Chopter Four

ancl it is of such characrer and extent that the great body of.ur people
instinctively recognize it and reject the thoueht of assimilation.ei

In the ozrrua, and Thind cases, the supreme court articulated thc
't.
lationship between ethniciry race, and icleoloqv. rn ozauta, the c.rrr.l
held that while gradations of color might exist, graclations of race rlirl
.ot. E'ropcan immigrants from "blond to swarthy brunette,' could lrr.
lrn:rlgamated into a "caucasian" race; Asian immigrants, however lrs
sirrrilaled, co.ld not. Ethnology had its limits, however: clespite any corr
llr()l) ancestor that he may have shared lvith modern caucasians in rlr.
"<lim reaches of antiquity," Bhagat Thind was declared inelisible
for ciri
zcnship on the gro'nds that, although caucasian, he was not white. Thr.
court held that the ultimate arbiter of whiteness is not science but poprr_
lirr ideology. The ozawa and rhinrl rulings establishecl ',common undcr.
sta'ding" as the popular standard on which "race" was to be definetl,
irnperwious to cultural assimilation or scicnce . In cases where the briglrt
line of race might be crossed, as in the case of mixed-race inclividuals,
the "one drop"
of racial hypo-descent could be invoked. Thus science was brousht^rle
back into the debate on race but within limits, as tht.
harrdrnaiden of pop.lar ideolosv. In 1934, in Morrison, et ar a. carifornin,
a case involvins a conspiracy to violate california's Alien Lancl Law,
which prohibited Asians (as aliens inelisible fbr citizenship) I.rorrr pu*
chasi.g or leasing agric'ltural land in cialifornia,Justice cardozo, ciiinu
both the ozauaandrhind decisions, declarecl that,,men are notwhite il'
the strain of colored blood in them is a hall or a quarter, or, not improbably even less, the governing test always . . . being that of common unclet,
sl,andi'ng. " !'2

[emphasis added].

The "common ,nderstanding" on whichJustice cardozo relied dciined the "inner dikes" of racial purity necessary for the protection o1'
,he national family and the reproduction of the race. The cases of rakao
Jzawa and Bhagat Thind reflected the judgment of ordinary Americans
irlly awakened to the Yellow peril that rhe "common h.rriage,, which
:ould brins rogether saxon and celt, polish, French, slavs an"d Italians.
\frican and Armenian, could not admit the Oriental.

fhe Cold Weir Origins of the

Model Minoriry myrh
Rqcisf Love

1974, the writer Frank Chin expressed it this way: "Whites

love us because we're not black." t The elevation of Asian
Americans to the position of model minority had less to do
with the actual success of Asian Americans than to the perceived failure-or worse, refusal-of African Americans to
assimilate. Asian Americans were "not black" in two significant ways: They were both politically silent and ethnically
assimilable.

The Cold War constrnction of Asian America :rs tr nroclc:l

minority that cor.rlcl becomc- cthnically irssirrrillrtcrl, rk:spitcr
what US. Neuts artri Wo'rkl ll(xtt, urrplrcrrrist.i<::Llly r:alk:rl its
"racial disadvantaqe," rcvcirls thc corrt.nrclic:tion bctween the
continuing reproduction of racial clillelence ancl thc proccss
of ethnic assimilation. The representation ol'Asian Americans as a racial minoriry whose apparently success{ul ethnic assimilation was a result of stoic patience, political obedience ,
and self-improvement was a critically important narrative of
ethnic liberalism that simultaneously promoted racial equality and sought to contain demands for social transformation.
The representation of the Asian American as the paragon
of ethnic virtue, who the U.S. Neuts and World Report editors
thought should be emulated by "Negroes and other minorities," reflected not so much Asian success as the triumph of
an emergent discourse of race in which cultr.rral difference
replaced biological difference as the new determinant of sot ial orrtcomcs. Althoush thc clerployment of Asian Amcric:arrs
I lt'

Chopter Five

The Cold

as a rnodel

minority was made explicit in thc mid 1960s, its origins lay irr
thc triumph of liberalism and thc racial logic of the Cold War.
The narrative of Asian ethnic assimilation fit the requirenlents ol'( l rlr
war containment perfectly. Three specters haunted cold war Amer.ir,r
in the 1950s: the red menace of communism, the black menace of r':r.t'
mixing, and the white menace of homoscxuality. on the internatiorurl
front, the narrative of ethnic assirnilation sent a message to the Thirrl
world, especially to Asia where the United States was engaued in incrcirs
ingly fierce struggles with nationalist and communist insurgencies, th:rr
the United states was a liberal democratic state where people of col.r
could enjoy eq'al rights and upward mobility. On the home front, ir
sent a message to "Negroes and other minorities" that accommoclatiorr
would be rewarded while militancy would be contained or crushed.
The successlirl transformation of the oriental fi.om the exotic to t.lr(.
acceptable was a narrative of Americanization, a sort of latter-day ,iril
griml Progresq through which America's anxieties about communisrrr,
race mixins, and transgressive sexuality might be containecl and event.rrally tamcd. The narrative of Asian ethnic assimilation helped constrll(.r
a new national narrative lbr the atomic ase that walter Lippman ha<l
chrbbcd lhc Atncrit'an Ocntury.
I

World Wor ll qs Prelude

Irorric:rlly. it wrrsJ:rpln's anil( k on Pea'l Harbor ancl America's enrry int.
thc Second world war that besan the unraveling of the yellow peril myth.
The Second world war was a watershed eve't fbr Asian Americans. Thr.
treatment of Asian American ethnic groups brought into sharp fbcus thcr
contradiction befween their exclusion as racial subjects and the prornisc
of their assimilation as ethnic citizens.
America's entry into the war against Nazi Germany and ImperialJapa'
made it increasingly difficult to sustain national policies based on theories of white racial supremacy. After Dunkirk, the united States ancl its
allies depended on support from their colonial subjects in India, china
(not, strictly speaking, a colony), southeast Asia, ancl norrh Africa. The
very nationalist movements whose representatives had been surnmarily
dismissed by woodrow wilson at versailles were now actively courted by
the United states as allies against the Axis powers. In Ausust 1g41, Ibur.
months before the United States entered the war, Roosevelt and churchill signed the Atlantic charter recognizing the right of "peoplers" r<r
decide their own form of government. Later thatyear, in responsr to tll('
threat by civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph to lead a rnassive pror('sl
march on washington, Roosevelt signecl an Executive ort-lcr- orrtl:rwirrs

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

147

gov
,.rr i:rl discrimination by companies doing business witlr llrt' li'<lt't;tl
r uullel]t and established a Committee on Fair Employtttt'ttl I't rtt lit t's'
()flicial
racial eqgality notwithslrtrrtlirrg' llr<'

pronouncements of
lior
,vlrolesale and brutal incarceration of theJapanese Amerit:atr PoPt tl:r
oI
( )rI the west coast underscored, in no uncertain terms, the willirrgrrt'ss
tlrt. U.S. government to invoke race as a category of subordinatiort lrr
irr
,rr.lrieve if, goals., This willingness to use racial categories would rcsrrlt
and
psycholouidisintegration,
family
ruin,
economic
l,lrysical naia.nip,
, ,,1'l.rauma fbr more than 120,000Japanese Americans, men andwornctt,
r l<lerly and infant, citizen and immigrant'
After Pearl Harbor, rhe united states found itself allied with a weak
.rrrd clivided China. The Yellow Peril, that alliance of Japanese brains
.rrrd chinese bodies that hacl fired the racial nightmares of turn-of-the( ('ntury strategists of empire from Kaiser Wilhelm to Sax Rohmer' had
rcmained imaginary.Japan's plans for empire, though couched in Pan,,\sian anticolonial rhetoric, met with resistance in china and elsewhere
irr Asia. For the fir:st time, being ablc to tell one Asian group apart fiom
Irrrother seemed important to white Americans. Two weeks after the Japarrcse attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United states into thewar,I'ife
Irrasazine ran a tlvo-page pictorial entitled "How to TellJaps from the
( llrirrese." The reportet fot Life magazine wrote:
r

U.S.citizerrshavebeenclelnorrstratingaclistressineigrrorarrceonthedelicate question of how to tell a chinese from aJap. Innoce nt victirns in cities

alloverthecountrlaremal]yoftheT5,000U.S.Chinese,whosehomeland
our stanch [sic] allY' . . .
To dispel some of this confirsicln, LiJb here addtrces a rule of thrrmb
fiom ther inthropomorphic conformati.ns that distinsuish fr-iendly Chi-

is

nese

fiom enemy alienJaPs':J

ontherightsideofthearticle,twofacialportraitsoforientalsare

The top pictr.rre (of the Minister of Eco.jr.rxtaposed ,r-ne above the other.
'nomic

