A White Poet By Any Other Name
Multiplicity And The Minority
by Vikram Babu
Yi-Fen Chou — or rather, Michael Derrick Hudson — recently fooled the editors of Best American Poetry by submitting under a Chinese name, thinking he’d gain a leg up in poetry until his duplicity was easily discovered and damningly publicized.
I couldn’t quite place what was wrong with the picture, but the books I used to read as a kid evoked imagery of places and culture not mine. Perhaps the Hardy Boys & The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn helped me acclimate Western — or rebel — but when my older brother handed me a copy of A Fine Balance, I pictured myself in literature. None of my high school classes in that sprawling Canadian suburbia touched on anything Asian cultural, surprising considering many of my classmates were. So I was left to my own in discovering Other literature and histories. Like that kid who learns he’s adopted and goes in search of his real parents, I took to reading every South Asian author I could find in the mall library. And after graduating near top of my high school with average English grades and a year of Engineering Science that didn’t work for me, I dropped my Catholic first name, grabbed a slew of novels and backpacked through my ancestral lands with a camera and journal. I stood between Mother India — also the title of a book by an American woman demonizing Indian societal moires — and my legal lands.
I’d go to some lengths to find Other authors, the library didn’t cover enough so I’d browse the campus bookstores stoned. Names and philosophies emerged increasingly reflective of changing readers and populations. Sometimes it meant hauling books back from India. Still the publishers as much as curriculums are disproportionately Caucasian male while the Others who publish tend to only occupy shelves as writings on the subaltern — although I’m not sure that’s you’d find a bookstore aisle titled Asian Tragedy. Perhaps it’s an Eastern dialog with death or just Orientalism, but the reader can’t help but wonder about such a sad Life of Why, I mean, Pi on a boat with a Bengal tiger or Calvin and Hobbes. Perhaps I should watch the movie to understand the book. I find it circumspect that there are at least as many bestsellers about India written by Non-Indians are there are written by Indians. But it seems that for Michael Derrick Hudson, 91% White representation in poetry but multiple rejections was still unacceptable. What does it say that a poet changed his name in a stunt to up his publishing career with what “isn’t bad but…far from one of the best American poems of the year.” That and the duplicity is what most people will remember, “a game, meant to be gamed.”
—
India is huge, its cultures many and diaspora widespread. As unlikely as meeting someone with your birthday, I didn’t expect that two Tamil writer–designers would be standing on XOXO Festival grounds at Washington High, Portland. Arun spotted Scott after Anil’s talk about properly accrediting makers and introduced himself as a fan, requesting a selfie and drawing a big smile.
I eschew fanboy behavior partly since everybody is famous on the Internet and I suffer from some Twitter amnesia. Here we were, a Texan Tamil, an Ontarian Tamil and a Portland Scotsman. I’m from the fisherman caste though not off a boat, I assumed Arun was Brahmin though his kin were likely landowners and Scott is definitely not Jewish. Brief introductions, some commentary on the generally lacking diversity of attendees and chatter on web publishing’s contents and twitter’s discontents, Scott surprisingly asked, or maybe confessed, “Do you know what I realized my biggest privilege as a white man is?” He seemed nonchalant in a likable gray blue Guyabera shirt, that I assumed it was a rhetorical question from a gentle stranger.
“That my opinion as a white man is never challenged. In the decade I’ve been blogging, I’ve only ever received two complaints by email.”
I admired his candidness and honesty in voicing as much and for reminding us where we had stood on pecking order of op-eds. I never read the comments. Ever. They are always brutal and basic.
I’d attended XOXOFest for arts, culture and diversity reasons. Prior to going, I was asked by a friend exhibiting some envy, how I was one of the selected attendees? I answered that I was a diversity pick — an answer seemingly easier than reminding folks of popular esoteric publications I’d started. And XOXO’s lineup was as representative of online conversations as it was of changing populations, though likely closer to NYC boroughs than Portland. If you asked me how I ended up writing for Message, I’d likely give you a similar reassuring answer. I got to where I am because people felt pity on my middle class upbringing and immigrant experience. Thanks to the generosity of Western hearts, they opened a door for me, subaltern, and handed me the keys. Then in an effort to break the tension, I’ll pretend to pull back the skin of my face, reveal that I’m actually a White man underneath, launch into laughter, sending strangers into fits. Rarely, if ever, have I received favorable treatment on account of my name — often mistaken for a certain sexually deviant yogi or just a developer. “Like the yoga but hotter”, I’ll addend when introducing myself. For better or worse, I choose to carry the color and meaning of my middle name, which as Hudson wants to remind Americas literary society, is all boon. Nope.
—
Inevitably in creative fields as elsewhere, we come up against an author’s multiplicity of identities. Perhaps Vikram Seth writes about San Francisco yuppies as much as A Suitable Boy. Perhaps Yann Martel traveled extensively through India and Michael Derrick Hudson did the same in China. But he doesn’t indicate as much nor intend to travel. Hudson uses Chou because it is easier. “[I] was rejected under my real name forty times before I sent it out as Yi-Fen-Chou (I keep detailed submission records). As Yi-Fen Chou, the poem was rejected nine times before Prairie Schooner took it.” Instead his comment places his motives as a statement against affirmative action, somehow #Columbusing minority names while evidencing reverse racism. He holds that special distinction of #ReverseColumbusing, appropriating another’s culture while insinuating subjective injustice, a bait-and-switch logic like his pen name.
Such is an identity luxury I’ve never had, to be afforded any identity with none of the burden — banker, trustafarian, suburban rapper. Most minorities are assigned a single identity based on name and color — nerd, asexual, uncreative. With a population as large as Asians and hailing from a culture of antiquity, our skills and personality distribution would statistically include writers, musicians, artists, scientists, chefs, priests etc. I don’t have numbers but I have seen so myself. This is the real ingenuity behind the invention of Whiteness, that it bears no cultural history and therefore no particular identity — omniscient even. His inability to take NO for an answer does a disservice to the Other voices in the anthology, and “diminishes categorically all of our accomplishments”, specifically those real Asian American poets published alongside, Chen Chen, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Monica Youn. It’s challenging enough to be published without a White guy questioning your validity and gaming center stage.
—
Later at the festival, I commented to Arun that Scott showed something more than empathy, more than a nod or a trending mention. He offered an embrace and a retweet which I found rare considering he has 100x the Twitter followers I do. Surprising considering that many “White people don’t like it when we don’t do well and they don’t like it when we do. But most of all, they don’t like it when they don’t do well.” And yet Scott jovially wanted to share his stage with Others. Arm around me at some point, he would introduce us to other tech fans as new old friends. It wasn’t until the next day and meeting his two half Black kids, that I understood why he wanted Others to succeed.
In the publishing world, which is changing nearly as fast as our polarizing politics, we need heterodoxy and representation of Other voices in writing. I think we deserve to hear real Asian American poets long before a White poet going by an Asian name.
Readings
- Did the Name Sell His Poem? by David Orrsept, NYT
- When White Poets Pretend To Be Asian by Hua Hsu, New Yorker
- They Pretend To Be Us While Pretending We Don’t Exist by Jenny Zhang, Buzzfeed Books
- After Yi-Fen Chou: 19 Writers Respond To Michael Derrick Hudson’s Yellowface by Asian American Writers’ Workshop
- An Open Letter To Aimee Nezhukumatathil by Kazim Ali, Rumpus
- I’m Chinese, And Sherman Alexie Chose Me by Dika Lam, Rumpus
