Source: Business Insider
A few weeks ago, an aircraft went down in San Francisco. It was a tragedy, no one can argue, but when I found out it was Asiana, I held my breath. I knew there was going to be trouble.
Anytime a tragedy is in any way racial, i.e. not about a white person, the tragedy becomes ABOUT how non-white it is. First there were the jokes: Asians can’t drive, therefore they crashed the plane. Asians have small eyes, therefore they crashed the plane. Did you hear about the one where Korean-Americans live in a culture of deference and that’s why the plane crashed?
The sad thing is I’m not surprised. What ended up being surprising was what followed: releasing fake, obviously racist “names” of the Asiana pilots on TV. Sum Ting Wong? Ho Lee Fuk? This was shit I got in 5th grade when white kids would pull their eyes back, bow at me, and say with an “Asian” accent that my name was Ho Lee Fuk because, get it? My last name is Lee.
Many people have debated whether or not this was a simple tasteless joke or something racist, more serious. You don’t see anyone else fucking up Zach Galifianakis’s name or thinking Zsa Zsa Gabor is a weird name. So why is it okay to mimic Asian names?
Featured in a CNN article, Paul Cheung and Bobby Calvan of the Asian American Journalists Association wrote: "Making up Asian names or mimicking foreign accents are not innocent forms of satire. Doing so demeans and hurts."
My parents gave me a Chinese name and an English name. Vivian means lively. 李慧文 means many things. Separately 慧 means intelligence; 文 means literature, the written language. 李 has so much legacy behind it that it has its own Wikipedia page! Needless to say, my mom basically dictated my personality and interests before I even knew it. But in all seriousness, by making fun of Chinese names (or Asian names and any “ethnic” name for that matter) is to Other me, is to erase my history, my culture, my language. Not only is it my history, but it’s the sad history of Asian-American immigration.
According to Gary Okihiro, the founding director of the Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, the mocking of Asian names dates back to when immigrants started arriving in the United States. "In the 19th century, many immigration officials who first greeted Asian migrants demeaned them, by first of all, making fun of their names because they couldn't pronounce them properly, or assigning them names like John Chinaman or China Mary," he said.
"Anything foreign seems to be open season or free game," continues Okihiro. When even a professional television news broadcast is airing shit like this, well ain’t that the truth.
