Deconstructing Orientalism: How the West Has Shaped Narratives on Asian Americans

Stop anti-Asian hate and China-bashing rally in Washington D.C. in March 2021. Photo.

Tom Ford’s Yves Saint Laurent-branded, yellow, sequined, and satin gown disguises an ancient silk imperial robe; a Cartier perfume flask mirrors a Qing Dynasty snuff bottle. A series of displays in the 2015 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit, China: Through the Looking Glass, showcases Chinese fashion, art, costumes, paintings, and porcelains through an American lens. In the exhibit, Chinese-influenced fashion is put on display for the world to see, and Americanized Chinese culture is paraded at the expense of authenticity. Beneath these displays’ problematic surfaces lies a blatant reminder: to the West, “China is ornament”. While the MET exhibit was recent, the West’s twisted perception of the East has dominated society since the colonialism period and the European invention of “the Orient”. From the study of Orientalism comes a string of Orientalist stereotypes that have dominated American society as a means of controlling the image of the Asian American population, including the emergence of the model minority stereotype. Stereotypes originating from Orientalism oppress Asian American people today, and these stereotypes have been continuously molded over time to benefit those in power. The looming issue now centers around the term Orientalism being co-opted by the very actors it is meant to critique. 

The History of Orientalism

Racism against Asian Americans has remained largely absent from social and political discourse due to the model minority stereotype. Although seemingly harmless, the model minority stereotype is saturated with racism and reflects a colonialist mindset towards Asian Americans that gains its roots in Orientalism. Orientalism began as a study of the East formed from European perceptions of the Orient instead of being derived from the people themselves. These perceptions created a false premise to justify colonialism in the East, and it widened the divide between the East and the West. Despite claiming to unify humanity through the study of the Orient, the framework of Orientalism became inherently flawed as the goal steered away from helping cultural groups and towards controlling them by using knowledge and power. As Orientalism developed, the West fabricated an alternate view of the Orient within historical accounts, literature, and plays in order to maintain Western superiority and pave the road for its advancement in the East. 

The study of Orientalism then spurred a string of racist stereotypes about the East. During the process of categorization of the Orient, the cultural groups were dehumanized and stripped of natural, human characteristics. Through a European lens, the Orient was characterized as “passive, seminal, feminine, even silent and supine,” and these qualities provided the basis for an ideal stereotype. The concept of “Ornamentalism” explains the commodification, fetishization, and, ultimately, dehumanization of the Asian woman to the point where she becomes an ornament: synthetic instead of organic flesh. From a Western perspective, the Oriental has always been associated with femininity and passiveness while the Occident has been viewed as masculine and intellectual. 

The study of Orientalism and the concept of Ornamentalism has shaped the Western view of what it means to be Asian American, making the lasting legacy of fetishization and commodification of the East as prevalent today as it was during colonialism. Examples of this type of stereotype are everywhere. Blatantly, after the 1996 Summer Olympics, the New York Times critiqued the Chinese women’s gymnastics team by comparing them to a Ming vase with their routines having “cracks in several places”.

Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent in China: Through the Looking Glass. Photo.

Orientalism continues to appropriate the East and portray culture through a Western perspective, especially prominent in China: Through the Looking Glass. The MET proudly clarifies that the showcased designers are not creating accurate or exact replicas of Chinese culture but rather, reinterpretations through modern constructions. Therefore, the exhibit even takes pride in showing the East as visualized by Western creators instead of the true East, and it thus excuses itself from charges of appropriation. Since the definition of Orientalism is the perception of the Orient through Western lenses, the MET and other American platforms can claim that their presentations are Orientalism.

