Episode 5: APAs, Mass Media, And Community Based Organizations

Previous episodes provide a picture of factors from media that causes the "Bamboo Ceiling" and several ways to challenge it. In this episode, I will answer the questions that I have when I start working for this project: 

1. How mass media creates inadequate representations of Asian Pacific Islander Americans? 
2. How APAs have been impacted in the workplace by the media discourses? 
3. How difficult for Asian Pacific Islander Americans to be truly recognized and to achieve sufficient positions in society and careers?

Answer for Question 1: 

Before answering my first question, my mind has a flashback of what my nephews, who live in a less diverse community, told me when their classmate asks them "Who are you?" or "Are you Chinese?". My nephews have only one answer: "I am American." Indeed, we are all American, but we have different demographic ancestors. As Maya Lin shares in the document film Maya Lin, she "did not realize" that she is Asian until later in life. 

Source: sandia.gov/about/diversity/_assets/images/flag_diversity.png

However, different background, different idea, different culture, and different demographics represent people differently. Mass media has a strong impact on media constructions and media discourses that create inadequate representations of Asian Pacific Islander Americans (APAs) in society. According to Ono and Pham in Asian Americans and the Media, “yellow peril” is a media discourse of the Asian Pacific Americans which aggressively addresses this group as a risk for the US community. Back in the 1800s, 1900s, and early of 21st century, the media constructs Asian Pacific Americans men as gambling, gangster, or villain, and women are demonstrated as sexy or "dragon ladies" as in Kill Bill or Madam Butterfly. Recent years, besides stereotypes as "kungfu masters", "dragon ladies", or sexy women, media portrays APAs based on the model minority stereotypes that they are geeks, nerd, hardworking persons, or businessmen. Higher education achievers, higher-income earner, and respect the law persons are other images that media portrays APAs. Media also distinguishes APAs based on stereotypical collective representations as shy, quiet, and introvert cultures.  

Answer for Question 2:

These media discourse make APAs become "the forgotten minority group in the glass ceiling conversation" (Gee and Peck). Quiet, shy, and introvert cultures stereotype collectively represent APAs as a  lack of social and leadership skills group. The article Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management  shows:

• "Over 20% of the associates in many of the larger accounting firms were Asian American, very few were being promoted to the partner level." 
  
  
• "Asian Americans are the least likely racial group to be promoted into Silicon Valley’s management and executive levels, even though they are the most likely to be hired into high-tech jobs". 

(Gee and Peck).

Another media discourse that affects APAs is "foreigner forever" that is proved by Scarlett Johansson as a Japanese policewoman in Ghost in the Shell or Matt Damon in The Great Wall. The Asian-face rarely achieve stardom even they are talent. Harlem Lee is another great example of it. Although Lee won two singing competitions of national TV shows, he was drop out from the list to become a music star and had to pursue other passion. 

Answer for Question 3:

To challenge these media discourse and stereotypes in order to achieve sufficient positions in society and careers, APAs need not only work as an individual but also collaborate together in community-based organizations. These collective organizations create opportunities for individuals to involve in groups so that they can produce more effective methods to challenge the media discourses. The first movement of Art APAs, which includes the Basement workshop and Kearny workshop, is an example of it. The Basement workshop is a connection of all individuals in the community from students to writers, activist, as well as artists. Besides these workshops, there are many community-based organizations, which act as collective cultural productions, provide opportunities for artists from multiethnic include Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Cambodian, Vietnamese Americans to participate, practice, and perform or challenge media discourses(Maeda). In addition, APAs need to have collective self-representation to challenge with mass media. 

The community-based media organizations such as APA Film Festival provide opportunities and supports for APAs to make corrections on the stereotypical representations of APAs. These organizations operate based on the collective actions which provide channels and vision for individuals and community to encounter with the mass media discourses. The Miss Saigon protest, then followed by many organizations’ protests like LGBT Asian American, Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York, Asian American for Creative, and Asian American for Creative is a great example of how the community-based media organization connect individuals into groups, creates mission and vision for them in the process of challenging the mass media. (Ono and Pham, p.100-101). 

