How America Sees Us: National survey shows many Americans prejudiced against Chinese Americans (in National News) Oakland Cultural Center Changes Name — Again (in Bay Area News) International Showdown: Selling arms to Taiwan (in Business) Mistress of Self: Interview with author Chitra Divakaruni (in A&E) Emil Amok: Busting Stereotypes (in Opinion)

My Asian American Community

By kevinjamesgardner

April is Multicultural Communication Month, and I’d like to share some thoughts as the only “white” guy currently on the AsianWeek editorial staff.

Most of the time, others think of me first in terms of my queer sexuality, and I’m quite used to handling and integrating that in a fluid, ad hoc fashion. I think of it as my nature, rather than a “culture,” and one that’s open to anyone who wants to live it, i.e. you don’t have to be born or raised into it.

I was, however, born a person of muted color.

Although I automatically check the box for “Caucasian” when I have to, I guess I really didn’t think of myself as “white” until one of the staff brought it up when he and I became friends. He told me about growing up Korean American in a “snow-white” town in the South, and thinking he was white until he discovered his Asian American identity in college while meeting other Asian students. I realized that he, now active in the Asian American community, was consciously crossing back over that thin white line to be with me. Then, he took me with him back over the line.

First, he gave me a freelance design job with an African American Internet company. I ended up doing the job through another friend’s graphic design company called White Space, as in the creative concept of the white space between images. So, there I was, using White Space to promote a black space on the Internet. Isn’t life funny?

Then, he took me on board AsianWeek. Sitting inside the bowels of Chinatown, I started seeing prevailing political beliefs, cultural biases, family histories, and media operations through Asian American eyes. I became privy to white jokes (and Asian ones, too), and learned I was an “egg” — yellow on the inside and white on the outside. So, I guess when I cracked my head on the AsianWeek ceiling, the yolk was on me.

Because I’m only part-time and not around as much, I know it’s just an oversight when I don’t get invited with the rest of the staff to apply for free tickets to the Asian American film festival, or to attend the going-away dinner for a colleague. When I get the cold shoulder for turning in a freelance article past the deadline, I’m sure it’s just a mood thing. When one of my articles doesn’t go online with the rest, it’s just a matter of time. When my timesheet goes astray and I don’t get a check when everyone else does, I try not to feel singled out. When negotiating my fees and I’m told that people work for AsianWeek to some degree motivated by service to the community, and that that probably isn’t the case for me, I have to stop and think.

I had just pulled an all-nighter, all by myself, at the paper the week before, so was my commitment to the community the paper serves really an issue? I don’t claim a direct ethnic affiliation to the Asian American community, but neither have I had such a connection with other ethnic communities in which I have worked. I think it’s just a false assumption that ethnic identity, or lack of it, automatically determines motivation. You know what happens when you ass-u-me …

I also made an assumption about another staff-member being “white” until he let on about his Samoan heritage. So, then I stop and think some more (something I do a lot, and some wish I’d do a little less often). If I claimed my great, great, great, great, great grandmother was 1/8 Hawaiian, I wondered, would that qualify me differently? I could always tweak my very Anglo-sounding name, but I like my name the way it is.

These must be the kinds of subtle doubts other minorities grapple with in white-dominated environments. I can’t be the only one on the planet who gets annoyed with myself for feeling a little paranoid, worrying about not appearing “over-sensitive” or “difficult” or drawing unwanted attention to my vague feelings and fears. I try not to over analyze myself as I wonder what I’m looking for, what I’m trying to become, when I go inside others’ communities.

I find my answer in the words of a photography exhibit down the street: The “work is not about becoming someone else; it is instead an exploration of possible extensions of self… individual identity is porous, relational and dependent on context. There is no pre-existing, inherent self, sealed off from outside forces… identity does not exist outside of our actions and behavior… our selves are based on how we negotiate assigned social roles.”

I feel my constantly expanding sensibilities as I crisscross different communities, and I find unknown, lost parts of myself everywhere, including in AsianWeek. I smile at the puzzled looks on the faces of some of my muted-color friends when I tell them I work at AsianWeek. If only they knew the potential of each of us to do anything and be anywhere!

Looking in the mirror the other day, it struck me that we never see our own faces unless we make a special effort. Usually, we only see the faces around us, reflecting our selves as we interact with each other. Our faces mirror each other.

This is why I feel the pain, too, when we encounter racism, such as the offensive description of Asian people in an old issue of Rolling Stone as “tea-stained” with “anthracite eyes.” Even when I get a tan, no one calls me “stained.”

I look into your eyes in search of anthracite, and I only find ones as deep and as brown as mine staring back at me.