The Invisibility of Asian Americans & Gay Asian Men.
I came to America in 2004, and I have spent a good 12 years living in San Jose. But never have I seen an Asian president, governor, mayor, or principal in the state of California. Maybe Madison Nguyen will come close to becoming the first and only Asian mayor of San Jose, and she would be the first Vietnamese American to ever hold a seat in government positions.
And as I am writing this,I also found out that there is also a guy named Evan Low who is the mayor of Silicon Valley. He is Chinese American and is the first gay mayor of California. But funny how I have never heard of him until I was googling the history of Asian American mayor(s) in California. Madison Nguyen and him are the only ones that popped up.
My point is: Asian Americans are completely invisible from many aspects of life. When they apply for colleges, people think that they compete against a pool of applicants coming from other groups such as Mexican Americans or African Americans, but they do not. They compete against peers of their own ethnic group. Colleges have decided to pitch Asian Americans against each other for the available spots on the campuses. In my opinion, that is unfair since people should get accepted into the college of their dream base on their academic performances and their community involvement, not their race. But then again, every universities want their campuses to have “diversity". Therefore, if an Asian kid with a 3.8 GPA and an African kid with a 3.5 GPA is competing for the same spot, the African American kid will surely get it. And please, do not even get me started on what would happen if Hilary Clinton and her policy of affirmative action is put into effect. So if you do not know what is affirmative action, here is a quick rundown: it is a government policy/program designs to help fight injustices against specific groups by giving them special access to education and employment.It is funny how affirmative action suppose to help out the minorities, but in this case, it is not doing justice to Asian American kids. Affirmative action is preventing them from getting their well-deserved spots at the colleges of their dreams, and is giving these spots to less qualified applicants. For more on how affirmative action is working against Asian Americans, check out this article:
Not only are Asian Americans are fighting for a standing in their education opportunities, but in their professional careers and daily lives too. Even after completing their Bachelor degree and pursuing higher education, Asian Americans are least likely to hold a managerial position in their workplace. They also get paid less. When they voice the injustices happening in their communities, nobody would respond or even listen to them. Rarely, any problems occurring will be solved. As time goes by, Asian Americans realize that nobody will listen to their problems, so they learn to live with them instead.
So why am I bringing up this issue, and what does it has to do with anything? Yes, this issue connects to other things, like how invisible gay Asian men are too. In the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) community, gay Asian men is like a minority within a minority. When you turn on the TV, you see a gay man but he is white. The image of a gay white man is too common, and that is probably the first thing we thought of when we think of a gay guy. But what about the gay in the Asian population? Sadly, nobody even pay attention to them. Everyone assumes that there is no gay Asian men, but there is. Not all of them wanted to be straight. They just pretend to be straight so they do not have to endure the endless questions from their parents of “ how come you are gay?” or “ is there any way you can be straight?” So yes, coming out in an Asian family is difficult for these guys, because they already know that their families will not support them being gay. Mostly, their families will shut them out or disown them. To prevent that from happening, these gay men will forever continue to fake their sexuality. Some of them do take it to the extreme by marrying a woman and starting a family with her just to ensure their parents that they are heterosexual.
Being shun by their families is already worse,but gay Asian men are also shun by their peers in the LGBTQ community. In their respective community, they are called rice queens due to their small and slender figures that are similar to that of a woman. In drag queens competitions, members not from other communities would hate on them because they feel like the gay Asian men have a strong advantage over them due to their effeminate features. These features help them to look more “womanly” in drag queen contests, which is why they would win the competitions most of the time.Feeling that these Asian gay men have such a strong advantage over them, other gay men in the LGBTQ community develop a dislike toward them.They start to put the gay Asian men in a special category, and define them as being “different" than everyone else. In doing so, they make out the image that gay Asian men is lowest of the low in the gay community and should not be treated the same like others. This mentality is then passed around and is quickly accepted. In gay pornography, for example, Asian men are given submissive roles where they portray an image of someone that love to be dominated by other men. But the low status attaching to gay Asian men does not stop there. In a relationship, they are believed to be the subordinate one. What is even weirder is that people think that the partner of an Asian man is always a white person. I feel like that is such a cliché. Even in heterosexual relationship, Asians alway exaggerate what a nice thing it is to be dating a white guy.This is why it is not surprising to see white men pursuing Asian partners because they see Asian men as exotic and submissive.
So as you can see, there is a lot of issues that Asian Americans as well as gay Asian men are facing throughout their lives. They are constantly shut out and marginalize by either the system or the community. Sadly, these problems that they are experiencing will continue to persist for a long time before any of them will be solved. And in order to solve these problems, people must first acknowledge that they do exist and stop denying that they do not!