Affairs of the chinese Nationalist government) is captioned "chinese public servant" while the one below (of Admiral Tojo, theJapanese
I'rime Minister) is captionecl "|apanese warrior." Although the pir:turcs
are the same size andthe proportions of the facial features virtually identical, the notes tell a vasdt differe't story. The Chinese, I'i'fe told its readfold'
ers, has "parchment yellow complexion, more frequent epicanthic
narrowcr'
r
Sigher bridge, never has rosy cheeks, lighter f acial bones, longe

lirce ancl scant beard." Tojo, "representative of' the Japanese pcoplt' rts
wlrolc . . . betrays aboriginal antecedents, has an earthy ycllow <'otrtlrl<'x

fold, flatter nosc' s('lnctittlt's t't'sy t ltct'lis'

shortgt- [:rt'c:trtd trlassivtl t'lrct'k lrrrl.i:twltott<'''

iOrr, ktss f'r-cquent epicanthic

lr<'trvy

lf

ir;tl,

l1'otr<lt:r-

148

The Cold Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Chopter Five

In addition, the Life article showed two pictures whose captions read,
respectively, "Tall Chinese Brothers" and "Short Japanese Admirals."
Life, taking no chances with its racial ta"xonomy, supplied the following
"field" notes: The Chinese brothers were "tall and slender" with "long
legs" while the admirzrls were "short and squat" with "shorter legs and
longer torso." Hacl Li.le only added blonde hair and blue eyes, it might
have create d thc pcrf-ect Aryan Chinaman.
Not wzrnting t() uppear unlearned in the matter of racial anthropology,
Lifepointcd out thrrl its illustrationswere drawn from Northern Chinese.
Southcrn (lhincs<: (trt that time, the overwhelming majority of Chinese
rcsidcrrts of tlrt'tlrritcd States) the magazine noted, were short, and
"wlrcrr rrri<lrllt' ugrrrl und fat, they look more likeJaps." The LiJe editors
wenl ()n t.o lcll tlrc rc:rdcr t.hat
Sorrl.hern (lhincst: lrirvc rrrrur<1, broad faccs, not as massively boned as the
.fapanese. [,xcept t.hat t.lrcir skin is darker, this description fits the Filipinos
who are lalsol often mistakcn Iirr'.[irps. (lhinese sometimes pass for Europeans, butJaps more olten appro:rch tht: Wcstcrn types.a

Lest this confusing racial taxonomy lail Arncricans in this tirne of crireassured its audience that cultural dill'crence could also be identified visually. "An often sounder clue is facial exprcssion, shaped by cultural, not anthropological, factors. Chinese wear thc rational calm of
tolerant realists.Japs, like General Tojo, show the humorless intensiqr of
ruthless mystics." 5
Aware that readers might be suspicious that this exercise in racial cataloguing was similar to that being practiced by Nazi social scientists, Ily'
assured its audience that American physical anthropologists were "desis, LtJe

voted debunkers of race myths." Debunking notwithstanding, Life asserted that the abiliry to rneasure the difference betvveen the Chinese
andJapanese "in millimeters" enabled American scientists to "set apart
the special gpes of each national group." To lend an air of precision,
scientific objectiviq', and authority to the photos and the accompanying
text, Life's editors festooned the pictures with handwritten captions and
arrows simulating anthropolosical field notes.
The same disjuncture between the newly articulated ideals of racial
egalitarianism and the practice of racial discrimination can be seen in
the Supreme Court's decisions in the Japanese American internment
cases. In the case of Gordon Hirabayashi, a student at the Universiq' of
Washington who had challensed the right of military authorities to establish a curfew applicable only to persons ofJapanese ancestry the court
stated that discrimination on the sole basis of race was "odior.rs to a fi'ee
people." Nevertheless, the court refuscd to curb the authority ol' thr:

Myth

rrilitary in times of national emergency and uphelcl Hiralrirylslri's

149

t ot tvi<

tion (hehadrefusecltoleavetheuniversitylibraryatthcltottt rtplroirrlr'<l

lirrJapanese Americans to be in their homes). Likewisc irr tlrt'trtst'ol
lirr:d Korematsu, a house painter from Oakland who had evaclctl t t:lo< rt
tion, the court held that while race was an "inherently invidi<ltrs" ('rtl('sory for cliscrimination by the state and subject to "strict scrutiny," tlrt'
t ourt acceptecl the state's claim of militarynecessiq/for the incarcerati,rt
of .[apanese
-Despite Americans.6
its massivc mistreatment of Japanese Americans, the still
most ol'
r ieidly enforced segregation o1'African Americans throughout
Ainerican sociery (not least in the Armed Forces), and the deadly antiSemitic policy o1, clenying refuge to Europe'sJews, the U.s. sovernrnent
r:ondernned the Nazi's doctrine of racial sr.rperiority and identified the
clefeat of racism as one of rhe rcasons "\AIhy We Fight." \{trile Japanese
Americans were singlcd out on the basis of their "race," other Asian
American ethnic groups began to receive {avorable treatment from the
Iederal government.
In 1943, flonsress voted to repeal the (lhinese Exclusion Act. which
had for six$r years forbidden Chinese, with few exceptions, to enter the
United States. Repeal of exclusion had been a foreign policy goal of successive Chinese governments {br more than half a century. Repeal was
pr"rshed through the U.S. Consress on the grounds that it would keep the
wavering Nationalist Chinesc government of Chiang Kaishek in the war
againstJapan.T

In the next year, nuo bills were introdttced in Congress to establish

immigration quotas for India and the Philippines. These two bills were
purr.d in 1946, on the evc of Philippine independence' The repeal of
Chir1.r" Exclusion and the effective dismantling of the Asiatic Barred
Zone of 1917 had greater symbolic value than immediate demographic
effect, since the number of visas issued to Asian countries was still severely resrricted. Nevertheless, the ideological statement implied by the
dismantling of racially speci{ic barriers signaled an erosion of white supremacy as a national doctrine.8

Moking fhe Model MinorityMYth

published an articlt' r'vitlr
the title "success Story:Japanese-American Style," and in Dect'rttlr<'r' 1/.,\.
(lhirrt'st' Arrrt't i
Neuts Lnd, World, Report published an article focusing on
c:rns, "strccess Story of One Minority in the US."!)As tltciI titlt's stttfllr'st
ltollr art.ir:les f.olcl the stoty of Asians in Anteri<'l rts lt tt:t|lltlivt' rrl lt itttrr
lrlt:ttrl t'lltrrir' :tssitllilltliott.

In.|anuary 1966, the

New Yorh Times Ma,ga.zlna

Chopter Five

The Cold

This new popular representation of Asian anericans as the model .l

successful "ethnic assimilation" was created in the crisis of racial polir y
that had surfaced ar the highest levels of the Itderal government th<,
previous ycar. The policy debate that emergecl in 1965 reflectetl de.1r
ideological clivision over responses to the demancls for racial equality
that had developed in the tw' decades since the end of the secorrrl
World War.
Tlre watts riot in the summer of 1964 and the growing demands .l
African Americans for economic eq'ity as well as f-ormal pllitlcal rights.
along with the srad'al dismantling ofJim crow segregation in the South,
plunged racial policy into crisis. The contours of the crisis can be seen irr

the conflicting responses of the Johnson Administration to black d..-

mands for racial equality. In March 1965, LynclonJohnson's assistant set:retary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published a ReNtort on the Bladt
Fa'mi$ which laid much of the blame for brack poverry on the ,,tangle ol'

pathology" of the black family. He admonished Africa' Americans t.

rehabilitate their dysfunctional families in order to achieve economic

and social assimilation. InJune, at conlmencernent exercises at all-black

Howzrrd university in washington, l).c., the president articulated a visiorr o[ r'at'i:rl r:<lrrlrlity t.hrorrrrh swceping social reconstmction in a mas_
sivc Wrr orr I)ovcrty. llollr rrrcrr ucrrrrincly clairnecl to support racial equal_
ity irrrrl civil rielrts, Irrrt tlrcir' lwo tloc:rrrncnts could not have been further

apart in thcir anllysis :rnd proposed solutions. The conflict between

.folrnson's rcsporlse and Moynihan's rcsponse for-ms the ideological context in which the Asian Americans emersed as the model minoiity.
.fohnso''s speech emphasizecl the historicar reality of race in America
as compellins losic lbr extending civil rights into the economic sphere.
Referring to the disadvantased position of many blacks in the American
economic structure, Johnson declared, "you do rrot take a person who
for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to
the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to .o-p.t. with all
the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.,' ro
The president went on to lay the principal responsibility for brack poverty on white racism, both historical and present, ancl he outlined an
agenda of government-sponsored social change to ameliorate discrimination and poverty.
Moyniha' rook a radically diff'erent political rack.
euoring his former
Harvard colleag'e, sociologist Nathan Glazer, Moynihan iomplainccl
that "the clemand for economic equaliq, is now not the demand for equal
opportunities for the equally q'alified; it is now the demand for equaliry
of economic results. . . . The demand for equality in educ:rti'. . . . 1.,,,*
also become a demand for equality of results, of olrtcornt,s. " r
r

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth l5l

Moynihan lefl implicit Glazer's ominous thrcat tlrztt Arrrt'r it:ttt s()t t<'ly,
,lt'sltite a commitmelt towzrrcl the former, woulcl bt: "t'tttlll<'ss" itr sttlr
latter. Moynihan wcnt on to describe a blatl< <ttllrttt'ol'
1,l,,r*ire the ,.tangle
of pathology" born in slavery but "caPllrlt' ()l Pt't'
Povcrry'as a
the white world."rz ln l)rtlti( trl:tr''
l,t.rtratlng itsel{'wihout assistance from
Nl.rynihan identified the prevalence of female-headed h6r-rsch6l<ls :ts rr
lru'rier to cconomic r,t.."r*. For Moynihan, the key to both racizrl irrtt'rlr.ution and economic mobility was not in structural chan5;es or
,',',,rganization that misht correct past injustice, but in the rehabilitatiorr
, rI "culturally deprived" black farnilies'

socitl

article was quite explicit about the political context of

its reportwhen it assertecl,'At a time when it is being proposed that
lrrrndrcds of billions be spent on upli{tinu Negroes and other minclrities,
own
rlre natio.'s 300,000 Chiirese Americans are moving ahead on their
was
that
obsessiotr
an
r,vith no help from anyone clse." Foreshadowing
of
writer
the
later'
a
year
t() shape Ricliard Nixons campaign rhetoric
"havens
law
for
as
rlre u.s. ly'ezl.r article described America's chinatowns
of delin:rrrd order" an<l macle no fewer than six references to low rates
Ttre Ils.

