Racism, Xenophobia, and Asian Americans

Over the last decade or so the philosophical contributions to scholarship about racism has been significant.   These contributions have distinguished and clarified various concepts of racism.  The result is that a number of theories are now available that can markedly improve general discussions about racism and its moral harms.

Many segments in this literature have been about how racism interacts with other categories of discrimination and oppression, e.g., sexism, misogyny, class-ism, and homophobia.  One mode of interaction that needs closer attention is between racism and xenophobia.  One reason this would be productive is because xenophobia hasn’t received the attention from philosophers in the United States that racism has, and, thus, what xenophobia is, in relation to and apart from other forms of discrimination and exclusion is unclear.  Secondly, getting clearer about xenophobia would improve our conceptual grasp of racism.

This is where particular group experiences within particular contexts matter.  For example, anti-black racism, which has been the paradigm for thinking about U.S. racism, can be, and has been, theorized apart from xenophobia.  Indeed, the dominant doxastic and non-doxastic accounts of racism have made little mention of xenophobia.  Xenophobia, however, has been an integral part of the experience of racism on the part of Asians and Asian Americans, and to ignore it seems it to be a considerable mistake.  This is the subject of my first question:  Is the particular Asian and Asian American experience of racism and xenophobia in the United States more than a mere example of either concept?  Does that experience elucidate something about the structure of racism or xenophobia that goes beyond standard conceptualizations of either idea?

This leads to my second question:  Is racism conceptually related to xenophobia, and vice versa?  In other words, does the conceptual core of racism overlap with that of xenophobia? Or are they separate and independent concepts?

Evidence for the former is found in the practice of racializing foreigners and aliens since the rise of the modern conceptions of race in the nineteenth century.  Yet, the assimilation of xenophobia by racism may be resisted because there are cases, perhaps mainly in Europe, where xenophobia of aliens is found without racism.  If, however, xenophobia can be assimilated then the term may be superfluous or redundant and can safely fall out of use. 

An important related issue is the role of xenophilia in racism.  Asians and Asian Americans in the United States have experienced racism that has strong xenophobic elements, but also xenophilic elements.  The stereotypes of the “dragon-lady” and “geisha” are cases in point, as are hypomasculinist stereotypes of Asian American men.  This leads to my third question:  What is the role of xenophilia in racism, and, perhaps, even in xenophobia?

Comments

[Sally]

This is a great set of questions. On my account* of race, xenophobia is an element of the very construction of race, for the markers of race link bodily features to presumed geographical origins. Although these features come to carry multiple meanings in a racist culture --so geography may become less salient as part of the ideology of racism-- it remains a defining feature of what races are. I think this is crucial in order to distinguish race and racism from other forms of oppression.

You ask whether there can be xenophobia without racism. On my view, this could occur if the foreigners who are the targets of xenophobia are not marked by (observed or imagined) bodily features. So if, for example, Americans developed a fear and hatred of Canadians, but did not suppose that Canadians could be distinguished from Americans by physical features, that would be a case of xenophobia that is not also racism. It seems, however, that in such cases xenophobia morphs into racism as it comes to be imagined that there are "deeper" or "natural" distinguishing features that explain or justify the fear and hatred.

* See "Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?" Nous 34:1 (March 2000). (Sorry to plug my own work, but it seems that it would be helpful to get a sense of where I'm coming from in my reply.)

[Manyul Im]

Interesting questions about xenophilia, Ron. To be honest, I'm not sure I see the xenophilia--why is it philic rather than phobic to hypermasculinize asian men or to hypersexualize asian women? Those modes seem to express at least as much fear as, or more fear than, admiration. Maybe there are better examples? Or, maybe there really aren't...

On a slightly different note, maybe racializing and xenofication(?) both fall under some other, broader pattern of addressing dominance insecurities; so that they are not conceptually related directly, but are related through their common status as modes of some third deeper set of motives. I think this would be something like, or at least consistent with, Sally's views.

