|
Andrew Alix
Author's Bio
Helen Zia was born in 1952 in New Jersey from Shanghai immigrant parents. In the early 1970s, she entered Princeton University as its first graduating class of women and founded the Asian American Students Association. She studied in medical school in 1974 only to drop out in 1976 to pursue a career in journalism. She became the Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and was named one of the most influential Asian Americans by A. Magazine. She also received an Academy Award nomination for her documentary "Who Killed Vincent Chin?"
No Longer Voiceless
Asians have been migrating to the United States since the early nineteenth century, yet they continue to find themselves treated as aliens in their own home in the present. With their black hair, different colored skin, and smaller eyes, Asian Americans often find themselves stereotyped in present society and suffer from their outward appearance. Helen Zia's book Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People addresses Asian Americans' fight against racial discrimination and their struggle to obtain equality. Through her personal memoir and historical text, Zia asks the question that has been puzzling Asian Americans for centuries: not "What does it take to become American?" but "how to become accepted as Americans?"1
Part one of Asian American Dreams provides a history of both Zia's struggle as an Asian American and the Asian American population's struggle against racial discrimination. In chapter one, her memoir section, Zia addresses her rise to power as a civil rights reformist. Her father raised Zia in traditional Chinese fashion--basing her education on the principles of the Confucian scholar and respecting her elders. He forbade her mother, however, to speak to the children in Chinese, forcing them to adopt English as their main language. Even as a young child, Zia felt the pressure to "fit in with the 'American' kids we looked so unlike, to conform and assimilate."2 Zia broke apart from her obedient child role by leaving home to study at Princeton and by joining the fight for Asian American civil rights. Meanwhile, chapter two addresses a history of Asians in America before and after World War II. The Gold Rush in the 1850s and the building of railroads attracted thousands of Chinese immigrants to America, but they only faced to discrimination from the Caucasian population. Yellow Peril spread as locals feared Chinese competition over jobs and banned further immigration with the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Racial immigration preference given to Europeans ended with the 1965 immigration policy, allowing more immigrants to arrive from Asian nations. Unfortunately, Asian Americans were treated like enemies with the rise of the "Japanese Menace" in World War II, the Vietcong during Vietnam War, and Red Scare with Communist China.
Part two goes into further detail on racial discrimination by presenting some of the most controversial hate crime cases in American history. In 1982, Detroit entered into a crisis with the fall of its auto industry. Many natives blamed Japan for the fall due to its inexpensive, fuel-efficient cars. When Vincent Chin, a Chinese immigrant, and his buddies went out for a bachelor party, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz confronted Chin, saying that it was because of his people that whites were out of work. Ebens and Nitz later beat Chin to death with a baseball bat and pleaded guilty to the charges in court. At first, both men received only three years probation and a fine, but after several retrials, Nitz was sent to prison for only twenty-five years while Ebens, who never "publicly expressed remorse for taking Chin's life never spent a full day in jail."3 Another case of racial tensions was the clash between the Korean and African American communities in New York. Most grocery store owners in black communities were Korean immigrants; however, the immigrants did not understand the importance of developing a relationship with the community. Many blacks believed that Koreans were disrespectful to them because of their lack of separation from the community. With a false assault lawsuit against a Korean grocer, African Americans boycotted Korean businesses. The fifth chapter addresses the struggles of Asian American actors to find major roles. With the boycott of Yellow Peril morality plays, Asians roles were given demeaning stereotypes, angering the Asian community. They protested against the use of yellow face and the casting of the play Miss Saigon because no Asian actors were even auditioned for a major role in a play with primarily Asian characters.
