By Angelina E.

Breaking the Curse

Life of Vietnamese Americans through keshi

Introduction

Introduction

This visual essay is structured around the effects of the model minority myth for Southeast Asians that contextualize the importance of proper Asian American representation in media. Using multiple sources written by professionals in Asian American studies, I will first discuss the historical and cultural background of the spread of model minority myth, specifically as a political tool to group multiple unique ethnicities into one and ostracize other minority groups in the US, and its specific implications for Southeast Asians. I will then discuss the matter of intergenerational trauma within the context of war and the perpetual foreigner status, and how the lack of communication between generations contributes to the lingering struggle among their community. This discussion will be concluded with reference to contemporary representations of Asian Americans in popular media and their inherently racist nature, and how instead, proper role models in mainstream media could alleviate the generational cycle of grief and trauma. keshi, a Vietnamese American singer, and his first album skeletons will be referenced throughout this essay as an example of one such youth breaking free from the collective struggle and creating a new path for future generations.

skeleton overview

A Vietnamese-American singer keshi, or Casey Thai Luong, is a former oncology nurse now famous as one of the pioneers of the lo-fi pop genre. He holds his first album skeleton dear to his heart. This album chronicles his journey of self-acceptance as a second-generation Asian American pursuing a musical career and explores keshi’s creativity for the first time. The title track skeleton received international recognition, transforming keshi from a Soundcloud, bedroom pop artist to a renowned performer with over a billion streams worldwide and multiple tours every year.

Key Concepts

  • A racial stereotype that categorizes Asian Americans as a monolithically hardworking and high-achieving racial minority group; often used to discredit the claims of systematic racism made by other racially minoritized populations, especially African Americans

  • A trauma shared by a group that affects multiple generations over time, often stemming from historical trauma that entails life-threatening events which members of a group with a shared social identity experience together and pass on to their descendants

  • Stereotypes against Asian men and women affect their social, economic, and academic lives. Men often suffer from being considered as effeminate, sexually incompetent, and nerdy, while women often suffer from extreme sexualization and feticization for their “selflessness”

Model Minority Myth

Model Minority Myth

The conception of Asian American immigrants as a hard-working group with high educational and economic success emerged in the second half of the 1960s amid the civil rights movement and its turmoil. Depicting them as an accomplished and “uncomplaining” community without government aid was often the basis for unfavorable comparisons to other marginalized groups, especially African Americans, diminishing their protests against structural racism and insinuating that the compliant nature of Asian American culture could serve as a remedy [1]. Such portrayals of Asian Americans that fit the model minority myth continued to appear in newspapers and magazines as well as political statements, especially for Japanese and Chinese Americans, placing them in the repetitive narrative of “unaided” hard work as a solution to succeed in the odds, rather than addressing the core issue of racial discrimination and persecution. The assertion that Asian Americans are successful was thus created to avoid the focus on the fundamental roles of racism in the lives of other minorities and justify the power of white supremacy in the US [2]. Moreover, despite their “honorary White” status, Asian Americans are still not granted the same societal status as white people, not only causing tensions with other minority groups but also alienating them from privileges [1, 3]. Such a system of staged inclusivity places Asian Americans in an awkward midpoint between whiteness and otherness, causing many to struggle with their dual identity.

Southeast Asians and Their Place within the Myth

  1. keshi’s interview with Great Day Houston. He describes his childhood in Houston and expresses gratitude and surprise towards his success with the recent tour, including the ones held in his hometown Houston.

The Historical Background of Asian Foreignness - Perpetual Foreigners

We must acknowledge that this experience is not monolithic and instead consists of another layer of hierarchy based on ethnicity. In particular, many disregard the fact that only East Asians are subject to the model minority myth while Southeast Asians often experience struggles that contradict the stereotypes, such as becoming high school drop-outs and having incomes even lower than other minority groups. Studies conducted to measure academic success across different groups usually aggregate Asian ethnicities, further masking the nuanced differences in experiences across ethnic groups and excluding struggling Asian families from receiving necessary support [7]. At the same time, some second-generation Southeast Asians achieve a level of education and income as high as other Asian groups, creating a division within Southeast Asian groups as well as between generations [8]. Very few of such realities are recognized by the public – by discrediting the complexity of the whole continent and putting all Asians as one large category, the model minority, therefore, conceals the heterogeneity within one racial group.

keshi also describes the feeling of alienation during his childhood despite living in the Houston metropolitan area where many Asian American families resided. Although he had a stereotypically Asian childhood, he always felt slightly different from them since none of them were Southeast Asian and had different cultures, relationships with their parents, and attitudes to school from him (1).

