To Be Chinese in America

Enough of believing that excellence alone will earn equality. Enough of not complaining. A recent poll revealing that one-quarter of Americans hold “very negative attitudes,” toward Chinese Americans and one-third question their loyalty to the U.S. has burst a long-simmering bubble of frustration. After 150 years in the United States, many ask, what will it take to be seen as American?

“What these numbers do is force us into a realization that we’re always having to earn our recognition over and over again,” said Henry S. Tang, chairman of the Committee of 100, the Chinese American leadership organization that sponsored the telephone poll of 1,216 people in early March. The pool of respondents was 78% white, 12% African American, 5% Latino, 2% Native American, 1% mixed, 1% Asian and 1% “other.”

“No matter how educated we are, or how well we do, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a cumulative process as it is for many other fellow Americans. If you’re Chinese, you can leave the campus with a PhD degree and a year or two later be accused of being disloyal,” Tang said.

The poll also found that when the same questions were asked about Asian Americans in general, the same negative perceptions persisted.

“It’s outrageous, just outrageous,” said Loni Ding, an Emmy-winning filmmaker and producer of “Ancestors in the Americas,” a PBS television series on the legacy of Asian immigrants from the 1700s to the 1900s, due to air Thursday. “Of course you feel something like this personally, but the structure of it is social and political,” Ding said. “Hurt is a luxury. It is too small; it’s too personal. This should scare the hell out of you, it should make you mad. I mean, when will this end and who will do something about it?”

Locally, several Asian Americans said they were alarmed and frustrated by the poll results, but not shocked. “Unfortunately, it’s not a surprise,” said Chris Komai, spokesman for the Japanese American National Museum. “But it’s kind of depressing to think we haven’t progressed beyond this.”

Although the poll was conducted before a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet along the coast of southeast China earlier this month, many said they have seen a noticeable increase in public hostility toward Chinese people since then. In the last weeks, talk-show hosts and radio personalities have called for the internment of people of Chinese ancestry, and some even urged a boycott of Chinese restaurants or did humor pieces mocking Asian accents. On “Meet the Press” earlier this month, journalist David Broder stated: “Chinese are not nice people.”

WQLZ radio station in Springfield, Ill., has been the target of Asian outrage since a disc jockey allegedly called for rounding up Chinese people and holding them until the spy plane’s crew was released. The comments were meant to be funny, said station general manager Tom Kushak, but they have caused a flood of complaints. “This is a touchy issue, and different listeners can interpret it differently, but if anyone heard this broadcast and thought it was racist, I’ll certainly apologize,” Kushak said. He claimed that the broadcast was not taped.

“The DJ, who, by the way, is Mexican American, also said: ‘Until this thing is settled, I’m not going to go to Chinese restaurants, I’m not going to eat on fine china and I’m not going to play Chinese checkers,’ ” Kushak said.

While many find the study’s results alarming, there are few data against which to measure it. It is unclear whether the fact that one-quarter of the U.S. population has “very negative” feelings about Chinese Americans represents a worsening of racial attitudes or an improvement.

Dora and Walter Wong of Monterey Park say they do not feel such negativity aimed their way in daily life. They exist, however, mainly in a Chinese American world. Their friends are Chinese Americans, as are the books and newspapers they read and the restaurants they frequent. “It’s better than 30 years ago, before Martin Luther King,” said Dora Wong, 65, who grew up in Mexico, the daughter of a Mexican mother and a Chinese father.

Back then, it did not take polls to reveal anti-Chinese sentiment. In 1956, when the couple tried to rent an apartment in Los Angeles, they were refused for being Chinese. And Wong said her brother had trouble buying a home in Montebello because of his ethnicity.

The poll also found some positive attitudes toward Chinese Americans, who were lauded for strong family values and for business acumen. And though one-third of Americans question the loyalty of Chinese Americans, almost 70% said they are as patriotic as other Americans. Taken together, however, the results evince the pairing of fear and admiration that experts say stretches back to the arrival of great numbers of Chinese immigrants on U.S. shores in the mid-19th century.