Portraying the struggles of Filipino Americans, Korean Americans, and Indian Americans, part three addresses the plight of various Asian American communities. Zia often wondered why she, as an American, was treated differently. After taking classes in Asian history and traveling to China, Zia found that she didn't fit into either American or Chinese society; like other Asian Americans, she was an alien among her own people. Thousands of Filipino Americans would travel to Alaska during the salmon harvest in order to obtain jobs in canneries. Unfortunately, they were given the worst jobs without possible promotion and they faced segregation as well as inferior dining and board. They filed charges against the canneries under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but most found themselves unsuccessful. In the Wards Cove v. Antonio case, the burden of proof was shifted from the employer to the employee. Many congressmen in Washington were angered by the case and instituted the Justice for Wards Cove Workers Act in 1993 to remove the Supreme Court decision. Like the African American community in New York, African Americans in Los Angeles also believed that Koreans were rude and disrespectful to the black community. On April 29, 1992 in an incident known as Sa-i-gu, "an expression against the disenfranchisement of blacks and Latinos--with Korean merchants as the oppressor class," 4,500 shops, mostly Korean owned, were destroyed.4 This incident forced Koreans to reevaluate their status among blacks, and, on May 2, thirty thousand Koreans marched through Koreatown calling for peace. As for the South Asian communities, they were split into two distinct groups: the wealthy Indus Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and the working class laborers, such as the taxi drivers. While the laborers were angered that their wealthy counterparts looked down upon them, the taxi drivers succeeded in shocking the nation when they held a successful one day strike in New York to achieve health benefits and insurance.
Part four of the book--'Moving the Mountain"--addresses Asian Americans and their continued fight for civil rights. Continuing her memoir, Zia discusses how her parents were disappointed with her decision to drop out of medical school to become a community organizer. Zia also came out as a lesbian and not only fought for Asian American rights, but for gay and lesbian rights as well. In May of 1993, the Hawaii State Supreme Court ruled that people of the same sex could be married. Two years earlier, a gay couple sued for the right of people of the same sex to be married in Hawaii. Although it nearly tore the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) in half, the JACL, the largest Asian American civil rights group in the country, proposed to support the suit. Kanekos, a Sansei, said that if the community "stand[s] by and watch[es] in silence when another group is denied equal rights, we become no different from the people who watched Japanese Americans get sent away."5 In the same year, Loc Minh Truong, a Vietnamese American, was viciously beaten for being gay. Numerous Asian American and gay and lesbian rights organizations rushed to his aid. After years of national controversy and debate, the Hawaii State Supreme Court decision was overturned by Congress and same sex marriages were no longer legal. Apart from the fight for same sex marriage, Asian Americans continued to struggle to find their identities. Zia noted that it was always rare to see a real Asian American on television and her family was ecstatic when two Asian actors were hired to play her in a television special. Meanwhile, Hmong Asians, an ethnic group from southern Asia, continued to battle demeaning stereotypes. There were stories on the radio of young Hmong girls, around twelve and thirteen, who married young and killed their newborn children. In 1992, the Asian American Renaissance took place when two hundred artists came together to discuss their work and try to find identities through their art. The final two chapters discuss Zia's family's assimilation into American society and Asian Americans' lack of political involvement. After living in America for twenty years, Zia's father decided to become a citizen of the United States so he could have a political say. Due to anti-Asian laws, however, Asian Americans have lost nearly three generations of political participation. Unfortunately there was always an Asian nation that was viewed as the enemy; thus, the Asian American community was not able to advance in acceptance as other ethnicities had. Although she and her father had their disagreements, Zia's mother said that her father was proud of what she had accomplished for the Asian American community.
Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People was written with the hope that it would change the condition of the Asian American community which was "on the edge of obscurity, frustrated by images that have rendered [it] invisible and voiceless."6 While Asian Americans have been around for ages, their history and achievements in the United States are rarely known and not told in history books. Zia hopes that exposing some of these amazing stories, others will see that Asian Americans have had a great impact on American society and should be accepted as equals. Zia successfully portrays some of the many great achievements of the Asian American community; however, she may have been a bit biased when presenting her historiography. As an Asian American reformist, Zia would input pieces of her own memoir and try to relate it to the historic material. Also, Zia spends too much time praising Asian Americans and failed to tell both sides of the story. In all the court cases and clashes between ethnic groups that she presented, Zia always told the side of the Asian American Community--which is understandable. But how can we truly be sure that it was the other ethnicities' fault that Asian Americans were treated that way? Maybe the Korean community really was rude and ignorant toward the African American communities in New York and Los Angeles, sparking nationwide conflicts.
