(Part 2) Top products from r/asiantwoX

I'm still trying to get through this book in my spare time so bear with me, but Kumiko Nemoto's Racing Romance: Love, Power, and Desire among Asian American/White Couples has had some really amazing insights so far in just the introduction and Ch. 1 alone.

She examines how popular portrayals of Asian females as hypersexual and sexually accommodating beings in romantic relationships with benevolent white men following colonial wars led to increased sexual capital and their current status as a 'sexual model minority,' standing in for traditional white femininity which was corrupted by the rise of feminism (citing heavily from Susan Koshy in Sexual Naturalization: Asian Americans and Miscegenation).

She then goes on to cite Palumbo-Liu in Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier when he argues that interracial relationships between AF and WM also serve as a salve to mitigate white anxiety around multiculturalism and immigration by serving as a highly visible symbol of what white people imagine a multicultural, 'post-racial' society to look like, that simultaneously masks historical racism and white hegemony.

She also talks about whiteness as an object of desire resulting from colonial relationships, and internalized racism and how it affects Asian American women and men in different ways, and later cites Rachel F. Moran's idea in Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of Race and Romance that "the idea of romantic love 'permits individuals to rely on love to explain their marital choices without ever thinking very hard about the characteristics that make their partners loveable.'"

That's about as far as I've gotten, but so far I've found the book to be incredibly elucidating and thought-provoking. It, combined with an intriguing quote in M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang ("[W]e seduce ourselves. Sometimes when you have the desire to fall in love or you desire to have someone to be some kind of ideal, you can make that person ideal in your own mind whether or not the facts correspond to the reality."); recent reactions by non-Black folk (both white and POC) to Ferguson; Lipsitz' excellent article on The Racialization of Space; and recent conversations with friends about APA masculinity, male feminism (for lack of a better term), sexuality, + dating has me thinking about the politics of dating and how desire has been constructed in my own life.

So no, I don't think it has hardly anything to do with certain phenotypical characteristics, and more to do with the latter -- though I don't think 'stereotypes' goes quite deep enough to explain it, after dipping my toes into Nemoto and the folks she cites.

edit: I should probably clarify that this is no more advantageous than the model minority myth in any other form, in that its primary function is to subject and seduce Asians of all gender identities into performing sexuality within a narrow set of acceptable behaviors in order to assimilate into a White multiculturalist society (through romantic relationships with white men, in this case). It denies us the diversity of our selves and our experiences within the community, and marginalizes anyone who does not participate (see how straight Asian males and outspoken Asian feminists are treated). I also find it interesting in that it allows white men of all sexual orientations to regulate the bounds of their sexuality by further partitioning POC into a hierarchy of desirability and creating a safe zone (the sexual model minority) that they can penetrate and consume for their pleasure, on their own terms -- somewhat related article.

>Q: What’s the ethos behind your eyeshadow?
A: When I was writing The Incendiaries, I was drawn to people who had smokier eyes, so I started experimenting with it myself. I remember my mother-in-law — who’s so funny, and who I’m very close to — asking, ‘Why do you do that with your eyes? It makes you look sad.’ I said, ‘Well, yeah, I’m quite often sad, actually.’ And she thought about it, then said, ‘Sometimes it makes you look tired.’ I was like, ‘Well, I’m pretty much ALWAYS tired.’ I told her, I want to look the way I feel! Plus, in general, I think I do present as happy and nice. Women are often conditioned to try to put people at ease, to make sure everyone’s comfortable. That niceness can make it seem like I can be stepped all over. I think this look is partly my trying to counteract it.
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>Q: Do you find that you make a different first impression now? Do people see you as tough?
A: Yes, I think people do see me differently. And one of the most meaningful things is when I hear from other women about the ways they costume themselves. They’ll say, ‘That’s why I dye my hair purple, because I want to change the world’s assumptions of me’ or ‘That’s a big part of why I have tattoos!’ But on the other hand, I’m still — one wants to be kind, you know? I mean, life is so hard, and it just feels better not to be a dick when I’m out in the world.
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>Q: You’ve also publicly addressed the specific stereotypes you confront, not just as a woman but an Asian-American woman.
A: Yes. I wrote a piece for the New York Times about this. My initial spark was the public reaction to Marie Kondo’s show, Tidying Up. As it got more and more popular, I noticed many people — who identify as progressive — talking about her in ways that felt increasingly racist. They referred to her as ‘fairy-like’ and ‘pixie-like,’ and other very traditional China Doll stereotypes about Asian-American women. That’s happened to me a lot as well, since my book came out and I’ve been traveling around talking about it. There have been so many times when strangers, usually in front of an audience, will get up to ask a question and say, ‘You’re so cute,’ or ‘You’re adorable.’ The vast majority of my Asian-American writer friends have experienced the same thing. It’s a kind of racism that maybe people don’t realize is racism — because it’s a compliment! You’re being called cute and adorable! But these are words reserved for children and puppies. I just couldn’t imagine a straight white man being praised for his appearance while talking about his work.

Also liked her essay Why I Wear Black Eyeshadow.

My husband got Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen as a gift from his great uncle and it seems pretty legit. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet because honestly they're a little intimidating, but just flipping through it, the recipes looked "right" if that makes sense.

Other titles I like, but read long enough ago that I really ought to re-read these with a new set of eyes:

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya - India

Children of the River by Linda Crew - Cambodian/Khmer-American