The MET exhibit disguises fetishistic representations of China as positive and beautiful in the same way the West used Orientalism to disguise its control over the East as helpful. Like classic Orientalism, the exhibit promotes a distorted image of Asian Americans because it is still a false, Western perception of China, and it fundamentally characterizes the Orient as subhuman, ornament, mere commodities. The problem with “positive” stereotypes and depictions present in the MET exhibit is that they are heavily linked to negative ones, tracing back to Orientalism. Just as European colonists associated the East with passive, feminine, subhuman, and supine qualities to justify their conquests, the modern-day equivalent manifests itself in the form of China: Through the Looking Glass, the model minority stereotype, and a variety of other common stereotypes such as “all Asians are good at math” to craft a seemingly positive image of Asian Americans. When society starts accepting that race can be associated with certain characteristics and abilities, the negative impacts are soon to follow. Underneath seemingly positive facades lies the same problem: a twisted perception of Asian Americans and confining them within a box of society’s expectations.  

Orientalist Narratives throughout American History

Orientalist stereotypes have been twisted to fit the narrative of their respective time periods. During the Gold Rush in the 1800s and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, Asian-Americans were extorted by American capitalists to benefit their own self-interest. American capitalists met their need for submissive and inexpensive labor with coolies, a term used to describe Chinese men who possessed mechanical-like qualities and depicted them as forbearing, submissive, and compliant. The influence of Euro-American commodification of Asian peoples captures how white Americans have crafted stereotypes in order to benefit economically off the backs of Asian peoples while making sure they would never truly be equal to them. After the decline of the Gold Rush and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, low-wage labor provided by Chinese men was favorable to white laborers who demanded higher wages. White Americans were now in competition with Asian-Americans. The fear of competition motivated racist attacks against Chinese immigrants, and eventually, the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and Gentleman's Agreement, which severely limited immigration from East Asia to America. In 1854, California Supreme Court ruled that testimonies given by Chinese men were inadmissible on the grounds that the Chinese were an inferior race incapable of progress or intellect. The stereotype shifted to portray Asian peoples in a way that benefited the interest of white Americans. Gruesome propaganda pictures and posters flooded newspapers warning Americans to beware of the “yellow peril” and Oriental, non-white others. In this time period, the underlying characteristics dating back to the origins of Orientalism still portrayed the Oriental as inferior, subhuman, and easily manipulated, and it continued to serve as a basic foundation for racism against Asian Americans.

1882 anti-Chinese poster depicting laborers building a wall against the Chinese. Uncle Sam uses “Congressional Mortar” to mount building blocks of “anti-low wages”, “competition”, “jealousy”, “un-American”, “fear”, etc. Photo. 

The most recent change in the narrative about Asian-Americans was written by white supremacists, and it brought forth the “model minority” stereotype. When the civil rights era surfaced in America, white supremacists used the “model minority” stereotype to defend American society against the charges of racism. From claiming that Asians were inferior to claiming that Asians are able to economically outpace the average white-American, the idea of Asian Americans being a model minority served as a counter-argument against the social and political agendas of the African American community. Implying that Asian Americans were advancing simply by hard work and not complaining about systematic racism became a rhetorical tactic against those who sought to justify the denial of civil rights for protesting African Americans. Suddenly, Asian success in America was the new propaganda. 

Examining the Model Minority Myth

Across different time periods and utilized in different ways, the perception of the Oriental was transformed by those in power, and one example of this has been the creation of the model minority stereotype that served simply as an extension of colonial racism. The pattern of colonial racism extends into present-day society through the model minority stereotype in a way that not only emphasizes the inferiority of Asian Americans but, even more significantly, silences them. Oppressed by the model minority myth, Asian Americans live in a constantly conditionalized existence in which they will be accepted in society as long as they work hard and internalize racial slights while never taking action. Since rage does not align with the Asian woman’s aesthetic, not only must she never speak out in anger, but her anger only exists in a “peripheral, miniaturized and cutified cartoon version” by the American public. Reinforced by the earlier categorization of “the Orient” as “silent and supine”, the voice and issues of Asian peoples are never truly heard, and they have had no chance for real political or social agency. The silencing of the Orient is deceptively crafted into the core of Orientalism using knowledge and power for control. The usage of research and knowledge used in the European conquest project of the East to maintain power continues to make it difficult for Asian Americans to speak up. The main aspect of being the model minority labels Asian Americans as quiet and hard-working, and therefore, able to be successful. Oriental stereotypes like the model minority myth are oppressive at their roots, and they continue to force Asian Americans to be spoken for while their own words are never heard by society. 

