Isn't Yellow The New White?

Hey, Sam---why study Asian Americans. ....They're almost the same as white people! They make more money than us, we think they're hot, and they are better than us at everything!

This is ridiculous. I won't even address the complexities involved in forming the social construction of whiteness---that's too tricky for right now.

I guess people say this because statistically, it can seem as if Asians are making more money than white people in the US. Whether or not Asians are actually doing so is irrelevant. To me, even if Asians are making more money, the values embedded in "whiteness" are so strong that despite achieving the same level of material comfort as white people, Asians are still not white. American ideals of beauty are based on white women's features. While white women do get plastic surgery, do they ever do so in order to look like another race? Asian women do it! Look!

If a white woman were to get surgery to deliberately take on Asian features, she'd be considered a freak and put on the cover of the Weekly World News!

What's deeply ironic to me is that I can never seem to wrap my mind around what exactly goes on during Asian eyelid surgery.

Some Asian peoples' eyelids seem to retract a bit more into the eye socket than white peoples'. I never really noticed this until I was told like ten times. I still can't quite name the difference from the before and after photos. The Asian men and women who get this surgery are conscious of white ideals of beauty on a much deeper level than I can ever achieve. To me, there are Asian eyes and white eyes. Changing the lids doesn't seem to have an effect. I'm just not aware of race on the same level. What a privilege!

I never really have to worry about being singled out because of my race. I never have to worry about being made an example of. That's not say it never happens. I've been in many situations where I am the only white person and people make an example out of me and single me out. This has never caused me a bit of worry. As soon as I'm out of the place where I'm the white guy being singled out (which I really like, apparently), I'm back in the white world.

Even if I permanently live in a place where I'm the only white person and I'm constantly singled out, somehow I still carry within me this deep unshakable confidence that deep down inside they're wrong and that I'm OK or perhaps even a little better than everyone else. I wouldn't really say this is because of my own individual psychology. History has created a great identity for me. Even if I'm a foreigner in Ecuador or Namibia, I will always be able to act like I own the place because at one point, white people kind of did own the places, and on some level, we still do.

If you look at the concept of identity---it's kind of a strange thing. Somehow, over the years, we've constructed it. Five hundred years ago, people weren't conscious of their identity in the same way were are now. Ten thousand years ago, it seems that people just were. Studying Asian Americans will give me a good way to see what exactly identity is. Strange how a group that is supposedly so successful is still, in America, seen as somehow foreign or different. There is good difference and bad difference. Everyone's different, and that's great. Without this kind of difference, we'd all be really bored. There's also a bad difference, one that isolates people and makes them feel bad. As an Asian American, you are more likely to feel this kind of difference than you are as a white American.