| dc.description.abstract | The primary goal of this study is to examine the intersection between Whiteness and Asianness from the perspective of Asian Americans in order to acknowledge ways in which racial consciousness relates to communicative patterns and behavior. This primarily method is intensive-interviews of forty 1.5- and second-generation Asian Americans, ages 19 to 59, living in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area, including those with Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese ethnic, national backgrounds. Surprisingly, most participants have never heard of the term model minority. Some who understand it embrace it whereas others do not. Asian Americans describe the performativity of their racial-ethnic identity through Twinkie/Banana, Whitewash, Chinesey, Azian, and FOBs. Informants equate Twinkie, banana, and Whitewash as "yellow on the outside, White on the inside." Some participants self-identify as a banana, Twinkie, or Whitewashed and offer complex reasons for doing so such as racial melancholia. Lastly, the participants present emergent ethnic discourse on FOBs (Fresh Off the Boat), Azians, and Chinesey--terms indicating differences within Asian American groups. The results indicate identity is a relational, discursive process situated in power and history, and subsequently reified in the body. Unlike Whites who create their own racial and ethnic discourses, Asian/Americans must compete and negotiate between the dominant racialized rhetoric and emergent ethnic discourse. If the dominant majority is creating the public perceptions of Asianness, it is impossible not to talk about Whiteness when analyzing Asianness in the United States. | |