The lingering prejudice that deems Americans of Asian ethnicity as less American than others was cultivated early on and bolstered by legislation to keep Asians outsiders. From 1790 until 1952, Asian immigrants could not become U.S. citizens, and a Catch-22 emerged: Asians, legally prevented from becoming Americans, were then popularly held up as un-American.

Although poll respondents were a racially mixed group, the questions focused on attitudes toward non-whites only. For example, the poll found that one-third of respondents disapproved of marrying black people, 24% disapproved of marrying Asian Americans, 21% disapproved of marrying Latinos and 16% disapproved of marrying Jews. It did not, however, ask respondents whether they approved of marrying white people.

Similar answers were given about housing issues. Seventeen percent of respondents said they would be upset if an Asian moved into their neighborhood, compared with 21% for Latinos, 19% for blacks and 9% for Jews, but again, attitudes about white people moving in were not questioned.

While the survey results are phrased in terms of “American” attitudes, Asian Americans read that as meaning “white people.”

“I think this whole idea of ‘Asian’ in the white imagination is an ambivalent one,” said Ronald Takaki, professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and author of “Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.”

“Think about the 19th century and the coining of the term ‘yellow peril,’ describing the entrance of the Chinese immigrants as an invasion, as a horde,” he said. The perceived Asian threat, however, has always been largely economic, Takaki said. “Now with the Cold War over, there is a search for a new Evil Empire. Let’s face it, billions of dollars would be spent for a missile defense shield, and it has to be justified--that leaves Chinese Americans caught in this international cross-fire.” In a global economy, China will emerge as a major economic power, he said, which is threatening to white America.

The roots of negative attitudes toward Asians, however, are not in China and are not caused by any action China takes, said Professor David Wellman, a UC Santa Cruz sociologist. Neither the Wen Ho Lee case (Lee, a U.S. nuclear scientist, was accused of passing secrets to China) nor the tense relationship with China since the midair spy plane crash are to blame for the negative sentiments here, he said.

“That theory lets Americans off the hook much too easy. The sociology of it is quite straightforward and is not really mysterious at all: This country has always had a very racist attitude toward Asians. That’s first. But what I think these figures reflect is the success of Asian Americans,” Wellman said. The negative attitudes found in the poll exist not in spite of perceived Asian successes and accomplishments, but because of them, he said. And he believes that negative sentiment will intensify as Asian Americans enjoy continued educational and economic success.

Wellman’s research at UC Berkeley, published in his 1993 book “Portraits of White Racism,” found a double standard in assessing excellence when Asian students, who, as a group, score well on standardized tests, are involved. “White students generally said that affirmative action lowers standards and that only grades and test scores should be used for admissions criteria,” he said. “But when I asked them about Asian Americans, all of a sudden they invented new criteria. Strict meritocracy went out the window and suddenly SAT scores weren’t as important as being ‘well-rounded.’ ”

Asian Americans account for 34% of the entire UC system, while white students make up 42%. But Asians account for only 12.8% of the state’s population, while white people account for 48.8%.

“The increase has been very steady, and the UC system will one day be predominantly Asian,” said Wellman. “When white people voted in favor of Proposition 209 and got rid of affirmative action, they didn’t realize they would need it in order for their children to get into college.”

Some Chinese Americans, however, believe that their own attitudes play a role in creating distance between cultures. “It is partly our fault,” said Josephine Chung, 52, who runs an herbal medicine shop in Chinatown. “We do not reach out,” said Chung. “I’ve been here for 30 years. I don’t have a single white friend.”

Born in Taiwan and now a U.S. citizen, Jing Chiou, who handles public relations for the Chinese American Museum, which is scheduled to open in two years, feels she belongs nowhere.

In Chinese culture, people compare this to what it’s like for a woman after she weds, Chiou said. The in-laws never consider her one of them, but her own family considers her an outsider. “If both families have problems, you are always the one people blame.”