The Chinese in America - Iris Chang [201]
Though there was often much disagreement about the best route to take, no one doubted that some kind of collective political action was needed. As David Ho, the renowned AIDS researcher and Time’s Man of the Year in 1996, reminded other Chinese Americans, “We need our Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons to scream bloody murder when an injustice is carried out against our community.”
This had to be done not only for themselves, but for the future of their children. American-born Chinese youths were also eloquently voicing their concerns about the difficulty and confusion inherent in growing up a minority, and the triple pressures weighing on them: the pressure to excel, the pressure to become white, and the pressure to embrace their ethnic heritage. Some felt they had to work harder, to perform twice as well as whites and be content with half the rewards. Others confessed embracing racial shame, trying to obliterate their Chinese heritage. While in many instances this rejection meant dating only whites and forfeiting the language and traditions of their ancestors,in extreme cases it extended to surgically altering their eyelids to look more Caucasian. Yet others took the opposite tack, befriending and dating only other Chinese Americans, traveling to China to find spouses, or exploring their identity through genealogical research programs in China.
When it comes to fighting racism, no easy solutions exist. Perhaps the best hope for change lies in education, coupled with greater participation in the American democratic process. The future of Chinese Americans will depend on their ability to reclaim their voices—their ability to speak out, make their presence felt, and break out of the model-minority mold that has permitted others to define and dictate the form and extent of their success. Their obligations are no different from those of all Americans. We must exercise both our rights and responsibilities as patriotic citizens: voting and running for office, engaging in dialogue with lawmakers, airing our political opinions in the broader media, exposing systemic abuse and injustice within the government and other institutions. It is not enough to make a speech or just wave a flag, though—we need to make firm challenges to our government and ourselves to honor the civil liberties of all Americans. It is our right as Americans, our privilege, and our responsibility.
Only when American society is truly empowered by education and committed to respect for the human rights of all will it attain the confidence to see race and culture for what it is—a dynamic, ever-changing life force. The future is impossible to predict, but I believe the definition of “Chinese America” itself will grow more complex with time. Already the lines between the ethnic Chinese and other groups are blurring. The Chinese in the United States marry other Asians in record numbers, and the concept of “Chinese American” may be replaced by a new racial identity: “Asian American.” Meanwhile, marriages between Chinese Americans and non—Asian Americans have produced new generations that resist easy labels. Indeed, for some, ethnic identity has become a matter of personal choice as much as indisputable racial appearance or heritage.
Take, for instance, the actor Cy Wong. His great-grandfather migrated from Cuba to Louisiana in 1867 to work as an indentured plantation laborer. After fulfilling the term of his contract, he remained in the American South and married a Creole woman. His son, Cy Wong’s grandfather, married a mixed-race Native American woman of Choctaw and black ancestry, and Wong’s father married a woman of Chickasaw and black descent. Wong, president of the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California, acknowledges that some people have difficulty accepting his Chinese identity. “From time to time, I have had to deal with prejudices, especially from some African Americans,” he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.