ASIANAMERICANFEMINISMSANDWOMENOFCOLORPOLITICS
EDITEDBYLYNNFUJIWARAANDSHIREENROSHANRAVAN
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LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATANames:Fujiwara,Lynn,1964–editor.|Roshanravan,Shireen,editor.Title:AsianAmericanfeminismsandwomenofcolorpolitics/editedbyLynnFujiwaraandShireenRoshanravan.Description:Seattle:UniversityofWashingtonPress,[2018]|Series:Decolonizingfeminisms|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.|Identifiers:LCCN2018011126(print)|LCCN2018012662(ebook)|ISBN9780295744377(ebook)|ISBN9780295744360(hardcover:alk.paper)
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CHAPTER12
WEAPONIZINGOUR(IN)VISIBILITYAsianAmericanFeministRupturesoftheModel-MinorityOptic
SHIREENROSHANRAVAN
InNovemberof2014,PeterLiang,aChineseAmericanpoliceofficeremployedbytheNewYorkCityPoliceDepartment (NYPD),was conducting a routine patrol in the dark stairwell of a predominantlyAfrican American public housing unit in Brooklyn. With the elevator out of commission, residentsregularlyused thestairwell toenterorexit theunit.On thisday, foranunknownreason,OfficerLiangentered the dark stairwell with his gun drawn and ready to fire; it accidentally went off. The bulletricocheted off a wall and killed Akai Gurley, an innocent unarmed African American father whohappened tobe leavinghis friend’sseventh-storyapartment. Insteadof immediatelyadministeringCPRandcallingforanambulance,asprofessionalprotocolrequired,LiangleftGurleytobleed,asheworriedabout his own fate instead ofGurley’s imminent death.1Consequently,Liangwas indicted for second-degreemanslaughter,achargethatcarriesasentenceofuptofifteenyearsinprison,becomingthefirstNYPD officer to be indicted in ten years for an on-duty shooting. In response to Liang’s indictment,ChineseAmericans across the nation took to the streetswith signs that read “Racist Prosecution” and“Peter Liang Deserves Justice Too.” The first nationwide public protest led by Asian Americans indecadessoughtpublicattentionforwhattheybelievedwastheracistprosecutionor“scapegoating”ofaChineseAmerican police officer (Wang2016). JusticeDannyChun eventually reducedLiang’s chargefrommanslaughter tocriminallynegligenthomicideandsentencedLiang to fiveyearsofprobationandeighthundredhoursofcommunityservicebutnojailtime.
As thenationwideprotestseruptedagainstLiang’s indictment,anotherAsianAmericanmobilizationtookflightinsupportofGurley’sfamilyandthelargerBlackLivesMattermovement.InNewYorkCity,theCommitteeAgainstAnti-AsianViolence(CAAAV)andAsians4BlackLives-NYCissuedstatementstotheChineseandlargerAsianAmericancommunitytodeclaresolidaritywithGurley’sfamilyanddemandpoliceaccountabilityforthesystemicmurderofBlackpeople(Rao2016).DuringadiscussionhostedbytheindependentmediaoutletDemocracyNow!CAAAVexecutivedirectorCathyDangsatnext toAkaiGurley’saunt,HertenciaPetersen,invocalandvisualsolidaritywithPetersen’sdemandsforjusticeforherslainnephew.Dang’svisualandideologicalalignmentwithGurley’sauntstoodinstarkcontrast tothat of John Liu, also present for the discussion,who sat opposite Petersen and persistently defendedLiang’slightsentence.WhileLiu,thefirstAsianAmericanelectedtothecitycouncilinNewYorkCity,argued with Petersen and at times talked over her, Dang entered the conversation infrequently butthoughtfullytosupportPetersonandthelargerdemandtoholdallpoliceofficersaccountableformurder.She never attempted to speak for Petersen ormake her own display ofAsianAmerican solidarity thereasonforbeingpresent.Instead,DangmadeclearinhercommentsthatPetersen’sdemandsshouldalso
beAsianAmericandemands,insistingthat“alllivesmatterwhenBlacklivesmatter”(DemocracyNow!2015). Her presence in theDemocracyNow! segment offered a model of Asian American visibilityinextricablefromcoalitionwithBlackstruggle.
This chapter analyzes these different post-Liang trajectories ofAsianAmerican public visibility toarguethatAsianAmericanscanchallengewhatMitsuyeYamadacallsour“unnaturalinvisibility”onlybyenactingWomenofColorcoalitionpolitics.2InbothofherchaptercontributionstoThisBridgeCalledMyBack:WritingsbyRadicalWomenofColor,Yamada (1981,74) argues that silence in the faceofinjustice reinforces theOrientalist distortionofAsianAmericanwomenas the “least political” amongwomenofcolor.Yamada’scallcanbereadasanechoofFrankChinandJeffreyPaulChan’s(1972,75)claimthat“themethodofbeingnot-blackistomakealotofsilenceforallthenoisetheblacksmake.”Yet,as thePeterLiangprotestsmakeclear,breakingsilenceandpiercing thepublic shroudof a state-prescribedcompliant invisibility isnot sufficient tochallenge theanti-Black logicsofAsianAmericanracial formation. Given Women of Color critiques of the racial state as a purveyor of violence incommunities of color, what should a Women of Color political project of Asian American feministvisibilityentail?Ifmaintaining“culturesofdissemblance”isessentialtoWomenofColorstrategiesforcollective self-determination (Hine 1989), howdoweneed to rethinkwhat visibility shouldmean forAsian Americans who have benefited from the model-minority racial project at Black Americans’expense?