ly'ezls

(luency among Chinese Arnerican youth'r:r

Moking the Silent MinoritY

'l'he constmction of the model minority was based on the political sisell'lcnce of Asian America. An often cited example of Asian Arnerican
Despite
1970.
in
prosrams
r.cliance was the underutilization o1 welfare
incomes
rhe fact that I 5 percent of chinese families in New York city had
receivc
to
enrolled
had
bclow the fecleral poverty level, only 3.4 percent
of a
example
as
an
used
been
assistance. This siatistic has often
explaalternative
An
cohesion.
i:ultural
''blic trait of self-reliance and family
rration, grounded in recent Asian American history would stress apprelrension and mistmst of the state's intentions toward them'

WartimeincarccrationlradleftdeepwoundsintheJapaneseAmeri-

the reloc:rn comnlunities. The removal to fairgrounds and racetracks,

oaths,
loyalty
of
uncertainty
the
c.aLion to remote, barbed-wired camps,
Amerithe
traumatized
all
Japanese
the separation of family mernbers,
policy of ac,,.r-r .o-*.rnity. The Japanese American Citizens League's
role in srrPits
and
Authority
t.ommodation with the. war Relocation
rnllrry
amons
divisions
bitter
left
had
lrressing dissent within the camps
itrrxw('r'('
part'
most
the
for
Americans,
.i,,port"t. Anericans. Japanese
'i,,i,,

r,, rebuilcl theirlives and livelihoods and reluctaul. to |t'livt'llrt'ir

gcntlllttiott t t'ttt:tittcr I
r.xltclic:nr:c. In particular, the American-born Nisci
t'oI Ilrc
tltt't'tttt'tgt'ttt
trrllil
expcrit-trctl
rtrrriu'litrlrly silt'lrt ulrorrt its t:am1l
rtl
Mttvt'trrcttl
llrt'l{t'<llt'ss
l1)70s:rrrrl
lltt'
itr
Asi:rn Arrr<'r'icltn tttoVt'tttt'rtt

152

Chopter Five

The Cold

the 1980s. Social psycholosists have likened the response of Japancs<.

Americans who hzrd bcr:n rrnjtrstly incarcerated to that of victims of rapr^
or other physical violrrtion. They demonstrated anger, resentment, sclldoubt, and euilt, all syrrrJrt.oms of post-traumatic stress syndrome.rl
\A4rile postw:rr.flrp:rrr llr:carne America's junior partner, the peoplc's
Republic of (lhirr:r lx'r'lrnc its principal enemy. AFter the Korean W:u.
broke or.rt in l1)50,:rrrrl t'sPecially atter China entered the war in 195 I,
the United Strrtcs rrr:r<lt' t.vt:ry eftbrt to isolate communist China, cc<>
norni<:ally:rrr<l <lilrl,rrr:rticllly, and embarked on a military policy of confiontaliorr lrirrrr'<l rrl "r'orrttrinine" the expansion of Chinese influenc<r
tltr-orrgl ror I Asi:r :r r r< I t I t.' I'lr i rcl \Alorld.
'l'lr. li'rr',l li.rl (llrirr:r t'xtcndecl to the chinese American cornmurrity. Irr I1) 11), ( llrirr.st' r''rrrrrrrrnities in the united states were dMded in
tlrcir':rltitrr<l< s r,w:rrrl rlrc t ornrrrurlist revolution. Although the number
ol r''rrrrrrrurisls ir ( llrirr<'s<' Arrrcrican communities was tiny, many who
w('l(' ll()l < ottttttttttisl ()l ('v('n lt'liist rronetheless fbund some satisf'action
irr llrt' Ilrt t llr:rl lr g<'nrrirrt^ly n:rtiorr:rlist, nrltutcdly honest, and apparently
r

lllo|t'rlt'rrr,trlrtit govcrrrrrr<'rrl Irlr<l lirrlrllyrrnitcdCtrinaafieracenturyof

polili<:rl < llr,s. wt lrli.rr<'ss, lrrr<l lrrrrrrililrion. ()n the othcr hand, Chians

l(:ri-slrt'lt's lr,rr,rrrirrrlrrrg Itlrrr1, lr:rrl lolre t'rrjoycrl the strpport ol'the traditiorr:rl t'litcs irr Ilrt' ltrrgt'r'( llrirntowrrs.If,
wlrt'rr tlrt' K.r.ctrr wa' bnrl*r
in 1050, (lonsress passed the Emer'rrt
ucrr<y L)etention Act, which vesterl the U.S. Attorney General with the
authority to establish concentration camps fbr anywho might bc cleemed
a domestic threat in a national cmeruency. Thc rnere authorization of
such sweeping powers of detention served as a stark warning to chincse
Americans that what had bee' done to -fapanese Americans a decacle
earlier could also be done to them without effort.
The pro-Chiang Kai-shek Chinatown elite, working with rhe FBI,
Iaunched a systematic attempt to suppress any expression of support
fbr the new commrrlrist regime in China. The Tradinq with the Erremy
Act, which prohibited any currency transfers to the Peoples Republic of
China, including remittances to family, was used as a tool to attempt to
deport suspected communist q.'rnpathizers. Although only a few leftists
and labor leaders were actually deported, the threat of deportation had
a deeply chilling effect, since many hundreds of Chinese had come to
the United States as "paper sons" during the lone decades of exclusion
and were in the United States under false pretenses.
In 1952 Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act, which dismantled racial prohibirions on immigration ancl
established an Asian-Pacific Triangle with an immisration quota cap of
two thousand visas. Even thor.rsh Mccarran-walter still strirtly lirnitcd
Asian immigralion. tlre red scart' lhal wlrs ils irrrpt'lrrs \v:ri (.nt;lgi.lls.

Wor Origins of the Modt'l Mirr' 'rily

Myllr

lfrl"

Irr 1955, Everett F. Drumwright, the U.S. constrl irr llorrli l\,'ttr" t:'.tt, tl
"rrr.r:,
'r\(
.r rcport warning that communist china was mirkilrg llsr' ol
ttttrlr
Sl:tlt
[Jrrit<'<l
thc
into
agents
infiltrate
to
deception
lr:rrrcl ancl
"
t

()vcr aS immigrants. Drumwright's hysterical and larUt'ly llttstrlrsl'tttlr

rrrr,'
.r{t.cl report provicled the rationale for massive FBI antl INS t:rirls
t llrinatowns iround the cor.rntry to search out pro-Chinlt sttlrvt r'ivr'''
( llrinatowns were floocled with public notices and stree t flyet s wrrr r r ir rt3 ' 'l
"innocent residents" wcrt: ('ll( ()trr
l)()tential spies and subversives, while
:rgccl to report susPected subversives to the FRI'
(llriIn 19b7 Congriss authorized the Chinese Confession Prograrn.
rrr:se Americans who had come as paper Sons were encouraged to c()ll
(

their illegal entry. In return for consideration for an appropriatt'

(ltut not guaranteecl) adjustment of their status, the applicant had alstr
t() lnake a full disclosure on every relative and friend. Thc informatitlt
s:rrhered in the chinese conl'ession ProS;ram was Lrsed to try to deport
as supporters of China
r lrose who were identilied by the FBI's inf<-rrmants
or as domestic troublemakers. Membership in lefiist support organizrtions, in labor unions, in "pro-china" orsanizations melted away in the
llrce of the sustained harassment and attack from the conselvative elitel
Icss

rvithin Chinatowns, and the FBI and INS fiom without'16

ontqining The Red Menqce: The Fordist Compromise

At the close ol'the Second Wortd War, American labor rvas infused with
had grown
zr renewed militancy. During the war years union mernbership
repreThis
{i.om nine million in 1940 to about filieen million in 1945.
the
force,
sentecl almost thirty six percent of the non-agricultural work
During
history.
highest proportion of unionized labor in the country's
dre war y.uir, o.gutrizecl labor hacl agreed to a no strike policy and to
curb wage demands as a patriotic obligation t() the war effort. However,
at the war's end pent-up wage demands and the problems of reabsorption of millions of men leaving the ser-vice led to a resgrgence of dernands fbr wages and a reassertion of control over work conditions. Labor strife soon boiled over at General Motors and in the oil industry' In
1945 {brty-five hunclred work stoppages, mainly wildcat strikes and sitclowns, involved five million workers. Some of these work stoppages took
the form of hate strikes aimed at driving women and black workers fiotrr
thc factory positions they had earned durins the war'17
In 1946, ihc steelworkers went on strike, then the miners. Strike lirvt'r'

lrr
sltr.ca<l whcn a gcneral strike was called in Stamford, connecticrrl.
I
lottsitl
btrsincss
general
down
shut
strikes to
l1)47 rrrilit:rrrt l:rbor callecl
(
qlr lrrl<l ( )ltklarlcl'
I or r, llot'l r<'st<'t, I'i t slrt tt
lrr M:rv l1).'l(i. I'r't.si<lcrrl'l\'rrrrr:rrr s<'izt'<l llrc ltiltrrltlls l() l)l('v('lll :t slt ilir'.

