Asian problems, part I: I’m not friends with fetishism

By Sarah R Baker

Asians are too frequently excluded when it comes to conversations of minority discrimination. Pressing issues experienced by other races in America – police brutality, mass incarceration, the detainment of immigrant children – are often what outcry the few voices advocating for Asian-specific problems. This isn’t necessarily unfair; non-Asian racial issues like the ones I just mentioned do not deserve less attention in order to make room for other assertions. Asians just need to be heard and represented in those same conversations in the first place.

The reason this disparity occurs is because there is a lack of understanding for what “Asian problems” actually are. Asians are not offended because everyone thinks they’re good at math, though that cliche does contribute to the silencing nature of real issues. Those grossly overlooked stereotypes, however positive, prevent us from identifying grave problems the community endures, such as the highest rate of sexual assault and the worst economic divide of any race in the US. In this part, I will focus on Asian fetishism and sexual endangerment.

The Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence (API) conducted a fifty year-long study, trying to generate accurate statistics on violence against women. Their study, once concluded in 2015, found that 61 percent of Asian Americans experience sexual assault with an intimate partner within their lifetimes. That’s more than one in every two Asian American women. It’s also 40 percent higher than the rate of sexual assault of white and Latina women and 35 percent higher than that of black women.

Why might this be? There is an array of explanations. The first is the rampant fetishization of Asian women in Western media. These fetishes are so normalized that they have a name, “yellow fever,” completely downplaying the severity of the situation and the resulting sexual endangerment for Asians. Many Americans might not understand why this is a problem, and may compare “yellow fever” or racial fetishes of any kind to a preference, and I, as an Asian American woman, am going to explain to you why this is a false equivalent.

When someone says they “only date Asian girls,” they don’t mean they have a casual type. They don’t mean that they enjoy talking with someone with multicultural knowledge, who might have an affinity for spicy food, excels academically, or, I don’t know, appreciates their obsession with anime. When someone says they have “yellow fever,” they are directly referencing a fetish. They mean they’re buying into a false stereotype about how Asian women are expected to act between the sheets, as little subservient school girls or whatever translation white American media has associated with Asian women.

When a group of people are seen as a fetish, a sexual object, they are dehumanized as a whole. And it’s a lot easier to take advantage of an object than it is a person, especially when that object is a lot less likely to cry out or report you. This leads us to our next explanation; the individualistic culture Asian women inherit, even overseas from the countries that originated those ideas.

“We’re taken as very innocent, and that we don’t know anything about American culture so we’re easily persuaded into doing this and that. We’re easy people to take advantage of,” said Dana Nguyen, 19, a first-generation Vietnamese student at Peninsula College.

“All through school and growing up, people would joke with me about pornography. I mean, the stuff they said to me would be considered incredibly offensive if they said it to anyone else. I don’t know why it’s different for Asians,” said Nguyen.

Individualistic roots keep Asians, male and female alike, from seeking help for personal problems and even crimes that are committed against them. According to NPR, hate crimes against Asian Americans are most often not categorized that way and don’t show up in national data about hate crimes. They’re also the most underreported hate crime in the US.

Immigrants often think this is simply a part of American life, and the abuse or racism they experience is normal. “They think it’s something to get used to and to just deal with,” said Nyugen, “that’s the lifestyle they deserve and are born into. There’s no other way than being talked to like that, being treated like that.”

Asian Americans don’t advocate for themselves when it comes to offenses of any nature. Asians not only need to be included in conversations of systemic racism, but need to include themselves by acknowledging their hardships. This is especially true when it comes to sexual assault, one of the biggest problems they endure in the US.

Stay tuned for “Asian problems, part II: Inequality in economics,” coming in November!