AsGraceKyungwonHong (2006, xvii) argues, the racial state’s commitment towhite supremacistneoliberal logicsmake “visibility a rupture, an impossible articulation,” for women of color and ourcommunities. Women of Color politics lives in this impossibility of legibility via the racial state’sdivisive logics and emerges as meaningful in coalitions across what Audre Lorde names our “non-dominantdifferences.”3Anchored incosmologiesandhistoriesof resistance thatchallengeEurocentricaccounts, nondominant understandings of the very differences used to justify systemic state violenceagainst us emerge within community, by and for those committed to living beyond state logics ofpossibility.Constructedas theantipode toapathologizeddefiantBlackness,with theprimarypointsofdistinction our obedience to authority (silence) and investment in heteropatriarchal tight-knit families(insularity), Asian Americans inhabit a powerful locus from which to understand the coalitionalimperativeofanystruggleagainststateviolence(Wu2015,171).TheprojectofAsianAmericanfeministpoliticalvisibility, therefore,cannotseekrepresentationthroughappealstothestateandits institutions,but rather must be communicative beyond Asian America as a refusal and disruption of the state’sdivisiveracistoptics.
Giventheabove,IengageDaphneBrooks’s(2006)tacticalstrategyof“spectacularopacities”tomapan Asian American communicative politics of visibility that respects opacity as integral to insurgentWomen of Color coalition politics. I invoke Édouard Glissant’s (1997, 67 and 49) understanding ofopacityas“thatwhichprotectstheDiverse”initsrefusal tobecomelegibleaccordingtoprinciplesofgeneralization that seek to assimilate or annihilate the other. The “spectacular” dimension of AsianAmericancoalitionalvisibilityisbornfromtheintentionalruptureof“model-minority”publictranscriptsthatgeneralizeAsianAmericansasthesilentandobedientracial-ethnicminority(invisible)whokeeptothemselves (insular).Exhibitsof coalitionalboundarycrossingare thuscentral to thisAsianAmericanfeministpraxisbecausetheydisruptbothstate-prescribedhostilitytowardothercommunitiesofcolorandtheheteropatriarchalprincipleofindifferencetothosenotlegallydefinedasone’sowncommunityorkin.The Chinese Americans protesting Liang’s indictment sought to rupture their invisibility as the silent,obedient racial-ethnicminoritywhile remaining loyal todivisiveprinciplesof insularity toprotectandadvance their own interests against state-imposed obstacles. As one Asian American participant at a
LiangprotestrallyconcededtoaBlackwomanwhoaskedwherewereAsianAmericansduringBlack-ledprotestsagainsttheracistcriminaljusticesystem:“Attheendoftheday,ifit’snotyourpeople,youdonotcare”(“ChristopherKwokDefendingChineseProtestors”2016).
Thecurrent#NotYourModelMinoritypledge andAsians4BlackLivesmobilizations in support of theBlack Lives Matter movement refuse this closed insularity in a communicative exhibit of coalitionalboundarycrossing.Byconfounding, ifnotdisarming, themodel-minorityscriptingofAsianAmericans,Asian-Black solidarity projects enact “spectacular opacities” or “dark points of possibility that createfigurative sites for the reconfiguration” of Asian American bodies “on display” (Brooks 2006, 8).DisplaysofAsian-Blacksolidarityrupturemodel-minorityconstructionsofAsianAmericansasinsular,silent, and anti-Black. The disruption of these dominant expectations of anti-Blackness renders AsianAmericans opaque in the face of “hostile spectators’ epistemological resistance to reading alternativeracial and gender representations” (8). This opacity in turn extends an invitation to (re)learn AsianAmerican (inter)subjectivity in coalitional relation with Black communities against whom we areracialized.
ASIAN-BLACKROOTS/ROUTESOFCOALITIONALVISIBILITY
I begin with Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs because they serve as important anchors forunderstandingthehistoricallegacyanddynamicsofwhatIamcallinganAsianAmericanfeministpraxisof coalitional visibility. As twoAsianAmericanwomen activists well knownwithin and beyond thegrassroots political and academic institutional circles ofAsianAmerica, they aremost recognized fortheir intimate and sustained commitment to movements for Black liberation rather than their politicalidentification orworkwithAsianAmerican communities. For this very reasonKochiyama andBoggsexemplify a processof becomingAsianAmericanpolitical protagonists throughmodesof relating andlearninginrelationtothoseagainstwhomwehavebeenracialized.Ihighlight,inparticular,Kochiyama’sandLee’semphasisonlearningabout,andidentifyingwith,Blackstrugglewithouteverappropriatingthatstruggleastheirown,andtheconsequentconfounding(orocclusion)oftheirAsianAmericanidentitiesvia this coalitional immersion. The question of whether Boggs and Kochiyama are more models offreedom fighters for Black community than Asian American feminist resisters signals an epistemicinvestment in what Glissant (1997, 11) calls “root identity.” Root identity reduces Asian Americanbelongingtosingulartermsoflineardescentfromanoriginarymythic(geographic,familial,cultural)siteof authentic and pure Asianness. If, however, we understand identity through Glissant’s “Poetics ofRelation,” inwhich“eachandevery identity isextended inand througha relationshipwith theOther,”then Kochiyama’s and Boggs’s Asian Americanness is not confounded by their deep and expansiverelationship with Black communities and struggles; by contrast, it is only in and through theserelationshipsthatwecanglimpsehow,andwithwhatmeaning,theyemergeasAsianAmerican.
Yuri Kochiyama’s activism is a key example of how cross-racial grassroots solidarity enacts“spectacularopacities”thatmakehersimultaneously“invisible”or“opaque”tothepublicyetvisibleinhercoalitionalcommitmenttoapoliticsofliberationacrosscommunitiesofstruggle.InC.A.Griffith’sandH.L.T.Quan’s(2010)documentaryfilmWhenMountainsTakeWing,AngelaDavisandKochiyamareflectonthelackofcreditgiventowomenofthecivilrightsandBlackPowermovements.Kochiyamastates,“Peopleknowwhoalmostallthebignameswere.”Davisjoinsherinfinishingthestatement:“Butnotthewomenwhodidtherealwork.”AsDavisaffirmsthisgeneralstatementonwomen’sinvisibilityinthe civil rights and Black Power movements, she does so as one of the few women famous for heractivisminthesemovementsandbeyond.Kochiyama,ontheotherhand,ismuchlesspopularlyknown.Davisthencontinues,“Ifwewanttoencourageyoungpeopletocontinuetodotheorganizingworkthat
will lead to social movement that will have a radical impact we have to legitimize the role of theorganizer,whichmeans,also,theworkthatwomen,thatyou’ve[pointingtoKochiyama]done.”
