Racism is both Misogyny and Discrimination for an Asian Woman

When I experienced racism in the United States, I wasn't aware of how misogynistic people were. It took me a while to realize what I had gone through.

[For the Mandarin Version of this experience, please click here.]

I’ve always identified with North-American-Centric culture, but I’ve been lucky enough to experience some form of third-culture dissonance without racism in Taiwan.

Even in Taiwan, with educated parents that spoke Mandarin Chinese and the ability to read, write and express my thoughts fluently in both Chinese and English, I was part of the privileged ‘Han [漢]’ majority. On the outside, I gave off an image of ‘elitism’ that protected me from discrimination towards both culturally and ethnically mixed families in Taiwan.

But I’m not here to talk about racism in Taiwan, at least not in this article. I’m here to talk about three specific incidents I experienced as an Asian woman in the United States.

I’ve been lucky enough to avoid physically violent forms of discrimination. However, for the three incidents mentioned below, I chose to not react as a way to avoid physical conflict.

The first time I realized that I was a target of racism was during my second visit to New York City. My friend and I opted to stay at a hostel in Harlem. I remember dressing up to the nines in a blue silk dress with new sandal wedges that I was excited to try on. As you’ll see in the picture, I was dolled up but I wasn’t really wearing anything ‘revealing’. (And even if I was, it still wouldn’t have been an excuse for anyone to treat me any differently.)

On our way to cross the street and head towards the subway station, a (seeming) Jamaican man came up to me and started greeting me(rapidly) through an assortment of East Asian languages.

“你好(ni-hao/ Mandarin Chinese)!"

"こんにちは （konichiwa/ Japanese!)"

"안녕하세요 (annyeong haseyo/ Korean) !”

I ignored him, hoping that my distaste and fear were well hidden behind my shades.

But that didn’t discourage him, instead, he continued to ask:

“Hey China Doll, where are you going tonight?”

I was startled and, to be honest, a bit scared. I didn’t want to be because it seemed horrible to be scared of an African American man because he was African American. I was trying not to judge him, but he was smirking and the indecency in his grin was hard to ignore.

I was a woman, 149 centimeters tall, and the only weapon I had was my camera at the moment. I guess if something really did happen I'd have to knock him out with my camera.

I wasn’t sure if Harlem, in 2014, was relatively safe like downtown Manhattan, or if I was supposed to be afraid. I decided to just ignore him and crossed the street.

I was scared because I was a foreigner and because I was a woman. It was my first time abroad on my own and I was not prepared to get into a physical fight with a man. Had I been in Taipei, I would’ve lashed out at the guy and called the police if any physical violence occurred.

The second time something similar happened was when I was studying in Wisconsin. This was around a year-and-a-half after the New York incident in 2014. I had taken a different route home, one that was quieter.

It was one of those days where I rolled out of bed and wanted to look pretty, so I had a full face of makeup (think of a blend between K-Beauty and Asian American makeup-looks. No, full-face does not mean I walked out looking like Kylie Jenner. I wish I had the Kardshian bone structure for that specific style.) and a peacoat that kept me warm. The only ‘skin’ I revealed was my face.

While I was walking, a caucasian man, probably in his fifties, was biking towards me from the opposite direction. I was lost in my own thoughts, but when he came up closer, he stared at me and (rather abruptly) asked :

“Hey, would you like to come home with me tonight?”

His face was red, so I figured, he was probably very drunk. I wasn’t sure how to react. Did he say this to every woman passing by? Was he saying this because I was an Asian woman who, without nerdy glasses, looked nothing like a student rushing home from the library? It was a revolting experience, and in hindsight, I believe that somehow my ethnicity and my gender played a part in his decision to say those words. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time an Asian woman (or Asian women in general) was associated with sex work or human trafficking. With what happened during the Atlanta Shootings (1), it’s clear that white men seem to assume that they entitled to sexualize Asian women in a certain way.

To put things in perspective, when I was eight (which would’ve been 19 years ago, perhaps in 2002 or 2001), my mother took me on a vacation to Hawaii for a brief summer camp program. We were denied entry because they assumed that my mom was part of a human trafficking scene.

Perhaps it was because my mom, being exhausted from the flight, had dark circles under her eyes, and look too young to be a mother (well, she was Asian and didn’t sport the heavy makeup that Americans usually preferred). Even when I spoke to the female, African American officer in fluent English (I have no accent! People always assume I’m American. Just go and listen to my podcast if you’re wondering.), she was still suspicious of my mother.

Thankfully, one of our family friends also worked at the customs office in the airport, and the issue was resolved after a very long wait in the waiting room. I still remember that day, I couldn't sit still and I had no idea why we had to wait in a small room and why people were so serious and stern towards us.

The third time something similar happened was when I took my parents to visit a family friend in New York City. It was 2019, and I was grabbing lamb on rice at one of the food stands at Times Square. My dad was wandering around the corner, lost in his thoughts, while my mom was trying to get a New York City Tumblr at the Starbucks shop.

While I waited for my food, the vendor, probably African American or Latino (or a mixture of both? I wasn’t sure) tried to make small talk. At first, it seemed quite innocent as he asked me if I was enjoying my time here in the city. Obviously, I told him that I loved New York, but what came after was still a shock to me, even today.

“You could marry me and then you could get citizenship! Then you can stay in New York for as long as you want.”

I smiled and shook my head. I still wanted the food I paid for to be clean, so offending him was out of the question.

I told our family friend about what happened and was advised to just speak up for myself and confront his offensive rhetoric. I didn’t think that was an option for me. I don’t have citizenship and I was on vacation with my parents. Getting into a fight with a vendor wasn’t really necessary and would’ve incited more violence. So I stayed silent, just like I did five years ago in Harlem.

I’m really grateful that the racism that I faced in the United States was only verbal forms of aggression instead of physical assaults. What really struck me was how all three incidents portrayed the perverted realities that Asian women faced on a daily basis in America.

Asian women, in the eyes of Caucasians, Latino, or African Americans, are a constant subject of objectification and sexualization through the tinted lens of race.

Asian women face a different version of misogyny all over the globe, because of their skin color and the distorted narratives that are unwantedly associated with our ethnicity. People are entitled to exploit Asian women by calling them exotic and abrasively associating them with sex and submissiveness. When women who are afraid of their own safety choose to walk away, very few are held responsible for the aggression they impose on Asian women.

It took me a while to conceptualize what I had gone through. I wasn’t just discriminated against for my ethnicity, I was also taken advantage of my inability to fight back immediately, along with the stigma men had towards women of my race.

While the western world fights loudly and bravely for equal rights among various minorities, please keep in mind that Asian women have been exploited, objectified by both men and women of other races in the name of stigma or some twisted justification of "yellow fever". AAPI or Asian discrimination in general runs deep in various aspects and women are at the frontlines of both discrimination and violence targeted towards the Asian community.

Sources:

NBC News, “Atlanta spa shooting suspect's 'bad day' defense, and America's sexualized racism problem”

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/atlanta-spa-shooting-suspect-s-bad-day-defense-america-s-ncna1261362

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