A reflection written my staff member, Yoo-Jin Kang 

As an Asian-American woman, I’ve always struggled with finding people who look like me in the larger media. You see, May is Asian Pacific Islander month, and regrettably, I am not sure who I can expect to be featured during this month because I am so unfamiliar with Asian historical figures and their contributions.

Growing up in the United States education system, I had always learned about other important figures in our country: white presidents (except our current one!), famous white men who made *amazing* contributions to our society, and the few African-American historical figures who were brought up as part of our history lesson, like Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman. What I didn’t consciously realize for a long time was the lack of Asian representation, across the board, throughout my entire schooling and life. Why was this the case? Could it be that Asian Americans did not make useful or noteworthy contributions or impact to our society? Could it be that the only famous Asian American that I would ever know about would be figure skater Michelle Kwan?!

Of course not.

I can’t help but think about how the paradox of the minority model stereotype  fits into this lack of representation and recognition. This stereotype can be truly harmful because it can create a silencing and minimizing effect on the contributions, successes, and voices of Asian Americans who are “expected to do well” anyway, and so it’s not such a big deal. Growing up,  I couldn’t help but feel a quiet voice that told me that no matter what I did, I would not get recognition for it as a individual person, but would be praised because:

“Oh, you Asian people are so good at _____” or “have always been great at _______.”

Not only was this isolating for me… it also contributed to this liminal feeling I had of not being considered white, but not being labeled as a “person of color.” It took until college for me to realize that I, too, belong, and that my struggles were also worthy of speaking up about.

When I think about television shows and movies, this is where I feel the most isolated from the people who supposedly “represent” me in the media. Often, if I ever saw a character who looked similar to me, I noticed their role often consisted of stereotypical characteristics that only perpetuated already trivializing cultural beliefs.

Often, we seemed to be lumped with characters that had little personality — characters who seemed to serve one purpose: The math/science whiz. The person at the computer/phone navigating directions, while all the other characters were out kicking bad-guy butt. The repressed and studious best friend. The fetishized “oriental” model (often with chopsticks in her hair). Or the person with the broad “Asian” accent who spoke broken English, often seen working at a Chinese restaurant. Even when there was “representation” of an “Asian” character, I couldn’t relate to them at all.

Moreover, the term “Asian” is so broad. As an ethnic group, “Asian” encompasses so many regions, all with many similarities and differences in culture and values, and I can’t help but think that it’s harmful to lump so many different regions with one word, when we don’t recognize and pay attention to our differences. This May, I plan to learn more about not only my heritage, but also about the different cultures and contributions that make up the pan-Asian community. I hope you will join me and I challenge you to also recognize when a character of color, in any form of media, is being used as a trope rather than a valued person. 

[P.S. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews for the new show, “Fresh off the Boat“.                 On one hand, I hear people who love the show because not only are they seeing a family that might look like them, they are also identifying with some of the immigrant and often humorous experiences that are portrayed in the show. On the other hand, I hear about people who highly dislike the show, stating that it fulfills stereotypes about Asian immigrants, specifically with the notion that Jessica Huang (the mother) is a “tiger-mother“. It’s interesting to note that due to the scarcity of representation in our media, we often feel that when we do see people who look like us…we want/ expect them to be perfect. There is a fine balance to be made between respecting and honoring a person’s culture and background, as it influences who they are, and completing erasing a person’s racial identity to make it more accessible for a whiter audience.]

“Telling Our Stories: I’m Not/I Am” project is made possible by American Association of University Women Campus Action Grant.

The Women’s Center and Women of Color Coalition recently received a $5,000 grant from the American Association of University Women to fund their “Telling Our Stories: I’m Not/I Am” project.

The project aims to “raise awareness and reject stereotypes about women of color, and create a space for women-of-color voices and counternarratives”.

UMBC was one of eleven universities awarded the AAUW’s Campus-Action Grant. The project also received $500 from UMBC’s Breaking Ground initiative.

“I think it is important to bring some of that visibility to UMBC because so often people talk about how UMBC is so diverse,” said Megan Tagle Adams, coordinator of the Women’s Center.

“We want to not only engage with what’s going on in our community at UMBC, but also what is happening at large, even a global ideal of what microaggressions women of color go through on a daily basis” added Brianne Best, a senior English major and member at large in the Women of Color Coalition.

The campaign involves a series of discussions about sexist or racist microaggressions, and one’s experiences as a woman of color. Microaggressions are “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership.” They are unconscious discriminations, rather than conscious ones.

These discussions provide a safe space for women of color to discuss sensitive issues while promoting solidarity amongst themselves. Best said the discussions are “a great way for women of color to speak out and actually tell their stories.”

She continued, “I think the Safe Space and Brave Space model of dealing with women-of-color issues is very needed because not only do we need to have these safe space discussions so that we can talk about our situations, but we need a way to combat [systemic injustices].”

Space Spaces create environments conducive to learning about different cultures and ethnicities. Brave Spaces involves bringing up topics such as racism and sexism in ways that challenge perceived societal power dynamics.

The project concludes with the Telling our Stories: Showcase, which will take place on April 29. It will display performances from women of color to give them opportunity for genuine self-representation through creative means such as songs or spoken poetry, among other creative art forms.

The tone of the event is completely dependent on people who volunteer to participate in the showcase. “It really depends on the performers, and I imagine there will be a variety of art forms because everyone feels in different ways which means they will express it in different ways. We really, more than anything, want it to be authentic,” said Adams.

Best added: “With story-telling, no story is going to be the exact same as the others, and I think that is good. That tells you how diverse people are within themselves, because women of color cannot be put in a box.”

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