A Letter from a Yale student to the Chinese American Community
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2020年5月31日 <https://chineseamerican.org/p/31571>, 时政
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https://chineseamerican.org/p/31571
中文版(Chinese Version) <https://chineseamerican.org/p/31574>
한국어판(Korean Version) <https://bit.ly/37bSCK3>
/Content warning: White supremacy, racial stereotypes, violence/
//
To the Chinese American Community:
My name is Eileen Huang, and I am a junior at Yale University studying
English. I was asked to write a reflection, maybe even a poem, on
Chinese American history after watching /Asian Americans/, the new
documentary on PBS. However, I find it hard to write poems at a time
like this. I refuse to focus on our history, our stories, and our people
without acknowledging the challenges, pain, and trauma experienced by
marginalized people—ourselves included—even today. In light of protests
in Minnesota, which were sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the
hands of racist White and Asian police officers, I specifically want to
address the rampant anti-Blackness in the Asian American community that,
if unchecked, can bring violence to us all.
We Asian Americans have long perpetuated anti-Black statements and
stereotypes. I grew up hearing relatives, family friends, and even my
parents make subtle, even explicitly racist comments about the Black
community: /They grow up in bad neighborhoods. They cause so much crime.
I would rather you not be friends with Black people. I would rather you
not be involved in Black activism./
The message was clear: /We are the model minority—doctors, lawyers,
quiet and obedient overachievers. We have little to do with other people
of color; we will even side with White Americans to degrade them. /The
Asian Americans around me, myself included, were reluctant—and sometimes
even refused—to participate in conversations on the violent racism faced
by Black Americans—even when they were hunted by White supremacists,
even when they were mercilessly shot in their own neighborhoods, even
when they were murdered in broad daylight, even when their children were
slaughtered for carrying toy guns or stealing gum, even when their
grieving mothers appeared on television, begging and crying for justice.
Even when anti-Blackness is so closely aligned to our own oppression
under structural racism.
We Asian Americans like to think of ourselves as exempt from racism.
After all, many of us live in affluent neighborhoods, send our children
to selective universities, and work comfortable, professional jobs. As
the poet Cathy Park Hong writes, we believe that we are “next in line …
to disappear,” to gain the privileges that White people have, to be
freed from all the burdens that come with existing in a body of color.
However, our survival in this country has always been conditional. When
Chinese laborers came in the 1800s, they were lynched and barred from
political and social participation by the Chinese Exclusion Act—the only
federal law in American history to explicitly target a racial group.
When early Asian immigrants, such as Bhagat Singh Thind, attempted to
apply for citizenship, all Asian Americans were denied the right to
legal personhood—which was only granted to “free white persons“—until
1965. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Japanese Americans were rounded up,
tortured, and detained in concentration camps. When the Cold War reached
its peak, Chinese Americans suspected of being Communists were
terrorized by federal agents. Families lost their jobs, businesses, and
livelihoods. When COVID-19 hit the US, Asian Americans were assaulted,
spat on, and harassed. We were accused of being “virus carriers”; I was
recently called a “bat-eater.” We are made to feel like we have excelled
in this country until we are reminded that we cannot get
/too/ comfortable—that we will never truly belong.
Here’s a story of not belonging: On June 19, 1982, as Detroit’s auto
industry was deteriorating from Japanese competition, Vincent Chin, a
27-year-old Chinese American, entered a bar to celebrate his upcoming
wedding. Ronald Ebens, a laid-off White autoworker, and his stepson,
Michael Nitz, were there as well. They followed Chin as he left the bar
and cornered him in a McDonald’s parking lot, where they proceeded to
bludgeon him with a metal baseball bat until his head cracked open.
“It’s because of you motherf––ers that we are out of work,” they had
said to Chin. Later, as news of the murder got out, Chinese Americans
were outraged, calling for Ebens and Nitz’s conviction. Chin’s killers
were only charged for second-degree murder, receiving only charges of
$3,000—and no jail time. “These weren’t the kind of men you send to
jail,” County Judge Charles Kaufman said. Then who is?
Watching /Asian Americans/, I was haunted by the video clips of Chin’s
mother, Lily. She is a small Chinese woman who looks like my
grandmother, or my mother, or an aunt. Her face crumples in front of the
cameras; she pleads and cries, in a voice almost animal-like, “I want
justice for my son.” Yet, in all of Lily’s footage, she is surrounded by
Black civil rights activists, such as Jesse Jackson. They guard her from
news reporters that try to film her grief. Later, they march in the
streets with Chinese American activists, holding signs calling for an
end to racist violence.
