immigrants are more likely to be uninsured than citizens and face increased barriers to accessing health care and food. Citizenship is a determinant for services necessary to survive. The ability of an immigrant to adapt and adjust is one of the biggest factors of food insecurity. Those who struggle to adapt fare worse in terms of receiving routine care and screening services, home ownership, crowded housing, food deserts, and childhood experiences with racism. These factors are associated with poor mental health, poor diet, and poor physical and cognitive development. And for those who attempt to assimilate, displacement and alienation from heritage culture is associated with worse physical and mental health among Asian Americans. A study in California by the California Health Interview Survey realized that Asian immigrants would not turn to a food assistance program for help and often considered them as a last option, often due to “limitations of culturally appropriate food items and culturally-associated stigma as such opportunities are often considered “handouts”’. 

I believe that a lack of research and attention on this topic impedes on the ability of Asian Americans to live healthy sustainable lives in the United States. This is an opportunity to create public health efforts with collaboration between healthcare organizations and Asian American communities to address this hidden issue, especially because food symbolizes our pride and identity. 

The post Asian American Food Struggles: The Immigrant Narrative of Nutrition first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Asian American Food Struggles: The Immigrant Narrative of Nutrition appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

Due to the way that society, specifically White men, perceives my ethnic identity, I feel like a foreign creature who does not belong in my predominantly White community. People are more likely to be stereotyped, oppressed, and defined, based on not just one, but the combination of multiple aspects of their identity. Women of color do not have the privilege of being just a woman or just a person of color. In the workplace and in social settings, women of color are more susceptible to sexual and racial harassment due to a legacy of fetishization and misrepresentation. Our experiences entail being underpaid, taken advantage of, abused, and demeaned physically and emotionally. This harassment isolates us from the rest of society and causes deep discomfort. 

Asian women endure certain stereotypes that provide a clear link to violence and harassment. Between 2020 and 2021, Stop AAPI Hate, a database created to track anti-Asian violence, received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian discrimination. The most striking statistic is that Asian women reported these hate incidents 2.3 times more often than men. This plague of violence results from common stereotypes of Asian women including being quiet, slender, exotic, and docile. Asian women are seen as objects of desire, wielding a dangerous foreign sexuality. Through various historical precedents from immigration restrictions and United States military presence in Asia to Hollywood films and the model minority myth, Asian women are simultaneously hated and desired. 

This is demonstrated in two dominant tropes of Asian women: the Dragon Lady and the Lotus Blossom. The Lotus Blossom depicts Asian women as submissive, sexually subservient, feminine, and meek. An example is Anna Mae Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood who was always cast as a disposable Asian love interest. In contrast, the Dragon Lady trope paints Asian women as deceitful, villainous, and cunning, using their sexuality as a means to manipulate others. Lucy Liu, a more modern Hollywood example, plays masculine, deceitful and violent roles. Misogyny, xenophobia and racism deeply intertwine to impact our real lives. 

My personal estrangement has been exacerbated by being not only brown and Asian but also a woman. According to societal standards, I am a submissive, sexual, and exotic woman. As a result, I live my life absorbing unwarranted, microaggressive comments from complete and total strangers. Examples include: “I have never seen anyone like you before,” and “You can not be from here,” and “Where are you really from.” It seems like they never end. 

Since I was fourteen, I have been working in the service industry, in restaurants and ice cream shops. Sometimes I reflect on what this “service” actually entails. I take the phone calls, clean the floors, wait on tables, yet there always seems to be something more that I have to sacrifice. Am I supposed to giggle when I hand you your food and you grab my hand, just to feel my skin? Am I supposed to blush when men old enough to be my grandfathers tell me they wish I was older? Am I supposed to be grateful for the extra tips when I smile and bat my eyelashes like an object of your desires? 

In these moments, I want to be tiny, I wish myself into extinction, hoping to disappear little by little. I envy my male and/or White counterparts, who blend in so easily. I remember how I once aspired to have attention from men like that too. I thought I wanted to be admired, but admiration does not equal love. There is nothing loving about being admired by White men, as their affections are a product of colonialism, occupation, and a bloody history of sexual violence towards Asian women. 

Exotic is not a compliment. 

I do not want to be the desired object of control, to be dominated, to possess no power. 

When I was younger, the only representation of people who looked like me on television and in the media were Disney princesses. I relied on representation, not of my Indian identity and heritage, but simply of someone with brown skin. I found comfort in Jasmine (the Middle Eastern princess), Tiana (the Black princess), Pochahontas (the Native American princess), and eventually Moana (the Polynesian princess). This was my entire hometown’s only exposure to women of color. Because this community had no grasp on my culture, I was always compared to these princesses. When people discussed my ethnicity, it was always which one of these princesses I looked like, because these were the only ways they knew how to categorize and understand me. Asian women are more vulnerable to violence and oppression, due to stereotypes and false ideas constricting our complex identities. 

We, Asian women, will not be denied our humanity, and deserve to be seen as individuals with our own hopes and dreams. It exhausts me to fight against these stereotypes and assert my own identity. And though I can not control how other people view me, I venture forward using my voice and story to fight the silencing of Asian women. 

The post Exotic Is Not A Compliment first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Exotic Is Not A Compliment appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.