A look at authentic East Asian activism in the fight against Asian hate
Written by Alyssa Tang
Everybody feels as though they have to be a politician nowadays. Being politically engaged and passionate is now, more than ever, the young person’s game: Gen Z is moving the goalposts; the youth will save us all. But when our activism often remains performative in story highlights and as hashtags in Instagram bios, it’s time to rethink how and why we get involved in these issues. Though there’s nothing wrong with spreading information, following a trend is bound to proliferate it with misinformation, and our activism becomes entirely farce for others when there’s no next step.
There’s a privilege that comes with choosing a stance rather than having it imposed upon you through radicalizing firsthand experiences. The issue with this self-given responsibility occurs when we try to amplify our own voices over others and take on the role of spokesperson for an entire demographic. “Boba liberalism,” a common phenomenon among East Asians, is essentially a mockery of activism that decenters the marginalized of a community. It does more harm than good by focusing on individual issues and ignoring the overarching systemic flaws that govern them. Many East Asians who have grown up in the U.S. would agree that it’s easier to focus on the superficial parts that come with an East Asian identity than doing the work to really reconnect with our roots: We can all joke about Kumon trauma and complain about our “tiger parents” while flocking to boba shops — the insignia of our people. But boba, emblematic of “boba liberalism,” is a similarly sweet yet substanceless trend. It’s an easy way to get acquainted with one’s culture but a handshake with our identity at best.
THERE’S A PRIVILEGE THAT COMES WITH CHOOSING A STANCE RATHER THAN HAVING IT IMPOSED UPON YOU THROUGH RADICALIZING FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCES.
That’s not to say that the boba doesn’t have a rich cultural history — for most diaspora teens, however, the Taiwanese drink is a cop-out to connect with their history. This lack of identity among the East Asian diaspora leads us to latch on to others, and the most prevalent kind is eagerness for proximity to whiteness, translating to a rigorous upholding of the status quo. Coming from one of the best public high schools in California, many of us are going to carry our experiences — from academics to extracurriculars to civic engagement — through the rest of our lives and have the potential to make an impact with them. Thus, our activism must be substantial, and that begins with how we regard our identity.
“Boba liberalism” is the ideology that many ostensibly liberal East Asians fall back on because it makes one’s politics seem palpable and tolerant to anybody without standing out as one of “those” loud-mouthed and brazen minorities. It’s an inoffensive stance to have on serious issues, such as the Stop Asian Hate movement — often middle- or upper-class Asians co-opting white liberal talking points to speak for all Asians in America. Unintentionally, the “Asian American” issue has become one of the upper class. The shining, youthful faces, paragons of the model minority myth, have their opinions and voices upheld. The victims of Asian hate crimes, however, such as those of the Atlanta spa shooting, have always been the overlooked minority — working in spas, salons and massage parlors, sending money back home and being scorned by many Americans who think their infiltration is stealing jobs. Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American man, was killed by two white workers who claimed that “it’s because of you motherf- --ers that we’re out of work,” all the way back in 1982. Though our cushioned lives in the Bay Area could not be more different, we’re still scared to stray from our tolerated political bubble. In this reductive activism, we fail to catch the true culprit of these hate crimes: deep-seated American imperialism that upholds white supremacy and fears China’s increasing global dominance.
An example of this bare-minimum show of support is the infamous Canva infographics that circled Instagram stories, with an impact that disappeared as soon as the story hit its 24 hour mark. These infographics, while shared in good faith, were often oversimplified explanations of more complex geopolitical forces, and they failed to point out the rampant Sinophobia in major news outlets that had been a catalyst to the Asian hate crimes in 2020 for decades: the mass freak-out over the “Chinese spy balloon” in 2021, the TikTok data mining concerns (which Meta does as well, much more maliciously) and endless headlines declaring China’s ill intentions for the Western world and our sacred democracy — “China is getting smarter - but at what cost?” from the BBC or “China keeps virus at bay at high cost ahead of Olympics” from ABC News. It’s not hard to imagine the sentiment allowed to fester by these accusatory headlines approved by media giants serving Western imperialist interests. For decades now, China has been viewed as the U.S.’s greatest enemy: 83 percent of adults have negative views, and 44 percent have very negative views, according to the Pew Research Center.
America’s ever-prevalent hostility toward China extends, in turn, to other East Asian countries. In March 2020, a man in Texas attacked Bawi Cung and his son with a knife, later admitting that he had mistaken the Burmese American family for Chinese and blamed them for COVID-19.
WE CANNOT, HOWEVER, STAY COMPLICIT WHEN THE MEDIA PEDDLES LIES ABOUT EAST ASIAN COUNTRIES OR WORSE, ENGAGES IN MAKING FUN OF OUR UNFAMILIAR TRADITIONS AND EATING HABITS.
We’re not immune to imperialist propaganda, and it’s easy to fall into it when many of us are ashamed of how East Asian countries are portrayed from a Western lens. Survey data from the Pew Research Center shows that 35 percent of Chinese Americans view China unfavorably. We cannot, however, stay complicit when the media peddles lies about East Asian countries or worse, engages in making fun of our unfamiliar traditions and eating habits. Progressivism flourishes here in Palo Alto — we should take advantage of that to push the boundaries of “acceptable” activism. Sure, something is better than nothing, but we don’t live in an area where “racism is bad” is a novel stance. Beyond reposting an infographic on social media and calling it a day, we must prevent the country from falling back into the status quo after tragedies occur.
Ultimately, we cannot denounce Asian hate without understanding how it is exactly what the cogs of the imperialist machine spin toward. Interest and anger spurred by those Instagram infographics should be converted into meaningful actions: attending rallies, contacting elected officials, signing petitions, and most importantly, understanding the groundwork behind one’s activism — don’t let it be fake.
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