My Response to My Interviews

I never really thought about the aspect of cultural appropriation when brainstorming WP1 and WP2 until I asked about the Mexican American and Nigerian American woman’s perspectives. Of course, when thinking about biculturalism, cultural appropriation will always be the headline of the topic. Both of their responses intersected with the fact that eurocentric views will always dominate the beauty industry, no matter what other cultures’ beauty standards exist. Actually, all four of my interviews stated the general fact that American standards are dominant in biculturalistic beauty standards and are often the culture that exacerbates fast consumerism:

K: I think consumerism in America can be very quick to change, as I see trends on the Internet are often in motion.

N: There have been instances where Black men would openly state that they desire a light skin woman, and when asked why they would not give a sufficient response to justify that they are not a colorist.

C: I definitely do [try to fit American beauty standards], I try to be skinnier and have good face makeup.

D: But sometimes these beauty standards are at the expense of minority cultures–like they pick and choose what they want, take away from their culture. Most of the beauty standards are Eurocentric and based on European beauty ideals.

Considering that American beauty trends come so quickly and leave even more so, it’s inevitable that they take from different cultures, as D describes. They see what the typical feature derived from a certain race, such as Chinese slanted eyes, and then make an aesthetic out of it. Suddenly, what people are once bullied for, from a xenophobic and oppressive point of view, is now being celebrated only because it’s a white person in America making it trendy. D and N support this:

D: I feel like Mexican culture sort of mirrors American culture because of the eurocentric nature and also because the US is seen as such a glorified place.

N: Recently, when I had my hair in a high puff, a woman asked me “when am I getting my hair done?” But if someone wore the same hairstyle but had a looser texture, they would not have been approached with that question. They would have probably been told that their hair was cute.

Conversely, because of the eurocentric standard that everyone around the world is aware of, other culture’s standards are starting to merge with American’s. For example, in China, many online shopping sites photoshop their models to be curvier in the hips and larger breasts rather than the original standard of just being stick thin. This contrasts my many years of desiring to fit into Chinese beauty standards of being thin because even now, my goal is still to be completely thin. Except–now, which culture am I trying to conform to? It’s made me start questioning how true I am to my cultures and what I need to do to stay within the trends when they are moving so fucking quickly, especially America’s.

Sustainability is a very large issue right now, and all four of my interviewees acknowledged that. How did we go from beauty standards just being a social issue, by which society pressures women to look a certain way, to an economic and human rights issue as well? We are putting South, Southeast, and East Asian low-income lives on the line in order to chase beauty ideals when the ideals are…basically never set in stone. What are women exactly chasing? And will we ever stop? Knowing me, I probably will not. I have started learning to love myself for my appearance, but that can occur simultaneously with feeding into the cycle that the oppressed are trapped in. For the sake of convenience and money, I will most likely be consuming the trends that come out from fast fashion businesses, even with the guilt. The next step is to understand how can women as a whole liberate ourselves from this cycle of guilt vs. the continuation of a negative feedback loop. How will we come together in dialogue and practice both reflection and action in order to fight against societal and cultural laws of beauty, and destroy the narrative altogether?