Though we cannot compare the challenges faced by Asian Americans to the
far more violent atrocities suffered by Black Americans, we owe
*everything* to them. It is because of the work of Black Americans—who
spearheaded the civil rights movement—that Asian Americans are no longer
called “Orientals” or “Chinamen.” It is because of Black Americans, who
called for an end to racist housing policies, that we are even allowed
to /live/ in the same neighborhoods as White people. It is because of
Black Americans, who pushed back against racist naturalization laws,
that Asian Americans have gained official citizenship and are officially
recognized under the law. It is because of Black activism that stories
like Vincent Chin’s are even remembered. We did not gain the freedom to
become comfortable “model minorities” by virtue of being better or
hard-working, but from years of struggle and support from other
marginalized communities.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, was accused of using a
counterfeit 20-dollar bill at a deli in Minneapolis. In response, Derek
Chauvin, a White police officer, tackled Floyd and knelt on his neck for
seven minutes. In videos that will later circulate online, for three
minutes, in a pool of his own blood, Floyd is seen pleading for his
life, stating that he can no longer breathe. Instead, Chauvin continues
to kneel. And kneel. Meanwhile, in the background, Tou Thao, an Asian
American police officer, is seen standing by the murder, merely
watching. And watching. And saying nothing as Floyd slowly stops struggling.
I see this same kind of silence from Asian Americans around me. I am
especially disappointed in the Chinese American community, whose silence
on the murder of Black Americans has been deafening. While so many
activists of color are banding together to support protesters in
Minneapolis, so many Chinese Americans have chosen to “stay out” of this
disobedience. The same Chinese Americans who spoke out so vocally on
anti-Asian racism from COVID-19 are suspiciously quiet when it comes to
Floyd’s murder (as well as Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice,
Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and countless
other Black Americans who were killed merely for existing). I do not see
us sharing sympathy for Black mothers who appear on television, begging,
like Lily Chin, to see justice for their sons. I do not see us marching
with Black protesters. I do not see us donating to Black-led organizations.
I do not see our outrage as White murderers, such as Vincent Chin’s
killers, receive no jail time for killing innocent Black Americans. I do
not see us extending any solidarity toward the Black protesters who have
been sprayed with tear gas and rubber bullets—only a couple weeks after
White COVID-19 “protesters,” armed with AR-15s, were barely even touched
by policemen. Instead, I see us calling them “thugs,” “rioters,”
“looters”—the same epithets that White Americans once called us. I see
us, such as members of my own family, merely laughing off President
Trump’s tweet about sending the National Guard to Minnesota, as if it
were a joke and not a deadly threat.
I imagine where we would be if Black Americans did not participate in
Asian American activism. We would still be called Orientals. We would
live in even more segregated neighborhoods and attend even more
segregated schools. We would not be allowed to attend these elite
colleges, advance in our comfortable careers. We would be illegal
aliens. We—and everyone else—would not remember stories like Vincent Chin’s.
I urge all Chinese Americans to watch media such as /Asian Americans/,
to seriously reflect not only on our own history, but also on our shared
history with other minorities—how our liberation is intertwined with
liberation for Black Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, and
more. We are not exempt from history. What has happened to George Floyd
has happened to Chinese miners in the 1800s and Vincent Chin, and will
continue to happen to us and all minorities unless we let go of our
silence, which has never protected us, and never will.
Our history is not only a lineage of obedient doctors, lawyers, and
engineers. It is also a history of disrupters, activists, fighters, and,
above all, survivors. I think often of Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese
American survivor of internment camps who later became a prominent civil
rights activist, and who developed close relationships with Black
activists, such as Malcolm X. “We are all part of one another,” she once
said.
I urge you all to donate to the activist organizations listed below. I
refuse to call for the racial justice of our own community at the
expense of others. Justice that degrades or subordinates other
minorities is not justice at all. At a time when many privileged
minorities are siding with White supremacy—which has terrorized *all* of
our communities for centuries—I want to ask: Whose side are you on?
中文版(Chinese Version) <https://chineseamerican.org/p/31574>
한국어판(Korean Version) <https://bit.ly/37bSCK3>
/All of those who have signed below have pledged to address/end
anti-Blackness in our Asian American communities by committing to the
following actions:/
* /Donating to Black-led //organizations/
<https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1fb2cioBcCO47L_oGPsjdGVWDAc3RTHU2tIpDtekWKs0/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR2IoDjgx3tU_1-UPH3edCnALx067T1_11tJg9eIXrJ3carA5zO25veR8N4>/
and
Black Lives Matter activists in MN/
* /Protesting (either in person or on social media) against White
supremacy and anti-Blackness/
* /Engaging in uncomfortable/difficult conversations with Asian
Americans/non-Black people on anti-Blackness in our own communities/
* /Committing to educating yourself on anti-racist theories, actions,
and histories that can help dismantle White supremacy/
/Click the following link of Google Form to sign your name if you are
with us: [name, opt. affiliation]/