InthisexchangeDavisatoncelegitimizesKochiyama’slegacyofdoingthe“real”workoforganizinginsocialmovementsthathavehadaradicalimpactandcharacterizesthisworkas“women’swork.”Suchworkdoesnotyieldthekindoffameenjoyedbyapublicpoliticalactivistwhosenameeverybodyknows,byKochiyamaandDavis’sownaccount.Documentationof thedetailsofKochiyama’spolitical legacyandtheworkshemobilizedexposesherpoliticalworkasdecidedlygrassroots,coalitional,andradicalin itsorientation.Kochiyama’spoliticalvisibilitywas thusdecidedly routed throughand rooted inhercommitment to coalitional boundary crossing and the relationship-building processes integral tosustaining a coalitional movement. The goal of coalitional boundary crossing is not verticalcommunication with the state or general public, but rather horizontal communication with those withwhomoneseekstobuildnewhorizonsofliberation.This“real”workoforganizinginsocialmovementsremainsinvisiblebutgeneratesacoalitionalvisibilitythatcommunicatessolidarityacrossracial-ethnicboundariesofdifference.Becausethegoalofthis“real”workisnotvisibilitytothepublic,Kochiyama’sroleindoingthis“real”workrendersheropaqueexceptamongthosewithwhomsheismobilizingforsocialchange.
ThatKochiyamabecameradicalizedthroughtheBlackPowermovementservesasamodelofAsianAmerican feminist politics that affirms Asian American racial identity formation routed horizontallythrough people of color liberation rather than vertically toward model-minority assimilation. Herinvisibility to the public lies in the rupture of Asian American root identity and the presumptions ofinsularityattachedtomodel-minorityracialformation.Withinthisrupture,however,weglimpseanAsianAmericancoalitionalvisibilityrecognizedandhonoredbythecommunities(AsianandBlack)towhomshecommittedherlife’swork.
Similarly,GraceLeeBoggs(1998,xv)notesherown“habitofself-effacement”intheintroductiontoher autobiography: “As the only Chinese American present at political meetings, I tried not to drawattention to myself and was visibly embarrassed whenever I was singled out for praise. During theturbulent1960speopleusedtojokeaboutmy‘passionforanonymity.’”Shegoesontowritespecificallyabout the significance of her racialized gender identity as aChineseAmerican: “Had I not been bornfemaleandChineseAmerican, Iwouldnothave realized fromearlyon that fundamentalchangeswerenecessary in our society. Had I not been born female and Chinese American, I might have ended upteachingphilosophyatauniversity,anobserverratherthananactiveparticipantinthehumanity-stretchingmovements that have defined the last half of the twentieth century” (xi).Her statement echoesLorde’semphasisonWomenofColorcoalitionpoliticsashappening throughmeaningfulconnectionacrossournondominant differences, in which we affirm the wisdom born of inhabiting these differences. BoggsmakesclearthatheridentificationwithBlackfreedommovementsdoesnothappeninspiteofherlocusasaChineseAmericanfemalebutratherbecauseofit.TheactivationofherChineseAmericanresistantsubjectivitycamethroughherbecomingan“activeparticipantinthehumanity-stretchingmovements”ledbyAfricanAmericans(xi).ThatshecallstheBlackfreedomstruggles“humanity-stretchingmovements”is significant insofar as she recognizes the capacity to stretch her sense of being aChineseAmericanfemale self through identification with Black struggle. This sense of identification invokes MaríaLugones’s(2003,85)understandingof“identification”asaself-transformingepistemicshiftthatrequiressuspendingone’s familiarassumptionsaboutone’s identity toenablea faithfulwitnessingofone’s selfand the worlds one inhabits through the eyes of those differently oppressed. In Boggs’s case, herimmersioninBlackstruggleallowedhertoreadherownliberationasinterdependentwiththatofBlackpeoples.
Identification,asKochiyamaandBoggsenactit,doesnotinvolvesamenessorcommonalityandthusevades the dangers of mimicry. Boggs (1998, xi) notes the inability of the FBI to make sense of herpresence as a non-Black Asian American in the Black movement, leading them to describe her “asprobablyAfro-Chinese.”ThisFBIclassificationofBoggsillustrateswhatBrooks(2006,8)describesas“thehostilespectator’sepistemological resistance” toreadAsianAmericansbeyondanti-Black insularmodel-minorityracialrepresentations.WhileBoggsadmitstofollowingherAfricanAmericanhusband,Jimmy Boggs, in the early years of her involvement in Black community organizing in Detroit, sheclarifiesthisprocessaspartoftheepistemicshiftthattransformsherandpreventssuperficialmimicryofBlack identity in the struggle.Althoughnotcenter stage inmeetings,GraceLeeBoggswasworking tounderstandtheintimateconnectionsbetweenherliberationandthoseintheBlackcommunitieswhereshelivedandlearnedabouttheworld.Shewrites,“Inthe1950sIrarelywenttoacommunitymeetingwithoutJimmyandwouldusuallyjustlistenoraskquestions”butgoesontoclarifythatlater,“havingworkedinthecityandsocializedwithJimmy’sfriendsandCorrespondencereadersforyears,IfeltIhadsomethingtocontribute.Iwasbeginningtofeelcomfortablewiththewepronoun,”(Boggs1998,118).Boggs,likeKochiyama,emergedintoacoalitional“we”throughthehardworkofcomingtoseeherAsianAmericanfemaleselfasinterdependentwithBlackstruggle.
