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Summary:
Yellow by Frank H. Wu is an eclectic, incisive investigation-cum-meditation that, though focusing on Asian Americans, recasts the United States' ongoing debate about racial identity in all forms. Wu suggests that the widespread stereotyping of Asian Americans, while "superficially positive," is inherently damaging. Mixing personal anecdotes, current events, academic studies, and court cases, Wu not only debunks the myth of a "model minority" but also makes discomfiting observations about attitudes toward affirmative action, what he calls "rational" discrimination, mixed marriages, racial profiling, and the "false divisions" of integration versus pluralism and assimilation versus multiculturalism. Though its conclusions are unremarkable, Yellow is thought provoking. The book's strength--besides its clarity and thoughtfulness--is a lack of tendentiousness. Wu prefers to suggest, not posit; muse, not shout; and ask questions, not necessarily answer them. --H. O'Billovitch
Customer Reviews:
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Asian American or American Asian
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If americans keep on pestering me, telling me im a foreigner, ill probably blow a gasket and beat them up; something most white americans wont expect from an asian (hence, we're called the 'Model Minority').
this book changed me
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I can honestly say this: I will never, ever be able to listen to a racist comment about Asian Americans again - even an unintended one -without thinking of what I've learned in this book. There were times I cried while reading, considering the life-long "otherness" foisted on Asian Americans by white Americans, including myself.
A few chapters into this book, I was sitting in an exit row on a plane that was getting ready for take-off. The flight attendant came down the aisle to ask the perfunctory questions of us in those seats, of our willingness to die for the cause and all. The flight attendants are required to get a verbal `yes' from each passenger in the exit row. Sitting across the aisle from me was a middle aged Asian American business man, dressed impeccably, clearly a frequent flier (as most people in the exit row are). After explaining the situation, the flight attendant turned to this man and asked, "do you speak English?" he responded, "yes", with the complete lack of accent only available to a 2nd or 3rd (or longer) generation Asian American. I almost jumped out of my seat, with my new awareness of what it would be like to be asked questions like this (and worse), have assumptions made, and be treated as "other", and "not us", for your entire life. (I actually turned to the man, and a bit shaky with my brand-new righteous indignation on behalf of all Asian Americans, said, "I apologize for the stupidity of Caucasians." He gave me the odd look I deserved.)
Here's the rub: how do I - how do we - engage in this critical conversations without somewhat perpetuating or adding to the "otherness" sin against Asian Americans? By the very fact that I am trying to figure out how to be a part of change - in my own heart, first, and in our culture in some way - I am concurrently, and by necessity, bringing attention to the uniqueness (read: otherness) of the Asian American experience. How can I pursue the friendship I think I would really enjoy with the Asian American youth worker in san diego I met through all this mess, have conversations about stuff like this, and yet still not treat him as my token Asian American friend, as my personal guilt-assuager, or as my "project" - all positions that do violence to him.
The book actually addresses this tension, explaining (at length) why the ideal of "colorblindness" doesn't work. but, either I didn't quite understand that part, or I thought the final conclusion of "live in the tension" wasn't quite satisfying enough.
Anyhow. I really do recommend this book, especially for anyone who would like to grow in their understanding of the Asian American experience and the issues that continue to surround the racism we don't tend to talk about in America.
Good material, but tough slogging...
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I loved the subject material and the points Wu makes, but boy was that hard reading. Usually a proficient reader, it took FOREVER to get through this writing. Good points, unique and interesting points, but style of writing (combined with tiny font) made for repeated re-reads to ensure I understood the point and could remember it.
This was much harder even than my text book for a Race Relations class I am taking!
If there is such a thing as Cliff Notes for this book, it would be well worth the investment!
-k.
More Lies by the Anti-white Left
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Throughout the 1990's, both conservatives and liberals worried about the large divide between blacks and whites over issues like the Crown Heights riots, The Los Angeles riots, the O.J. Simpson verdict, Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March", affirmative action, hate crime legislation, choice of political parties and many other topics. The recent emergence of issues such as racial profiling and "reparations" for slavery indicates that this divide is as wide as ever. For at least the last 40 years, political, social and cultural elites have taken a particular point of view regarding this gap and how best to overcome it. From the Kerner Commission of the 1960's to President Clinton's "Dialogue on Race" in the 1990's, the proposed remedy has been to make whites realize the daily racism blacks (and to a lesser extent all non-whites) face, as well as the daily privileges they get from being white. In other words, blacks have the clear view on American racism and whites must be disabused of their bigoted, wrong-headed opinions and made aware of their true history of oppression. In order to do this, a mountain of racial myths has been created. Perhaps some of these myths are put forth by those who only want racial advantage for their own group. But most of these untruths exist because people have never heard the whole story on a host of racial issues in American and world history.