|,t

Chopter Five

The Cold

Altogcther Truma' would_seize a'd operate ni'e industries

unde.powcrs granted the executive branch by the war Labor Disputes
Act. Management launched a massive attack on radical, particr-rlirly
communist
Party, leadership within the labor movernenr. Tiei,
-ort "flcctive to.l
was the Taft-HartleyAct, passecl in r94g, which o.tlawed
the closecl shop,

secondary boycotts, and jurisdictional strikes in violation

of decisions of.
the Natio'al Labor Rerations Board;jointly administerecr
werfare lunds;
and made unions subject to suit in ledcrar courts for vioration
or. contracts. The Taft-Hartley law strippcd collective barsainine
rights from
rrrriorrs having c,mmrrnisrs among their rt.adership arrd
,...utr?a irr successive purses of the labor movement. Employers and
employees courd
petition lbr deccrtification elections, and fecleral empl.ry"es
were forbidden to strike. state ri{rht-to-work laws were regarizecr, and the
presiclent
was sive' powcr to enforce eigtrty-day cooling off periods
arr.rrg which
labor would be compelled to return to work.
Thc lons period of economic growth that sustainecr Arnerica,s
rise to
hegemonic power depenclecl on a sustained accorcl between
labor and
managernent. This pattcrfi of c.operati'n has been called
the ibrclist
conrprrmise, sirrcc it sccrrccl t. rrsrr.r i. that stase of capitalism
which
IJcnry Fo|rl lrrrrl <'rrvisiorr<'rr, irr wlrit'lr lvorkin{r-cra;; cremand
for d'rable
('()llrilnll('l gootls rvorrlrl rlr ivt, r.r.orrorrrit. gr.orvdr. .fhe
Fordist Cornpro_
tttist' Jlt'tlttlttt<'ttllv irrslitrrtiorr:rlizcrI rrlrrry ol thc I'catures
of ,,scie'tific
ll)anire('rn('nl" (l)lrl. ha<l lx:cn intr'odrrr:ecl cluring the war.
Under the new
Pr.drrcti.'-.rienred u.ion leadership, labor contracts developed a pat_
tc'' ol'close collaboralion benvcen labor reacrership ancl management
on issues of s'per-vision, productiviry and work rules.,* In returi,
r'anagement and the state worked to5;ether to create a working
class that had
the social characteristics of a middle class. Real income rose
by -30 percent between 1945 and 1960. The Forclist compromis.
ulro .olr.d fb, u
relatively high degree of state intervention, from the mecliation
of. labor
relations thro.gh the National Labor Relations Boarcl,
to the regulation
of working conditions throush agencies such as the
occ'patiorril suf.ty

and Health Administration, to the organization of u ,.*.rfu."

dtate,, of
perrnanent entitlements for the new "midclre" class, such
as social security, subsidizecl housing, educational financi'g, unemployment
ins'rance, and increased public higher education. The staie
also took on
an expanded role in intervening in the economy through
an ever-wicler
ranse of fiscal control policies and by exercising its ecJnomic
power as
the purchaser oflast resort.
The sustained economic srowth on which the Fordist compr.mise
depended was fueled by several sources, but initially it
was $40 billion i'
wartime personal savings and a pent-r,rp demand for d'rable

consrrl(,r

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

155

requircd the rcinvigot.aliort ol'I lrtr

hacl in<'rt'ltst'rl lltt' Ittttttproduction
Wartime
patriarchal nuclear family.
rn illiorr i rr l 1)'1 0
fourteen
under
liomjust
labor
fbrce
l rt:r of women in the
art<l li'tl<'r';rl
managemcnt
1945.r'gBoth
in
just
million
over nineteen
to
ll:tt:I. irrltt
force
women
sometimes
and
to
encourage
:rgencies worked
resegl'csatt:tl
were
plants
in
many
assignments
tlre home while work
;rlong racial lines.2o As men returned from war and started families, tht:
lrirth rate in the United States grew for the first time in several decades,
lcading to the sustained growth of a domestic market for housing, edur:irtion, and durable consumer goods. The nuclear family was the necessary social unit of consurnption for durable goods-the automobiles
(fiI'ty-eight million sold in the 1950s), refrigerators, toasters, and televisions whose production drove the economy.
pr'oclucts that drove production. This

The realization of the Fordist Compromise could only be imagined

in a world in which the United States had reconstructed a sphere of inIluence based on fiee trade and open markets. In the late 1930s and
'40s, American policy planners in the State Department and the Corrncil
on Foreisn Relations had initially imagined a "Grand Area" of Anrerican influence, to include the Western Hemisphere and the Asia-Pacific
area. By the of the war, the United States was in position to supplarlt
Britain, France, and the Netherlands in many, if not all, o{'their colonial
tcrritories.2l The American postwar project of global transformation supplanted European colonial administrations in Asia with nationalist elites
whose economic interests and politicirl allcqianccs were alignccl with
American interests. By thc end ()f thc 1940s, ()nc-ilrild of itll nriurrr[]rrtured soods in the world wcrc nraclc in Antctit'rt, rrrr<l [].S. ollitills ctnphasized a high level of cxports as ir critical Iirclot irr :rvoitlirrs 1r l)()stw2rr
depression.22 American policyrnakcrs t.ltcnr[irrt l.ool< i( its trrr ill'l.i(]l(r ()l'
faith that the reconstruction of a stable, rnultilatcral, c:ill)itrllist t:t'otlotttic
system would rely on the unobstructed movement. of capital and labor.
America's strategy fbr global reconstruction required 1he reconstruction of both western Europe and.japan as major industrialized trading
partners. In Europe, the Marshall Plan funneled millions of dollars into
the rebuildins of western Europe. Financing the reconstruction of Europe could not be funded solely through European-American trade,
however; imports fiom Europe only amounted to one third of one perccnr of the U.S. gross national product. The United States therefore
looked to Asia and the Pacific to close the "dollar gap."
The development of a Pacific Rirn economic strategy thereforc be('ilr-ne a central requirement fbr American policy planners direct\ at the
w:rr.'s cn(1. Although MacArthur had begun to dismantle prewar cartels
srr<.lr ;rs Mitsrri :rnd Milsubishi as a mcans of dcrnocr-atizine the.fapanese

G
The Cold

156

c'{

Myllr
lltt' Mt"lt'l Mrrr"rrly

ChoPter Five

by 7947 the reverse decision was

economy along with its political system'
economic machine as a foil to a posmade to reconstructJapans prewar
manufacturing was to become what
sible revolutionary Cfti"t' l:lp""ese
"the workshop of the American
the Council on fo."lg'l ntiuilo"' called
tt*14.':lt It a junior partner in the Pacific
lake." Japan was to pit/t
lloss" of China'Japan' with American encouraseni* ,,iui.gy. After the

ment,focuseditseconomicattentiononsorrtheastAsia'Initsreporton
the Institute for Pacifi'c Relations
Asian econo-i. atutlop-t"t i" 1952'
to play between the United States and
spelled out the t"l. t;ij;;;;;^t
the Southeast Asian market'
Therecanbelittlequestionthat...thebestareaforJapaneseeconomic
for capital and consumer
is in Souiheast Asia' with its demands
seem that'fapan
It
would
"*f."ri""
and rice surplus' ' ' '
goods, its .u*
^u,"'iul' to develop trading outlets there in the interest of

shoukl be .rt.ot"ugtd
has herselfshown keen interthe overall structure ofPacific secnrity'japan
especlalf in Thailand' Malaysia' Indonesia'
est

Wor Origins

in these ,rua" po*'ir'liiiies'

and India.2:r

ThePacificRimwasnotonlyacrucialmarketforAmericangoodsbut
crxport.of capital' In addition to the
also a highly prolitablc region lirr
diricct U'S' investment in the Pacific
rcclcployrncrt, .rf'.;"1"uttt"j-t'nl'itnl'
llinrwlrsittttitjtlt-s()tll.cc.,l1,,.,lit*lirr.ArrrtlricatrCorporations.Whileoverl0 pcrcent p()'u'-t'-'ttlr-ryt"ih" growth
scirs ilrv()stlllclrts gl.cw at :tlrotrt
investment in the Pacific Rim
ratc- ()l <lomcstic invcstrnent-American
rcturn on investment' and investoutside Japan brought a 25'5 percent
jn 11'3 percent'-Between 1951
rnent in thelupan"'s" "t;";y brought
investments in the Pacific Rim
and 1976, the book value of American
grew from $16 billion to $80'3 billion'24

;]il;;

|.lrrndingdocumentsandthepractic(.crll:tt-i:tlt[.ts.tittrirr.rtl.,Ittlt\ttt.tt
"."'r"* ,*;11;i:il:ii:;ll, ']l;
,")'i::,:.1,;::i
,::rn socies Mpdar
role tlt ptt::^0.1;a.';t;;- tltt'w"'l'l '' 1""
Amenca's
for
^
<lilemma"

1^heNegroProbkmand'MorlernDemocracy'amassivecollaborativestudyof
th. work of a generation of Ameri
American .u." ..lu.i,or-rs. Drawing o'
sociologist Robert l.'.tutk and his
can liberal social scientists' notably
thJintellectual discrediting of
students, ,A,n ,q'*n'l'on Dilemma signaled
and the triumph of the concept
biological theories of racial super:iority
for explaining and transforming
of ethnicity u, tft" ao'lritu"t paradigm
cuttltgie Foundation foc.sed .'
race relationr. Myt;;it;tpo" to tiit
in thc tratiort's

ethoslrticulated
the disparity bet.ween the egalitarian

'<r

wluld

d"rlrot'acy' all

'l'lr'r'

Pt'rtt r''

't^"ii"a
rir'
,.,.,.0
riberar iaith' rhc trium'r'rr
;";;:;'
""t"ii';
l:i::H:;','"'
' il1'dul'' t''"p"'.u'1^',titl:;::"#;;.
bv the victo|v .'l
.l.r-r

forribt.

