Arizona raised, New York grown.
♡Sorority-Girl Asian American Feminist♡
Asian American Studies Reading List
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Some of you may have noticed that fascinasiansblog.com no longer links to a working website.
I've been so lucky these past years to have been involved with a community so warm, so open, and so supportive. I really could not have gotten to where I am in life now without Fascinasians and I owe many many many of my friends to that blog.
However, as I dive deeper into working with the awesome people at 18 Million Rising and focus on life (taxes? vacation days? 3 cats? wut) it's time to let Fascinasians go. I'm keeping the Tumblr, but probably won't be updating it much anymore. I’m still online though, and I’ll be lurking around.
You can find me at:
Twitter: @Juliet_Shen
Twitter: @18millionrising
Facebook: FB.com/18millionrising.org (-JS is me!)
Tumblr: http://18mr.tumblr.com
Instagram: @18millionrising
If you’re interested in bringing me to your campus or organization to speak, email [email protected]!
I could probably write essays upon essays about how meaningful Fascinasians has been to me and how large of an impact it's had on my life. But...some things are better left unsaid. Thank you for learning with me, for teaching me, for guiding me. I love you all so, so much and I will forever be grateful for what Tumblr and Fascinasians have given me.
Thanks for a good run and an amazing 4 (almost 5) years.
A Cop Killed A White Teen And The #AllLivesMatter Crowd Said Nothing
On the evening of July 26, Zachary Hammond pulled into the parking lot of a Hardee’s in Seneca, South Carolina. Seated next to him was a young woman who had arranged to meet someone there to sell a bag of weed. It’s unclear what Hammond knew about the transaction, but neither the 19-year-old nor his passenger had any idea that the buyer was actually an undercover police officer. Moments later, another officer fatally shot Hammond.
The crazy thing about this story is that it seems to me that black people are more concerned about it than white people are & if that’s not irony, idk what is.
I heard about this a little while ago and I questioned why all the people who be like “UM SO WHAT ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE WHO GET SHOT BY POLICE?!?? #ALLLIVESMATTER” suddenly disappeared.
Join youth leaders from across New York City for the 2015 Chinatown Beautification Day (CBD) and Youth Conference! The two-day event consists of a conference day followed by a clean-up day and will take place the weekend of August 8th-9th. Registration for both days is completely free, and lunch will be provided.
Facebook event for the weekend: https://www.facebook.com/events/1642536889323872/
To register for the youth conference, follow this link: http://bit.ly/CBDYouthCon
Date: Saturday, August 8th
Time: 9:30AM - 5PM
Location: CUNY AAARI - 25 W 43rd St, New York, NY 10036, 18th Floor
Keynote Speaker: Cathy Dang, Executive Director of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
To register for the clean-up day, follow this link: http://bit.ly/CBDClean
Date: Sunday, August 9th
Time:11AM - 3PM
Location: 62 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013
Speaker: Andrew and David Fung (FungBrosComedy on YouTube)
Did you know that Asian American women have the highest suicide rate among all young adult and adolescent women? Join us this July in learning more about how mental health affects different minority communities.
We’re connecting multilingual volunteers so limited English speakers use their voice to vote. | Crowdfunding is a democratic way to support the fundraising needs of your community. Make a contribution today!
In America, life depends on written materials.
If you’re a multilingual Asian or Pacific Islander American, you grew up knowing this fact. You’ve provided a vital link for limited English speakers in your family by translating newspapers, medical forms, and more. We sometimes forget the power of language, but we know what it makes possible – family stories, cultural heritage, and participating in a democracy.
We’re 18MR.org, and we’re building a solution to overcome language barriers and intimidation facing voters who are more capable and confident discussing complex ideas in their native language. It’s a translation matching app called VoterVOX – one part civic tech, one part grassroots organizing, and three parts cultural connection.
It’s the first app for human-centered voting, and you can help us bring it to life.
Shouldn’t democracy already be accessible to everyone?
Right now, our election system is messy and discriminatory.
Imagine voting as a new citizen. It might take years after coming to the United States in order to become eligible to vote. On election day, you make it to your polling place and make it through the line – only to receive an English-language ballot that you can’t figure out. You don’t know exactly what you’re voting for, or how to correctly fill it in. Poll workers give you the cold shoulder because they can’t really understand you, either.
Frustrated and intimidated, you give up your political voice.
