Perhaps I am too chronically online, but over the last month or so there has been a discourse going on in the Asian American online community which has come to be known as H-mart-gate. (Shoutout Nixon for giving us my favorite naming convention for social 'scandals.') The details of how H-mart-gate have developed are lengthy, and I could link the TikToks from all of the creators involved and give a timeline of the core narrative which has developed, but I don't like doing that kind of social commentary. I don't have prior knowledge of any of these creators and am not intimately acquainted with the TikTok Asian American community so I would be speaking without full understanding. Instead, I want to talk about the ideas which the discourse has brought up where I do have understanding. Additionally, I want to provide my own direct experiences with these ideas from my perspective as a Wasian American with an incredibly nebulous ethnic identity.
What is H-mart-gate?
First off, H-mart is an Asian grocery store that has recently become a place of interest to white people due to rising popularity in Asian culture and foods. It began when a Wasian creator posted a lighthearted video where she shared that she couldn't help but "side-eye" White people she saw in Asian grocery stores and be suspicious of the intentions behind their presence. This was conveyed through a story she told where she and another woman—who she assumed was White—mutually side-eyed each other in an Asian grocery store before realizing that they were both Wasian. The story, and the video itself were lighthearted, humorous, and she explicitly encourages white people to continue going to Asian groceries.
Unfortunately, the internet is horrible.
Two months after her original post—in September—a prominent Millennial Asian American social commentator took her video out of context and claimed that she was being overtly racist and trying to keep White people out of Asian groceries (which she explicitly contradicts). This sparked a small core of Millennial and Gen X Asian American content creators to join in critiquing her with racist attacks and proudly claiming that we ought to "linger around" confused looking White people "in case they need help."
Through the murky workings of social media, these sentiments sparked a discourse on the identity of Asian Americans and the idea of White acceptance. These are the two main ideas I want to engage with today through the lens of my own experience:
The Asian American Identity & White Approval
I cannot speak on these two topics separately because White approval is integral to the Asian American identity. The characterization of the Asian American identity I am about to put forth is spoken in very general themes and is not a complete explanation of the individual experiences of Asian Americans. That being said, the defining characteristic of the Asian American identity is assimilation.
This assimilationism was born out of a dialogue between immigrant survival instincts and the existing American perception of Asians. From the Chinese Exclusion act to the Japanese internment camps, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian prejudice; however, the form it takes has distinct differences from anti-Blackness. The stereotypes surrounding Asians were constructed to promote them as a submissive, unthreatening labor force.
This peaceableness was born in the idea of Orientalism.
Historically, as the world globalized and the European countries came into contact with the Asian countries through the likes of the Silk Road, a need for a divide became necessary for European consciousness. The divide was born between West and East, Occidentalism and Orientalism. Occidentalism has fallen out of use as a term due to the Western power's dominant economic and military positions which enabled them to impose centuries of imperialism and colonialism on the world; however, the idea of Orientalism became adopted by both the West and East over time. Orientalism was defined by the Europeans through juxtaposition to their own prevailing values. The rationalism and innovation of the enlightenment became the characteristics of the West, and the East and its Orientalism became characterized by ideas of mysticism and tradition.
The United States was founded in racism and developed two prevailing ideologies that have permeated the nation ever since: It is best to be White, and it is worst to be Black. This White-Black spectrum did not leave room for Yellow, and Asians knew they could not fulfill the first precept of Whiteness, so instead turned to making sure they were not seen as Black. This began the project of White approval and engaging in anti-Blackness by increasing their proximity to Whiteness and distancing themselves from Blackness. They used their Oriental perception as docile and hardworking and contrasted it with the colonial perception of Blackness as violent to establish themselves at the top of the minority hierarchy. Yet, this hierarchy would always be sat below the heights of Whiteness and be used to further White supremacy through intra-minority conflict.
(I mean anything that upholds White privilege through socioeconomic, legal, and cultural means, not Klansman explicitly. Minorities can, and do, contribute to White supremacy.)
Yet, Asians still—largely ungratefully—benefited from the Civil Rights era and overt racism toward Asians declined as racial equality was introduced as a part of public consciousness. The next 60 years would cement the model minority myth in public consciousness as Asian Americans continued to increase their proximity to Whiteness, seek White approval, and assimilate. This produced two generations of depoliticized, colorblind, "kumbaya" Asian Americans in Gen X and Millennials. Asian American identity for these generations became about finding a home next to the White people.
A common trope associated with Asian Americans is feeling too Western for Asian countries and too Asian for Western countries. Gen X and Millennials tried to conquer this discomfort by finding a sense of belonging and status in America. However, as their ancestors knew on their arrival, they are not White. But, this drive persists and expresses itself in a constant seeking of White approval and proximity despite continued racism from White America, even if it is less overt than in generations prior. Unlike their ancestors who focused on protecting their status through anti-Blackness, they mistakenly believe that someday, if they keep trying hard enough, they can become White too. Although, a part of Whiteness is anti-Blackness so the difference is mostly illusory.
