Asian Americans don’t have a place in politics. As a matter of fact, we have almost no presence in American media, aside from the occasional kung-fu master popping in to pulverize the baddies while scoffing at the laws of physics. That’s why it came as a surprise when I heard of a CNN segment featuring Gary Tuchman, a CNN news reporter, interviewing Asian Americans about their preferred president.

For those of you who haven’t gotten a chance to see it, here is a YouTube link to that segment: http://youtube.com/watch?v=770WYuJbWWs. According to this piece, Barack Obama lost to Hilary Clinton by a three to one margin among the Asian American voters in California and Tuchman was going to find out why.

Instead of feeling elated by the fact that Asian Americans are finally appearing in politics, I was disappointed to see a halfhearted approach to a story that took place mainly in an Asian supermarket, where almost every patron sported a heavy accent. Tuchman failed to fully explore this issue and I was no more educated on the reasons behind this phenomenon at the end of the clip than I was at the beginning. He did, however, factor race into the voting equation, almost as if he were saying… Asian Americans wouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s black?

Wait a minute. Not only are we now all high-flying martial arts masters, but also racists to boot? According to this clip, we also don’t know the difference between Clinton and Lincoln (which was quite funny because the kid seemed sad after finding out Lincoln wasn’t running this year). It is unfair that the Asian American image is molded by those who don’t even share the same culture. Aside from the fact that Tuchman decided not to conduct interviews at better locales, what bothered me was that some of the things that were said were out of context, and we aren’t doing anything about it.

Asian Americans need more representation in media. The more we expose ourselves to the public, the less we may be unfairly stereotyped. If the first thing Tuchman thought to do was to head down to the local Asian supermarket to discuss politics with Asian Americans, then there is definitely something wrong, either with Tuchman’s journalistic process or with the way Asians are portrayed in this country. I can only hope it is the former for Asian Americans’ sake, but this is the reality— America’s grabbed our public image by the hair and is throwing it around and we can’t let that continue.

Taking up a bit of journalism is one way to retaliate. Maybe try some politics as well. Show America we are news-conscious and do actually care about current events. Fight back the stereotypes by getting more involved with the media. In that way, we can one day show that we actually do have a fighting spirit, not just in the movies.

______________________________________________________________
Sign up to get a notice of each new issue of the AA E-Zine at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sbuaaezine/