The Dangers of Covering
Besides being the month of flowers (read: spring time allergies), mothers, graduation (shoutout to my Carnegie Mellon University friends graduating today) and the holiday that kicks off the summer season, May is also Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM). According to the national site for Asian Pacific American heritage, the term is used to represent all of the Asian continent as well as the Pacific Islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, and the Federated States of Micronesia), and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Easter Island). May was chosen for two reasons: to mark the date of immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843 and to honor the many Chinese immigrants who laid the tracks for the transcontinental railroad completed on May 10, 1869.
For this month’s professional development article, I wanted to take a look at the concept of “covering” and how it relates to Asian Pacific American culture, or at least my experience of it. The term was coined in 1963 by Erving Goffman, a sociologist, to describe an individual’s behavior to downplay a stigmatized characteristic that distinguishes them. One example given by Goffman was President Franklin Roosevelt’s tendency to greet people while seated behind a desk so they wouldn’t notice the wheelchair first.
Kenji Yoshino further elaborated by outlying four distinct areas that people “cover”: appearance, affiliation, advocacy, and association. In a 2013 paper released by Kenji Yoshino (Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law) and Christie Smith (Managing Principal, Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion, Deloitte LLP), they provide an overview of how individuals “cover” along each of those axes as well as results from their study showing what percentage of different groups cover in the workplace.
Appearance-based covering concerns how individuals alter their self-presentation — including grooming, attire, and mannerisms — to blend into the mainstream. For instance, a Black woman might straighten her hair to de-emphasize her race.
Affiliation-based covering concerns how individuals avoid behaviors widely associated with their identity, often to negate stereotypes about that identity. A woman might avoid talking about being a mother because she does not want her colleagues to think she is less committed to her work.
Advocacy-based covering concerns how much individuals “stick up for” their group. A veteran might refrain from challenging a joke about the military, lest she be seen as overly strident.
Association-based covering concerns how individuals avoid contact with other group members. A gay person might refrain from bringing his same-sex partner to a work function so as not to be seen as “too gay.” (Yoshino and Smith, 2013)
As a woman of Asian descent, I have often found myself in situations where I think to myself, “everyone here acts so Asian” as if I weren’t Asian as well. The term “fresh off the boat” is used as a way for some to distance themselves from “those Asians” who haven’t assimilated as well as they have. As a freshman in college, I consciously made the choice to not associate with too many other Asians and didn’t join the Asian Student Association during the fall semester when many of my friends did. Occasionally I have found myself downplaying the fact that I am in a sorority as if I want to distance myself from the stereotypes of a “sorority girl”. I am the girliest of girls and pink is my absolute favorite, but my closet is filled with more “masculine” blues, greens, and neutrals to not stand out. I am thankful that I have large eyes that often results in someone assuming I’m not full Chinese. I make fun of my stereotypical inability to drink alcohol without almost immediately feeling the “glow” and use it as an excuse to not join the others in rounds of shots.
Yet, how much of who I truly am is hidden by these covering mechanisms?
How much of my personality and my character are based on people’s view of me as a woman of Chinese descent?
Am I really remaining true to myself?
If I cover up those experiences, maybe I am missing something else. The shared experiences of growing up in an Asian household bring people together. While I may not be “fresh off the boat” (or BOBA — “brought over by airplane” as is more likely the case nowadays), my parents and grandparents were. My sorority, Delta Delta Delta, has raised over $25 million USD for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and made the largest single pledge in St. Jude’s history of raising $60 million USD. The Pink Panther is one of the most-loved cartoons — and he is fabulously, unashamedly Pepto-Bismol pink. My eyes being large are not what make them useful to me; it’s the fact that they work and that I can see the colors and sights of this world. I can have just as much fun while sober as my friends do when tipsy (or drunk).
I shouldn’t be ashamed of these. I should be proud of these traits, accepting of these traits, and acknowledge that I wouldn’t be ME without these. But do they belong at work? At what point do we say, “this is me, take it or leave it” and at what point do we say, “I’ll show a different side of me at work, no less true, just the tip of the iceberg instead of the full bulk”? How often do you feel stifled by the unspoken rules to blend in by covering?
I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows. What do you think?
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Originally published at www.saseconnect.org.