The power of the internet and new media also provide APAs more opportunities to reproduce representations so that APAs can breakthrough the bamboo ceiling to be recognized and to achieve sufficient success. As Harlem Lee says "Every little bit thing helps. Believe in yourself and in what you believe", many APAs individuals and community-based organization successfully demonstrate the real identities and representations of APAs in different ways with what media discourse did. Vera Wang, Anna Su (fashion design), Norah Johns, Bruno Mars, Vanessa Hudgens (music), John Cho, Lucy Liu, Anna May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, George Takei (movies, TV theatre), Dorothy Wang, Michelle Phan, Ryan Higa, Markiplier (internet), Maya Lin, I.M.Pei (architecture), Hyphenmagazine, APA film festival, and many more APAs and APA organization are great example of this continual process.

References:

Gee, Buck and Peck, Denise. Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management. Harvard Business Review, May 31, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/05/asian-americans-are-the-least-likely-group-in-the-u-s-to-be-promoted-to-management.
Ono, Kent A. and Vincent Pham. Asian Americans and the Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2009.

 

Episode 4_The Utilization of Both Old and New Media of Asian Pacific Americans

The third episode shows several advantages of the new media that Asian Pacific Americans have been using. However, Asian Pacific Americans understand clearly how powerful the old media are. Therefore, they do not only take advantages of the new media but they also want to combine the advantages of both new and old media to maximize the opportunities to speak their voice in the continual process of the general media discourses.

Harlem Lee shares a perfect example of the "bamboo ceiling" that APAs have to make a lot of effort to breakthrough. Harlem Lee is a talent Filipino American singer who won Star Search television show in 1987 and had a peak sales record for his R&B album Listen to My Heart Beat, but has to follow another passion. Then he won another singing competition of NBC Fame in 2003. However, he still cannot break down the stereotype of the Asian face in the mainstream of media. 

Harlem Lee - Matt Lauer Interview

The lack of successful APAs singers in music, especially the  R&B rock, and pop music makes it more difficult for APAs to get out the ceiling. As Lee said: "every little bit things can help" to overcome these barriers. Harlem Lee believes the power of the internet in recent years makes a big change in the mainstream of media. Now, singers can create their own audiences through more forms and distribution channels than before. They can spread their voice and representation by not only TV shows, books, magazines, and newspapers but also web-based, app-based series through a publisher, recorder, television, movie theatre, and mobile devices. 

Luckier than Harlem Lee, Maya Lin's talent and hard work have been recognized and accepted. However, it was not easy for a young Asian architecture woman.

Maya Lin with her design for the Vietnam Memorial, May 6, 1981. Photo Credit: Academy of Achievement

Lin shared if the Vietnam Veteran Memorial design competition was not a blind national competition, she was not chosen just because of her Asian name. Indeed, she was faced with a lot of controversy and disagreement because of her race. The film Maya Lin shows how her strong characteristic and talent let her overcome the controversy and succeed in her career. In addition,  Maya Lin knows how to use many forms and channels to speak and distribute her voice by her architect works (Vietnam Veteran Memorial, Civil Rights Memorial, etc), books, film document, press, and web-based project (What Is Missing).

Vietnam-Veterans-Memorial. Source:https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vietnam-Veterans-Memorial

The development of the internet and mobile devices provide more opportunities for APAs to break the bamboo ceiling. APAs can use "blogs as a mechanism for a multiplicity of voices and for the discussion of a wide variety of audiences. Youtube is also a good media form that is easy to access to worldwide Internet audiences and provide the ability of audience and poster to communicate with each other" (Ono and Pham, 149). 