Even if you’re fluent in English, struggling with bureaucracy is real. Add the layer of a language barrier, and it becomes nearly impossible. Voting is particularly difficult, and since Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters speak so many different languages and dialects, they are at special risk of being excluded.
We know that people with limited English proficiency are just as smart or smarter than people who are fluent in English – some may be our family elders. And AAPI voters want to vote, but they face barriers at every step. According to a 2012 exit poll from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, nearly 1 in 4 Asian Americans prefer to vote with help from an interpreter or translated materials. And while the Voting Rights Act mandates translated voting ballots and materials, it’s only sometimes enforced, and only applies to districts with a “significant” number of citizens, determined by the Census. Meanwhile, the last Census is already 5 years out of date, and AAPIs are the fastest-growing racial demographic. The American Community Survey estimates the number of AAPIs who speak English less than fluently at nearly 7 million individuals.
We can bridge the gap by connecting bilingual volunteers around culture and community.
Our project creates grassroots, scalable access to democracy in every language.
We’re designing VoterVOX as a matching app that connects bilingual AAPI volunteers with limited English speakers so that every eligible voter gets access to a ballot and voting information in their language.
VoterVOX is also a model for bridging generation gaps and digital divides. Through partnerships with community-based organizations, we reach limited English speakers where they’re at, places like libraries and grocery stores and social centers, and help them sign up for translation in-person. No smartphone or computer class necessary!
Here’s how VoterVOX works:
Let’s say you’re fluent in English and Vietnamese, and you value the wisdom elders share with you. You get the VoterVOX app and it connects you to a person that local community partners identify as needing assistance. You meet them at a library to help translate their ballot and hear stories. You say goodbye to your new friend, and they send their mail-in ballot themselves (because that is the law). Democracy!
In grassroots organizing, one-to-one connections like these are the building block of strong, healthy communities. And by uploading your ballot translation and jargon clarification, VoterVOX makes the effort that much easier for the next volunteer.
We’re 18MR.org, and we strengthen grassroots power with technology!
Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Depression & Suicide Among Asian American Women
by Kristina Wong at 8Asians
My earliest memories of even thinking I might be depressed were met with warnings by my mother that if I ever dare seek professional help for depression, even as a kid, my employers would one day find out and fire me. It did bother me that being depressed-but-employed versus happy-and-unemployed was the better of the two (and only two) options, but I heeded her advice and never sought professional help. God forbid anyone know I was once a crazy 12-year old kid.
So I hid it for years. And not very well. Even into my college years, I managed to turn club meetings, sleepovers, friendships and intimate relationships into my own impromptu therapy sessions. Anything to avoid the stigma of actually seeking professional help! When I introduced myself to a circle of new friends, somehow unsolicited emotional clutter would always spill out with it. Sometimes my friends were halfway decent at playing Freud, but very often, they were so mired in their own messy lives that my problems just exhausted them.
In high school, my best friend was a white girl named Siobhan. She told me about her therapist. How much her therapist listened to her. How much her therapist loved her. I wanted a therapist to listen to me and love me too. But I didn’t have $50 an hour to pay for that kind of love. Instead, I settled for casually asking for help from friends who would jokingly dismiss me with: “You’re a crazy weirdo, Kristina Wong.”
Being called a “crazy weirdo” was enough for me to not show signs of weakness again. So I’d call out other people as “crazy.” I decided that as long as I could call somebody else crazy, I was doing just fine. Siobhan didn’t seem to care that one day she would be found out as crazy and never get hired for a job. Somehow, she passed off her crazy as cool. In fact, she relished in being “the bad girl with the shrink.” I think Siobhan fed off the energy of everyone thinking she was the so bad she needed help. Being handed the brand of “bad girl” was easier than trying to carve out her own identity.
In retrospect, it may not have even been that I was actually clinically depressed. I think I was just very isolated in a predominantly Chinese American community that shunned ever talking about anything that might be going wrong. My family was so insistent that I project only the best that during car rides en route to family engagements, my parents prepped me with which highlights of my life to talk about with the rest of our family. It was as if I was a political candidate being prepped for a campaign speech. Except, the people voting for me were from my own family.
I was constantly being introduced by my accomplishments (“This is Kristina, she wins trophies and has a perfect GPA”). This confirmed that the only value I had to the world was my net worth. I was never introduced as who I was… because who was I but my accomplishments? I was living in a fictitious world where the only life worth living seemed to be the one that moved along a specific storyline of success. Simply, I was a living cliché of Asian American teenhood: Get good grades, go to the best college, go to the best med school, marry a Chinese doctor, buy the biggest house on the block, and then have Chinese doctor babies.
