[KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?

[Tatiana.Gabroussenko]

  Dear Ann! I am no American and no Asian, and, probably, I am missing something, but... Honestly, I found no rebuke in poor "WASP" response. (What a funny word, by the way. Calling names is an offence even in kindergarten). Why do not presuppose that this...I prefer to call him person--that this person just meant to give you a credit, a compliment? He is studying a culture, to which you naturally belong, as he supposes, by the right of your birth, by the color of your skin, even before you started to study it. It just means that you must understand it deeper and learn quicker then he does. Probably, when talking about "your culture" he referred to the culture of your ancestors, in which you might be interested in. What is so viciously "WASPish" about it? 
 And how did you know that he denied your American self? Did he try to speak Korean with you before you opened your mouth? Or sing "Ariran" as a greeting?
 May be, you just took it all wrong and your Harvard professor was a nice, kind guy? A little bit clumsy with compliments, but definitely good-willing.
 (Off-topically: I always feel flattered when my friends referring to some unreasonable behavior of Kim Chong-il tell me:"O, this is YOUR Korea again....") 
Best regards, Tatiana (female).  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ann Sung-hi Lee 
  To: Korean Studies Discussion List 
  Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 2:28 AM
  Subject: [KS] can Asian Americans have a voice in Asian Studies?


  Dear list,

  I have failed in my bid to be a cultural comprador.
  Collecting my unemployment checks, I have time to read what I want to read.
  I can't help asking myself whether or not Asian Americans can have a voice in Asian Studies.
  Orientalists remind us that only a native's "access" to Asian culture could possibly give an Asian any use value in the field.  This results in pitting Asian Americans (issei, nisei, 1.5 generations, and in betweens) against each other -- a divisive strategy that succeeds because of the economics of Necessity, in which Asian Americans are only too willing to sell each other out in order to survive.  It is a strategy that pre-empts any possible alliances that Asian Americans might try to form, alliances that dominant whites find threatening.
  I remember a male WASP professor at Harvard (now at a different school) asking department majors to introduce ourselves and our reasons for majoring in East Asian Studies.  One Asian student, recently immigrated, said he wanted to study his culture.  I said I had a somewhat academic interest in Asia, rather than studying it as "my culture," since I was born in N.Y.C. and grew up here.
  The WASP male professor, perhaps sensing a smugness in my attitude, immediately said, "But isn't that what it is?  _Your_ culture?"  It was a harsh rebuke of my confidence in my American identity.  My skin color meant, to him, that I would never be accepted as an American.

  Ann Lee



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