;t:ffi

u" a n
:yS;lS::l;l':',:':1ffi il#$?:; "r*"'

e c e ss

ary'{ ( )'l

II

"Ju':;:ruTl#lil'"T;ilLii:::".*:",1J.":,?:';.J;::ii
f " "d
:l:ir.T'll'i.i
".
"
il::
"
"'
J":"
"
il*j: [ : i' ::;i?l
H #;;t". :::l* ;::.;i15 ;it ffi:ff:T; :iin,n!'Tff: i
to a war of contarn
* *-,,
tr
":' l',':fj'';.'
J, l :,U t if$ J[*lwas
",, 0.,
iicoincd
t] :T
iI

s'crw

rr

'

"rhiri w,rrd'

ijl

i,l;,ili.]ill,l'i:' ';;;
':rm
al
'*;;;;;
thePeople'so"p-oil;iiit"t'""uIndonesia(withthetacitsupportol'
of:non-aligned nations
u

largely
':'''f:':;;
r'r'" i}'ita worl Jnations'
a"]tt'a'
cconomtc
and
"
Bandung, Itd"""'i;:;;;
;;";";J]nt"
beNveen tht'
(ontest
pc,ples o[ color'
tn"
;
';;
Tatotocitut''"tt-aetermittation'
"t";;
.lc\/eloDment
"t'tuil"''it
on behart or civir
;l:i:::1'ili,Iff
::'ll1;'l1l-;-erar intervc''rion
t.'
:*:.''T' I"x;
, g r.,, * p,.'
T *t 3;; : : ln :* i I:
:
"
li:il,*lTn
tt'
1948' in SheIleY
b'i'r ';;;";ing rhe nl''"'1::l';il|;::'
the iedcral );";;;;.t''

the soviet Union)

c\tate'
t

Assimilcrtion
Contqining The Blcrck Mencrce: Ethnic
heard the 'Japa9?"t:
In 1944, the same year in which the Supremt
Dilemma:
American
putlUsnea An
nese internm"r"tt, tuJo-Ctnnar Myrdat

i;.cs'l:'l'i'l i 'lI,
ilJ;t]*fiii;;;
bclicrvt' tltrtt
to
have reason

il11$,,".'*::;T,T::[i#

iar r estrit

tio"'

";i;;;;;

I'rcri"d'

"' 'J;tl;::::Xl[?:reign

rcra-

*l

i*s':t::Ti: l;'l Tliil:i*f ;'in m*;;ffiH

iKfi&;iiJ'.-p"t'^t"Lath:iTeorlllll
:
'ig,,rn*''tR"'Tili""':ffi
Department's atrt'tn
the.Justice DePar
in"
t

1t"tii"
policy t-p*^u""'."t'l:^t:::explicitly:

lbreign
brief stated tt-"

rJ"ig']

policy case

irrri

Racial dist
Theexistenceofcliscriminationagainstminorityeroupsinthe.U.S.lraslrtt
*ttn
r

o"''''"o""t'
"'n.'tl"tl;t'it*" ""
adverstr tn"tt t'pin
ol ottr dcv.lirrtt
tr:rti.nfurnish:il;l;thtct'*-"nis(propagandamillsanclrlrilrs('s
nali'ns t iftt.'l"t"tlsiN
tl.ttlrts t'tt.tl
{

x1n.r118

lriendly

lrt: clcnlocrzltic fait}r'28

"'

l'r

',li

Chopter Five

The Cold

A decade later, in the aftermath of the watts riots, both.fohnson's

Hcrward university speech and the preface to Moynihan's

referrerl
to this ideological struggle and framed the problem of civil rights anrl
social justice in the united States within the global conrext of the cold
war. Both initially emphasized the need to provicle the world with a
model of the "tr'e American revolution" as an alternative to commuReNtort

nism. The president opened his speech by declaring,

o'r

our earth is the home of rev.l.tion. . . .

enenries may occasionally
seize the day of change. But it is the banner of our movenient which they
take. And our own firture is linked to this process of chanse in many lands

in the world. B.t nothing in any country to.ches us more profo'ndly, nothing is fieighted with meanins for our own destiny, than the revolution of
the Negro Anterican.2!)

Moynihan opened his report with the obser-vation that "the [Black]
movement has prolbund international irnplications, . . fand that] it
was not a matter of chance thzrt thc Negro movement caught fire in
America at j'st that moment whe' the nations ot'Aliica were uaining
their lieedorn.":r0 IJe went on to invoke the threat of perceived separatist
Black Mrrslim doct.r'inr:s or thc "zrttrar:t.ivcness of flhinese ccrmrnunism,'
to Arncricirn ltllrcksArrxiorrs to lt'1tla<'r' thc irrvi<liotrs (:?rl.cgofy of race, for which there was
littlc scic:ntif'rc.jrrstif it::r1ion and sisnificant political cost, liberal theorists
subsurnc<l racc rcl:rtions to ethnicity. Ethnicity theory was grounded in
the bcliel'th:rt while certain historically anachronistic patterns of racial
scgregatiorr persisted, modern American society was open to the full participation of all who were willing to participate . Liberal social scientists
who promoted the ethnicity paradigm argued that the desired assimilation of blacks into modern American society could be achieved in two
steps. The barriers ofJim crow seeregation hacl to be dismantled (over
the objections of "pre-modern" sesregationists like the Klan, the \Ahite

citizens councils, and an entrenched Southern power structr.rre), and

non-whites had to accommodate themselves to the "universal" demands
of modernity.

The blueprint for ethnic assimilation was Robert park's theory of a

four-stage ethnic or race relations cycle. park identifiecl four stages in a
natural and irreversible process of ethnic assimilation: initial coniact between the outsider and the host society, economic and political cor'petition, economic and cultural accommodation of the ethnic to the host
society, and Iinally, assimilation into the host society. These patterns of'
cultural assimilation and integration were assumed. to be universally applicable to all "newcomers" into the modern city and applicablr: t. r-a

Wor Origins of the Modcl Minor ily

Myth

151)

as well as ethnic relations. This was a nart'ativt' ol tttotlt't ttiz;tli"tt

rlr.awn fiom studies of the historical experiences ol l')ttr'o1rr';tlt itrttttigt rtttl
gr.oups in American cities. The ethnic component o1 <:ttllt rlrr I ir lt'tr I rlt' tv:rs
irtenti{ied with the Old World. Seen as prc-modern :rrt<l rlyslirrr< liorrrrl.

cill

of language, custom, and religior] wcl o t t ltl tst t't tr lcr l

:rs the immig;rant became modcrn and American'
Since the stagcs of assimilation were based on a uarrativc ol tttliv<'r's:rl
rrroclernization and not oll a theory of subordination, the burclt:tt rvlls
on the latecomer to moclernization to accommodate the host socitlty' Il
rlicl not occur to assimilation theorists that racially subordinated pcolrlt'
rnight be reluctant to abandon cultures ol'sur-vival that had been rlevcl,,p.d .rrr.. centuries oI' oppression. The black sociolosist E. Franklin
Fiazier, a student of Park and one of the rnost important contributors to
t'thnic d.ifference

'l'he Atnerican Dile'mma,

wrote:

Since the institutions, thc social stratiflcation, and the culture of the Negro
community are essentially the sarne as those of thc larger community, it is
not strange that the Nesro minority belongs arnong the assimilationist
rather thin the pluralist, sccessionist, or rnilitzrnt minorities. It is seldom
that onc finds Negroes who think of themselves as possessinq a diflerent
culture from'whites ancl that their culture should be presen'ed':rr

Assimilationists supported the civil riqhts movement in the dismantling of Southern Jim Crow seuregation and encouraged voting rights
ancl electoral political participation. Assimilation theory, horvever, sug-

gested that thc duty of the state was limited to the dismantling of tbrmal, legislated barriers to participation. Since the greatcr part of assimilation iestecl on the accommoclation of the minority to the host society,
state resulation of private activity in the interest of equal condition was
,".r-r to huu. little positivc and possibly ureater negative effect' The sociolosist Milton Gordon, who in the early 1960s elaborated and refined
Pari's race relations cycle into a seven-stase theory of ethnic assimilation,
warned explicitly:
The governm ent must

??.o,

use racial

criteria positively in order to impose

cleseeregation upon public facilities in an institutional a|ea where such seg.egaiion is not a function of racial discrimination directly, but results from
discrimination operating in another institutional area or fiom some ol.her
causes.'2 [Ernphasis added.]

