2004年03月16日 火曜日
Ethnically Ambiguous
by Mizuko Ito
Biculturalism
A friend of mine recently showed me an article in the New York Times, entitled Generation E.A.: Ethnically Ambiguous. The article featured a half-page spread of photos of various EAs, and posits: "Ambiguity is chic, especially among the under-25 members of Generation Y, the most racially diverse population in the nation's history."
Going on to profile various chic EA models and actors, the article suggests that representations in American popular culture are increasingly coming to recognize racial intermingling. Uniformity is apparently out: Allure's editor, Linda Wells, is quoted as saying 'Five years ago, about 80 percent of our covers featured fair-haired blue-eyed women, even though they represented a minority...Uniformity just isn't appealing anymore." The conclusion points to academic work that has posited that racial categories are social constructions and not grounded in categorical biological differences.
EAs seem to be a phenomonon in the UK as well. A more recent article on the topic in The Guardian" also describes EAs as a hip new breed.
Such ethnic ambiguity is of a piece with real demographic changes in America and also in the UK. Almost one million young Britons identified themselves as members of more than one race or of 'no race' in the most recent census, the first in which respondents could choose their ethnic origin. 'Mixed Race' is now the third largest ethnic minority group in Britain and is set to become the biggest over the next decade.
So is this a new buzzword? What other countries seem to be embracing this look?
When we were living in Japan, my two EA children were often showered with attention. It seems the "not quite Japanese" look, particularly Asian/Caucasian blends have been aesthetically popular in Japan for--my guess--at least the past decade or so.
It will be an interesting time when this celebration and exoticization of EA appearances has its counterpart in an appreciation of cultural and language mixture.
Posted by Mizuko Ito at 2004年03月16日 20:18
Comments
I read both of the articles, actually, and though I agree that it is a positive development for people of mixed race heritage to be feel comfortable with their identify and see the beauty in themselves; from a media standpoint it is still suspicious. It is marketing rather than concrete change. And the fact remains that most of the Eurasian models/actress in both US/UK/ and Japan are chosen mainly because they look more 'white' and not the other way around. If they are in the media in the US/UK they generally play 'white' characters (ie. Keanu Reeves, Kristin Kreuk) only taking advantage for their Eurasian heritage for the occasional ad campaign or publicity report. Further, its not as if the same attention is paid to those with say, Black/Asian heritage. Can't say I see too many Black/Japanese mixed people in Japan's media (or South Asian/Japanese etc or anyone with darker skin) With the exception of Tiger Woods, its true in the US also.
W.Shiraishi -- I mostly agree with you. The articles seem to describe a spin towards blends that make darker skinned folks seem a little bit more "white" -- black/white, latino/white, asian/white rather than as you say, black/asian, asian/latino, etc. In Japan, yes, it does seem to be the Asian/Caucasian blends that have gotten attention. Given that it is a small step with many underlying problems, it does seem better than the days of being looked down upon as "ainoko" and "half-breeds."
Mimi
I do think that Japan has gotten much better and the US also. So, I want to clarify that this is not a criticism of any of the mixed race people I mentioned:good luck to them, and they have worked hard. What I am cautious of is the media or the movie industry jumping on the bandwagon hoping to get credit for diversity that they do not actually support. Individuals activists, scholars, or perhaps independent, small films have more to do with making EA acceptable, or at least, not marginalized.The UK article was far more positive and convincing when it focused on how young people in the UK view themselves; but as soon I they start quoting Hollywood media execs I cringe.
I accidentally stumbled on this site but feel compelled to make a small comment. I grew up in the former soviet union, in a central asian part of it, where two languages on every sign had been the norm as long as I can remember. Same with the presence of a mix of a central asian and russian culture - add communism to the mix and you got a strange brew. yet there was something about growing up in a place where white was a minority (and not quite as powerful as you might imagine) and mixed race was touted as the achievement of on of the goals of communism - the essential sameness, the eradication of individualism. Of course there was racism and nationalism present (of different shades, depending on the time period you want to talk about), but the mixed-race people were always perceived as more beautiful than the pure race ones. Sometimes that was cited as a reason that mixed marriages were OK. This may also be the reason why mixed race individuals have been cropping up in the industry that depends on the looks so much.
To an extent I remember acutely feeling that people of different races felt that representatives of the "other" race could occasionnaly "rise above" the "limitations" of their racial background and be upstanding individuals. In an environment that promotes perceptions of diversity as the only reasonable policy and racism as a disease, this promotion may have created a side effect - where attempting to drop race as a definition of self may be a way of "rising above" the "limitations" of that race.
I accidentally stumbled on this site but feel compelled to make a small comment. I grew up in the former soviet union, in a central asian part of it, where two languages on every sign had been the norm as long as I can remember. Same with the presence of a mix of a central asian and russian culture - add communism to the mix and you got a strange brew. yet there was something about growing up in a place where white was a minority (and not quite as powerful as you might imagine) and mixed race was touted as the achievement of on of the goals of communism - the essential sameness, the eradication of individualism. Of course there was racism and nationalism present (of different shades, depending on the time period you want to talk about), but the mixed-race people were always perceived as more beautiful than the pure race ones. Sometimes that was cited as a reason that mixed marriages were OK. This may also be the reason why mixed race individuals have been cropping up in the industry that depends on the looks so much.
To an extent I remember acutely feeling that people of different races felt that representatives of the "other" race could occasionnaly "rise above" the "limitations" of their racial background and be upstanding individuals. In an environment that promotes perceptions of diversity as the only reasonable policy and racism as a disease, this promotion may have created a side effect - where attempting to drop race as a definition of self may be a way of "rising above" the "limitations" of that race.
I think Den Beste put it best when he said: The philosophic justification for the "root causes" argument that we've heard so much about is the point: individual racists are not necessarily evil, even though racism is. Individual racists can be loving and compassionate chauvinistic contempt.
It reached its most pathological in Fisk's notorious attempt to explain away his being beaten by a crowd in Pakistan as ultimately being the result of western imperialism.
This attitude is racism of the characters. There are no villains in the movie,
because it's not about that. By soft-pedaling the racism and yet never ducking it, the movie makes a more profound statement about it than some other films which pound it into the ground and paint all the characters as caricatures.
But it goes deeper than that: if we are responsible, then they will live good lives. They are less than we are. This is deeply loving and compassionate chauvinistic contempt.
Mark V. Shaney
"Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat!"