Disciplined by Race

Theological Ethics and the Problem of Asian American Identity

Ki Joo Choi

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532634734
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Déontologie et religion

What does it mean to be Asian American? Should Asian American identity be construed primarily in cultural terms or racial terms? And why should contemporary theology care about such questions? Disciplined by Race: Theological Ethics and the Problem of Asian American Identity reveals the critical importance of Asian American experience for contemporary theological debates on race. The book challenges readers to move beyond conventional perceptions of Asian Americans as model minorities and to confront the ways in which Asian Americans are socially restrained by whiteness. Rather than being insulated from the logics of white racism in the modern United States, being Asian American is tragically defined by those logics. Coming to grips with how Asian Americans are disciplined by race reveals the prospects for Asian American self-determination and raises the question of whether resistance to the social demands and allure of whiteness is realistically possible, for Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans alike.

1

Identity

The majority of Americans regarded us with ambivalence if not outright distaste . . . We threatened the sanctity and symmetry of a white and black America whose yin and yang racial politics left no room for any other color, particularly that of pathetic little yellow-skinned people pickpocketing the American purse.

—The Sympathizer1

While I identify as an Asian American, I do so with some ambivalence. That ambivalence is a reflection of my personal history as an immigrant to the United States who has struggled since early childhood to find my place in American society. While many Asian Americans with similar backgrounds have found life outside the immigrant home strange and even alienating, my experience was more than simply about not “fitting in.” It was also colored by a profound sense of puzzling disconnection between life at school (public and then parochial) and life at home. By puzzling I mean the experience of wondering why my parents so firmly held onto being Korean even though they decided to uproot themselves from South Korea and bring me and my brother (at the ages of 4 and 1, respectively) to live permanently in the United States, first in California and then in New York City. I often wondered, shouldn’t they try to be American or, perhaps more generously (so I thought), just a little more American by speaking English in addition to Korean at home and socializing beyond Korean circles, especially beyond the Korean churches we attended? Of course, it is entirely possible that my parents thought of themselves as quintessentially American; after all, they were, like so many Americans, immigrants trying to make a better life for themselves and their children. But I remember fixating on the perceived differences: since they were not like other typical (non-Korean, non-Asian) parents in our predominantly white middle-class neighborhood of Newbury Park, CA, or working-class Irish-Italian-German neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens, and Bushwick, Brooklyn, they were in my mind strictly Korean, no more no less. From grade school to high school, partly due to youthful contrariness but also out of a genuine desire to be “American,” I was resolutely focused on trying to be like most other kids in the neighborhoods I lived in (that is, not too Korean).

However, my sense of myself as Asian and Korean American began to change later in life, to some degree, forced by the birth of my children who are multiracial: of not only Korean ancestry but also English, German, and Norwegian. Their multiraciality has occasioned a number of questions about who they are. I have found amusing the extent to which my parents see my children as Korean, or perhaps insist on treating them as Korean, primarily, for instance, calling them by their Korean middle names. Then there are my in-laws, who rarely fixate on my children’s race or multiraciality, perhaps out of politeness or out of a genuine feeling that their race is irrelevant, though that has not tempered the desire to purchase American Girl dolls that are Asian-esque. While it is amusing to see how various family members navigate the multiraciality of my children, less amusing have been instances in which strangers have asked my spouse about her “adopted” children or when others (non-Asian Americans and Asian Americans alike) occasionally stare at me and my children with curiosity, engaging in a subtle and sometimes not so subtle compare-and-contrast.

