Negotiating Masculinity Across Borders

Waves of immigration of Asian immigrants – during the nineteenth century – were purposely exploited for the United States’ industrial advancement (Eng, 2001, pp. 16). Cheap Asian male immigrant laborers modeled the femininity of Asian Americans’ gender ideology to Euro-Americans. Asian-American male laborers were manipulated for economic sustainability. That is, the exploitation of the labor force constructed for progressive national infrastructures and other cheap labor (Eng, 2001; Park, 2009) had been attempted to erase the “masculinity” identity of these Asian male immigrants by American society. This led to the restriction of the labor market which in turn forced Asian-American male immigrants into low-paid professions that were typically associated with women (Park, 2009, pp. 13; Espiritu, 1997, pp.179; Eng, 2001, pp.16-18). Eng (2001) argued that Asian gender identity was racialized and the exploitation of the labor force was manipulated by both racial and sexual means (pp.17). This fabrication of various factors makes the identification of Asian-ness become more complicated to disentangle.

Furthermore, legal restrictions diverted the representation of Asian-American manhood. In the twentieth century, racial hatred toward Asian-American males manifested itself in immigration practices which subsequently flourished the construction of Asian masculinity to “asexual” and even “homosexual” (Espiritu, 1997, pp.177; Park, 2009). In other words, the disallowance of Asian women to reunite with their husbands constructed Chinatown as an exclusive “bachelor community.” This led Euro-Americans to question the sexuality of such a community (Eng, 2001, pp. 17). Furthermore, the Western depiction of Asian homosexual males was created through the character of Dr. Fu Manchu to further exaggerate the notion of Asian queerness. In “Racist Love,” Chin and Chan (1972) described Dr. Fu as “his habit of caressingly touching white men … as he is a frivolous offense to white manhood” (pp. 60). The history of exclusionary immigration practices and legislative bans altered the American racial lens of Asian-American males as emasculated and even homosexualized.

Anti-Asian xenophobia was incorporated into the cinematic representation of Asian males as observed in the stereotypical fiction of the Yellow Peril. This idea illustrates the Euro-Americans’ fear of the rise of people of color who may one day conquer white supremacy In specific, it is the two conflicting opponents of an unavoidable clash of Western civilization and Eastern alien powers (Espiritu, 1997, pp. 177). Hollywood’s representation of Asians in films from the 1930s to the 1960s insisted on the notion that Asians were non-human invaders and must be destroyed. Even though most of these representations were focused dominantly on Asian males, Asian females – which were also represented – however are reserved for sexual purposes. The plot was given the advantageous position for an Asian actor with another Asian actress in the beginning, but he cannot keep her ultimately due to the superiority of a Euro-American actor (Espiritu, 1997, pp. 179-180).

As such results of growing anti-Asian conceptualization through legal restrictions (exclusionary practices) and the perceived threat of Asian male immigrants (the Yellow Peril through cinematic representations), a new common perception – a forbidden nature of the interracial union between an Asian male and a Euro-American female – started to emerge. This negated any miscegenation to preserve white patriarchal power and maintain racial purity (Espiritu, 1997, pp. 179; Park, 2009; pp. 14-18). Cinematic representations, again, were one of the numerous factors that magnified the discourse of emasculation of Asian males (Espiritu, 1997; Park, 2010). The motion picture industry depicted a Euro-American actor as the sexual opponent of an Asian actor’s sexuality. Thus, the Asian actor is nullified, unable to establish any connection to neither Euro-American nor Asian actresses (Espiritu, 1997, pp. 179; Park, 2009, pp.14-18; Park, 2010, pp. 5-17). Such cinematic examples include Broken Blossom (1919), Romeo Must Die (2000), Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), Lost (2004), and so on (Park, 2009, pp.15-25; Park, 2010, pp. 7). In addition, Hiro – the nerdy foreigner – on NBC’s Heroes, and William Hung – poor dancing and singing with a “geek appeal” – on American Idol (Park, 2010, pp. 6). Interracial representation of Asian-American males in the media can be described as “there can be rape, but there cannot be romance” (Denzin, 2002, pp. 41). Today, the question of Asian-American males’ masculinity is still perpetuated. In 2004, Details magazine – under their Anthropology section – featured male faces and challenged their readers to decide who is “gay”/“Eurotrash”/“cowboy?” Asian males, nevertheless, were the racial group that was mistaken for “gay” the most (Park, 2009, pp. 18).

This leaves us with an open question, how long will it take for the United States to challenge itself over the discourse of Asian-American males’ sexuality?