Letter to the Editor

Dear National Review,

I recently saw your cover illustration depicting the Clintons and Al Gore in yellow face. To be honest, when I first saw your cover illustration it made me stop and pick up your magazine. The cover caught my attention because I was horrified at the blatant way your magazine used yellow face, and the racist and xenophobic attitudes it conveys. As an Asian American I am very disappointed that your editors would approve such disrespectful caricatures that are so deeply rooted in American prejudice.

Your cover illustration suggests that the Asian American face is still a pollutant to American society. For centuries, my people were denied the right of full American citizenship and although today those policies have changed, I fear that the white American mindset has not. I can only guess that the purpose of placing the President, First Lady, and Vice President in yellowface was to invoke the fear that Asians and Asian Americans are manipulating American government leaders. But instead of reflecting the ethical violations your article discussed, you instead chose to emphasize racial differences among the parties involved. I am disappointed to say the least, and I hope that your future cover illustration choices will be more thoughtful and respectful of all Americans.

Anonymous


QUESTIONS:
1. What are the differences and similarities between blackface and yellowface? Do they serve different purposes or are they merely variations of the same sentiment?
2. What are the true origins of the model minority myth? Did the academic and economic success of Asian Americans create the myth or was it a self fulfilling prophecy?

Thomas' Response

Dear Robert G. Lee,

You make an impressive case for how in many ways the plights of Chinese Americans mirrors that of Black Americans. While many have argued that Chinese people are "model minorities" and not subject to the same discrimination as other minority races in America, you offer clear and convincing evidence that this is simply not the case--that Chinese Americans have had to suffer at the hands of discrimination and racism by the institutions of America as well as the individuals. By showing how Irish people discriminated against the Chinese and the Blacks similarly, you show how even early on--among ethnic Whites--there was a notion of whiteness that Asians and Blacks did not fit into. Always, even when ethnic, white immigrants were discriminated against, they were always considered better than non-white races, and that's important in understanding the history of the United States. 

In many ways, I find your ideas similar to mine. I argue how in the Jazz Singer, the main character becomes white by subjugating Blacks through the art of black face. While I would argue that some groups have been so marginalized that their struggles mirror that of Blacks and Asians--a point with which you disagree--I think we can both agree that apart of being white or becoming white in a historical context is the active subjugation of othered groups. You show this in how Irish factory workers marginalized Blacks and Chinese people, and I show it in how Jaky decides to do black face.

I look forward to a scholarly debate on the issues.

Sincerely,

Michael Rogin.

1. Was the otherization of European immigrants equal or similar to the same otherization of Blacks and Chinese people. If so, is it simply a matter of time before Blacks and Asians are absorbed into the larger category of Whiteness? If not, is it only color that differentiates European immigrants, Blacks, and Chinese immigrants? If the Irish and other white ethnics were considered just as bad and foreign as Blacks and Chinese, then why did they eventually become absorbed into the larger category of whiteness and minority races didn't? 

2. Do race relations in America boil down to White vs. non-White. Is it all white people vs all people of color in a historical context? What, then, of inter-ethnic violence--where Whites are not involved at all in the conflict?

Dear Matthew Frye Jacobson,

Your research in whiteness studies serves some function; it allows us to examine how whiteness has changed and been created over time. Through your analysis we are able to see how whiteness is everything that is not the Other, yet still firmly determined by the color of one's skin.

However, I fear that in looking at whiteness studies instead of examining how the catergory of the Other has developed and changed, we are losing the focus on the plight of the "Other." We are equating the plight of European immigrants with those of African or Chinese or Mexican immigrants. But, taking the example of Chinese immigrants, I do not think these two narratives are comparable. The ways in which the "Chinese male disruption" of the heterosexual household of the Cult of Domesticity in the mid-19th century was addressed is inexcusable. Even the writing of Ambrose Bierce pointed at the injustice in the way in which Chinese "race" was used as a way to imprint ideas of sexuality and sexual desire. Justice Holmes ruling that Chinese men were truly not meant to work in laundry services because this was a "women's job" (particularly a white woman's job) is further proof of the way that Chinese identity was formed at this time.

I urge you to reconsider the role that Whiteness studies serves in our field.

Sincerely,

Robert G. Lee

Questions

1) Is there a difference in the plight of the "colored" immigrant and the "white immigrant"? Is it based on the color of one's skin, for the most part, or is there something deeper or more inherent?

2) What is unique about the racism that Chinese immigrants faced? For instance, was this "third sex" phenomenon seen in other races that immigrated to the United States?

Dear D.W. Griffiths,

I hope that this letter finds you well. As a scholar of critical race theory and Asian American Studies, I am writing to you on behalf of your audience, particularly your non-white audience. I am not writing out of hostility, but rather curiosity, considering I have some pressing concerns and questions that I need answers to.

I wonder if you yourself realize the impact of your films on the American narrative, especially in the twentieth century. You revolutionized filmmaking with The Birth of a Nation, and I commend you on your accomplishment. In fact, film as a medium witnessed its greatest influence in the social and political atmosphere of the United States during the early half of the twentieth century, which I am sure you are aware of. With the racist tones of Birth of a Nation, your film set the national rhetoric on American identity—one that embraced and applauded the white patriotic clansman while vilifying and degrading the African American. That certainly put hefty weight on your shoulders.