Somini Sengupta, a reporter from the New York Times, critiqued Asian American Dreams in a March 5, 2000 article. Sengupta opens her critique with an anecdote from Zia's book about the two childhood friends forcing her to decide whether she was black or white. Most of Sengupta's critique is a summary of some of the highlights and conflicts touched upon in Zia's book, including the murder of Vincent Chin, the conflict between Korean Shopkeepers and African Americans, and the Filipino cannery workers in Alaska. Sengupta mentions that although the book is part memoir, Zia's ordinary tone causes some stories to lose their impact. She also mentions that some of Zia's extraordinary historic details could have greater validity had she included citations for proper proof. Sengupta exposes Zia's lack of continued writing strength throughout the book. While some chapters were strong in impact, "the less successful chapters concern cultural debates among Asian-Americans."7 Herb Boyd, a writer from the Metro Times in Detroit, also critiqued Zia's book. Like Sengupta, Boyd used a small anecdote from the book to open his article. Boyd praises Zia for providing "ample historical and contemporary evidence of racism perpetrated against Chinese and other minorities."8 However, Boyd unsuccessfully provided a proper critique for the book as his opinions and editorial voice rarely came through. Most of Boyd's article seemed to be a summary of important chapters and incidents in the book. He comments on the inability of minority groups to unite and find a common ground on which to fight racial discrimination.
As an Asian American myself, I am amazed at the Asian community's has achievements, allowing future generations to be more easily accepted as Americans. Zia's in depth historical information on civil rights cases among various Asian American ethnicities captures Asian American readers as most know very little of their community's history and achievements. Her inclusion of a memoir also changed the tone and lessened the heavy reading, as readers learn of her personal achievements. Unfortunately, Sengupta was correct in saying that Zia was often "polemical in tone [and] rich [in] ordinariness" and her lack of credited sources made me skeptical of her claims.9 As an Asian American writer, Zia may show bias by writing only one side of the story. If she addressed both sides, the truth behind Zia's writing would not be so obscure. Also, Zia's tone and reporting remain weak in some chapters. While chapters, such as Vincent Chin's, where Zia had been directly involved in the incident provided a strong impact, many of the chapters concerning the struggle of Asian Americans to find their identity proved to be quite weak. Overall, Zia provided an enlightening and thought-provoking book that champions the Asian American community.
According to Zia, this era in time provided valuable stepping-stones for the Asian community to finally become accepted as true Americans. Zia praises various court cases and battles that different Asian ethnicities fought to gain equal civil rights. While many Americans view the Asian American community as voiceless and invisible until recent times, Zia proves in her book that Asian Americans have made a profound impact upon present day society and that the nation needs to recognize their plight and struggle towards ending racial discrimination. This era changed the nation's belief in typical Asian stereotypes--although many are still around--and ended the nation's belief that all Asians are alike. During times of war against an Asian nation, all Asian Americans suffered from racial discrimination, even though they were a completely different race. Zia believed that the national organization of Asian Americans "was a first step toward placing Asian Americans in the center of domestic and international economic, political, and social policy contexts."10 Asian Americans have also learned to assimilate into American society while still maintaining traditions of their ethnic nation. They are able to maintain the practices of their ethnic culture while living within the boundaries of American Society.
This period marks a watershed in American political and cultural history. Before the Asian American community took a stand, Asian Americans nationwide were racially discriminated against and treated like second-class citizens. When Asian Americans began to take a stand against these hate crimes, they paved the way for civil rights acts and civil equality for Asian Americans. This period changed the idea that Asian Americans are aliens from another nation and should be treated like hostile enemies. It showed that second generation Asian Americans needed to be "a bridge for our community" because they "know what's going on politically outside the community."11 Asian Americans need to better assimilate into American society in order to be accepted as true Americans.
Helen Zia successfully achieved her purpose of smashing Asian American stereotypes and proving that they are not a voiceless, invisible community. Through the implementation of her personal memoir and historical depictions of Asian American achievements, Zia shows that the Asian American community does have a voice. The community will not tolerate racial discrimination and will continue to fight for equal civil rights and acceptance as Americans. Asian American Dreams teaches us the "memories of where we've come from, the lessons of what we've been through, and the visions of roads we have yet to walk in this land called America."12
Endnotes
1. Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. 19 Union Square West, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000, ix.
2. Zia, Helen 7.
3. Zia, Helen 80.
4. Zia, Helen 172.
5. Zia, Helen 231.
6. Sengupta, Somini. "Visible and Invisible." New York Times. New York. 5 March, 2000.
7. Sengupta, Somini
8. Boyd, Herb. "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of An American People." Metro Times. Detroit. 5 September, 2000.
9. Sengupta, Somini
10. Zia, Helen 75.
11. Zia, Helen 187.
12. Zia, Helen 319.
| |
