My response to Anna's astute email:

Hey Anna,

      Wow, Anna, you have so many powerful/helpful things to say. I think that you’re correct: I truly believe that stereotypes that portray Asians as obsequious are at least partially responsible for the overall dearth of Asian advocacy campaigns and groups. But my argument yesterday was that there is also something else going on, something that works, almost exclusively, at the non-conscious level. It’s a kind of silence contract that seems to exist between White, mainstream America and Asian America. That contract, in my mind at least, goes something like this: if you don’t cause problems, i.e., don’t seek to actively deconstruct the status quo, then the obstacles that non-whites face here in the states will be less burdensome for you. Please be clear, I am not devaluing the individual hard-work that many Asian American, of all ethnicities, have demonstrated time and again. I just think that the hurdles that many “Asian” groups face are “softer” than the hurdles that other marginalized groups face. For example, the black and brown male body, in our society, has been criminalized. So, many young black and brown men are perceived, in our hyper race conscious society, as potential threats and are treated as such. People will, seemingly, instinctually lock their doors or clutch their purses when one or more of these kinds of young men are present.

      Now here I need to be more specific. I am going to attempt to operationalize “Asian” for the sake of our discussion. In California Chinese Americans (and to a lesser degree Japanese/Korean Americans), for a myriad of reasons, have become the archetypes for Asian-ness. More on archetypes: for example, if I tell everyone in class to think of a bird, most people will conjure up the image of a sparrow or robin, because they are archetypical birds, rather than an ostrich or penguin, because these two birds are not consider to be archetypical. So to your point about South East Asians being consumed by an essentializing and (erroneously) all-encompassing umbrella term like “Asian” is spot on. So many times, when people invoke Asian-ness, they are often talking about Chinese Americans; this is especially true whenever the model minority notion comes to the fore. Consequently, south East Asians are not really factored into many discussions about Asians, at least not here in California. Worth noting, pigment plays a large part in the social positionality of ethnic groups: this is true in what is considered to be the Asian community as well. Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong people are by and larger darker, pigment-wise, than Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Americans. As a result, in our Eurocentric society, darker skinned Asians are perceived (when thought of at all) quite differently than the other, more traditionally fair-skinned, Asian groups. And, consequently, their socio-economic statuses, by and large, are not on par with
the aforementioned “more fair-skinned” groups.

      There is also the issue of assimilation. It seems that while many older Chinese Americans may cling tight to their culture, this is not the case for many of their children and grandchildren. White people are notoriously acultural, because they are considered to be normative. It seems as though many Chinese Americans, (obviously, this is just my opinion), have assumed this ethos in an attempt to be more “American.” (Please feel free to disagree!)

      As far as stereotypes are concerned, I agree with you: there are no, intrinsically, good stereotypes; precisely because the impetus of any stereotype is to simultaneously differentiate and compartmentalize the individual in favor of generalizing the (purported) amalgam.

      Lastly, with your permission, I’d love to post this on the blog. It could be anonymous. Or, you could post it. It is so well-written and well-argued, that I think you could simply cut and paste the portions that you want to include. I think it will really get people talking. Plus, your comments are too good to be limited to just me.