Supposedly, after that storyline was complete, I would be successful. And successful would equate happiness. Nevermind how unhappy the whole journey was because how could a six figure income and a Chinese doctor husband not make anyone happy? Right? Right?! Nobody talked about what would happen if I diverged from this storyline, but I could only imagine the worst…. Poverty! Obscurity! A single woman surrounded by cats! I lived in so much fear of failure and struggled to both meet an unrealistic prescription of success. I’d break down crying over the unwritten fate that lay ahead if I failed my parents’ expectations. The misery was becoming undeniable even in high school. I went to a Catholic all-girls school in San Francisco. At the start of religion class, we could go around and set an intention for prayer. Girls would pray for relatives dying of cancer or the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. I’d pray for God to bring me the same thing in rain or shine: “Please God, help the babies dying of cancer and whatever, but especially help me ace that Trig test!”
Photo credit: Corky Lee
Now I’m a grown woman and I’ve learned that having a liberal arts degree does not cause you to self-destruct the moment you graduate. And as evidenced by many of my fellow Asian Americans thriving in a whole range of professions, there is indeed, life outside of medical school. And no, you won’t get fired from your job for having gone to therapy at 12, 32 or 65. In fact, I’ve learned you can actually make a career out of addressing the crazy that nobody will talk about in graphic detail. I am now gainfully self-employed as a solo performer and writer. I tour the country and make a living talking about all the things I never got to talk about as a kid, in front of packed audiences.
It is no cake life to make a living as a performer and writer. I keep late hours, often wonder where my next paycheck is coming from, and I have an extremely difficult time assuring the people I am dating that they will not be part of my shows.
I implode… on stage, and people pay to see it. For the most part, unlike implosions in real life, I can put myself back together again. My show Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest addresses the stigma and shame around depression and suicide among Asian American women. Asian American women have some of the highest rates of depression and suicide in this country. It’s the kind of factoid that simultaneously shocks some and seems intimately right to others.
In the show, I critique the insanely unrealistic pressures some Asian American women have to please everyone and the dangerous cultural pressure to hide that anything is going wrong. In the show I use the “Dramatic arc of Fiction” to critique the fictitious lives women like me were expected to live out. It’s been a wonderful poetic justice to take a whole lifetime of angst and confusion and find a way to channel it into something creative.
In my talking to women about their depression and getting audience feedback after my shows, I didn’t anticipate how many women would “out” themselves as depressed and suicidal. Nor did I anticipate that so many of these women would be the women I thought least likely to show their vulnerability. They were professors, professionals, and community leaders. Where were these emotionally open women in high school? Would our lives have been less depressing if we knew we each other more honestly? What if we could have been so vulnerable with each other? Would this problem even persist?
I feel this so hard. I’ve struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts since adolescence and even though we “talk” about mental illness a lot, it still doesn’t quite feel like we’re talking about it. We can spout statistics and facts and studies, but we also need to openly destigmatize depression and mental illness.
Honestly -- sometimes it’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel what you (and I) feel, and it’s good to talk to others and get help. What feels like the end is not the end.
When we have failed at solidarity work we often retreat, struggling to convince ourselves that this is indeed the work we have been called on to do. The fact of the matter is that there is no other work but the work of creating and re-creating ourselves within the context of community. Simply put, there is no other work. It took five hundred years, at least in this hemisphere, to solidify the division of things that belong together. But it need not take us another five hundred years to move ourselves out of this existential impasse. Spirit work does not conform to the dictates of human time, but it needs our courage, revolutionary patience, and intentional shifts in consciousness so that we can anchor the struggle for social justice within the ample space of the erotic.
M. Jacqui Alexander, “Remembering ‘This Bridge Called My Back’, Remembering Ourselves,” Pedagogies of Crossing
The human body’s ability to experience and endure pain is at once beautiful and terrifying.
Some pain we cover up with bandages and wait, slowly feeling it fade underneath and harden into a scar.
Some pain we turn into anger and use it to power ourselves and provide amplification for our voices.
Some pain we hide away because it is so deeply intertwined with shame and regret, there’s no way to fully process it.