ln the 1950s and early 1960s, Iiberalism, with its universalist claims on

science and progress, became the hegemonic ideology of the American

inrpcrirrm. The political requircments of the cold war and the logic of
lilti'r'1ll rrrrivcrszrlism required an adherence to a doctrine of racial e quality. l,ilrll-:rl sot'iitl st:it:lrt.ists artic:ulirted a th<:ory of moclcrtrizirt'iorr tllat

l(;o

Chopter Five

r:'uld be deployed

The Cold

as an ideological alternative

to communism in re-

solvins the problem of the Third worlcl. Its clomestic version, ethnic

as-

similation, would provide a similar nonradical solution to the ,,Negrcr

problem."
Ethniciry theory mct the requirements of liberalism by articulatins a
doctrine of individual competition in a "colorblind" society or, in Milton
Gordon's view, a society in which the state played a neutral role . Eth'icity
theory articulated a vision of the colorblincl society but evadecl a critiquc
oI'the historical category of race altogether. Ethnicity theory offered. a
promise of equality that co'ld be achievecl, not rhroush poiitical organization and cornmunity emporvcrment, but only throusllindividual effort, cultural assimilation, ancl political accommodation. For liberals who
sought both to develop the Negro and to contain black clemands lbr the
systcmatic and structural dismantling of racial discrimination, the representation of Asian-American communities as self:contained, safe, aricl
politically acquiescent became a powerful example of thc success of the
Arnerican creed in resolving the problems of'race.
In 1955, less than a year after the supreme court had shocked the
systcm Of southern segreg:rtiorr by declarrine separate but cqual educaliorr irrhcrt'rrtly rrrrcrlrral arr(l rrrrt'orrsritrrtional, tlie tortrlre, lynching, anci
rrrrrtil:rliorr o[ [irrrrrrr.lt 'l'ill, lr lrllr.li Iirrrr.tr.crr-yc:rr-olcl w]ro was acclsed of
f lir tirrs wi(lr . wlritt'w()rr1'r, slr'<.kt'<l th.
lv.r-ld. The cxo'eration of'Till's
killcrs lry a.jrrly ol thcil whitc Lrcel's sisnalcd a strir.tegy of ,,massive resis_
tunc'c" to rirci:rl cquirlity in the south. The murder of Emrne tt Till served

as the corrnternarrative

of racial intolerance and violcnce that threat_

ened to undermi'e the liberal narrative oI'Myrdal's American creed so

painstakingly assembled and elaborately articulated.

Contoining The White Menoce:

The Nucleor Fomily os Civil Defense

In 1948, Alfred Kinsey shocked America by reporting that a third of

American men had engaged in sorne homosexual u.ti.,ity during the
course of their lives and that a rnajority had experienced homoerotic
desire. The news should not have come as a surprise. The 1940s ha<l
witnessed a rnarked expansion of sexual freedom incl experimentation
with new definitions of gender relations. During the war years, millions

of yo'ng men went into the armed fbrces and millio's of yo.ng women
went into the factories. These young people cstablished ,r"nu piit.rn, of
dating and had a more reraxed attitude toward premarital sex than did
their parents. During the same period., uay and lesbian public cultrrres
emerged in cities around the country.33
Kirrsey's study,'fhe scxu,al llehauior

o.f'the

Human, Ma,k,, trdry

s.r.i.lrrir.rrl

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth l6l

of 12,000 respondents, became an inlnrcrlilrlt'lr<^sl st'll6t. It ;rls<r

<llcw the ire of conser-vative churchmen and polit.it ilttts. liot t t';rot littg
srrr-vey

tlrcse activities of Americans, Kinsey was accused of :ti<lirrs rttttl rtlrt ltirrg
tlre communist cause and was investigated by the Housc ( lotlttrtillct otr
[.]n-American Activities.
In the Cold War search for traitors and subversives, hornopltolrirt rrrr<l
Irnticommunism went hand in hand. Following on the heels of St'rtrtlor
McCarthy's search for communist agents, the Senate launchctl irr-

foe

vestigations to root out homosexuals irl the federal government. N()lll

('

in particular, was seen as a threat Itr

crusaders warned that homosexut
Anticommunist
security.
the national
"moral
making it susceptible to both
fiber,"
nation's
the
:rlity weakened
was considered a peras
commr.rnism
seduction.
political
sexual and
Just
was considered a
homosexuality
order,
economic
natural
the
of
version
turn from
sudden
the
\4lhen
order.
biological
natural
of
the
per-version
American rriumph in the Sccond world war to the high anxiety of the
(lold War could only be explained by treason, homosexuals were seen tc)
have secret lives much likes spies or foreign agents. Shortly after his inausuration as president in 1953, Dwight Eisenhowcr issued an cxecrrtive
order barring gay men and lcsbians from Federal employment'34
The link between anticomrnunism and homophobia was not merely
psychological or metaphorical; in the atomic age, reproducins the mrclear family was understoocl to be the key to national survival. In the
1950s and early 1960s, seeking to take advantage of America's advantage
in nuclear weapons, stratcgic planncrs stressed sur-vivability in nuclcar
war. This stratcgic doctrine relie d on a prosram of civil delense, the mass
mobilization and eclucation of the civilian population reuarding their
duties during nuclear war. At the heart of civil defense was the belief that
the nuclear family was the primary social unit through which the American way of life could be presewed or resurrected.3r' Talcott Parsons, perhaps the most influential American sociologist between 1940 and the
ts60s, argued thar the middlc-class family, with its "natural" tlivision of
labor between the sexes, was the most efficient and implicitly the highest form of social organization. In the absence of a state apparatus that
rnight be obliterated or cut off fiom its people by nuclear war, the ntrclear lamily was a natural social unit that would reproduce America.
Jtroductive sexr.rality, homosexuality

Soyonara:Wqr Bride qs Pocohontcrs

a 1956 {ilm directed byJoshua Losan, is a drama about the
6l iltcrracial romance in the Cold War era. The movie, based orl
(published in 1953), is a n:lrnt.lrrrrrcs Mir.lrt:n<'r''s novel of thc sarnc title
lir,<' irr wlrillt "rrro<lclrr" irrtcrrucial lovt' lritrrrtphs ot,t'l ltttitt lttottisli<'
Sa4ortnrl,

t1i1ls

lt;:

Chopter Five

racial bigotry. Salona'ra establishes the anticommunist necessity of ethnic

liberalism and presents the war bride as a moclel of ethnic assimilation.
This triumph of ethnic liberalism opens up the way for the rebirth of a
nation, America as protector of the postwar global order.
The war Brides Act of 1945 hacl made it possible fbr American military personnel to brins their spouses and dependent children to the
united states as nonquota immigrants. In the five years between 1947
(whe' the war Bride s Act was amended to incl'de chinese and..fapanese
wives of American citizens) and l9b2 (when its provisions cncled), some
6,000 chinese women came to the united states. Between 1g45 and
1975, some 45,000Japanese wives of Arrrerican servicemen immigrated
to the u'ited states.36 only a few.fapanese wonlen came to the U.S. under the war Brides Act itself. It was only after the Mccarran-walters Immisration and Narionality Act of 1952, which allowed the naturalization
of Japanese and Korean immigrants and provided nonquota visas for
spouses and children of American citizens, that manyJapanese spouses
of American service personnel began to arrive.3TJapanese "war brides,'
were amon{r thousands of'women from Asia w}ro took advantage of the
disrnantlins ol'imrnisration laws tlrat hacl restrictecl their entryinto the
unitccl Start:s sirrt'c llrc I'as<'Act ol'1u70. Thousancls of Filipino wives
:t('r:onrlxrrricrl Arrrt'r'it::rrr st'rviCcrncn t.O thc Unitecl Statcs or joined huslnrrrls wlro lr:xI irrrrniglir(r'<l uLrlicr'. In thc lg50s ancl '60s women made
up thc urcat rrrirjority ol irnnriur-ants fiorn Asia.rs
The relatio'ship o1'ge.dcr and sexuality to the process of ethnic assimilation and racial segregation has always been a troubled one. In Az
Amt:rican Dikmma, Myrdal ide'tified the preservation of a taboo on marriage and sexual relations between black men and white women as the
single hiehest priority of white southerners. A decade later, Emmett Till
paid with his life after being accused of breaking that taboo. The Americanization of the Asian war bride-orientalism domesticated-was the

cold war narrative of ethnic assimilation and domesticity that could

restore credibility to the "American creed" that reconstmcted the American family as modern, universal, a'd multi-ethnic, if not exactly multi-

racial. In this tale of Americanization, the oriental woman was transformed from danserously transgressive into a symbol of domesticity and
a stalwart of a restored postwar patriarchy. Meanwhile Asian men remained outside the American family, mareinalized, invisible, and. racially
/

other.

Shot agai'st the serene background of a h.rshJapanese garden, with

gracefully arched footbridges and a watercourse , Sayonara's title sequence establishes the tension between the modern west and the premodern East. Thc classically orientalist image of.fapan-aesthcticizt:cl,

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Motlt,l Mirr.rily

Myllr

l(;:t

rrnchanging, pastoral, and ahistorical-is immc<lirrl< ly tlislrl.r, r'rl lrt tlrr

Opening scene, which Sets up the historical context l(rt ,\(t\1t)tt(tttt '' rr,lrt,r
rive of Cold War modernization. The opening shot slrows rr lililrt|r ;, t
landing on an airstrip in Korea (the caption tells us thc yt'rtr is l(ll,l).
siUnaling the arrival of the active, masculine, and modern Amt:t i< :ttr ( it'r
tury. The scene is careful to underscore the fact that the Korcllrr Wrrr is
not the Second World War and that the relationship betlveen Asi:t rtrrrl
Arncrica has changed. The Sabrejet lands in front of two ground c|t:wrnen working on an older, propeller-driven plane, an obsolete reminder
of the Second World War and an earlier era. \Arhen Major "Ace" Gmver
(Marlon Branclo) opens his hatch, his war weariness is immediately app?rrent. He admits to moral fatigue. Gruver comments to his Srorrnd
crewman, Airman Kelly (Red Buttons), that this time "there was a ts^.uy
with a face in that fenemyl plane." Gruver's admission articulates his
:rmbivalence about Lhe war in Korea, which, though it is a war against
communism, is merely a "police action," a war of containment and not
a total war.
Although the Korean War occasions the Sayorz ara story, apart from the
introductory scenes virtually no further mention is made of the war itself. sayolara is a garrison drama, as such its themes are domestic. The
struggle against Soviet communism is not only on the battlefront in Korea but also, perhaps principally, within the American empire. Racial atritudes are critical to the way in which the conduct of Americans inJapan
and elsewhere in the Free World are judged.
Gruver is told by his commanding officer that he must dissuade Kelly
r

