How The Obamas’ “American Factory” Played into Trump’s Xenophobic Narrative and Elite Anti-Asian Bias

Here are some basic facts about Fuyao Glass America, the subject matter behind “American Factory”, the Netflix-made, Barack and Michelle Obama-produced documentary:

Fuyao Glass America’s parent company — Fuyao Group — is one of the largest automotive glass manufacturers in the world. The group was founded in 1987 by Cao Dewang — “the glass king” — a self-made billionaire who enriched himself by taking advantage of China’s massive industrialization drive that created over 400 billionaires in one generation. The United States is 6 times richer than China on a GDP per capita basis and has about 550 billionaires.

The automotive glass segment is worth over $20 billion a year globally. While lucrative, transportation is a high component of export costs. The auto glass industry is also becoming more R&D/capital-intensive as new windshields need to be integrated into sophisticated systems and integrated electronics.

In 2013, as part of its expansion plans into the U.S. market, Fuyao Group evaluated several sites in Ohio and Michigan, before deciding to invest in an abandoned General Motors assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio. The facility opened on October 7, 2016 with much fanfare.

Today, Fuyao Glass America’s Moraine plant is considered the largest automotive glass factory in the world, employing over 2,000 workers in Moraine, including 200 supervisors of Chinese nationality. In 2018, Fuyao Glass America earned $25 million in profits against $341 million in revenues. While controversial, the facility is considered a success and the company announced early this year that is was expanding into South Carolina.

The Heart of “American Factory” Is Organized Labor

In 2017, pro-union Fuyao Glass America workers petitioned to join the United Auto Workers (“UAW”). At the elections administered by the National Labor Relations Board, the petition lost by a resounding margin of 34–66%.

Unsurprisingly — and not without merit, in my opinion— the losing side alleged Fuyao managers deployed unethical and illegal tactics to intimidate workers into voting against joining UAW. Since 2017, there have been multiple lawsuits filed alleging Fuyao terminated employees illegally and violated various safety and labor laws. Fuyao has settled at least one such lawsuit without admitting guilt and is litigating other lawsuits.

“American Factory” directors — Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert — are well-versed in labor issues. In fact, some of their most acclaimed work are about collective bargaining and the American working class, including Reichert’s Union Maids (1976), a story about three women union organizers during the early Depression era; Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists (1983), a documentary chronicling the activities of the American Community Party; and of course the Academy Award-nominated The Last Truck: Closing of A GM Plant in 2009.

In many ways, American Factory is a sequel to The Last Truck, expanding on decades-old narratives of the Rust Belt’s economic decline, working class stagnation and exploitation of the working class by Big Business.

Dressing Up An Old Cause With A New Hook

What’s changed since 2009 when The Last Truck was made?

Union membership has declined, mainly due to the lack of sponsorship by corporations. Only 11% of American workers enjoy collective bargaining in 2017 versus 20–25% in the early 1980s. The vast majority of Fortune 500 companies continue to resist the formation of labor unions. If polls are to be believed, public support for unions has actually increased by about 10% during the same period, but it remains to be seen if voters’ commitment would translate to a willingness to pay higher prices for goods and services, as well as higher taxes, needed to sustain a growing unionized workforce.

Against this backdrop, Messers Bognar and Reichert needed to deliver a documentary on an beaten subject matter i.e. organized labor with a new hook. They accomplished this by creating a new set of villains — foreigners and foreign businesses interloping into American life.

“American Factory” Presented an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Asian Stereotypes

While organized labor may be the heart of “American Factory”, it wasn’t the hook that the producers and marketers decided would bring the audience in.

The marketing strategy — dog whistle? — laid plain in the movie poster:

Cultures Collide. Hope Survives.