[Ronald Sundstrom]

Thank you, Sally and Manyul, for your responses. I generally agree with your view, Sally, that most constructions or formations of race mark bodily differences as markers of geographic difference, and express phobia toward the xenos. Most expressions of racism, likewise, contain at some level some xenophobic element. But degrees matter here. Racism directed toward Asians and Asian Americans contain more direct or explicit xenophobia. In those cases, such as the infamous case of Vincent Chin, or even in the present association of Barack Obama as an "Arab" by some on the far-Right, the xenophobia isn't abstract or implied--it is directly part of the ill-will, antipathy, or inferiorization being communicated. This doesn't seem to be the case with typical examples of anti-black or anti-Native American racism, although there can be startling overlaps, such as in the racist characterizations of Obama as a cryto-Arab. To understand the racism directed against Asians and Asian Americans, as well as similar groups, such as Hispanics and Latinos, the interaction between xenophobia and racism needs to be better understood.

I also agree with that xenophobia, phobia against the foreigner or stranger as such, morphs with ease and rapidity in contexts were race is a dominant idea. While white Canadians haven't been seen as a racial other in the U.S., there is a history in the United States of re-categorizing those who are whites (by some other system or standard) into non-whites. This has been the case with Hispanic/Latinos, South Asians, and Arabs and Persians in the United States, and is evident in legal decisions and public policies regarding naturalization and segregation.

Thus, I don't see the term "xenophobia" as having much independent utility, but its utility is high when paired with particular examples of racism in various contexts.

Manyul, you ask about xenophilia. I admit that that term is vague in this context. There are plenty of sad examples of racialized sexism or sexualized racism in the record of anti-Asian and anti-Asian American racism. The way that the men of some groups are hypermasculizned, e.g., Latinos and African Americans, and the way that some are hypomasculinzed, e.g., Asian Americans are examples of this process. For particular examples, consider the manner in which the Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos were treated in regards to U.S. antimiscegenation laws--Rachel Moran's INTERRACIAL INTIMACY: THE REGULATION OF RACE AND ROMANCE is a great source for such examples. Such sexualized racial sterotypes are hardly "philic." These stereotypes are often employed as part of general racist and xenophobic campaigns. So it may be the case that xenophilia is the wrong term for these examples. The "philia" is overwhelmed, dominated, and utilized by the "phobia."

[Emily S. Lee]

Great questions Ron. This is something I've thought about on and off. I want to begin by asking about the assumption of fear or attraction to the foreign. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this assumption that human beings fear the foreign, the different, stems from psychoanalysis and Freud, and it is a claim that I've always wondered about in terms of the truth value of the claim. I'm frankly not convinced that simply because something is different we instinctively react with fear, as Freud claims. I think such fear is socially inculcated and learned. I would claim that xenophilia--to the extent there is such a reaction as Manyul claims--is also learned. Simply because something is new or different, it need not inspire fear. Why not just curiosity? (Or is there something inherently xenophobic about curiosity?)

Now regarding whether such learned fear or attraction is somehow more concentrated for the Asian American body, I'm not sure. I think if it is, it has everything to do with the persistent association of a certain geographic area with certain body types, (something I've written about in two different articles), that then beckons the association of one body occupying a particular space as somehow misplaced, foreign. In other words, I wonder if the assignation of foreignness has everything to do with history, particularly the history of immigration. In this vein, I cannot rule out the ways in which say the Latin American body may still be considered foreign, but in a very distinct sense from the Asian American body.

[Manyul Im]

Emily,

I don't actually think xenophilia holds up very well; I think Ron and I agree that it is a surface "philia" that either is in the service of a deeper phobia or simply masks the latter.

Your questions about the necessity of fearing the foreign are really thought-provoking. I wonder if this is an empirical issue or more of a cultural-hermeneutic one. Xenophobia might work better as an analysis at the level of culture rather than the individual, so that you might be right about "innocent" curiosity toward the foreign for some individuals, but for a particular culture, it may be that phobia is overdetermined through its history of identity formation (or of empire, colonization, ethnic strife, economic competition, etc.). Maybe there are innocent cultures, but that almost sounds oxymoronic--maybe that says something about the concept of 'culture.' I'm kind of muddling through here, but your question seems quite challenging, so I'm giving it a go. Anyone else?

[Geography Dissertation]

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