Kochiyama andBoggs exhibit resistance to state violence through coalitional connectionwhere thejurytowhichtheygivethemselvesuptoenactjusticeisthecommunitiesofcolorwithwhomtheyseeksolidarityratherthanthemainstreampublicanditsracist,(hetero)sexistfilters.TheirvisibilityasAsianAmericanwomen activists is routed through their intentionally resistant reach beyond the rigid state-defined racial-ethnic boundaries of who constitutes their own people, and thus involves a refusal toinvestintheprincipleofnoninterferenceasintegraltotheirpursuitofjusticeandwell-being.BoggsandKochiyamathusremainopaquetothoseinvestedinthesingularityandinsularityof“rootidentity”andinmodel-minority racial and gender expectations of Asian Americans. They emerge as visible andintelligibleasAsianAmericanwhenweuseanAsianAmericanfeministlensgroundedintheepistemictruth of Glissant’s “Poetics of Relation” (1997, 11). Asian American racial positioning as alwaystangentialmakesusespeciallydisposed torecognize thedangersof insularandsingular“root identity”modesof resistanceand to face the relational and interdependent realityof all struggles.Thepotentialvisibilityofatrulyresistant(ratherthancomplicit)AsianAmericanidentificationdemandscross-racialalignment,andthusaprocessofcoalitionalself-makingthatcanrupturethedivisivepubliclensofmodel-minorityinsularity.
THECOALITIONALIMPERATIVEOFTHERACIALTHIRDSPACE
AcentralpremiseofmyargumentisthatAsianAmericanracializationas“neitherblacknorwhite”armsAsianAmericanswith a grenade that can explode or reinforce racism’s suicidal divisions. By racialthirdspaceImeantheconsignedlocusofAsianAmericanracialsubjects.HomiBhabha(1994,39)usesthetermthirdspacetorefertoanunrepresentablein-betweenspacethat“eludesthepoliticsofpolarity”as it confounds the colonizing investment in boundaries erected to create and police fictive notions ofpurity.GloriaAnzaldúa (1999) similarly theorizes theracial thirdspace as the site of concrete fleshyintersubjective negotiations that exceed and counter the racial state’s reductive and normative abstracteither/orlogics.Asanin-betweenspacethatexplodesthefictionsofinstitutionalboundaries,allflesh-and-bloodracializedsubjectsinhabittheracialthirdspaceintheirresistanceagainstracialreduction.
AsianAmericans,however,inhabittheunrepresentable“thirdspace”notonlyintheirflesh-and-bloodresistancebut also in theirhegemonic racializationasneither-black-nor-whitemodelminorities. AsClaireJeanKim(1999)arguesinhertheoryofracialtriangulation,Blackandwhitearetwopolesofthe
socially enforced US racial continuum of “relative valorization” with Blackness positioned as thehegemonic prototypical domestic symbol of nonwhiteness and racial degradation. Kim situates AsianAmericansasraciallyindeterminateUSsubjectswhobecomelegibleasUSracialsubjectswhenreadinrelation to the US black/white binary. The question posed in the title of Kim’s 2004 article, “AsianAmericans are People of Color Too…Aren’t They?” captures this hegemonic consignment ofAsianAmericanstoracialuncertaintybetweenblackandwhiteandthecorrespondingsuspicionofourcapacityfor cross-racial solidarity with other nonwhite peoples. How we respond or don’t respond to thisquestioneitherdisruptsorreinforcesouranti-Blackconstructioninserviceofwhitesupremacy.AsSoyaJung(2014)sopowerfullyputsit,“Weareeitherleftorrightofthecolorline.Thereisnosittingthatout.…Ouroptionsareinvisibility,complicity,orresistance.”
Ian Haney Lopez’s (1996) analysis of the so-called prerequisite cases for US citizenship at thebeginningof the twentiethcenturydemonstrates that racial legibilityofUScitizenry(in its legalsense)hasbeendefinedprimarily through theportalofwhitenessorBlackness.Before1952, anyone seekingnaturalizationasaUScitizenhadtoclaimlegalclassificationaseitherwhiteorBlack.Whilethosewhowere neitherBlack norwhitewhobrought their case for citizenship to theSupremeCourt could havechosentoprovetheireligibility throughtheportalofBlackness,onlyonedid(Lopez1999,35).Lopezunderscoresthecourt’sultimaterelianceon“commonknowledge”forwhatconstitutedtheboundariesofwhite identity to rule on one’s citizenship eligibility. As the courts invoked “common knowledge” todefine white as that which was not nonwhite, they concomitantly marked the specific boundaries ofnonwhiteness,barringdifferentethnicitiesfromUScitizenship(20).Theparametersforproving“Black”citizenshiprequiredamorerestrictivecriteriaofdemonstratingAfricanancestry(20),whileprovingaclaimtowhiteracialidentityrequiredprovingthatonewasnotnot-white.Assuch,thefailureofAsianappeals tostate legibilityasnot-not-whitenotonlyblocksus fromlegibilityasUScitizen-subjectsbutalsotrainsusintohabitsofactivedissociationfrom,anddevaluationof,BlackpeopleasakeystrategyforachievingstaterecognitionofUSbelonging.
I am thus invoking the consigned racial third space of Asian America to understand the voicedfrustrations of Asian Americans about our sense of racial invisibility as US subjects of color (oftenexpressed in relation to ahypervisibleBlackness) and theparticular communicativebarriers towardaracialvisibilitythatdoesnotfeedanti-Blackstatelogics.Becausetheblack/whitebinaryiscentraltotheconstructionofourracialambiguity,itnecessarilyshapesourresistantpossibilitiesbothinmaneuveringthemodel-minority construction to evade violent targeting by the racial state and in rupturingmodel-minority erasures of state-sponsored racism against us. To illustrate, Asian Americans who reject“honorary white” racist positioning reinscribe anti-Blackness when claiming visibility as aggrievedracialminoritiesjustlikeBlackpeople(Roshanravan2018).ThePeterLiangcasereferencedatthestartofthischapterisinstructivehere.AsianAmericanprotestsagainstLiang’sindictmentforAkaiGurley’smurderchallengedacriminaljusticesystemthatwouldindictanAsianAmericanforacrimethatwhiteofficerssystemicallycommitwithoutsimilarconsequences.TheseproteststhusnamethecriminaljusticesystemasracistagainstAsianAmericansjustlikeBlackpeoplebecausethesystemfailedtoletLiangkillBlackpeoplewithoutaccountabilitylikeotherwhitepoliceofficers.4
In short, Asian American hegemonic consignment to the racial third space in the United Statescompelsus toface theever-presentchoicebetweenbecominglegible to theUSpubliceither throughaportal of whiteness that prescribes closed insularity away from other nonwhite peoples, or through aportal thateffectivelycommitsone to forgean identity in relation to thoseejectedfromthepurviewofwhite inclusion. The model-minority racial project seduces Asian Americans to choose the portal ofwhiteness,inscribingandprescribingtheirinsularityfromBlackcommunityasinnatetothe“modelness”
of Asian racial disposition. Liang, in his NYPD uniform, exemplifies performance of this modelAsianness,ashebecamepartofastateagencywhosemissionhistoricallyhasbeento“protectandserve”whitesupremacy.5 Both Liang’smurder ofGurley and his subsequent indictment protected and servedwhite supremacy, not only in the destruction of Black life (the ultimate violent dissociation fromBlackness),butalsoinofferingthecourtsanonwhitetokenthroughwhichtofeignpoliceaccountabilityforthesystemicstatemurderofBlackpeople.