The racial stereotype cast upon Asian Americans is the legacy of imperialism and colonization [12]. Labeling Asian Americans as a collective threat to the ideal of white America, the US has “belittled and dehumanized Asians to help justify endless wars and the expansion of US militarism,” as seen in the vilification of Chinese rail workers and the refugees from the Vietnam War (refer to the section “Vietnam War”) [4, 5]. Despite identifying as Asian Americans, they were perceived as Asian first and American second simply due to their physical appearance and were often targets of scapegoating during periods of war and economic difficulties [6]. Asian Americans were therefore perpetually viewed as strangers, sometimes foreign enemies, and never treated as loyal citizens of the US, despite being just as American as other white citizens.

Intergenerational Trauma

Intergenerational Trauma

Vietnam War

Intergenerational trauma can be defined as a trauma shared by a group that affects multiple generations over time, often “stemming from historical trauma that entails life-threatening events which members of a group with a shared social identity experience together and pass on to their descendants” [9]. This is one of the major issues observed in Asian American communities, specifically in Vietnamese American communities comprised of descendants of the Vietnam War refugees who fled from political persecution back home. With little education and low English proficiency, some of these refugees suffered from low socioeconomic status that was passed on to the next generation, creating an invisible cycle of poverty and a perpetual sense of alienation. However, their economic struggle is heavily overshadowed by the psychological trauma experienced during the post-Vietnam War American society, passed on over time in the form of generational trauma.

The large-scale introduction of Southeast Asian refugees into the United States inaugurated a period of internal conflicts throughout the country over the presence of enemy refugees. Although they were political refugees themselves, they were synonymous with the communist enemy Viet Cong, to many white Americans. With little sympathy for the “enemy citizens,” the American media often depicted these refugees in a highly racialized manner, as barbaric and as unlike white Americans as possible [10].

By diminishing their values to subhuman, the American society failed to recognize the losses of the people of Vietnam or the hardships of refugees, allowing for violent racist events like the shooting incident at Seadrift, which involved the KKK.

Below is an interview with a Vietnamese refugee family conducted in 1982 (2). This footage explores the challenges faced by Vietnamese refugees in various U.S. cities as they grappled with harsh economic and social realities while striving to retain their native culture. Their raw struggle encapsulates the significance of the ongoing conflicts in the U.S. and the enduring impact of war-related trauma. The documentary clearly shows that the governmental approach to assimilating Southeast Asian refugees into the U.S. was neither sustainable nor equitable.

2. An interview with a Vietnamese refugee family. It explores their struggles in coping with life in the US and maintaining their cultural identity.

Generation Gap

Immigrant parents with these traumatic experiences often struggle with proper communication with their children, avoiding discussions of their past experiences and keeping younger generations from fully understanding themselves and their culture [11]. With the invisibility of Asian Americans in US history, intergenerational communication is often the only way for the next generations to navigate their connections to their culture; however, the desire by former generations to leave the past behind, as well as the nature of Asian culture that dismisses the significance of mental health prevent these conversations from happening. As a result, the parents often end up simply projecting their trauma onto their children, creating a long chain of intergenerational trauma instead of initiating the process of healing.

keshi’s parents also immigrated from Vietnam under similar circumstances, and he expresses the difficulty in communicating with his parents during a podcast interview with his friends, including another Asian American artist, eaJ who he later collaborated (3). While he treasures his former career as an oncology nurse, this podcast reveals the difficulty in trying to convince his parents to allow him to pursue a career in music, something very uncommon among the Asian American community where high-income jobs, especially those in the medical field, are highly sought after. keshi understands his parents’ opposition, recognizing that “they gave up everything for [his] education and a better life in America,” and appreciates his manager’s effort in assuring his mother that keshi will take off in musical career, more than his former job in the medical field. He also mentions that his parents rarely ever talk about Vietnam and how he regrets not learning about the culture or the language since he cannot communicate with his grandparents, a trend seen across Vietnamese American youth with immigrant parents who prefer not to discuss their origin during the war.