I’ve seen it reflected in my mother’s eyes from across the room one night, with the sun slowly stretching up after a night out. I was sixteen and wildly infatuated with the idea of assimilating through rebellion. Her, sitting on the bed wholly defeated with red rims around her swollen eyes. Me, wearing a glittery top and covered in fluorescent paint.
I expected anger, screaming, even violence. I had acted out, gotten caught, and it was time to face the consequences. But when the silence filled the room and left no space for anything else, my instinct to fight back curled up somewhere in my chest and disappeared. My grandfather, my yeye, was in his last days. I knew this, but it was a kind of knowledge that I only briefly acknowledged and then archived away.
He was the man who helped raise me as a baby, who let me tie his thinning hair into ponytails that looked like palm trees. We would sip our coconut milk together out of the black cans in Shanghai, sometimes treating ourselves to a simple block of vanilla ice cream. There are photos, but no memories, of us napping together in an armchair. My tiny body a boat floating on his ocean.
It was the time of my life when I wanted to be known for being bad. I stood there, eyes downcast on my paint-splattered legs barely covered by fishnets, and felt true shame for the first time. I think I saw my mother cry but to this day, I’m not sure. I try to recall the memories from those years and struggle – knowing that I locked them away to try and forget.
Some pain we put in a box and seal it, hoping that it never resurfaces. It does though, it always does. It seeps out from the crevices of my grandfather’s tombstone when I clean it with water and a cloth. It’s there in the lines around my mother’s smile when we pose for a picture – never sure if we should smile because he loved us or look sad because he’s gone.
Yeye turns 100 this year. My mother turns 60. I am 23.
7 years ago, I should have apologized. I’ve kept it buried deep inside me, doing my best every day to make up for that night, that year, that era.
Today I let it go – not because I want to forget, but because I know that I’m living his legacy now. The pain has turned into a scar, reminding me always of what’s important in this life.
CELEBRATE PRIDE MONTH BY HONORING COURAGEOUS QUEERS OF COLOR WHO "TALK BACK"!
Hi -- it would be great if you could post this. I can send you photos of the authors quoted. I tried to insert one photo, but I don't think it worked. Thanks. Helen
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The new anthology, TALKING BACK: VOICES OF COLOR, edited by Nellie Wong (Red Letter Press, $15.00), features a number of LGBTQ authors whose writings address the whole universe of issues that affect their lives, families and communities. From education to police violence, immigration to social justice movements, cultural critiques to employment battles, these queers of color show that their struggles will not be resolved by a simple wedding band. Their issues of concern cannot be boiled down to just one or two simple demands, and as Norma Gallegos says, "We go to the mat for everything we are."
From an activist in the fight to save City College of San Francisco from closure:
“One of the learning services that was eliminated [at City College of San Francisco] was called the Gender Diversity Project. We made presentations on campus about the importance of safety for transgender and non-gender-conforming students. The class was such a success in discussing safety that many stayed in the group after they were no longer paid. What City College used to have, the inherent essence of what has changed so many lives for those who were able to attend, was that it was quality, affordable, public education — inclusive to the working-class community in the Bay Area. Due to these cuts and attacks, that which made City College has been damaged…
“We as a community refuse to allow our school to be taken from us, we refuse to allow these walls or attacks to diminish us, and we will continue to face the problematic changes being implemented on our school. City College belongs to us and though the fight for it will be tough, we will not stand down.”
--Duciana Thomas
The words of a queer Salvadoran immigrant:
“Capitalism blames gay marriage for destroying families. I blame capitalism! Families are separated daily on both sides of the border because of desperate economic conditions created by so-called free trade agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA that benefit only those at the top. In countries like El Salvador it is difficult enough to find work that pays a living wage. Harder if you’re older than 35. And forget about it all together if you’re a woman over 35.
“More and more, the only way out is for people to emigrate to where the jobs are. When they arrive they are often treated as subhuman invaders.
“…I never expected to learn so much, so fast, about the social conditions and hidden history that affect my daily life — where I come from as a woman, as a Salvadoran immigrant, as a queer person of color.”
--Karla Alegria
The "disappearance" of queers from a book on Black women's activism:
“Fabulous history fills Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle … Profiled are indomitable, courageous Black women leaders of the 1930s through the 1970s who provided the organizing backbone in many movements…
“[But] it is appalling that a book published in 2009 doesn’t give credit to the Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement and its leaders for theorizing a Black revolutionary feminist program. Pat Parker was ignored completely. Audre Lorde is referred to primarily as a poet. And the Combahee River Collective is mentioned briefly, without saying they were Black lesbian feminists — who explicitly stated the need for a socialist revolution that is feminist and anti-racist.