Iiom marrying Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki), the Japanese woman with

whom he is in love. \A/trile it winks at casual sexual relations between
American service personnel andJapanese women, the rnilitary establishment strongly cliscourages marriage between Americans and Japanese
and forbicls servicemen from bringing their wives to the United States.
\Alhen Kelly enthusiastically shows Gruver a photo of Katsumi, Gruvera West Pointer, the son of a general, and a Southerner-responds with
hhrnt racism. "I dont understand how a normal American can marry a
runt if you like." Gruver
Japanese. . . . Go ahead and marry this slant-eyed
(Patricia owens), the
Eileen
webster
his
fiancee,
shows Kelly a picture of
that make her
qualities
the
and
catalogues
daughter of another eeneral,
"an
American
is
Eileen
"normal"
American.
a
for
a good potential wif'e
good
education,
good
background,
good
with
i;irl fwith] fine character,
F'i
leen
superwoman,
Aryan
an
If
not
precisely
f arnily, Iancl] good blood"'
difclass
racial
and
The
elite.
its
social
ideal
of
is thc white rniddle-class
the
on
immediately
marked
are
Eileen
and
Katsumi
lirrcnr:es bctwecn
ol'cl<:sirc,
obiects
respective
of
their
pictures
cxch:rnee
lrorly. Wlrcrr llr<'y

Iti4

The Cold

Chopter Five

Gruver remains silent on Katsumi while Kelly comments enthusiastically

on Eileen's figure in a swimsuit.

In response to Cruver's racist slur, Kelly's sharp retort, "Don't ever talk
to me like that asain," signals his independence and principled fearlessness in the face of a superior. It establishes Kelly's role as representative
of the working class in this film. Class diffcrcnces, coded as military rank,
are underscored by the revelation that Kelly, a forthright but devoted
and hardworking soldier, has been promoted and demoted four times
for insubordination. Kelly shows Gruver the military's pamphlets warning about "the dangers" of intermarriage. Kelly defies the military bureaucracy by writing his congressman to get permission to marry. His
class analysis is straishtfor-ward and populist: "There's the generals for
the officers and congressmen fbr the peasants." This secures Kelly's position as spokesman for the workingman and helps to mobilize populist
Iegitimacy for his desire to marry Katsumi.
In what seems an absurd irony, after forcing Gnrver to apologize for
his racist slur toward his intended, Kelly asks him to serye as best man at
his wedding. This is where the filrn's liberal individualism exerts itself as
a containmcnt o1':r morr: rzrdical slr'rrctural critique. \A4rile Airman Kelly
is mcirsrrr.tr<l lroth lry his plirrciplr:d s(:urcl against the undemocratic state
(r'r'ltrcscnt<'<l by tlr<' rrrilitirry arrllroritics) ancl by his personal fealty to his
supclior ollir:cr', ()r'rn'cr is rrrt:astrrccl lty his personal loyalty to his men
ovcr and abovc his olrcclicnr:e to the rulcs. Kclly and Gruver share a possessive individualisrn that is ofl'ended by the state's intervention in the
(private ) decision to take a wif'e. At the same time, this reliance on individualism safely contains the radical potential of Kelly's protests, both
against racism and against the privilege of class or rank.
Japan is presented as a sexual wonderland, beginninu with Kelly's first
description of an all-male Kabuki theater and an all-female Matsubayara
dance troupe (based, presumably, on Tokyo's famous Takarazuka Theater). The exoticism ofJapan is ironically underscored by the surprise
arrival of Gruver's fianc,6e, Eileen, the daughter of his new commanding
general. Eileen Webster represents the conventional white middle-class
ideal of sexual attractiveness. Yet it soon becomes apparent that Eileen is
dissatislied with the prospect of a conventional family life shaped by the
demands of a shared military career "like our parents have." However
Eileen s rebelliousness is contained by her intense romanticism; she can
identify her own pleasure and fulfillment only through a husband. She
explains to a somewhat befuddled Gruver, "No woman wants to live any
way except body and soul with the man she loves."
Cruver's first introduction intoJapanese high culture is a trip to lht'
Kabuki Theater arransed by Eileen. Kabuki is a classit:al irrrrl lrighly r itrr-

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

(i5

rolt's
alized theater in which male actors play both tnal<: rttt<l li'trrrtlt'

(.JustliketheydoatPrinceton,,'chirpsEileensmotlrtlr-).Wlril<.(ltttv<.r.
titill.tt'<l rttttl t'tt
ol llrt'
thusiastic about the exotic and potentially transgressive ttattttt'
l()rri
performance; she reads aloud from a brochure that the Kirllrrki ;l(
,,the grace of a woman and the power of a man" in olrt: lXrrly.
combine
Gruver becomes clearly uncomfortable with the homoerotic ptltt'rrlilrl
in the Kabuki performance and, in what appears to be a homo^pltolri<
panic, insists on a disruptive public displav of heterr-rsexual affectiorr'
bil.".r, on the other hanJ, uses the performance to pr.d Gruver's sexttal
lion iD lt
anxiety. \Alhen Nakamura turns the character of the lady into a
now'
for
you
po*".i.rl dance, Eileen twits Gruver, "Is he man enough

op."p.u., discomfited by the idea, Eileen seems clearly

Lloyd?":o

Montalban) is
an elaborate costuming scene that interjects an extraordinarily disruptive moment into what, until this point, has been a densely heterosexual
discourse focusing on the exchange values of Japanese and American

ih. fi.rt view of the Kabuki actor Nakamura (Ricardo

Women.Inthecourseofputtingonhishear'ywhitefaceandbodypaint'

and his female costume, Nakamura's race and sex are simultaneously
role'
transformecl and deconstructed. As a male actor playing a female
Nakamura
when
Nakamura's sex is temporarily obscured' Nevertheless'
is displayecl in a direct frontal shot wearing a codpiece' there remains
little doubt as to his physical sexual identity as a rnale'
Preparing for the stage, Nakamura applies a healy white greasepaint
trnderthat obscures his visual identification as Asian, although the ritual
Kabuki
the
of
scores his cultural identity as Japanese' The whiteness
This
makeup also marks Nakamura as potentially racially transgressive.
M<-rntalban
is a double masquerade, since Nakamura is played by Ricardo

in yellowface. The casting of Montalban in this role achieves a ntrmber

of p..rpos"s. It uses the Cuban-born actor's image as a romantic sophisexotic
ticate (based on another ethnic stereot)?e) to create an ethnically
reis
thus
audience
The
yet racially acceptable potential rival to Gnrver.
Eileen
with
affair
an
have
assured that if Nakarrriru nin Montalban does
white
webster, no racial taboo will have been broken, since beneath the
paint and the yellow paint there is a white man'
The film next turis to its second spectacle ofJapanese sexuality, the
clanceoftheMatsubayarashowgirls.Thedancersfirstappeardressedin
school
prim kimonos marching from their dormitory to their theater like
is
their
femininity
demure
girls. 'fhe sinule exceplion to this display of
and
sweater,
turtleneck
t.hic['dancer, Hana o.qi, who is dressed in pants,
()[
imase
rnirror
is
the
li.irtlrt,r.t.<[ hir{. FIitna ilg-i, u transvestite woman,
lrloll's
"t.hc
oncs
play
t.all
Pirrts'"
N:rllrrrtrrllr. (ilrrvt'r'is tolrl lhat

Chopter Five

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Model Minority Myth

167

ii

,n

i
I

Postwar spectacles:

The Matsubayara Dancing Girls with Hana Ogi (Miko Tara) center stage in Saytnara
Still courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art Film Archives
l

\Arhite lace on yellow face:

Ricardo Montalban as Nakamura in SayonaraStill courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art Film Archives

The Matsubayara performance displays an virtual butl'et of imagined

Japanese sexuality. Against a line of dancers in lam6 tights, Hana Ogi first
appears in a sheer kimono as a Geisha; then, in short succession, in top
hat and tails, a western-style ball gown, a formal kimono, the costume of
a Shinto priest, in Samurai costume, and finally as a princess. The sexual
fantasy that she represents and appears to offer crosses gender, racial,
and cultural boundaries. Although she refuses to meet him, ovcr the
course of the next few months, Hana Ogi parades in front of Gruver on
her way to and from the dormitory. This parade reproduces the male
drag fantasy of her dance performance as she wears a variety of sexually
signifying mens hats: a brown fedora, a golfing cap, a straw hat, and a
gaucho hat.
Contrasted to the rigidly heterosexual gender and family codes of thc
United States, represented by General and Mrs. Webster, Japan is polyrnorphous, transgressive, and exotic. Both Nakamura and Hana Ogi rcpl'cs(ir)t :r sr:xrrality that is transgendered and unpredictably daneerorrs.

