Film, Literature and Chinese American Identity

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2, University of Tubingen, language: English, abstract: simplistic interpretation of a very limited number of works. The claims I will make in

the following are all based on my personal observations of the works in question.

Since this is supposed to be a rather brief term paper, I will not be able to prevent myself

from essentializing the people I talk about. When I speak of Americans or whites, I do

not, at any rate, mean everyone living in America whose skin is white but everyone who

has bought into the mediäs portrayal of Chinese Americans and the stereotypes existing

in America, in other words, everyone believing in a white supremacist ideology. Likewise,

when I speak of Chinese Americans, I do not mean all Chinese Americans reunited but a

certain part of the Chinese American population who will react in the way I describe. All

this does not take into consideration the more and more complex composition of

Chinese America.

Some of what I will claim applies to other minorities, as well, especially to other groups

of Asian heritage that have united with Chinese Americans under the umbrella term

¿Asian Americans.¿ This term, coined by the late Japanese American scholar Yuji

Ichioka, homogenizes various groups of different Asian descent and does not take into

account their respective historical, cultural, political or other background. They have

united in order to fight for certain clearly defined political issues that concern all of

them, such as anti-Asian violence, racism, etc. White supremacists are probably

unaware of this political coalition anyways, due to their racist view that all Asians are

alike.