I am speaking about general themes, not every individual Asian American. Every community has ideological majorities and minorities.
But Asians can never be White. No matter how much proximity we seek to Whiteness we will never White, and as long as Whiteness defines itself by superiority, racism will always exist toward non-Whites.
Specifically, the kind that is levied against Asian Americans in the last decade or so is fetishization. It is a kind of "benevolent" racism that performs inclusion without actually providing respect for the person as themselves, and instead reduces them to a racial quality or characterization. Through fetishization, I see the depths that White approval's claws have sunk into Asian Americans. Here, is also where the foundation of H-mart-gate lies.
My feed knows that I am a man who others racialize as Asian. Given this, I occasionally get fed content where White women fetishize Asian men. Instinctually, my reaction is disgust and anger; however, the comments from other Asian men are the most desperate, pathetic things I have ever seen. I could give a list of some of the embarrassing things I've seen, but instead I ask you to simply imagine a litter of slobbering chihuahuas at the feet of someone holding a bag of treats.
It is pathetic, but I understand.
My Experience
Before returning to the discussion that has sprung from H-mart-gate, I want to provide context on my own experience with Asian American identities and Whiteness.
My father is White, and my mother is Korean.
However, my mother was adopted before she was a year old and was raised by a White man and a Fillipino Wasian woman.
This has left me with a home life which is undeniably White in its culture.
Yet, White America sees me as Asian.
My first memory of racism happened somewhere around the age of 5-6 I believe. I was accompanying my dad to get groceries, and a White woman came and asked my dad if he was babysitting me, or if he knew my parents.
To my childish mind, this was an absurd question.
Obviously this man was my father, right?
From this point on, my eyes had been opened to the fact that the people around me—in my over 90% White town—saw me as Asian.
However, I never came to resent this and wish to be White like many of my other mixed race or non-White friends have shared with me they did. Never have I wished for blonde hair and blue eyes. To me, I embraced this treatment as 'exotic' due to the attention it brought me. I attribute this to my strong social desires as a child which I felt went often unfulfilled as a consequence of homeschooling, but it is critical to my relationship with my Asian half.
Until I entered high school (no longer homeschooling), it was easy for me to simply embrace others perception of me as Asian without any internal conflict. It was a nice bonus. None of the treatment I endured was—or I knew well enough to process as—overtly racist enough to challenge my self identity or shallow understanding of Asian culture as it was being attributed to me. My youth, and the majority of my outside interactions being through martial arts are likely responsible for this fortune. All this to say, for the first 14 years of my life I did not have to engage with my Asian side in any substantial way and did not hold and kind of racialized self identity.
Then I met high schoolers.
Immediately, I was racialized as Asian by swaths of White kids. However, these White kids knew a lot of racist Asian stereotypes. My now vibrant social life—that I had craved my whole childhood—became dominated by my appearance as Asian. But this was not in the way I was used to, this was in a way which sowed the seeds of ethnic homelessness. I could not escape being seen as Asian, but I did not feel Asian. I did not feel White either. Until this point I had felt almost race agnostic, but now the world was asking me to choose. Well, really it chose for me. I was Asian to White people, and that's what mattered in a 90% White town. My response to this ethnic homelessness was not unlike the one which defined the Asian American trope. I tried to find belonging by embracing being Asian and doing everything I could to "become a real Asian."
I was helped immensely in this task by my best friend during high school being a first-generation Asian American. His self identity was born, raised, and steeped in being Asian, and he had the home inculturation to back it up. Additionally, he was not the kind of Asian American that sought White approval, he actively embraced being Asian and immersed himself in the subculture of Asian Americans who live their lives proud to be Asian. I owe a great deal of my understanding of Asian culture to him as well as a great deal of my overall development.
During my high school years, I found myself becoming a token Asian friend to White friends. Outside my friendship with my best friend, my other friendships remained substantially driven by my being Asian. However, these dynamics in friendships with White people became a kind of self affirmation of my budding identity as an Asian. The newfound insecurity of ethnic homelessness felt as if it were being slowly resolved as I learned about being Asian from my best friend, and became able to perform it more accurately for White friends. By the end of high school, I felt relatively Asian.
Alas, the world kept getting bigger.
When I began college, the racialization of me as Asian persisted. In fact, I was often assumed to be 100% Japanese! Yet, the demographics of my college were not the same as my hometown, so I gained the opportunity to meet many more Asians and witness firsthand a broader Asian community. It was in the face of this, that I became reminded of the Whiteness in me that I had tried to reject throughout high school.
My understanding of Asian culture—and lived experience of it—paled in comparison to the members of this broader Asian community. I did not find the sense of belonging in being Asian that I had sought when originally faced with the insecurity of ethnic homelessness. Moreover, when I turned around, Whiteness would not accept me either due to my appearance and prior cultural diversion.
I lived in a liminal space between neither here nor there.
