I spent about 3 months in Gainesville, Florida for a student internship. Gainesville is a little town in north-central Florida and it is best known for being the home of the Gators of the University of Florida. I worked at the Veteran Affairs hospital, and after work my co-interns and I would usually head out into town and schmooze with the college kids and hit up the local bars and get drunk and stupid and partake in all types of debauchery that was probably unbecoming of future health care professionals. Needless to say, Gainesville was a great college town, and my time there was probably the most fun 3-month stretch of my life.

But, I wasn’t a drunk jackass the entire time I was there. My life wasn’t entirely a party, because, well, I still had a life to maintain. And part of my life involves comic books. So, early in my stay in Gainesville I scoped out the local comic book shop. I visited the shop about every other week or so. I wasn’t a huge comic book geek. At the time I was only collecting one title and it came out on a bi-weekly basis. Anyway, the comic book shop was at a convenient location right behind the Starbucks I usually studied at. It was your typical comic book shop. The walls were lined with racks of comics, toys, and other novelty items. The center of the shop had tables and chairs arranged where the uber-geeks would gather to play Dungeons & Dragons, Magic, The Gathering, or some other role-playing game. There was always the same guy working there, too. He was rather tall, had long dark hair, and he had that whole gothic look going on. His name was Chad.

Chad always struck up a conversation whenever I went to check out at the register. He usually made a comment about what comic I was buying, or he’d tell me what was coming out next week, or other chit chat about such and such. One particular conversation stuck in my head, though. As I was buying my issue of Robotech, he asked me if I was Filipino. I was somewhat amused. I told him that I was, and he said, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ve only known one other Filipino. You look like this Filipino guy I knew back in high school. He liked Robotech, too.” Not really knowing what to say, I said, “Ha. We’re great, aren’t we?” And he said, “Yeah, he was funny.”

Now, Chad was an all-around good guy. We had many conversations about comic books and Gainesville and school and other things like that. He was funny and easy-going, He was all-around good company. And although the comments he made to me in that conversation generally aren’t considered to be significant, they’ve stuck with me over the years. His comments had no ill intention at all; his comments were everyday comments. And everyday is a product of American pop culture.

What’s interesting about being Asian American is that, on occasion, others are quick to point that out as if it were something different. Chad’s comment about my ethnicity wasn’t racist by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s significant in the fact that he did make the comment. It’s true that I am Filipino, and Chad called me out on it. Chad also knew that I was a student, an intern, a comic book fanboy, and a Starbucks connoisseur. Yet, he chose my ethnicity as my identifying trait. It wasn’t enough that I simply looked like his friend, but he asked for my ethnicity to validate it. If I weren’t Filipino, would I still look like his friend? To him, my ethnicity was something different or unique about me. To understand this, you have to consider whether or not he would have made the comment if I were white. The fact that I am Asian perpetuates the fact that I am not white, and this standard affects the Asian American identity.

The problem that plagues Asian American identity is that America does not let Asians identify themselves. Asian Americans are often defined in other terms and through other people’s eyes. For example, before the term “Asian American” became the proper term to refer to those from eastern Asia, the term “Oriental” was often used. Oriental referred to anything of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or other “Asiatic” descent. This included anything from rugs to jewelry to people. Now, I know a lot of people who would take offense if you called them Oriental. They would tell you that you were racist or ignorant. They would tell you that “Oriental” was a term used to describe rugs or objects, and they would accuse you of objectifying their culture and heritage. The really irate ones may even respond with, “I’m not a fucking rug.” What’s peculiar is that the term “Oriental” is not racist at all. “Oriental” comes from the Latin word oriens, which means the origin. Europeans referred to anything from the Far East as the Orient because that was where the sun rose, or where the sun originated from, and anything from the Orient, whether it was a rug or a person, was Oriental. “Oriental” is not a racist slur by any stretch of the imagination, but people are offended by it, nonetheless, as if it were.

However, “Oriental” is still a damaging term. It alienates Asian Americans from the rest of America. The Orient was named so by Europeans because the sun rose in the east. “East” is a relative term depending on your point of view. The Orient is east relative to Europe, but it is also west relative to places east of it. If you were from eastern Asia you can very well call North America the Orient because, from your point of view, the sun rises from North America. It’s all fucking relative. What’s damaging about calling Asian Americans “Oriental” is that it identifies Asian Americans through European eyes. Regardless whether the term is derogatory or not, it is a term that was not identified by Asian Americans, but it was given to them. The term “Oriental” distances Asian Americans even further from America in that it incites a feeling of foreignness. The Orient is a relative term and not a definite place. Asia is a real place and everyone with at least a 3rd grade education (hopefully) knows where it is. But the Orient could be anything. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, New York is the Orient for me because, from my point of view (beautiful California), New York is where the sun rises. In its crudest sense when you come down to it, the term “Orient” really refers to a place that is not where you are at. And when you use it in the seldom-used (thankfully) term “Oriental American”, you’re really using it to refer to someone who is (somewhat) American, but not really American because they’re from some place unknown. The place of their origin is not important, but what’s important is the fact that they’re not from America. Thank God that the term “Oriental” has fallen out of favor in modern day American vernacular.