In the book Global Asian American Popular Cultures, Dave mentions how Michelle Phan combines all media to become a "beauty guru". She uses laptop and internet to create online makeup tutorial videos. By using a music star, Lady Gaga as an inspiration for Phan makeup tutorial, she makes her online video become a hot trend in the cosmetic industry. She also uses traditional media like TV shows, commercial shows, and press to spread her beauty trend to the world.

The website https://dorothywang.com, that my classmate Amy Ricalde introduces to my class, is an awesome example of the combination between both new media and old media of another APAs. Dorothy skillfully combines many forms such as: 

• TV shows: Steve TV shows, NBC's shows

Dress like a celeb for less! || STEVE HARVEY

• Web and app-based mini-series to distribute her works through the internet, television, mobile devices, magazines, and etc. 

The other links that my classmates introduce to class also demonstrate how APAs are utilizing all media to create or sustain general media discourse.

https://www.8asians.com/ is an Asian American collaborative blog that uses the new media platform, the blog, to introduce representations of APAs. This website uses traditional media like books review, commercials and TV shows (Audi, NBC-The Good Place), movie, sports, foods, etc. Similar to Dorothy's websites, this website also tactfully immerge the traditional media into new media (Youtube, blog, internet, and web-based platform) to redefine who APAs. 

https://hyphenmagazine.com/ is simple than dorothywang.com and 8asians.com website. Hyphenmagazine is just a traditional media form, a magazine, that publishes APAs arts, foods, books, agricultures, and cultures in a new media distribution channel, web-based site. This website also includes new media forms like blog and twitter on their websites. Both traditional and new media help the website to spread their voice easier to a larger amount of audiences. 

Summary to this episode, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans now have more opportunities to grab their success. Although the barriers from the model minority of APAs are not easy to break through, APAs can create their own platform and distributions channels to speak their voices and represent their true identities. 

References:

Davé, Shilpa, Leilani Nishime, and Tasha Oren, eds. Global Asian American Popular Cultures. New York: New York University Press, 2016.

Ono, Kent A. and Vincent Pham. Asian Americans and the Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2009

Episode 3_The New Media or The Information Age Is An Advantage for APAs

Traditional, the old mass media has many channels such as motion picture, theatre, television, radio, art, music to create media discourse and manipulate the society on how APAs represent. Although these channels have done effectively, the Information Age makes a big revolution on how people access, absorb and provide information. 

Photo courtesy of MySocialAgency.com

Internet and mobile devices can provide a huge amount of information at any time and anywhere by just a few seconds. Besides, social networks like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, or Youtube are New Media that people can use to easily express their ideas. In addition, these social networks are able to stream any information to the people in the community without their notice. In other words, people nowadays can be both publishers and information owners.

It is a great opportunity for APAs to distinguished their real representation by these modern channels. Tradition, the old mass media did not provide any opportunity for APAs to distinguish themselves. Despite many individuals and community-based organizations struggled to challenge the old mass media, it took a very long and difficult effort to get the recognition that APAs representations are inadequate (Ono and Pham). 

In New Media, APAs can take the roles by their own to become recorders, publishers, and producers by using Vlogs, Blogs, Youtube, Instagram, Tweeter, etc. Moreover, New Media create a large network around the world which is a great opportunity for non-APAs to discover the real representation of Asian/Pacific Islanders and APAs by watching the videos, photos, and stories that display the true APAs. 

The links below are examples of how Asian Pacific Islander American can speak their voice in New Media:

I Am Not Your Asian Stereotype | Canwen Xu | TEDxBoise which has nearly 1.9 million viewers on Youtube.

Nigahiga is the comedy youtube channel of Asian American influencer, Ryan Higa, who has more than twenty million subscribers.

Twitter Kawasaki is the twitter link of a Pacific Islander American who is one of the most social media influencers.

Top Asian American Youtubers and Their Incomes is a website of a performance art organization shows how new media impact the media discourse and the representations of APAs. 