The documentary spans just over an hour, and over half of the screen time was devoted to these so-called cultural collisions and other unflattering portrayals of the Chinese nationals:

• American managers smirking at a traditional Chinese dance (subtext: Asians are so dumb and have a weird culture!)
• A Chinese manager not being communicative to a Black worker — or was it the other way around, it doesn’t matter, you know who the directors want you to root for — relying on a Black supervisor to mediate a confrontational situation (subtext: Asians are just so racist!)
• A ruthless Chinese billionaire who spoke no English but watch those cameras linger on those self-aggrandizing portraits (subtext: Asians are so vain and full of themselves!)
• A Chinese trainer taught Chinese supervisors to manage-via-flattery, saying “Donkeys like being touched in the direction their hair grows” (subtext: look out, those Asians look down on Americans!)
• A Mandarin-speaking “yes-man” American who was (beyond) nauseatingly deferential to his Chinese supervisor (subtext: that’s the fate of Americans, if we allow those gooks to invade us!)
• Lonely Chinese men eating dinners together — without romantic partners and companions (subtext: even as supervisors, Asian men are still un-dateable!)

These images were deliberate. They were meant to invoke deep antipathy to these foreign nationals. They were meant to denigrate.

It would be impossible to imagine a similar documentary being made of, say, human smugglers at the southern border — because the directors would want the audience to know about the contextual nuances and manifold struggles involved. But when it comes to soulless Chinese gooks, well… at least (American) “hope survives”.

“American Factory” Feeds Into Trump’s Anti-Immigrant, Xenophobic Narrative

Timing is everything. In a different time and place, “American Factory” and its stereotypes of Asians may not have been problematic.

But these are no ordinary times.

The election of Donald Trump brought immigration, identity and xenophobia out to the forefront of American consciousness. Foreigners and immigrants may have always existed in America. But after November 8, 2016, they were subject to a whole new level of scrutiny in ways inconceivable before Trump.

Decent and fair-minded Americans found themselves asking (or rather, thinking) the more private of questions involving their extended family members, friends and acquaintances:

The hairdresser who is always available during holidays — is she an “illegal”?

The new MBA who is trying so hard to land a job in the U.S. — shouldn’t he just go back to his country and “contribute to his own people”?

Why do the foreigners act so uncouthly in public areas? Why are they so loud?

Why are foreigners buying property, inflating prices when homelessness is an issue and “ordinary Americans” can’t afford to own?

Why do irresponsible parents risk the lives of children to cross the border?

Donald Trump understands — more than any of his political opponents — that to control the narrative is to command the podium. Whoever who commands the podium has the advantage when it comes to framing issues and winning-by-default votes from disengaged and uninformed voters.

Even as “American Factory” tried to bolster the case for unions, its artistic flourishes and manufactured story-telling fed hatred and xenophobia into its intended core audience — Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters supportive of progressive causes.

Elites’ Blind Spot: Anti-Asian Bias

Elites have always had a blind spot for anti-Asian bias, notably on the issue of affirmative action and representation. The Democratic political machinery has worked hard to co-opt issues important to the Black and Latino communities, but have not one the same for Asian Americans, despite the high prevalence of poverty within some subgroups of Asian ethnicity.

Equality and diversity are works-in-progress in America. Even as Asian Americans fight for a seat at the table, it is always important to note that our community shares many challenges and goals with our brothers and sisters of color, and disadvantaged Americans of every race, religion and background.

That said, it was still disappointing to observe that Barack and Michelle Obama — both of whom I admire and respect — may have missed the important cues that would have advised against lending their considerable imprimatur to a movie that played directly into Donald Trump’s xenophobic narrative of foreigners taking over local jobs, exploiting Americans and engaging in criminal activity.

Is it really possible — I grimaced as I read the final credits for “American Factory” — for media elites and progressives to take in the lop-sided representations in “American Factory” and NOT CONSIDER how these images are racist, hurtful and inflicting damage to Asian Americans?

I would love to delude myself into thinking that the answer is most Americans see Asian Americans as distinctly different from non-American Asians.

Even if the real answer is — Asian Americans are an inconvenient afterthought for America’s creative class, media and political elites.

Jay Gho is a New Yorker who loves dogs, cooking and Orange is the New Black. Contact him at jay@jaygho.com.