3. keshi’s podcast interview with his friends including eaJ, another Asian American male artist. This is one of the most detailed first-hand information on how he has come to pursue his dream and the struggles that came with it as a second-generation Asian American.

The lack of intergenerational communication often culminates in a toxic family relationship, as demonstrated in Grace Chiang’s graphic novel “Healing the Whole Family” (4). She describes her parents as “parents who, like many others, came into parenthood with their own wounds — and no knowledge of how to deal with them.” As her parents were raised by neglectful, physically and emotionally abusive parents, they had no idea how to raise children beyond their own experience. This led her household to become very toxic, making her feel like she was never enough despite all her accomplishments and a failure for struggling with her mental health. The Chiang family eventually came to a realization that trauma becomes a chain or a cycle unless they willingly start the process of healing, shifting away from the previous lifestyle. While this graphic novel depicts the struggle of parents who hold trauma from abusive parents, it strongly relates to Vietnamese parents with war trauma who, like Chiang’s parents, had to focus solely on their survival rather than wellness and failed to maintain proper communication with their children.

4. “Healing the Whole Family”

Chiang discusses the chain of intergenerational trauma passed onto her by her parents who refused to recognize the importance of mental health in their household.

keshi takes part in every single part of the production, reminiscent of his SoundCloud days in college where he secretly released his creations under the alias “keshi.” This secrecy was partly due to his parents’ opposition to music but also his own fear of failure - he didn’t want anyone in his life to know he was trying out a new path away from the medical field unless he could guarantee success. Both of these feelings stem from his concern for deviating away from the model minority status, wanting to protest against his parents’ interventions regarding his career, and yet feeling compelled to obey his parents - these are all common themes covered in this visual essay so far (2).

This struggle with his parents and his inner self culminates in the first album skeletons, making this an expression of his raw angst amidst those struggles. In the title track skeletons, the line “Yeah, I don't even know if I'ma make it; I'm afraid of myself and I hate it” vividly reflects the argument with his parents that inspired keshi to immediately write and record the song. The lyric is about acceptance and vulnerability - things that are often disregarded in Asian culture where mental illness and deviation from the norm are regarded as taboo. He includes the word “curse” in the lyrics, perhaps in order to allude to the societal and personal curse we have to break to truly embrace ourselves. His experience as an immigrant child provides a comfort space for other Asian Americans struggling with an enforced set of standards they feel obligated to meet.

So, what can we do?

So, what can we do?

Many Asian youths, like keshi, struggle with their ties to the culture and their own identity. The societal pressure to assimilate into the American culture while being targets of racial stereotypes and having strained relationships with their parents often takes away the creative and occupational freedom from this demographic.

5. Vietnamese American actresses who commonly appear in Hollywood. Most of them are often cast as a woman of another Asian descent, serving as the selfless and exotic female figure, and their Vietnamese roots are hardly ever mentioned.

Media Representation as the First Step in Healing

Asian American representations in popular media are often strictly one-dimensional and racial in nature, following the stereotypes of being socially inept, well-behaved, but too obedient to be leaders, and emotionally unavailable. This trend becomes even more apparent for Asian men, whose “submissiveness” is connected to being effeminate and sexually incompetent, alienating them in social and economic aspects too often [13]. The stereotypes formed are a direct result of “Orientalism where the belief that Western culture is superior to Oriental cultures.” [4] They are simply depicted as exotic but inferior, as seen in the extreme sexualization of Asian women in Hollywood and the lack of focus on Asian men in general.

Vietnamese Americans, in particular, suffer from strong stereotypes that once again stem from the war: the trope of a “magical Vietnamese woman” who serves the American man without a single complaint even if she has to risk her own life (5). Such characters only reinforce the false stereotype that Vietnamese women are extremely submissive and find joy in self-sacrifice. Works like Blue Bayou and Queen Sugar once again portray Vietnamese women as accepting, obedient, and fiercely “loyal to death” to their American husbands. Vietnamese men, on the other hand, rarely appear in mainstream media and if they do, they are simply depicted as uncultured villagers.