In taking note of the kind of responses my children have elicited from various persons, I am often reminded of my own uncomfortable experiences with racial slurs (often linked to my so-called “slanted” eyes), stereotypical assumptions (as an Asian, I must be skilled in kung fu), and questions about my genuine origins (saying California and then New York has been less than satisfying to many who have asked, leading to the follow-up question, “Where are you really from?”). Such reminders have encouraged me to think more sharply about my own assumptions about race and racial identity and what I have taken to mean by Asian American. Are my multiracial children Asian American, and if so, in what sense? I often wonder if I am doing my children a disservice by not introducing them in a more regular and intentional manner to traditional Korean customs, or by not speaking to them in Korean at home (which is a tad ironic given my desire for my parents to speak more English at home). I readily admit that I have tried to assuage such doubts by coaxing my children to eat more Asian food as a subtle, perhaps accessible means of encouraging them to be conscious of themselves as Asian American and of Korean descent. But is that all there is to being Korean, to being Asian American? Is it simply a matter of performing a few conventional (or what is taken as typically traditional) cultural practices from time to time?2 How many practices does one need to perform in order for one to be meaningfully identifiable as Asian American?

I have struggled with those kinds of questions for quite some time, and they have escaped easy resolution. If I feel uncomfortable speaking Korean to another Korean at a Korean restaurant (given my poor Korean language abilities), does that mean I am somehow less Korean, less Asian—maybe more troubling, not Asian at all? Why am I any less Asian if I do not do this or that? But why should any of this matter anyway, given that I am more than my Korean and Asian identities? Korean and Asian, yes, but a New Yorker and now also a New Jerseyan, husband, father, and academic, among other identities. It would seem that obsessing over what it means to be Asian American, like any racial identity, only ensnares Asian Americans into being over-, if not solely, determined by parochial definitions of that identity. So what, then, does it mean to be Asian American?

Asian American Identity and the Costs of Ambivalence

To be sure, my own ambivalence with my identity as an Asian American is not unique, and for some, such ambivalence has moved in the direction of overt dismissal of Asian American as a coherent racial identity, or at the very least cautiousness over its prospects.3 Such an attitude is partially fueled by a conceptual objection to the idea that Asian American corresponds to a discernible biological or even an ontological reality. While not addressing the nature of Asian American identity per se, when US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas referred to race-based affirmative action policies as an exercise in classroom aesthetics, the implications for racial identity, including Asian American identity, were clear.4 Racial identity is no more than appearing a certain way, or being perceived a certain way based on how one looks; I am Asian American only because my skin tone and facial features suggest Asian in some typically accepted, aesthetic manner, which only undermines the idea that there is something inherent to being of a particular race.

But it is also the case that one can want to appear a certain way for particular reasons (or want to have one’s appearance recognized in a particular way), even if that appearance may lack concordance with a “real” racial identity. Telling, for instance, is the fact that Asian American is a category of identity that came into existence in the late 1960s, created by the historian and activist Yuji Ichioka, to mobilize Asians from diverse backgrounds as a visible political, social force.5 Since then, Asian American has come to be an umbrella category of identity that mobilizes a wide array of nationalities and cultures under a single ethno-racial consciousness.

Yet, consider that many of these nationalities or cultures cannot be regarded as interchangeable or complementary, and the deeply contested nature of which nationalities and cultures are appropriately Asian American. Typical is the association of Asian American and those of East Asian origins or heritages such as Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan. More recently, those of Southeast Asian origins such as Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Vietnam are readily acknowledged as Asian American, and increasingly too, South Asians such as Indians. But the inclusion of other South Asians such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is still not uncontroversial, and recent scholarship on Asian Americans and Islam has raised questions about the intersections of religion, politics, and Asian American identity.6 And consider that only 19 percent of Asian Americans describe themselves as Asian American, with 62 percent of Asian Americans preferring to identify primarily with their country of origin, according to the 2010 US census.7

There are good reasons to be cautious about identifying as Asian American, that is, to resist defining what it means to be Asian American. As I will discuss at greater length in chapter 2, monolithic accounts, especially monolithic cultural accounts, of Asian American identity only capture a single dimension of experience while falsely universalizing it, which perpetuate the dubious notion of cultural authenticity. Nevertheless, ambivalence over what it means to be Asian American, or whether there is in fact a meaningful Asian American identity to speak of, is not without social liabilities.

One significant cost is how “outside” perceptions of Asian Americans necessarily end up filling the definitional-identity void that such ambivalence leaves. The journalist Wesley Yang articulates well one widespread perception of Asian Americans in society and popular culture:

Here is what I sometimes suspect my face sign...