Thus, given the critical responses to Birth of a Nation, you released Broken Blossoms several years later. The film starkly contrasts with your first film, not simply because it centers around a Chinese immigrant and a teenage white girl, but because of the way you present the Chinese immigrant to your audience. Indeed, the portrayal of the Asian Cheng Huang is antithetical to the portrayal of the white Battling Burrows. However, while you attempt to exonerate yourself of the bold statements you made in Birth through this film, the racist overtones are still pervasive in Broken Blossoms. You make Cheng Huang sympathetic, as someone with whom the girl can seek refuge. However, in his sympathy, Cheng Huang is meek, sensitive, feminine, and foreign. You perpetuate his foreigner status, unable to fully assimilate, and also sexually deviant, for he lives in the dubious dens of Chinatown and takes in the girl to metaphorically turn her into a prostitute. Thus, while Cheng is much more sympathetic than Battling Burrows, his character is still doubtful because of his perpetually foreign nature.

And for me, this is more troubling than than the harsh, dangerous treatment of Battling Burrows because there is no question that we are supposed to look at Battling Burrows in disgust. And even though his brutal character is immoral and corrupt, he does not serve as a representative of the white race. But for Cheng, as a minority Asian character, when viewers empathize with his character, they also fall for the trap that this is what the Chinese are like--they are homogeneous, feminine, and foreign. Thus, the danger in your film is that it perpetuates racialized ideas that are deleterious in the progression of society.

I think that in the art we produce, we must always be aware of the consequences of the statements we make--both on ourselves and on society. I hope you consider these thoughts and get back to me soon.

Sincerely,
Robert G. Lee

Questions:
1) In Orientals, Robert G. Lee discusses the origins and consequences of the model minority myth, which is a pervasive, supposedly positive stereotype placed on Asian Americans. In what ways is the model minority image imposed upon Asian Americans today? What are the implications of this? Why is this dangerous?

2) Robert G. Lee explores the racialized space of Los Angeles, especially during the Los Angeles Civil Unrest of 1992. He explores the political and economic changes that had been occurring in that area, which altered the racial and social dynamics of that space. How do you think the identity of a space correlates with the identities of the groups who occupy that space?

Michael Rogin to Al Jolson

Al Jolson,
I believe that your efforts to portray an play about Jewish identity is far more damaging to blacks than beneficial to Jews. In depicting an immigrant Jew as a Broadway star working within the blackface minstrel tradition, you obscure your own Jewish pedigree in order to proclaim your white identity. The message is abundantly clear, that Jewish immigrants deserve the same rights and privileges associated with whiteness that has already been accorded to earlier generations of European immigrants. In the common difference to blackness, whites and Jews are one people. You have absolutely trashed the image of blacks in order to gain acceptance for Jews. In addition, I believe that your film actually avoids honestly dealing with the tension in Jews assimilation into the American mainstream. Without dealing with the conflicts and issues between Jewish identity and American identity head on, undoubtedly one day when the blackface wears away Jews will be faced with the same difficulties that they are facing today.

Michael Rogin

Should Jewish Americans identify more with the experiences of the African-Americans or the white majority? Certainly our readings from the past couple weeks have made the argument that Jews entered the white "mainstream." But, the prejudice that blacks and Jews faced in the early 20th century has some similarities.

Letter from Rogin to Deloria

Dear Philip J. Deloria,

I appreciate your work on the co-opting of the Native American culture in “Playing Indian.” It is quite iconic for the American dominant culture to borrow from Native Americans in its time of freefall from one historic period to the next, with revolution rhetoric flowing from the mouths of disguised rebels. I believe that the “white male hero of our classic literature” has historically been behind the ventriloquizing of the Blacks AND Indians of America. We see in The Jazz Singer that Blacks were the mouths of urban entertainment, but were not allowed to express it themselves in a way that truly reflected the prerogative of the race being imitated. Like I said in my paper, the blackface in Jazz Singer has done no favor to blacks and is equally as disingenuous as Birth of a Nation. We can both appreciate the fact that our nation has grown to a point where the minority subjects of this intense desire to define American identity can be steered in a desirable direction.

In Scholarship,
Michael Rogin

How did the “ventriloquized” races gain agency to Deloria in “Playing Indian”? Does Rogin offer some insight into how African-Americans did it?

letter from Al Jolson in blackface to white Al Jolson

Dear Al,

Which one of us is the real Al Jolson? I know that biologically you’re the true Al, but perhaps I’m some hidden part of your identity that you channel through my performance. Perhaps you perform your whiteness in the same way that I perform this blackness. In some ways you blur the line between what is a real identity and what is purely performed.

Yet maybe you have some sadistic desire to control me, posses my blackness. Maybe your power of being able to embody the mysterious virility of a black man through me gives you a rush, a sick pleasure. You “sing through my mouth,” giving me words and music that I do not want to project to the world.

Who are you, Al Jolson? Are you white? Black? Both? Neither?

Sincerely,

Al

Questions:

Why is performing another gender more or less acceptable, while performing another race is not?

2) Race is a metalanguage, but can sexuality be one, too? It seems that sexuality (ex. interracial sex, miscegentation) provides the foundation for white society’s historical fear of black men and the black Other…Why is sexuality so salient/significant (even when it isn’t explicitly discussed)?