Reference:
         Ono, Kent A. and Vincent Pham. Asian Americans and the Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2009

Episode 2: Overcome Stereotypes and Recover True Identities

To be able to break the bamboo ceiling so that Asian and Pacific Islander Americans can unlock their potential to be in higher ranks in both careers and societies, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans need to know and understand what stereotypes they have to fight back. The mass media portrays Asian in Americans as "wimpy businessmen or bad guys" as Cary Tagawa said in The Slanted Screen and "nerdy or kung fu" (Lori, The Slanted Screen). 

Generally, Asian Pacific Americans have been stereotyped as:

1. Martial art experts or kung fu fighters: 

Although Bruce Lee is a legend of APAs in Hollywood, he unintentionally creates a stereotype that APAs are martial art experts. As a result, most of the APAs Hollywood stars like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Lucy Liu, or Magie Q famous for their martial related roles.

Stars War

2. Geeks

APAs are often distinguished as boring, socially awkward like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany. APAs often play roles of doctors, nurses, or tech nerd in motion pictures as well as commercial ads. 

3.Yellow Peril 

Yellow Peril is a stereotype that creates a racist fear of APAs. In mass media, APAs men often portray characters who dangerous to white women.

4. Dragon Ladies

East and South and Southeast Asian American women in mass media are portrayed as sexy, beautiful, but strong, deceitful, and domineering. 

Kill Bill

5. Sexy Women

As mentioned in Slaying the Dragon Reloaded, even Jackie Chan, an Asian actor, introduce Asian American women as sexy women in Rush Hour 2. Impacted by history, when U.S. Force was in Asia countries, Asian women's image were military brides or prostitutes. This image leads to the incorrect representation that APAs women are sexy. This stereotype has continuously appeared in mass media.  

Rush Hours 2 

Besides these stereotypes, in the 1800s and early 1900s, Asian Pacific Islander American males were often distinguished as lascivious or dangerous to white women. In the late 1900s and 2000s, they are portrayed as less attractive, clumsy, or nerdy characters. In The Slanted Screen, interviewees mentioned that history also affected the representation of Asian Pacific Islanders in America. I totally agree that when there were tensions with Chinese or Japanese or Korea, or other Asian countries, the mass media tends to perform the images of Asian American as evils and dangerous. 

The Asian Pacific Islander American females stereotypical representation as powerful, sexy, and submissive. As I see the analyzing from several researchers in the Slaying The Dragon Reloaded, I think the mass media has been affected by what actually happened during the time the US forces were in Asian. Many local Asian women became military brides or prostitutes and the mass media used their images to represent Asian women in America. 

Professor Darrell Hamamoto stated in The Slanted Screen that Asian Pacific Islander Americans need to steep into the ranks of writers, producers, executives instead of not only performing roles. Indeed, Asian Pacific Islander Americans have been finding ways to recover their true image. Flower Drum Song is one of the examples. The film shows that Asian American can dance, act, and sing at the same time. In addition, the film recorrected all the stereotypical representations about females and males Asian in American who are not kung fu fighters nor evils nor less attractive. Instead, the film shows how Asian integrate into the life of American. Together with their culture and traditional songs, dances, and activities in the Chinese community, Chinese Americans perform European ball dances in their party. In the Chinese style garden, Chinese Americans wear American gowns and suites celebrates their achievements in American life. Flower Drum Song distinguished to the mass media that Asian Pacific Americans integrate into the American culture and lifestyles while and still keep their original culture and lifestyles.

In the early stage of the history of motion pictures, there is a racist to Asian American by the "yellowface logic" which is defined as in the lecture slides that Asian cannot perform their own roles, but non-Asian performers take roles of Asian by wearing make-up. Yellowface is actually a bias and lead to the difficulty for Asian American in casting the decision in the later time. 

References: 

       Adachi, Jeff. The Slanted Screen. Asian American Media Mafia: 2006

       Koster, Henry. Flower Drum Song. Universal Picture. 1961

       Kim, Elaine. Slaying The Dragon Reloaded, Asian Union United: 2011