Yet, I know a handful of Asian Americans who are not offended by “Oriental” at all. Some actually prefer it because it is more specific to people of Mongolian/Malayan descent, while “Asia” refers to Asia as an entire continent, including Russia, the Middle East, and the Asian Indian sub-continent. But they are missing the point that Asia is an actual place and the Orient is not. Asia is not foreign to Asians, but the Orient is foreign to everyone. It’s not racist or derogatory, but it perpetuates an exotic novelty about Asians, and I’d rather save those comments for a fucking rug or vase. The Oriental mentality only complicates the Asian American identity crisis.

(The problem goes much deeper than “Oriental”. The Philippines was named after the Spaniard King Philip when they “conquered” and colonized the islands in the 16th Century. “Filipinos” eventually came to refer to the inhabitants of the islands and now I’m stuck with that term as my ethnicity. My ethnicity is named after a fucking Spaniard with whom I can’t identify with. Spoils of war, I guess. Do you really want to know if I have an identity crisis?)

Some may say that I’m just quibbling over minute details of semantics. Some say it doesn’t matter if you use “Asian” or “Oriental” as long as it’s clear to what or to whom you are referring to. It may seem trivial, but it’s something that Asian Americans cannot be indifferent about. Indifference leads to institutionalization which leads to passive exploitation. Being able to identifying yourself in your own terms is a step to breaking down barriers and racial stereotypes in America because no one is going to do it unless you take a proactive stance on identity. If not, American pop culture certainly won’t change.

Perhaps the most absurd example of Asian exploitation in pop culture was Charlie Chan. Charlie Chan was a movie character from the 1950s. He was a Chinese detective from Hawaii who solved murder mysteries. The novelty of the movies was that he would always quote some ancient Chinese proverb, or impart some sort of Confucius-style wisdom. He spoke in a blatant Chinese accent. Oh, and by the way, the actor who played him was white and had his eyelids taped to give him slanted eyes and an Asian appearance (!).

At the time, these movies were a hit and very few people saw this depiction of Asians as offensive. But can you imagine the repercussions if these movies was made today? Can you imagine Tom Cruise with taped eyelids and buckteeth playing a Chinese detective and quoting Confucius? (This would be more absurd than when he jumped on Oprah’s couch to blatantly deny his mid-life crisis. I don’t know why I’m picking on Tom Cruise. He’s the greatest 5’2” actor ever.) I know this happened a billion years ago, but it’s still a testament to institutional discrimination. And this form of discrimination still happens today.

It’s a no-brainer that there is not a large number of Asian Americans in the American entertainment industry. But, we’ve come a long ways since the days of Charlie Chan… I mean, nowadays Asians are actually played by real Asians (what a revolutionary idea!). But it’s rare to find an Asian actor in a leading role in Hollywood, and when it does happen, it’s usually in a small independent film or some silly comedy that no one takes seriously. The biggest Asian American actor I can think of right now is Pat Morita. But Pat Morita’s biggest role was Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies. In these movies, the essence of Mr. Miyagi was that he was Asian (contrary to what most people think, his essence was not “wax on, wax off). Mr. Miyagi wasn’t simply Daniel’s sensei, but he was Daniel’s Asian sensei. It wouldn’t have been believable to have Daniel taught by a karate instructor, but he had to have the exotic Asian karate instructor. Hollywood casted Pat Morita more so because he was Asian and less so because he was an actor. Actors such as Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat were also frequently cast in typical Asian roles (although they technically shouldn’t be included in this discussion as they had established acting careers overseas before making Hollywood films). The Hollywood film The Joy Luck Club, again, depicts Asian Americans in uniquely Asian American roles. Pop culture wants Asians to be Asians. In his book Yellow, law professor Frank Wu described that Asian Americans suffer from the “perpetual foreigner” syndrome, meaning that no matter how much Asian Americans adopt American culture, they will always be seen as foreign.

Understand, I’m no expert on Hollywood, but the biggest film I can think of right now with a leading Asian actor who wasn’t playing an Asian character is Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Korean American John Cho played one of the leads in this comedy about 2 stoned college students trying to find something to eat (a FUNNY movie). This was probably his biggest break, but it’s hardly the role of a lifetime. John Cho is a great actor who chooses his roles well; I have yet to see him play a major Hollywood role that necessitates or glorifies his ethnicity. Probably his second biggest role was the MILF (Mother I’d Love to Fuck….hehehe) guy in the American Pie movies. I like John Cho because it seems that he would rather be cast a stoned kid than some stereotypical Asian guy.

