White Hair
Most Asian men are terrified of white hair; the way girls are terrified of their first period. It signifies the start of a whole new phase of their lives; the beginning of deteriorating looks, decreasing energy, and a growing potbelly. In each generation, only a few buck the trend and morph into replicas of Richard Gere.
When we were very young, my dad would offer us 1 cent for every strand of white hair we plucked from his head. He was obsessed with having a fully black head then, and we were obsessed with getting coins. (We even sold presents we never used to my mum's piano students.) It was fun competing with my brother to see who could pluck out more hair. We would be grabbing tufts of his hair while he drove us to our art class, yelling at dad to keep still, and squealing in delight upon finding strands of softly shimmering treasure. My father would then proceed to inspect our work, sometimes proclaiming a strand of silver hair we had pulled out impure, thus forfeiting our payment.
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We grew up in no time; resigned as his hairdressers. He never got down to hiring anyone else. Nonetheless, we could still catch him squinting into the mirror in the evenings, his head angled awkwardly, trying to get rid of those tell-tale signs of old age.
Recently, the subject of white hair was brought up again in the car, one of the rare moments when dad temporarily recovers from deafness.
With nothing but car bumpers and dad's head to focus on, I suddenly realized that his hair was now almost entirely grey!
I immediately exclaimed, "Dad, look at the amount of white hair you have now, you'll turn bald if you keep pulling white hair out!"
"Oh, don't worry, you can always get a wig," someone quipped.
"Or a
Approximately about a decade ago, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese women all had a distinctive look and features. Single eyelid, thin lips, short-bridged nose and oval shape face are few of the features that distinguish Asian women apart. However, these distinctive features are slowly fading away as the new westernized features are coming in. Through the mass media and their
Some existing Literature on Natural Hair The existing literature on ethnic and racial studies among African-Americans has focused on issues pertaining to beauty and body politics especially on natural hair. Spellers and Moffitt assert that the body politics that one assumes, guides how one relates to a particular political ideology in a particular society. Black natural hair is considered as a way by which the true identity of African women can be understood (Jacobs-Huey). It is a symbol of power among black women; it influences how people are treated by others.
As a European immigrant in the USA, I have encountered many new cultural phenomena in the last 4 _ years that have challenged me to perceive who I am differently. This experience has been even more polarized by the fact that I have lived most of that time in Los Angeles, a melting pot to be reckoned with. Coming to America, I expected these adaptations to my Irish self but the intensity of becoming cognizant of my label of 'whiteness' has mocked the limitations of my anticipations.
...en in this film have any strong masculine qualities. They cannot take charge, they are easily intimidated, and they are never assertive with their beliefs and restrictions giving the impression to the movie viewers that Asian Americans are docile beings and Asian Americans are obstacles easily overcame.
I wanted to go to him and ask him what was wrong, but I didn’t dare…But then I couldn’t stand it anymore and I got up and ran down the hall to the kitchen. There, in the middle of the room, wearing his Goodyear jacket and work clothes was my father. He was on his hands and knees, his head hanging as though it were too heavy to support, and he was rocking back and forth and babbling in a rhythmical stutter. It’s funny, but the first thing I thought when I saw him like that was the way he used to let me ride on his back, when I was little, bucking and neighing like a horse. And as soon as I thought it, I felt my heart lurch in my chest.
Eng, David L.. Racial castration: managing masculinity in Asian America. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. Print.
Women, we have issues with our hair, [Black women's] hair represents the first thing anyone sees of them, or of ourselves, and so we identify with what our hair looks like.
...ding white, male superiority. Back in high school, I dated a non-Asian male from my class who often talked about how Asian women are “hot and sexy” yet “more faithful to men and less aggressive than White women.” At the time, I thought this was a compliment and I often tried to conform to this stereotype in order to satisfy my partner. Images of Asian-American women as both innocent and dangerous have legitimized any racist and sexist policies directed at Asians and women.