Another problematic aspect of the model minority stereotype is the grouping of all Asian Americans as one monolithic population. In reality, Asian American is an umbrella term consisting of over 30 ethnic groups from numerous Asian countries. The fundamentally flawed Eurocentric study of minorities conforms them to one identity with similar issues, and much of the Oriental stereotypes assume cultural uniformity among heterogeneous populations. Despite a seemingly positive stereotype that depicts Asian Americans as smart and hard-working, the negative impact of constantly being tied to a false narrative and being used as a political and social puppet outweighs any positive benefits. The model minority stereotype rests upon statistics that depict higher median incomes and increased rates of higher education for Asian Americans over other minority groups, but analyzing the breakdown of different ethnic groups paints a different picture. Income inequality among Asian Americans is the largest compared to any other group and has seen the highest increase from 1970 to 2016. 12.3% of Asian Americans live below the federal poverty level, ranging from 6.8% of Filipino Americans to 39.4% of Burmese Americans. In education, 50.5% of Asian-Americans reported having a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33.2% among whites Americans and 29.8% among the U.S. total population. However, closer examination reveals a clear disparity within the Asian American population, ranging from 72% among Indians and 9% among Bhutanese. Furthermore, the increase in income for Asian Americans in the 90th percentile was 96%, but the income increase for Asian Americans in the 10th percentile only rose 11%, which significantly lags behind the rise in income for lower-income Black Americans (67%), white Americans (45%), and Hispanic Americans (37%). Therefore, the model minority’s grouping of all Asian Americans into one unit ignores the issues plaguing the diverse Asian American populations throughout the country. 

The consequences of assuming homogeneity do not stop there. Through the model minority myth, countless of Asian-Americans are pressured to fulfill unrealistic and false expectations, or worry about having the stereotype leveraged against them in contemporary politics and social discourse. Furthermore, forcing the Asian American to assume the role of a model minority diverts attention away from the discrimination they have faced and continue to face. Due to increased income inequality within Asian American populations, lower-income communities are facing challenging issues such as a decrease in economic opportunities and mobility, decreased political influence, rising geographic segregation, and limited investment in education. All of these negative consequences are essentially ignored by using the model minority stereotype, and poverty and oppression are perpetuated as long as the American public accepts the stereotype as truth. The pressing issues surrounding discrimination against Asian Americans have been unfolding, most recently from the astonishing spike in crimes, but there has still not been effective action in working to deconstruct the underlying stereotype that oppresses them. 

Moving Away from Orientalist Stereotypes

The model minority myth, stemming from Orientalism, has maintained white America’s power and control when it comes to Asian Americans. Deconstructing the study of Orientalism and taking back the narrative about the East from Western perspectives is even more important in the digital and postmodern world. The racist view of the Orient is constantly reinforced by social media and news platforms to the point where the general American public accepts the model minority stereotype as fact. American society has co-opted the term as both an alibi and a means to continue oppressing the Asian American population in the same way it did centuries ago through Orientalism. The MET’s publicly lauded display is just another case of Orientalism molding the narrative on Asian Americans in this day and age without being held to account. If we do not deconstruct the fundamental roots of Orientalism in American thinking, Asian Americans will continue to be silenced by the system, and their concerns will never truly be heard regardless of movements and protests. Without breaking down Orientalist stereotypes from their foundations, the MET, the public, social and political platforms will continue using the model minority stereotype to control the narrative about the Orient when it should really be up to Asian Americans to decide how they want to be represented. 

Catherine Li is a staff writer for CPR and sophomore in Columbia College studying Economics and Political Science.