Indeed, during a tour to promote his book on American race relations, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (2002), Frank Wu, the first Asian-American law professor at Howard University, appeared on a local black talk show in Washington DC hosted by NPR personality Kojo Nnamdi. Professor Wu also writes for the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and The Nation, so he is no minor character. The two commentators immediately started talking about the history of white American racism and spent considerable time informing viewers about the "fact" that during WWII the American government interned Japanese-Americans but not Italian-Americans or German-Americans. Indeed, if America really did intern non-whites whose ancestors happened to come from Japan, but not whites whose ancestors came from Italy or Germany, what can be more telling about the reality of American racism?
The fact is that about half of those interned by the U.S. government during WWII were white (Mostly Italian-Americans and German-Americans). In Undue Process: The Untold Story of America's German Alien Internees (1997), Arnold Krammer, professor of history at Texas A&M University, describes the extensive wartime policy of interning Europeans - a policy that has disappeared from history books and that gives the lie to the orthodox view that Japanese relocation was a race-based policy. Using government documents, newspaper accounts, and interviews with former internees, Prof. Krammer has documented the officially forgotten history of the internment of whites. The United States started to intern German and Italian merchant seamen in U.S. ports in April 1941 while the country was officially neutral - a clear violation of law. By October 1941, it had formal plans for interning Germans and Italians living in the United States, and began implementing them on December 8, 1941 - three days before the U.S. was officially at war with Germany and Italy. Some Germans who were naturalized citizens were stripped of U.S. citizenship so they could be interned legally. The total number of enemy aliens interned by the Roosevelt Administration was 31,275. This included 10,905 Germans, 16,849 Japanese, and 3,278 Italians. The rest consisted of other Europeans from enemy nations, with whites constituting 46 percent of the total.
Another forgotten point about Japanese internment was the open disloyalty of many Japanese-Americans during the war. Over three-fourths of Japanese-Americans held dual Japanese citizenship, which indicated a less-than-total attachment to America. Once the war began, unlike German and Italian-Americans, many Japanese-Americans were openly hostile. For example, approximately 14,000 filed to renounce U.S. citizenship. The demand for renunciation was so great that in 1944 Congress amended the Nationality Act of 1940 to allow U.S. citizens to renounce citizenship during wartime. Of these 14,000 petitioners, 5,620 followed the process through to full renunciation, and gave up citizenship. They were then interned as enemy aliens, a consequence that probably kept many other disloyal Japanese- Americans from renouncing citizenship. Without this group of 5,620 Japanese - officially known as "renunciants" and, in effect, self-selected internees - the number of European internees would have been greater than the number of Japanese. There are no known cases of a U.S. citizen of European origin renouncing citizenship during the war. When forced to choose between their homeland and the United Sates, many Japanese chose to side with their race. Ironically, it is on the grounds of "racism" that Japanese have successfully sued the U.S. government. Activists succeeded in winning financial compensation from Congress on seven separate occasions - in 1948, 1951, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1972, and 1978. In 1988, Congress issued an official apology, and awarded $20,000 to each former internee and relocated person of Japanese descent. Four years later, Congress extended eligibility for the $20,000 to non-Japanese spouses of Japanese internees who voluntarily joined their families in internment. In June 1998, the Clinton Administration announced it would pay financial compensation to Japanese-Latin Americans interned in the United States during the war. There is now a memorial to Japanese internees in Washington D.C.
Needless to say, no white internees have received money, an apology or a monument and their sufferings have been erased from history.
Excellent Resource on Being Asian and Asian-American.
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My only concern with this book was that it felta little dragged out, like perhaps a better editor would have made it more concise. Nonetheless, I managed to make my way through the entire thing and it was well worth it. While I don't have the energy to write a very intense and long review, I must say that his chapters on the model minority myth (coming from a victim of the stereotype and one who believed it to be true) and on the dangers of rational discrimination are both extremely enlightening. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a book that doesn't leave non-blacks or non-whites a little left out of racial discourse in America.
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