WuYiping,acoordinatorfortheprotestsagainstLiang’sindictment,furtherevidencestheanti-Blacklogicofthis“model”AsiannessinhissuggestionthattheChineseimmigrantcommunity’sinsularfocusontheir careers accounts for Chinese-Black hostility over Liang’s case (Wang 2016). In this statement,Yipingreinforcesthemodel-minorityconstructionofAsiansastherespectableracialminority(whokeeptothemselvesandfocusontheirownsocioeconomicmobility)byinvokingitscorollaryconstructionofBlackpeople as the unruly racialminority (who lack the discipline to stayout of trouble and achievecareers thatwould lift themoutofpublichousing).AsAlexQuan-PhamandKatYang-Stevens (2016)document, news outlets wasted no time portraying Akai Gurley as a criminal with a prior record ofarrestswhosedeathatthehandsofcopswasjustifiedifnotinevitable.Gurley’sconstructedcriminalityamplifiedthemodel-minorityportrayalofPeterLiangasawell-intentioned“rookiecop”whomadeaninnocent “mistake” and thus did not deserve to be indicted or serve jail time (Quan-Pham andYang-Stevens2016).Yiping’scoordinationofthenationwideprotestsagainstLiang’sindictmentandhispubliccomments about the ensuing Asian-Black intercommunity tensions reinforce these presumptions bydismissing and vilifying Black rage as based on a “misunderstanding” rather than the systemic statemurderofBlackpeople.ThroughYiping’scomplicitywiththeinstitutionalizedmodel-minoritydiscourse,weseetheanimationofanauthorizedversionofAsianness,portrayedasmoredisposedtorationalcivildiscourseandstate-prescribedinsularity,whichdrawshostileboundariesagainstothernonwhitegroupswhile “protecting and serving” white supremacy. The corollary construction of the irrational, raging,unrulyBlacknessofAkaiGurley’sfamilyandcommunityisessentialtoanimatingthisauthorizedversionofmodel“Asianness.”
Disruptingtheanti-Blacknessofmodel-minoritylogicsrequiresexhibitsofAsian-BlacksolidaritythatexplicitlycounterweaponizedstateconstructionsofUSAsiansasinsular“modelminorities”thatcanbereadilywieldedagainstBlacklives.Assuch,beingseeninourspecificracializedexperienceasAsianAmericanswhoidentifyasUSpeopleofcolorrequiresanever-evolving(self-)understandingofAsianAmerican identity that is interdependentwith (butnot the sameas)Black struggle.Accordingly,AsianAmericans enter tricky terrain when attempting to express our need to be seen as active subjects instruggle against racial subordination. We can experience (with differing degrees of intensity) theseductive illusion of relative privilege in our model-minority racialization; and regardless of our(in)abilityorrefusaltogiveuptaketotheillusion,wesimultaneouslysufferthepsychicpainofnotbeingseeninourstruggleagainstracialsubordination.Yet,asKochiyamaandBoggsdemonstrate,thepoliticsofnotbeing seen isoftenanecessaryaspectofdoing the“real”workoforganizing inmovements forsocial justice.Remaining opaque to the public in one’s resistance to state-sanctioned oppressions canalso be and has been an important insurgent Women of Color strategy of survival against racistdehumanization and distortions. Let’s turn to this infrapolitical avenue of survival and the obstacles itpresentsforAsianAmericansseekingtoundoour“unnaturalinvisibility”(Yamada1981).
PERILSOFASIANAMERICANINFRAPOLITICS
JamesScott (1990,19)defines infrapoliticsas“awidevarietyof low-profile formsof resistance thatdare not speak in their own name.” Infrapolitical resistance is thus operative through its capacity to
remain unrecognizable as resistance to the oppressive systems being resisted. If, in Scott’s terms, the“public transcript” presumes Asian Americans to be insular and obedient model minorities, AsianAmericaninfrapoliticalresistancetowhitesupremacywouldrelyonthis“publictranscript”toenactits“hidden transcript” of resistance (xii). JidLee’s “TheCry-SmileMask:AKorean-AmericanWoman’sSystemofResistance”offersanimportantexampleofhowinfrapoliticalresistance,whennotcombinedwith more publicly communicable disruptive modes of resistance, reinforces the anti-Black racistunderpinningsofthemodel-minorityracialproject.
Lee begins her essaywith an anecdote inwhich one of her former students, a forty-year-oldwhitewomannamedSusan,who,inLee’scompany,respondstoaBlackman’skindnesswiththecomment,“Iwishtheywerealllikehim.He’ssonice.Nobitternessoranger.IfallBlackpeoplewerelikehimwewould be in heaven” (2002, 397). Uneasy, Lee responds to the incident by thickening her “cry-smilemask,”which,inherwords,shehas“wornsinceshecametotheUnitedStatesin1980”tocopewiththeracist“burdenofsmiling[that]alwaysfelluponme”(397).Afterhistoricizingthis“cry-smilemask”asaculturallyspecificreferencetoherKoreancosmology,LeeexplainsthatthemaskallowshertomaneuverOrientalistexpectationstowardcoalitionalpossibilities.Sheperformsherexpectedsmileinthefaceofracism, “openingadoor” that, shehopes,will invite, even seduce, cross-racial perceptionof the “crybehind the smile” (398). This “cry behind the smile” signifies people of color struggles and sufferingerasedbyracism’sepistemiccommitmentstoremainblindtotheviolenceitenacts.
