This line of thinking started when a friend commented on facebook about her own friend\u2019s complaint about The Interview that it stereotyped Koreans, and another friend joined in that his biggest gripe was the lack of Asian Americans in films, more generally. \u00a0And it just seemed like an odd complaint to me. \u00a0Asian Americans (that is, as defined by the census bureau) are 5% of the American population<\/a>, and one suspects that, as a whole, the group is less likely to dream of, and pursue, Hollywood stardom. \u00a0(And, of course, I have no idea how well, or poorly, American actors\/actresses of Asian descent are represented in American movies and TV.)<\/p>\n It was also not clear whether his complaint was (a) lack of opportunities for aspiring American actors and actresses of Asian descent or (b) Americans of Asian descent in the United States being unhappy that there aren\u2019t enough faces that \u201clook like them\u201d at the movies or (c) racism\/prejudice among American filmmakers. \u00a0But it struck me as odd, in any case, that you\u2019d bean-count about the number of \u201cAsian-Americans\u201d in American films when multiple Asian countries have huge film industries: \u00a0India, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines come to mind. \u00a0I imagine that aspiring \u201cAsian-American\u201d film stars are even at a disadvantage; once it\u2019s decided to cast an Asian face in a major role, wouldn\u2019t \u00a0Hollywood rather use an established star from elsewhere (e.g., Jackie Chan), and pick up some marketing appeal to that market, than cast a relatively unknown American?<\/p>\n And then you start to contemplate the oddness of the label \u201cAsian-American\u201d and the fact that, per the census definition<\/a>, it encompasses such a wide range of ethnic origins, from India to Japan and everywhere in-between. \u00a0(But not Iran, apparently \u2014 Iranians are \u201cwhite.\u201d)<\/p>\n And you start to think about this whole business of \u201chyphenation.\u201d<\/p>\n What does it mean to be an American of German ancestry? \u00a0Is that in any way different than being an American of Greek ancestry? \u00a0Yes, in the latter case, you have to fuss with the upper lip hair a lot more. \u00a0And \u2014 maybe \u2014 you still attend the Greek Orthodox church and preserve various cultural traditions, if your ancestors immigrated recently enough and didn\u2019t intermarry. \u00a0Perhaps you even go to Saturday school, and have a tradition of running small businesses in your family. \u00a0If your grandfather was the Black Sheep who left the Greek Church to marry a Lutheran woman of German and Irish ancestry, then all you\u2019ve got is childhood memories of periodic attendance at a local Greek festival and a sometime-tradition of lamb at Easter. \u00a0Oh, plus the upper lip hair.<\/p>\n Of course, you\u2019d never think that you needed a \u201cGreek-American support group\u201d at work or at the university. \u00a0And even the label \u201cGreek-American\u201d doesn\u2019t make a heck of a lot of sense, as it combines ancestry\/ethnic heritage and nationality, two different characteristics. \u00a0Why not say \u201cactuary-American\u201d or \u201cRepublican-American\u201d? \u00a0It would mean just about as much, or rather, just about as little. <\/p>\n The only way the hyphenation really makes sense is for those individuals who truly do have a connection to two different countries, a dual citizenship of mind, even if not an actual, legal dual citizenship. \u00a0Which means, really, that \u201cAfrican-American\u201d doesn\u2019t make much sense (and you\u2019ve probably seen, as have I, those examples of too-slavish following of the stylebook that says, \u201cuse \u2018African-American\u2019 to refer to someone with an ancestry from Black Africa\u201d and ending up describing people in wholly different countries as \u201cAfrican-American\u201d), but \u201cMexican-American\u201d may, in that these communities of recent immigrants have as much tie to Mexico as the the U.S. \u2014 it isn\u2019t a descriptor of ethnic origin for these people, but, in fact, a statement of dual nationality.<\/p>\n And let\u2019s make this a bit messier:<\/p>\n In college, I knew a student who had a Polish last name, and grew up in a generic middle-class neighorhood, but had a generous scholarship for \u201cHispanic\u201d students \u2014 because his mother\u2019s maiden name was Garcia. \u00a0(I can\u2019t even say that his mother was herself an immigrant, but may herself been multiple generations removed from arrival in the U.S..) \u00a0Another student\u2019s family had immigrated from Argentina, and thus was similarly the lucky recipient of such a scholarship \u2014 but her ethnic origin was German, one generation prior.<\/p>\n And at work, there\u2019s a woman who immigrated here from Kenya, but comes from the Indian community there. \u00a0We\u2019ve always wondered whether the company claims her as an \u201cAfrican-American\u201d hire.<\/p>\n So far as I know, no other country conflates ethnic origin and nationality quite like we do. \u00a0When speaking of \u201chomegrown\u201d terrorists in the UK, they aren\u2019t referred to as \u201cPakistani-British,\u201d for example.<\/p>\n And we don\u2019t quite know what to do with the fact that some Americans do have an \u201cethnic identity\u201d that corresponds to the national origin of their ancestors, and some don\u2019t, and, instead, their \u201cethnic identity\u201d is that they are Americans. \u00a0(\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cit\u2019s not possible for \u2018American\u2019 to be an ethnic identity\u201d \u2014 but that\u2019s only because we\u2019re told it can\u2019t be. \u00a0Of course it can. \u00a0It can\u2019t be an ethnicity in the strict \u201cbloodline\u201d sense but that\u2019s different.)<\/p>\n Add to the mix the fact that the beancounters are headed for even more trouble by intermarriage. \u00a0According to a brief snippet in the National Review<\/a>\u00a0(citing data from Brookings<\/a>), \u201cmore than 40% of Hispanics and Asians marry someone of a different race (usually white) and nearly 30% of new black marriages are to someone of a different race (usually white)\u201d \u2014 though the effects of intermarriage may be muted for blacks and Hispanics, who are predominantly dispensing with marriage anyway. \u00a0 But for Asians, at least in my town, intermarriage is very much the norm \u2014 and I\u2019m not sure how much these kids think of themselves as \u201cAsian-American\u201d vs. \u201cmy mom is Filipino\u201d or \u201cmy dad is Korean.\u201d <\/p>\n So what\u2019s my conclusion? \u00a0Not much of one. \u00a0Look, it\u2019s clear that a certain degree of beancounting is necessary, in order to understand just how far behind people of certain ethnic or national origin, or culture, or skin color, are. \u00a0But we have to understand that these are just functional categories, and nothing intrinsic, or permanent. \u00a0They have to be flexible. \u00a0And the \u201chyphenism\u201d of my title refers to thinking of these as a person\u2019s key defining characteristics in a \u201cbloodline\u201d sort of way, and failing to recognize that the national origin of one\u2019s parents or grandparents is just that, nothing more.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This line of thinking started when a friend commented on facebook about her own friend\u2019s complaint about The Interview that it stereotyped Koreans, and another friend joined in that his biggest gripe was the lack of Asian Americans in films, more generally. \u00a0And it just seemed like an odd complaint to me. \u00a0Asian Americans (that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\n