Stereotypes in the News

Melissa Hung
November 22, 2006

  • On to the women.... Orange County Weekly writer Vickie Chang has a followup story to her story "Yellow Fever" about Asian festish that we linked to last week. Basically, she responds to the critics of the story. And who are they? I'll let Vickie answer that:

    The thing is, anytime you talk race and gender, people freak out. In fact, all the angry responses came from men (surprise!) accusing me of sexism.

    Ah, telling it like it is.

  • Speaking of Asian fetish, Gwen Stefani is back with her Harajuku Girls. I thought she had moved on to something else, but apparently she still loves her some Asian entourage. They can be seen dancing around (and in one scene as puppets) in her video for Wind It Up. Oh, and they're in blonde wigs too.
  • On the local Bay Area front, SF police chief Heather Fong took a stroll in Chinatown with the mayor to boost her image. People have been criticizing the chief for being reserved, cautious and methodical.

    Mayor Newson says this wouldn't be an issue if she wasn't an Asian American woman.

    I'd have to agree with that. She's got a double whammy of stereotypes against her. Interestingly, one of the criticis is supervisor Fiona Ma.

  • And let's end on a happy note, shall we? It's Thanksgiving after all. Lowell High School football coach Danny Chan gets props in the SF Chronicle today in a story about busting stereotypes, trying to change the perception of Asians in sports, and of football in the Asian American community.
    • Contributor: 

    Melissa Hung

    Founding Editor

    Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen. She was the editor in chief for the magazine's first five years and went on to serve in many other leadership roles on the staff and board for more than a decade. She is a writer and freelance journalist. Her essays and reported stories have appeared in NPR, Vogue, Pacific Standard, Longreads, and Catapult, among others. She grew up in Texas, the eldest child of immigrants. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

    Comments

    Comments

    Jamesha Walker wrote on Mon, 06/18/2007 - 10:52pm
    As an African-American woman and fine artist, I am tired of having to defend myself, but here it goes:I am a Black woman fine artist who has drawn, painted and made designs which have featured the Japanese female figure, both nude and clothed, because I see her equally as beautiful as her White or other Western counterpart. I will rather refer to the Japanese female figure as "her" as opposed to "it" because the LAST thing I ever want to do is to see the Japanese female model's figure, or the model herself, as an object to fetishize. I find the latter disgusting, if you ask me. So please don't hate me for finding a new standard of beauty to portray and to expose, which is other than "stereotypical", and STOP trying to take me for a "racist, sexist White man". That's discredit, and I'll no longer stand for that!