The small variation in these roles perpetuates stereotypes and deprives Asian American youth of role models to look up to, locking them in the chain of model minority myth and intergenerational trauma. The increase in more diverse and true representations of Asian figures, like keshi and other Asian artists popular among Asian Americans, is an urgent need that could contribute to the growth of Asian creative minds to flourish more in the American society.

  1. Nakanishi, D. T., Nishida, T. Y., & Chun, K.-T. (1995). The Myth of Asian American Success and Its Educational Ramifications. In The Asian American Educational Experience: A source book for teachers and students. Routledge, 95–109.

  2. Chou, R. S., & Feagin, J. R. (2016). The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism. Paradigm Publishers. Social Forces, Volume 95. 274.

  3. Ng, J. C., Lee, S. S., & Pak, Y. K. (2007). Chapter 4 Contesting the Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner Stereotypes: A Critical Review of Literature on Asian Americans in Education. Review of Research in Education, 31(1), 95–130. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X07300046095

  4. Li, Y., & Nicholson, H. L. (2021). When “Model Minorities” Become “Yellow Peril”—Othering and The Racialization of Asian Americans in the Covid‐19 Pandemic. Sociology Compass, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12849

  5. Ahn, Christine, T. K. P. (2021, April 1). Anti-Asian Violence in America is Rooted in US Empire. The Nation. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.thenation.com/article/world/anti-asian-violence-empire/

  6. Nagata, D. K., & Patel, R. A. (2021). “Forever Foreigners”: Intergenerational Impacts of Historical Trauma From the World War II Japanese American Incarceration. In P. Tummala-Narra (Ed.), Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (pp. 105–126). American Psychological Association. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1dwq1w7.12

  7. Ngo, B., & Lee, S. J. (2007). Complicating the Image of Model Minority Success: A Review of Southeast Asian American Education. Review of Educational Research, 77(4), 415-453.

  8. Sakamoto, A., Iceland, J., & Siskar, T. (2022). The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second-Generation Southeast Asian Americans in the 21st Century: Evidence from the American Community Survey, 2012–2016. Population Research and Policy Review, 41(1), 59-88.

  9. McIntosh, 2021

  10. Lee, R. (n.d.). Intergenerational communication about historical trauma in ... - springer. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42844-022-00064-y.pdf 

  11. Ng, J. C., Lee, S. S., & Pak, Y. K. (2007). Chapter 4 Contesting the Model Minority and Perpetual Foreigner Stereotypes: A Critical Review of Literature on Asian Americans in Education. Review of Research in Education, 31(1), 95–130. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X07300046095

  12. Belew, K., & Gutiérrez, R. A. (2021). A field guide to white supremacy / Kathleen Belew and Ramón A. Gutiérrez. University of California Press.

  13. Liu, A. (2021). MRAsians: A Convergence between Asian American Hypermasculine Ethnonationalism and the Manosphere. Journal of Asian American Studies, 24(1), 93–112. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2021.0012

(bold = in class material)

Media Objects:

  1. YouTube. (2023, May 3). From nurse to rockstar: Keshi’s journey in music. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEQe-IjyLQc

  2. National Asian American Telecommunications Association (Producer), & . (1982). Bittersweet Survival: Southeast Asian Refugees in America. [Video/DVD] Third World Newsreel. Retrieved from https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/bittersweet-survival-southeast-asian-r-efugees-in-america

  3. YouTube. (2021, January 14). Testing for our future careers with Keshi | HDIGH EP. #50. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSBc7pvgQ38

  4. Chiang, G. (2020, September 22). Healing the whole family. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/well/family/childhood-trauma-family.html?hpgrp=c-abar&smid=url-share

  5. Nguyen, T. D. (2023, December 17). How authentic on-screen representation gives a diaspora power. Vietcetera. https://vietcetera.com/en/opinion-being-as-authentic-as-possible-gives-a-diaspora-power

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