Artwork by Ella Sun
In America, Asians are “Asian-American,” Black people are “African-American,” and Indigenous people are “Native American.” White people, though, are just “Americans.” These labels pervade every social aspect of American life, from basic everyday interactions to the news and social media. I am constantly reminded of my Asianness, even though I never think about the Whiteness of people around me. These racial labels—and my personal experiences—are not chance events or isolated instances; they are symptoms of an underlying societal norm: Whiteness as the status quo and Asianness as eternally foreign. We see this perspective manifested in the discriminatory laws of Western empires, the treatment of narratives, and the unconscious biases of people.
Western empires have systemically separated Asians from Whites, creating hierarchies enforced by law. Firstly, there are policies such as America’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Canada’s policy of excluding South Asians (through the continuous journey regulation) in 1908, both effectively banning immigration from the appointed regions. This exclusion was rooted in the inherent cultural and behavioral differences that the Whites disliked, in addition to Asian laborers being competition in the labor market that drove wages down. The message that these acts sent were simple: these countries did not want, nor “benefit” from, these foreigners. Aside from preventing their existence in countries, empires also did what they could to take power away from Asians. Britain separated its colonies into two tiers: colonies in the “temperate” such as Canada and South Africa, and colonies in the “tropical” zones such as India and Pacific islands. White settlers in the “temperate” zones were given rights to form governments, while the native people of “tropical” zones were deemed incapable of self-government. Even within its empire, Britain essentially created two tiers of citizens: Whites and everyone else. In order to preserve their power and the power of Whites, empires weaponized policies to undermine Asians.
In addition to systemic racism we see a descendant type of discrimination – the control of narratives. We can see this happening in the past, like in 1897, when the Natal government made immigrants pass a literacy test of a European language to weed out “undesirable immigrants” from Asia. This clearly defines European culture as “desirable”, while also implying Asian culture as “undesirable.” Now, whenever White writers write, their works are deemed by everyone, including Asians, as “universally legible [with] graciously apolitical soulfulness.” However, when minority writers write, their works are seen as “little more than [ethnographies].” As Filipino-American writer Elaine Castillo states, “This was just the inherited status quo of consumption and interpretation that came with a twenty-four hour cycle of saturation in hite-centered imaginative, intellectual, and moral narrative life.” The White precedent conditions society to submit to its narrative, which, in turn, creates more White content and further reinforces the White precedent as the universal precedent.
Lastly, there are the conscious and unconscious biases of people that point out the differences of Asians every day. There is the classic anecdote: Whenever someone asks me where I’m from and I reply “Princeton, New Jersey,” there’s often an explicit or implicit question asking for more – Where are you really from? Yet, I have never seen that same question posed to a White peer. I get the sense that when people see me, they see an Asian first, before my actions or personality. Yet, White people are labeled veterans, grandparents, or middle-class before they are labeled “White”. As Professor of Ethnic Studies Catherine Ceniza Choy says, “No matter how hard Asian Americans work to assimilate and demonstrate our patriotism, we find ourselves outside of the American experience looking in.” This is because in a 70% White country, being Asian is an exception.
Perpetuated by history, White people are the status quo of America and other Western empires, as they are viewed as the rightful holders of power and inhabitants of the land; Asians are simply existent, but they do not “belong.” Historically, anyone who is a threat to that order, including activists and authors, or anyone else who tries to obtain more rights, is a foreigner who should be silenced and deterred from destroying that hierarchy. In today’s society, though there is less blatant racism, that Othering permeates society unconsciously, viewing Asians as out-of-place challengers of the White spaces they inhabit. Even we Asians accept Whiteness as the standard, but it is time we reexamine the history of White jurisdiction and our conscious and unconscious views of belonging. As Choy says, “What is good—as in those ‘good ol’ days’—depends on who is telling the story.”