Leeacknowledgesthatthe“cry-smilemask”risksfeedingthe“racistlove”ofthosewhoexpectAsianAmericanstoacceptwhiteracismcheerfully.Sherespondstothischargebyinsistingonthesignificanceof“long-term”changethatoverridesanyretrenchmentofthemodel-minoritystereotype(399–400).Thedialogue enabled by the “cry-smile” mask, Lee argues, outweighs the racist stereotypes it seeminglyreinforces to the extent that the dialogue is essential to inviting others to see the “cry” (oppression ofpeopleofcolor)behindthe“smile.”
The relational dynamics of racism generally, and the specific implications of her own in-betweenraciallocus,however,areabsentfromLee’saccountoftheefficacyofhercry-smilemaskinchallengingracistlogicsamongwhitepeople.Thisisparticularlyevidentwhenshecomparesher“cry-smile”maskto themaskof survivaldescribed inPaulLawrenceDunbar’s“WeWear theMask.”Shewritesofherconnection toAfricanAmerican literature, “I could identifywithAfricanAmericans as awhole race,becauseIcouldfeelwhattheyfelt,andbecauseIhadtowearamask—muchliketheirown—tosurvive”(400, emphasis added).Dunbar’s poemdescribes the “mask” thatAfricanAmericans have towear tomaneuverinwhite/Angloracistculturewhilepainfullycommunicatingthe“doubleconsciousness”intheveryactofwearingthemask.Dunbar,likeLee,suggeststhatwhiteexpectationsshapethemaskandthatthedecisiontowearthemaskisnotaboutsubordinatingoneselftotheseexpectationsbutinsteadaboutcultivatingstrategiestosurviveandmaintainaresistantsenseofself.Nevertheless,Lee’sclaimthatsheidentifies“withAfricanAmericansasawholerace”becauseshe“couldfeelwhattheyfelt”ignoreshowthe very expectations that shape Lee’smask thicken the layers of themask of racist expectations thatAfricanAmericanshavetowear.
ThistruthisparticularlysignificantwhenoneconsidersLee’sdecisiontowearthe“cry-smilemask”insteadofconfrontingSusanforheranti-Blackracism.Susan’swishthatallBlackpeoplewere“kind”and “nice” (instead of bitter and angry) articulates institutionalized racist expectations that demonizeBlackpeopleasbitterandangryrelativeto“model”Asianqualitiesofcomplianceandaccommodation.Thesurvival/resistantstrategyofLee’s“cry-smilemask”reliesonaclosedinsularity.Assheexplains,becauseSusanwasnolongerherstudent,she“couldnotcorrecther”(396).Lee’s“cry-smile”requiresand allows her to not interfere in the racism expressed by and toward people outside the institutional
bounds of her own people. While Lee’s felt connection with Black struggle aspires to coalition, shereducesBlacknesstoasourceofinspirationfromwhichshedrawsbuttowhichshedoesnotcontribute.Her identification with Black people reduces the differences between Asian American and AfricanAmerican struggles to a generic ahistorical experience of racism that in turn presumes the capacity toutilizesystemsofresistance(liketheinfrapoliticalsmileinthefaceofracism)withsimilarconsequence.Thismode of identification contradicts theWomen of Color politics of affirming and insisting on thespecificityofournondominantdifferencesasa sourceof strength incoalitionbuilding.Assuch,Lee’ssystemofresistanceillustratestheperilsforAsianAmericanswhouseinfrapoliticalmodesofsurvivalthatrelyonthemodel-minoritypublictranscripttostealthilymaneuverinthefaceofracism.
Lee’sstrategicrefusalofspectacularruptureofstate-sanctionedracistopticsisnotaccompaniedbyaninwardturntohonororfosterthepossibilityofcoalitionalrelationsbetweenAsianAmericanandBlackcommunities.While insularity may serve as one tool in the resistance/survival tool kit against whitesupremacy, its capacity to reinforce the model-minority racist optic of Asian Americans (and BlackAmericans) requires that its use be accompanied by exhibits of cross-racial coalitional boundarycrossing.ThecurrentAsians4BlackLivesmobilizationsdemonstratethistruthintheirstrategicdisruptionofpublic transcriptsofAsianAmericanmodel-minority insularity toenactanAsianAmericanfeministpraxisofcoalitionalvisibility.
POETICSOFRELATION:IDENTIFYINGWITHBLACKNESS
We have now established the following claims: recognition ofAsianAmericans asUS racial citizen-subjects who suffer and resist state-sponsored racism requires collectively disrupting our publictranscriptasuncertaininourpoliticalorientationbetweenwhitenessandBlackness;andBlacknessexistson this socially enforced US racial continuum as the hegemonic prototypical domestic symbol ofnonwhiteness.Givenbothoftheseclaims,itfollowsthatAsianAmericanracialvisibilityaspeopleofcolordivestedfromanti-BlackracismrequiresexhibitingBlackidentification.By“Blackidentification”Imeanaprocessofrecognizingone’sinterdependencewithBlackracialformation,whichMaríaLugones(2003,97)definesintermsofcomingtoseeoneselfthroughanother’s,inthiscaseBlackpeople’s,eyes.