“If more Asian women were used in fashion and advertising, it would change people’s ideals,” said Grace Park, who was forced to undergo double eyelid surgery by her mother, because of her slanted, one-folded eyes. People of East Asian descent have been the most susceptible to the obsession over “Western” beauty as the “East Asian” face is rare in Western Media. Editor-in-chief of Jade Magazine, Ellen Hwang, says everything in the media consists of the “Eurasion” look, “big blue- eyed blondes.” “Here in the US, even more than in Asia, the models and movie stars you see and who girls want to emulate are Caucasian. Yes, there is Lucy Liu, but most models are Western. And young girls often want to look like those models.” Chinese American, Shin –Yu Wang, who was born with double eyelids and was thoug...
Whiteness is a term that has been discussed throughout history and through scholarly authors. Whiteness is defined in many ways, according to Kress “pervasive non- presence, its invisibility. Whiteness seems at times to be everywhere and nowhere, even present throughout U.S history, and yest having no definable history of its own. Whiteness as a historically rooted cultural practice is then enacted on the unconscious level. Knowledge the is created from the vantage point of Whiteness thus transforms into “common sense,” while practices or behaviors that are enacted based on the unspoken norms of Whiteness become the only acceptable way of being” (Kress, 2008, pg 43). This definition for example, whiteness has become into hegemony. I define it as racial ideologies that have been established throughout history. Which has formed racial segregation between white and non-whites, and has led to discrimination and injustice. White privilege has also been a factor in whiteness; it’s the privilege that white color people get better benefits
Throughout the semester we have studied the black vernacular tradition and its attributes of competition, group interaction, the in- group, and pattern of call and response and we have learned to take those attributes and apply then to the complex subject of Black Hair. Black Hair is a complex subject not only because so little is known about it but because of the aesthetic, political, and interpersonal context through which Black hair can be studied and interpreted. Hair is honestly in just about every text and it is used to not only add insight to characters identity but to also give context to time. Many of the black vernacular tenets are seen throughout Margo Jefferson’s chapter in Negroland, in particular the first section called “The
Asians value fair skin have to do with social status. In history, peasant women spent the day working on farming, while noble women spent their time indoor and had the extra time to take care of their skin. As time pass, the value fair skinned continues. “As Asian Americans girls, we are supposed to be short, lightweight, petite, soft-spoken, and light skinned, with long straight jet-black hair…The stereotype that Asians were supposed to be thin made me feel like I was a freak of nature.” (Julie Wong)
Almost 250 years of slavery and anti-blackness within the United States has created a divide in what type of hair is acceptable. According to Cynthia L. Robinson, “Black hair texture is graded” (Robinson 2011). Precisely, this means that a Black woman has either good hair or bad hair. Good hair has a resemblance of European hair texture, meaning straight and wavy curls. Good hair also diminishes the look of African ancestry. Bad is the complete opposite. The texture is kinky, coiled, and thick, giving the appearance of short hair (Robinson 2011). Hair that bears a resemblance to Eurocentric beauty standards is more beautiful and makes the individual with that hair type more beautiful as well (Robinson
For those Asian Americans who make known their discontent with the injustice and discrimination that they feel, in the white culture, this translates to attacking American superiority and initiating insecurities. For Mura, a writer who dared to question why an Asian American was not allowed to audition for an Asian American role, his punishment was “the ostracism and demonization that ensued. In essence, he was shunned” (Hongo 4) by the white people who could not believe that he would attack their superior American ways. According to writers such as Frank Chin and the rest of the “Aiiieeeee!” group, the Americans have dictated Asian culture and created a perception as “nice and quiet” (Chin 1972, 18), “mama’s boys and crybabies” without “a man in all [the] males.” (Chin 1972, 24). This has become the belief of the proceeding generations of Asian Americans and therefore manifested these stereotypes.
Han, C. (2006). Being an Oriental, I Could Never Be Completely a Man: Gay Asian Men and the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class. Race, Gender & Class. New Orleans: Jean Ait Belkhir, Race, Gender & Class Journal.