Film, Literature and Chinese American Identity

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2, University of Tubingen, language: English, abstract: simplistic interpretation of a very limited number of works. The claims I will make inthe following are all based on my personal observations of the works in question.Since this is supposed to be a rather brief term paper, I will not be able to prevent myselffrom essentializing the people I talk about. When I speak of Americans or whites, I donot, at any rate, mean everyone living in America whose skin is white but everyone whohas bought into the media's portrayal of Chinese Americans and the stereotypes existingin America, in other words, everyone believing in a white supremacist ideology. Likewise,when I speak of Chinese Americans, I do not mean all Chinese Americans reunited but acertain part of the Chinese American population who will react in the way I describe. Allthis does not take into consideration the more and more complex composition ofChinese America.Some of what I will claim applies to other minorities, as well, especially to other groupsof Asian heritage that have united with Chinese Americans under the umbrella term"Asian Americans." This term, coined by the late Japanese American scholar YujiIchioka, homogenizes various groups of different Asian descent and does not take intoaccount their respective historical, cultural, political or other background. They haveunited in order to fight for certain clearly defined political issues that concern all ofthem, such as anti-Asian violence, racism, etc. White supremacists are probablyunaware of this political coalition anyways, due to their racist view that all Asians arealike.