“This omission is all the more unfortunate because of the many militant queers who, due to their rock-bottom social status, devoted their lives to the movements the book discusses but could not be ‘out’ at the time.”
--Merle Woo
A groundbreaking fight against discrimination at University of California – Berkeley in the 1980s:
“Our next step was to file complaints in federal and state courts charging violation of my free speech rights and discrimination based on race, sex, sexuality and political ideology. Students, unionists, and community activists supported my case. But there was opposition too. Some Asians, women, and gays hated my radicalism. Some feminists were racist and some labor bureaucrats didn’t see discrimination as a labor issue. But we refused to compromise on any of the issues or to be limited by an identity politics approach. This was our strength.”
--Merle Woo
The satisfaction of finding one's political home:
“I was hungry for revolutionary politics that were feminist and spoke to who I was: Chicana, queer, poor, and a born-and-raised San Francisco city gal.
"… Socialist feminism dismantles patriarchal, racist, sexist, and homophobic institutions. It gives us the power to educate, learn, live, breathe, eat, sleep, work, love and take care of each other.”
--Norma Gallegos
Along with their other co-authors, queer and straight, of all colors and backgrounds, these genuine, committed and engaging individuals have much to share. You will enjoy being part of the conversations in TALKING BACK: VOICES OF COLOR.
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Talking Back is available from RedLetterPress.org, Amazon.com, Powells.com and other book dealers.
Red Letter Press
4710 University Way NE #100, Seattle, WA 98105
www.RedLetterPress.org
[email protected] - (206)985-4621
I’m so tired and so not ready to take my 7AM flight to New York tomorrow for a whole bunch of reasons, but if you’re reading this -- thank you. I know I’ve really slowed down my posting, forgot to renew my domain, and have more or less switched over fully to 18mr but I love y’all.
Seriously. So much love.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the internet, community, relationships, and how we all kind of found each other and you know what? Everything I learned and all the people I’ve met originated from here. The little Asian Tinychat groups, the ridiculous black lists, the conversations that made us snap in solidarity at 2AM...everything.
Grateful for y’all. Support tnproject if you can. Life is good.
Hi! Do you have any recommendations for Filipino blogs? Anything from current events or cultural history? All I have is the Filipino channel which can be pretty problematic. Please let me know!
Old friends and new friends and internet friends IRL at Tuesday Night Café!
From left: deepwinterstrawberry, me, fascinasians, & eyezunclouded
Tonight was my second night at Tuesday Night Café and it was just as amazing as my first time back in June for the LGBTQ-showcased one. We actually stuck around to meet people tonight and everyone was so nice! Tbh I was a little starstruck meeting people I’d only seen performing, speaking, and writing online before, but it was relatively easy to just start talking to people. The intentional community-building is there and obvious and I’m already in love with this amazing space and the people who make it happen. So glad I know about it and am in LA now so I can continue to come. Just need to uh… get more comfortable driving first lol :P
Women scientists made up 25% of the Pluto fly-by New Horizon team. Make sure you share this, because erasing women’s achievements in science and history is a tradition. Happens every day.
How to address one of Orange is the New Black's biggest blindspots.
“Groundbreaking” is a word often used describe Orange Is The New Black, and it’s not an entirely unwarranted description. The show highlights a broad spectrum of body types, races, sexual orientations, and genders within the walls of Litchfield Penitentiary, women who are otherwise under- or mis-represented in the media.
But for all of its sensitivity, the show has developed a blind spot, and over its three seasons, Orange Is The New Black has repeatedly failed its Asian characters. Chang and Brook Soso – the only two Asian inmates – are, at best, underdeveloped, and at worst, common stereotypes of Asian women in popular media. It is only now, in the third season, that the viewer begins to see these two women’s characters develop, but those advances are offset by tasteless jokes made at the expense of Asians.
OITNB’s relationship with its Asian characters started off rocky, in no small part because there was only one Asian in the show’s first season. Referred to only by her last name, Chang (Lori Tan Chinn) lives on the periphery of prison life and rarely interacts with or is mentioned by other characters. She speaks in a broken English, coated with a thick, generic “Asian” accent. To see an Asian on TV as a criminal, rather than a doctor or some kind of hyper-sexualized woman, is a notable advance, but in these earliest episodes, Chang barely graduates beyond the role of wallflower.