Wasians are often thought of in media as the "bridge between worlds," but my experience—and many Wasian friends I have asked—has been one of rejection on two fronts. It's as if we can only visit each community on a temporary visa and will always be denied full citizenship, left as vagabonds of the world.
Yet, this condition no longer eats away at me.
Perhaps this is a product of my own personal beliefs and spirituality, but the status as a perpetual pseudo-other feels quite privileged to me. The kind of rejection I face is not as forceful as it would be were I not mixed race, and once my self identity became no longer dependent on having an ethnic home, the rejection's sting no longer burned. Instead, I am allowed to move between the Asian, White, and other communities with an understanding of racism or ethnic homelessness (pretty much all of them) with the privileges of the Press. I can observe closely, ask questions, build connections, and learn about them all without hostility.
My Thoughts on H-mart-gate
I see H-mart-gate as a potential watershed moment for Asian American identity. The opportunity at hand—if nurtured—is one of redefinition. Asian American identity can begin the process of rewriting itself from being the Yellow hand of White supremacy, to being vanguards of racial equality and justice. It is high time that Asian Americans face the music and realize—despite our position at the top of it—the minority hierarchy must be dissolved if we want to define our status by our own merit rather than in relation to Whiteness.
I'd like to take this moment to return to fetishization.
The origins of East Asian fetishization in America don't even come from America. It is the product of cultural export programs from Japan, Korea, and increasingly China, aimed at increasing their countries soft power. Americans did not suddenly begin to appreciate Asian Americans because of our decades of bootlicking, their perception of us changed because other Asians across the ocean began taking advantage of Western perceptions of Orientalism.
We have entered an age of Asian self-fetishization.
Any kind of fetishization has two sides as I see it: the appearance, and the behavior. Furthermore, I believe that fetishization can only exist in conjunction with an incomplete understanding of the object being fetishized. So, Asians have engaged in a two-pronged project of self-fetishization to appeal to the West and enhance their social status relative to Whiteness and extract financial, and intellectual capital from the West.
The governments and industries of the Asian countries which are engaging in the self-fetishization project are doing so consciously. It is a geopolitical play which relies on the Western Oriental Fantasy to increase their soft power by gaining the public support of Western citizens to sway public opinion in their favor so that Western governments treat them more equally. I see this—on the geopolitical scale—as a tactically brilliant move based on the current conditions of the global consciousness. However, it must be an incremental project aimed at gaining the momentum necessary to later shatter the chains of White supremacy. I have seen some commentary which condemns this as a demeaning act that sets us back, but I would argue that, in the face of centuries of inequality, one must leverage their resources to gain as much power and influence as possible until the move to genuine equality becomes possible. Inaction and acceptance of an unequal status quo in the name of honor will only result in the maintenance of the unequal status quo.
However, geopolitics aside, Asian Americans—particularly Gen Z—have a choice to make once again. In recent years, I have seen the desperate desire for White approval combine with the cultural export programs of Asian countries into a new vision of Asian American identity which is currently vying for dominance. I will call it: Commercial Asian America (CAA). Some common names for the people driving this phenomena are ABG (Asian baby girl), and ABB (Asian baby boy). Essentially, as Asian fetishization has grown, Asian Americans have created their own kind of inter-cultural export program as a new kind of Asian American identity that embraces White values.
The ABG/ABB image of the Gen Z Asian American is young, so it is still subject to change. But I believe that if it continues to develop the way it is currently, it would be a disaster for the future of Asian American power and identity. CAA is known by its symbols and icons:
- Labubu, matcha, Joji, raves, twitch streamers, streetwear, Korean skincare, anime, beabadoobee, boba, Valorant, Genshin, Kpop, hot pot, KBBQ, League of Legends, and more which escape my mind at this moment.
It's easy to take all of these symbols and icons as a simple expression of culture, and to some extent it is; however, this is only the appearance side of things. The new idea of Asian American-ness this aesthetic is building is also inextricably tied to certain behaviors and ideologies which are deeply problematic. Let's do another list for those:
- consumerism, apoliticism, luxury signaling, performative Orientalism, parasocial substitution of community, meritocratic individualism, depoliticized multiculturalism, post-racial colorblindness, class aspirationalism, respectability politics 2.0, historical disregard, neoliberal identity.
When I look at this list, it looks very White. It appears as the manifestation of the values of Whiteness filtered through an Asian aesthetic. At its core, it perpetuates White supremacy by supporting the systems and ideologies which retain White privilege such as capitalism, class aspirationalism, political conservatism, colorblindness, and the neoliberal identity. If we accept this as the new model for Asian American identity we will be allowing another generation of Asian Americans to play the minority hierarchy game instead of engaging in solidarity with other minority groups and participating in the work of decolonialization and racial equality.
That's what I think H-mart-gate was really all about. It revealed the ideological split within the Asian American community between those who accept White supremacy and those who reject it. My call to Asian Americans right now is that we must make the decision in this generation to change the course of our identity and to find solidarity with other minority groups and contribute to the project of dismantling White supremacy.
Until next communion, all my love! <3
Micah Xavier Probst