Thisprocessofidentificationistrickybecauserecognitionofinterdependenceoughtnotbemistakenfor an invitation tomimic, co-opt, or otherwise emptyBlackness of its lived cultural specificity. ThevariousmobilizationsundertheAsians4BlackLivescampaignillustrateanimportantcommunicativeshifttowardAsianAmericandemandsforvisibility.Insteadofan“ustoo!”logic,thecampaignmakesAsianAmericansvisibleasinextricablycoalitionalwithotherpeopleofcolor—mostexplicitly,withtheveryBlack communities againstwhichAsianAmericans are racially intelligible asmodelminorities in theUnited States. If “the problem of communication is primarily about recognition and disposition tocommunicate,” asGabrielaVeronelli (2015, 122) states, then theAsians4BlackLives campaign tacklestheproblemheadon.Notonlydoesthecampaignexplicitlyrecognizethehistoricalpainandresistanceofthe Black struggles motivating the Black Lives Matter movement, but it also enacts a coalitionaldispositiontointerculturalcommunicationbyturninginwardtoself-definitioninandthroughgesturesthatsignalacommitmenttolearnaboutandunderstandBlacklives.
Thatis,theAsians4BlackLivescampaignrupturestheracialstatelogicthatreliesonnonwhitecross-racial antagonism and disconnection and instead issues a public cross-racial coalitional rescripting ofAsianAmerica. In thewords ofAudreyKuo (2017) ofAsian Pacific Islanders for Black Lives (LosAngeles),“Wewanttobevisiblebutnotforthesakeofvisibilitybuttocallouttootherstojoinus…tobuildbiggercoalition.”Toresistvisibilityforvisibility’ssakeistorefusetransparencytoaracialstaterooted inwhite supremacyand to resist thedivisive logics that structure its filtersofpublicvisibility.
Instead,KuoemphasizesthatAsians4BlackLivesactionsseekacommunicativevisibility,onethatissuesacall forothersdisposed toendviolence to join themin“buildingbiggercoalition.”Thebreadthanddepth of these coalitional efforts are evident in the fact that many of the collectives and networkscommunicatingAsians4BlackLivessolidarityarequeeridentifiedandfeministandincorporatestrategiesforconsciousness-raisingaboutanti-BlackracisminAsianAmericancommunitiesand theBlackLivesMattermovement.6 As such, the Asians4BlackLives campaign can be understood as emerging from aWomenofColorcoalitionalfeministgenealogyinwhichqueerwomenofcolorhavealwaysledtheway.
These collectives make Asian American struggles publicly visible as they issue a powerful andunequivocal statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The public declaration of Asian-Blacksolidarity makes Asian Americans nonsensical to those unwilling to read beyond the state logics ofmodel-minorityracialandgenderrepresentation.However,theirinterlocutorsareotherAsianAmericansandAsianimmigrantcommunitiesandBlackcommunitiesofstruggle,nottheracialstate.TheylaybarethestateviolencethatstructurescommunicationfromAsianAmericatoBlackAmericawithoutreducingthemtosameness.AstheQueerSouthAsianNationalNetwork(QSANN)states,“Wearecommittedtodrawing connections between Islamophobia, caste-based oppression, privilege and complicity,xenophobiaandprofiling,andanti-Blacknessinourselves,ourcommunities,andtheimperialUS”(2015,1).AstheygoontodescribethehorrorofwatchingSouthAsiansprofiledas“terrorists”andmurderedby police officers, they simultaneously call for a “modelminoritymutiny,” recognizing that the racialproject seducesus into complicitywith the longhistoryof surveillance, criminalization, incarceration,andmurderofBlackpeople.Callingforththeembodiedknowledgeofstateandinterpersonalviolenceinboth SouthAsian andBlack communities,QSANN enactsWomen of Color feministmethodologies ofdoing “theory in the flesh … where the physical realities of our lives—our skin color, the land orconcretewegrewupon,oursexuallongings—allfusetocreateapoliticbornoutofnecessity”(Moraga2015,19).
The call for solidarity demands that we remember Black freedom struggles from which Asianimmigrants have benefited immensely. These statements circulate through public media, giving AsianAmericans political visibility as accomplices in the struggle against anti-Black racism. By rupturingmodel-minorityandOrientalistlogics,thecampaigngeneratesanopacityofwho/whatAsianAmericansareandthuscreatesspaceforustoturnbacktoourcommunitiesofplaceand“committoundoinganti-Blacknessathome,workingagainstIslamophobia,andchallengingouridentitywithinthemodelminoritymyth”(QueerSouthAsianNationalNetwork2015).TheseexhibitsofAsian-BlacksolidarityarethusnotaboutseekingrecognitionfromtheracialstateorvisibilityaspeopleofcolorjustlikeBlackpeople inthe general public. The emphasis is on refusing insularity that promotes cross-racial antagonism andsimultaneously enacting horizontal coalitional boundary crossing and relationship building, which(re)definewhatitistobeAsianAmericanandtowhomwemustbeaccountableinourresistanceagainstwhite supremacy. Exhibiting Asian-Black solidarity enables an Asian American feminist praxis ofcoalitionalvisibility that simultaneously ruptures the racistopticsof the state andgeneratesanopacitythatcreatesspaceforAsianAmericanstostretchoursenseofselfandpossibilityasinterdependentwiththeBlackcommunity.
Because the model-minority myth solidified through an anti-Blackness coded in heteropatriarchalfamily-centered gender conservatism, model-minority mutiny must also refuse the heteropatriarchalgender ideologies that underwrite model-minority respectability (Wu 2015, 183). Freedom, Inc., acollectiverootedintheHmongandBlackcommunitiesofMadison,Wisconsin,makesthisindeliblyclearastheyactivelygeneratepublicmaterialsthatfeatureBlackandSoutheastAsianAmericansolidarityandcoalition that center queer and trans experiences. In one of their youth organizing campaigns, two
Freedom, Inc., leaders, one queer/trans and Black identified, the other a Hmong-identified woman,explain theirdefinitionsof leadership in termsof lovingandcreating familyagainstwhat they’vebeentoldisfamily,againstbloodkin.Inthelastlineofthevideoclip,theydefineFreedom,Inc.,as“queerandtransSoutheastAsianandBlackleadingsowhatwecangetfreebecauseweknowthatourliberationsaretiedtogether”(Freedom,Inc.2016).TheiremphasisonchampioningmodesoflovingandbuildingqueerandtransfamilywithinBlackandSoutheastAsiancommunitiesembracesCathyCohen’s(2004)callfor“deviance as resistance” since the loving and building of coalitional community transgressesheteropatriarchaltraditionsandnormsofrespectabilitywithinbothcommunitiesofcolor.Inotherwords,the Freedom, Inc., leaders exhibit a commitment to coalitional boundary crossing rather than a closedinsularity by redefining who constitutes family beyond rigid state-sanctioned heteropatriarchalboundaries. In doing so, they disable the racialization of Asian Americans as respectable relative toBlackdevianceandinturncreateabridgetowardmoreliberatorydefinitionsofloveandfamily.