With the second season of OITNB came the introduction of a second Asian inmate, and at first, it seemed like Brook Soso (Kimiko Glenn) would be poised to be the developed Asian character the show lacked. But she was quickly marginalized, sexualized, and even mocked for her Asian heritage. Her last name, which is vaguely oriental-sounding but of indeterminate ethic origin, is difficult for the other inmates to understand. At one point, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) admits she has a hard time saying Soso’s “name with a straight face.”
It is only in the show’s third season that Chang and Soso start to find their voices and the audience learns more about these women’s lives beyond the prison walls. But even these moments of nuance are full of clichés, a dichotomy perfectly encapsulated by the sixth episode of the season, which has the questionably offensive title “Ching Chong Chang.” The episode follows Chang’s path to prison and forces the viewer to question traditional beauty standards and humanize the otherwise marginalized inmate, but it also involves Tae Kwon Do, even though Chang is revealed to be Chinese, and the illegal trade of rhino horns. Nonetheless, it’s a huge step forward for Chang’s insecurities to be placed front and center for the first time, and to even hear her speak in full sentences.
Meanwhile, Soso retreats from prison life and spends the season struggling with depression. The arc isn’t exactly uplifting, but it is still somehow refreshing given the taboo of mental illness in Asian culture. The typecasting returns again, as a flashback of Soso practicing piano as a young girl, yelled at by her “Tiger Mom” for neglecting to play the final repetition. Another Asian stereotype, but it’s at least balanced out by Soso’s struggle to find a community in Litchfield.
Confusingly, the progress made by the two individual characters in this most recent season is undermined by repeated mockery of Asians as a group. In one scene, Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) is guiding a group of executives from a private corporation around the prison. The posse is primarily made up of white male executives with a single unnamed Asian female. Black Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore) spots the group the group and greets them, “White people. And other.” The Asian executive says nothing and Caputo promptly escorts the group out.
Another cringe-worthy joke made at the expense of Asians happens in the electric shop, when Chapman asks Joel Luschek (Matt Peters) if he’s worried about leaving computers with inmates to fix up. He responds, “Maybe if any of you were technically savvy. Or Asian. But we screen for that.” Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne) then looks at Chapman, pulling her eyes back to make them seem squinty.
These jokes seem to have no purpose except to insult Asians, and that kind of onenote humor feels out of place for a show so celebrated for its carefully considered and multidimensional female characters. This isn’t to say that race- or gender-based jokes are, or should be, off-limits for OITNB, because they aren’t. Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) makes a rude joke to transgender inmate Sophia (Laverne Cox), calling her a “lady-man.” But instead of letting it slide, Sophia calls Morello out on the slur and stands up for herself and the population she implicitly represents. The Asian characters don’t have that same opportunity, to confront racist jokes as they happens, and instead are relegated to either putting up with it or not even knowing it’s happening, which is a much more insidious fate.
If the viewer is willing to give OITNB the benefit of the doubt, the on-screen marginalization of Asians might be intentional. Asians make up a small minority of the U.S. federal prison system, just 1.5 percent, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, so this poor treatment toward Asian inmates on the show could be a commentary about the ways in which Asians slip through the cracks in conversations about race.
On a less political (and, in my opinion, more plausible) level, the constant stream of mockery drives the characters, as the feeling of being left out is one Soso becomes part of her main story arc. It’s even something she complains about to Chang, saying, “You know what sucks? Belonging to a race that doesn’t commit enough low-value crimes to be relevant in a place like this. Where’s my big, Asian prison family?” Isolation and insecurity are also important motivators in Chang’s story, and those personal feeling are reinforced on a systemic level by these seemingly tasteless jokes and comments made at the expense of Asians.
There is a way for the show to make a statement about isolation and to build character arcs without reinforcing many of the stereotypes of Asians seen on TV, like that of the immigrant incapable of communicating in English, or reducing itself to onenote jokes with racist undertones. Making sure Chang’s and Soso’s characters are nuanced and empowered will counteract these tone deaf comments from the other inmates, and these changes begin to take hold in the third season. “My eyes squinty but ears work fine,” chides Chang as two inmates mercilessly tease her in the bathroom. But it shouldn’t have taken three seasons for the show’s first Asian character to stand up for herself, and Orange Is The New Black cannot truly be the inclusive voice it posits itself to be without a more empathetic portrayal of its Asian characters.