All is not too bleak, however. There are a ton of independent movies that ignore the Asian American typecast. The most successful to date would be Better Luck Tomorrow, which was a film by director Justin Lin and distributed by MTV Films. The film was about a group of overachieving high school students who were bored with their lives and got involved with drugs and minor crime, only to set off a chain of events with disastrous consequences. Period. Although the entire main cast was Asian American, it was not about Asian Americans. The same film could have been made with an all white cast, an all black cast, an all Arab cast, etc. The ethnicity of the cast had no affect on the storyline at all. The importance of the film was that it was a Hollywood film that was written, produced, and directed by Asian Americans. The interesting thing was, because of this, people expected the movie to be about Asian Americans. Many were disappointed after watching the movie because the movie had absolutely nothing to do with that. It begged the question, “Who the hell said it was going to be about Asian Americans in the first place??” The film was as American as apple pie. Some people found the story to be boring, dry, and meaningless. True, it probably wasn’t the greatest American film, but it was a great film for Asian America.

While Better Luck Tomorrow has made strides for improving Asian American presence in film, television is another story. In 2005, the most visible Asian Americans in television were Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim, who both starred in the ABC drama Lost. They had prominent roles in the show, but, again, their roles relied on their Asian descent. A few years ago, Asian American comedian Margaret Cho starred in the ABC sitcom All-American Girl, and this role, again, relied on her Asian descent (and the show failed, again, because she wasn’t funny). Clearly, television wants to see Asians on television, as long as they act authentically Asian.

However, there are prominent Asian Americans in news television, such as Connie Chung and Ann Curry, who do not assume an “authentic Asian” persona. Both have successful careers as network anchorwomen on the national stage. Asian American women journalists are even more prominent at the level of local television. But the lack of Asian American men in the media cannot be ignored. Historian Ben Fong-Torres attributed this to a lasting “war image” from previous American wars overseas. American soldiers coming back from wars often had affairs with Asian women and/or brought back Asian wives. The image of an American male with an Asian woman became a type of cliché, and this carried over to the image an American anchorman with an Asian woman co-anchor. This was a acceptable image. The “war image” perpetuates the struggling Asian American identity.

The inherent problem with Asian American identity in American culture is the concept of American culture. Everything can be attributed to the ridiculous notion that American culture is white. Asian American identity is a victim to the concept of whiteness in America. Asians are only considered foreign or exotic because the standard in America is that American culture is white. This should not be the case. I don’t believe that America is a white country at all. It’s a big cliché that America was built by minorities, but it’s a true cliché. Rapper KRS-One once said, “America was built by every other race except the Europeans who run this place.” Everything is measured against a white standard. In his book The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, George Lipsitz describes that American culture works to further strengthen the white American standard. America is not a white country by any means, but we will have to work hard to break down the institutionalized whiteness.

Racial slurs such as chink, koko, gook, nip, and flip (hmm, out of those terms, only “koko” was picked up by my spell-check) are overt and deplorable and it’s easy to denounce these. But that alone will not solve our problems. There’s no quick solution, but the worst thing to do is to be indifferent about it. Indifference solves nothing and can only fuel lingering tension between racial groups. Sadly, this can lead to violence, which was evident between African Americans and Korean Americans during the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion. An awareness of what is going on is necessary before any type of proactive movement can take place. Then and only then will we be able to say, as writer Jessica Hagedorn said, “Charlie Chan is dead”. The title of this chapter is “Sayonara, Chink” because it’s time we said goodbye to a mistaken Asian American identity. America is a great country and we all have our roles to insure that the experiment that is America is successful. It’s not that I hate white people. I love white people. It’s whiteness (the concept) that I friggin' can’t stand.

In the beginning of this chapter I mentioned a comic book called Robotech, which, before it became a comic book, was a sci-fi serial anime cartoon that aired in 1985. It was my favorite cartoon from childhood (any one of my friends knows that I go totally geeky over it). The unique thing about Robotech was that, although it came from Japan, it was a truly American cartoon. Let me explain:

Back in the early 80’s there were 3 completely unrelated cartoons in Japan: 1) Macross, 2) SDC: Southern Cross, and 3) Genesis Climber Mospeada. American company Harmony Gold bought the rights to air these 3 cartoons on American television. However, they didn’t simply re-dub the 3 shows with an English translation. They changed the storyline of all 3 shows and created a new storyline that united all 3 shows into 1 show, then recorded the new show in English. The result was the 3-generational epic known as Robotech. Hardcore anime purists were furious at the butchering of the original storylines, but, in all actuality, the end result worked well. While Robotech retained many elements from the original shows, it was definitely a new storyline for a new audience. Robotech aired on American television, but never aired in Japan. It wouldn’t make sense in Japan where they were already familiar with the original 3 shows. On the opposite end, the 3 original shows never aired on American television. It wouldn’t make sense with those familiar with Robotech. The 3 cartoons meant different things to different people.

American identity for anyone, whether they’re Asian, African, European, etc., is an issue of dichotomy. Robotech is as American as you or me. We're here not to tell the same story from the past, but to build from our past to create a new American story that future generations will talk about. We all come from different backgrounds but we’re all remixed into an American identity. Our hope is to not get lost in the translation and to retain all parts of our identity. It’s a journey to get to that place, and it’s an extra-hard place to get to.