The opacity generated in these displays ofAsian-Black solidarity is evident in the epistemologicalresistance to Asian American presence in solidarity acts with the Black community. In his PoliticoaccountofcoveringaBlackLivesMatterprotestinMilwaukee,AaronMak(2016)reflectsontheBlackreadingsofhisAsianpresenceascommunicatingsolidaritywhileothersquestionedhispresence,asking,“You’reAsian.…Whyareyouevenhere?”ThelatterquestionexposestheincomprehensibilityofAsian-Black solidarity given the public transcript of AsianAmericans asmodelminorities committed to aninsularity that prescribes hostility or at best indifference to Black people and their struggles. AsianAmericans showing up forBlack lives is nonsensicalwhen read through state logics.Onemust eraseAsianpresencefromBlackcoalitionalmovementstokeepdominantstateconstructionsintact.
This explains Soo AhKwon’s (2013, 75, 86) observations in her ethnography of Asian AmericanyouthorganizingintheSanFranciscoBayArea,where“campaigndiscoursesaboutyouthincarcerationandcriminalizationrarelymentionedAsianandPacificIslanderyouth,”and“atmanycampaignactions,these youth were overlooked as targets of state incarceration or criminalization unlike their AfricanAmerican orLatino/a counterparts.”The cloudof confusion generated in the rupture of state logics ofrepresentationrendersAsianAmericansopaquetothestateintheircoalitionalpresence,openingavenuesbeyondthehaltinggripoftheracialstatetogeneratecoalitionalconceptionsofAsianAmericanfeminist(inter)subjectivity through the eyesof communities againstwhomweare racialized.Evidenceof theseavenues includes conference calls organized between members of Asians4BlackLives and the BlackLivesMatternetworkstostrategizeAsian-Blacksolidarity(Tom2015).Suchstrategiesrelyonremainingopaque or invisible to the state and open to the diversity that opacity protects.AsQSANN (2015, 3)explains,“Partofchallenginganti-Blacknessinourselvesandourcommunitiesiscraftinganewnarrativeof what it means to be South Asian in the US.” Without doing so, the survival/resistant strategy ofinfrapolitical insularity cannot but reinforce themodel-minority racial project and its relianceon anti-Blackracism.
TOWARDANINSURGENTWOMENOFCOLOREPISTEMICLOCUS
Our racial positioning as always tangentialmakes us especially disposed to recognize the dangers ofclosedinsularityandsingularmodesofresistanceandtofacetherelationalandinterdependentrealityofall community struggles. The potential visibility of a truly resistant (rather than complicit) AsianAmericanidentificationdemandscross-racialalignmentandthusaprocessofcoalitionalself-makingthatcan rupture the divisive public lens of model-minority insularity. The current Asians4BlackLivesmobilizations build on the political legacies of Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama to illustrate apathway toward Asian American feminist visibility through the “spectacular opacities” of coalitional
boundary crossing. Becoming visible through participation in Black freedom struggles, these AsianAmericanpoliticalsubjectsandmovementsrejectanAsianAmericanvisibilityroutedthrougha“poeticsofdisconnection”seducedbyandsupportiveofUSracialstatelogicsoflegibilityandinsularity.7AsianAmerican feminist visibility routed through a praxis of horizontal coalitional boundary crossing thusclarifies the racial third space ofAsianAmerica as an insurgent epistemic locus that opens toward aWomenofColorconsciousnessofourinterdependentrealitiesandpossibilities.
NOTES
1 OfficerLiangtestifiedthathedidcallforanambulancewhenhediscoveredthatGurleyhadbeenshot.However,thereisnoevidenceintheradiotranscriptssubmittedtothecourtthathedidindeedcallforanambulance(Nir2016).
2 In“TheCoalitionalImperativeofAsianAmericanFeministVisibility,”Iusepost-LiangmanifestationsofAsianAmericanvisibilitytomaptheanti-Blacktrapsof“ustoo!”appealsforAsianAmericanvisibility(Roshanravan2018).ThischapterfocusesonthecoalitionalpossibilitiesofanAsianAmericanfeministvisibilityandstrategiesforachievingthem.
3 Lorde(1984,111)defines“non-dominantdifferences”asthosepositivelife-givingdifferencesconstitutiveofourcomplex(inter)subjectivity,whichtheracialstatenecessarilydistortstoprotectandpromotethedivisivelogicsofracism,(hetero)sexism,andotherinterlockingdominantstructuresofoppression.
4 Forfurtherelaborationoftheanti-BlacktrapsofAsianAmericanusesofanalogytoBlackstruggleagainstsystemicracism,seeRoshanravan(2018).
5 In“FromtheConvictLeaseSystemtotheSuper-MaxPrison,”AngelaDavis(2000)tracesthehistoryofpolicingandimprisonmentasanongoinglegacyofwhitesupremacyanditsinvestmentintheenslavement,exploitation,anddisappearanceofBlackpeoples.
6 ThesegroupsincludeQueerSouthAsianNationalNetwork;Freedom,Inc.;andNationalAsianPacificAmericanWomen’sForum,tonameafew.
7 LeslieBow(2010,127)coinedthetermpoeticsofdisconnectiontoreferencedisavowalofa“self-implicatingBlackness”experiencedbyAsianAmericansinthesegregatedUSSouthtoaffirmtheirgreaterproximitytovalorizedwhiteness.
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