l68

Chopter Five

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

169

The scene in which Hana Ogi and Gruver are finally introdrtccd is an
in Orientalist shtick. The meeting is arranged to takt: plact: in
Kelly's small Japanese-style house. There is the traditional burnpirrg
of Western heads on low ceilings; much is made of the ritualized ctiquette of sake drinking (in contrast to the two-fisted whisky drinker that
Gruver is presumed to be-signified by the bottle of whiskey he brings
as a gift). Hana Ogi is presented in formal kimono; predictably the inexercise

"-I'ht: tall orrcs play llrc rrrcn's p:rrts": Ilana Ogi in rnale drag meets Gruver (Marlon
Brando).
Still courtesy of the Museum of Mode rn Arr Film Archives

The homosocial tension between Gruver and Nakamura in a potential

rivalry over Eilecn (whose fascination with Nakamura is made evident)
is over-whelmed by the homoerotic tension between the two characters.
Gruver and Nakamrrra mirror each other visually and narratively. The
scene that introduces Nakamura pays close attention to makeup and robing as an elaborate transgendering ritual. In this scene, Nakamura sits
erect and appears energized by the erotic power expressed in his acting.
This astounding fetishization of the 'Japanese" male body stands in stark
contrast to a parallel introduction of Gruver. In that s6sns-G,r-uyg1'5
post-flight medical examination-Gruver sits on examination table, also
naked from the waist up. But his body, in contrast to the erect Nakarrrura,
is slouched, flaccid with physical and moral fatigue. In a later scene,
Gruver confides to a Marine Corps officer (James Garner) that an acring
experience in high school had "changed [his] world" but that he had
repressed his youthful desire to be an actor (like Nakamura) in favor of
West Point and the military career chosen for him by this father.

troductions take place over the mutual pouring of sake. Despite her
former aloofness, Hana Ogi immediately and unconditionally assumes
the subordinate Orientalized position. She asks Gruver's forgiveness for
hating Americans because she has held them responsible for the deaths
of her family. To this reminder of America's still recent encounter with
.fapan, it must have been unsettling for audiences to hear Gruver reply
simply, "there were a whole lot of Americans killed too and it's best we
forget." 40
In the West, the gaze is traditionally appropriated to masculine power.
Therefore, when Hana Ogi says, "I have been watching you, too, and you
have not looked like a savage," and adds, "Katsumi-san lwhom Gruver
has kissed, somewhat reluctantly, at her weddingl has told me how gently
you kiss," it is a startling moment for Gruver. The admission by the Native Woman of looking and inquiring captures the eroticism of the exotic. On one hand, the admission seems to betray innocence; Hana Ogi
appears not to know better than to reveal her interest in G'ruver. On the
other hand, it reveals her appropriation ofthe gaze; she can exercise the
power of surveillance. She can categorize him as "ttot a savage." Hatta
Ogi goes on to spin a fantasy of innocence , dangcr, attd <lcvotiotr thzrt
would make Madame Butterfly blush: "l havc rtcvcr bccn itt love, though
I have dreamed and thought about it. . . . There is danser o1'discovcry
for both of us, danger of weakness when it is ovcr. . . . I will never fall in
love again, but I will love you, Lloyd-san, if that is your desire." This combination of submissive innocence and assertive sexuality is the epitome
of Orientalist fantasy.
The gauzy romanticism of the alfair between Cruver and Hana Ogi is
sharply contrasted to the Kellys' marriage and subsequent double suicide. Kelly and Katsumi settle into a small house offbase in what appears
to be a working-class neighborhood. Kelly makes an attempt to learn
Japanese and takes great pride in knowing aboutJapan and thingsJapanese. Katsumi is portrayed as an ideally devotedJapanese wife-submissive, docile, and obedient. It is not out of any gesture of independence
or individuality on Katsumi's part, but precisely out of her obsequiousncss, that the only occasion for Kelly's anger with his "model" wife arises.
I(clly is zurgcrcd by Katsumi's suggestion that she wants to have an

l7O

Chopter Five

operation to remove the epicanthic folcls from her eyelids, a literal selfeffacement to make herself acceptably "white."
Kelly takes sreat umbrage at this self-denying and naive idea and
commands that she remain as she is. Kelly's objection and command reveal the disparate power relations between the white American husband
and theJapanese wife. First, it underscores Kelly's complete domination
over the supine Katsumi, who is willing to undergo mutilation to please
him and then meekly accepts his decision to veto the idea. Second, although it signals Kelly's resistance to racist assumptions about beauty,
Kelly's refusal of permission can also be read as a sign of his desire for
Katsumi to remain exotically 'Japanese." Third, Kelly accepts Katsumi
for who she is, or at least how he, and not others, has created her. Katsumi's aborted plan to have her eyelids "fixed" and Kelly's difficulty in
learning to speakJapanese are meant to suggest that the utopian dream
of "going native" or "passing" is not a viable alternative.
The Kellys, and all the other interracial couples under military command, are made to endure increasing harassment ordered by a bigoted
Sonthern colonel who is the executive officer under General Webster.
Symbolic of this prcssure and representative of the ostracism that may
f'ac:c intcrr':r<i:rl corrplcs on Llrt:ir rcl.urn to the Statcs, the colonel places
tlrt:ir- lrorrrt:s oll-lirrrits to otlrcl Arrrcrir':rrr pcrsonnel.
l.'itr:ctl witlr srrrlrlt:rr or<lcrs l.() r'ct.llrll l.o ilrc Statcs, and unable to bring
Katstrrrri with hirn, Kclly cornnrits srricide with Katsumi. Their suicide is
literally fbreshadowed in b'un,rtthu, a shadow puppet perfbrmance that
ends with a romantic double suicide . Short of havins the couples attend
Madame Butterflry, the audience could be given no clearer notice of the
inevitable. Suicide is Kelly's final utopian, Butterfly-like sesture. Kelly,
who has been portrayed as rigidly principled, cannot now think of any
praematic response that will preserve his sense of honor and justice.
Kelly must make some final gesture, however futile and romantic, of resistance. Of course, he takes a stereo$picallyJapanese course of action.
It is only in the wake of the Kellys' suicide that the anticommunist

logic of ethnic liberalism explicitly reveals itself. After Gruver's initial

racist comment in Korea, he is gradually transformed from a Southern
racial bigot to a national racial liberal. Racism is clearly identified as a
Southern pathology; the racist villains of the film are General Webster's
executive officer, a colonel, and Eileen's self-ser-ving and status-conscious

mother. Both are Southerners who represent an anachronistic, if still

persistent, racial bigotry. In an early scene, where the marine officer
played byJames Garner and hisJapanese date are turned away frorn the
officers' club by the colonel at Mrs. Webster's insistence, it is madc cleirr

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Mt,,[,] Mrrr, 'r rly Myllr

thatherbigotryis damaging to the political:rlli:rrrt t'lt<'ltvt t'tt

llt|

I'il

I rilrl, rl

States andJapan.

The colonel then orchestrates the harassment ol'ittlt't r:tr i;tl l.ttrrtlt, ''
lurd the sudden transfer of Kelly to the States, making tht: I(t'llt's' srtrr tr lt
inevitable. The Kellys' suicide touches off anti-American clctttottslr;tlt, rtr:
1nd a near riot (assumed to be communist-inspired). Witnt:ssirrP tlrrs.
(l.ruver is given to understand the global importance of ethnic lilrt'rrrl
ism. Racial bigotry of the old Sor.rthern variety is thus revealed to provitlt'
"srist for the communist propaganda mills." It is the Kellys' suicide rurrl
{he subsequent recognition of the political significance of their owll
r-elationship that finally brings Gruver and Hana Ogi together permarlently. Despite her embarrassingly obse quious professions of selfless and
rrndying love and devotion, Hana Ogi is more Pocahontas than Madame
Butterfly.
The Pocahontas leuend, repeated and embellished over three centuries, has assumed the status of a myth of national origins.ar Pocahontas
could be viewed as the sexual, maternal, self-sacrificing, fertile native
woman who symbolizes the fiuit of conquest. She can serve as a tritrmphal metaphor for the assimilation of the "ethnic" woman into the benevolent paternalism of American society.a2 In these narratives, the native woman, the princess of a def'eated or soon-to-be defeated nation,
Ialls in love with the white conquering hero and rcalizes the moral
superiority and liberation of American society. The native woman becomes a tme woman through her love of the white man. Having become
a true woman via this transforrnativc love, she becomes a candidate for
the motherhood of the new natiolt.
As in the lesend of Pocahontas and John Smith, Flana Osi "saves"
C}ruver. Hana Ogi saves Gruver frorn himself, fiorn his own exhaustion,
self-doubt, and "southern" racism, and from his crisis of masculiniry
through his heterosexual affair with her. Since Hana Ogi's dance has assured us ofher desirability as a heterosexual object ofdesire, her apparent transvestitism allows Gruver to simultaneously express and contain

his repressed desire fbr Nakamura. The triumph of Gruver's "naftrral"

heterosexuality is realized in the domestication of Hana Ogi's previously
transsendered sexuality. \Alhen Hana Ogi declares finally that Gnrver's
love has made her, as she says, a "real woman," it signals the triumph
over his own suppressed homoerotic desire for Nakarnura. In declaring that Gruver has made her a real woman, Hana Ogi has made him a
real man.
lf Flileen is the conventional definition of the ideal American woman,
I

lanl ()gi is her

opposite. Eileen demands a romantic break from

172

Chopter Five

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

173

about romantic misalliances among a group o1'yottttg (lltirrcs<'AIrrt'r'icans and the conflicts that arise when their hopes fbr rotttittt< <' r'ottli otll

the traditional expectations of their immigrant parenl.s-Jrtotttolt'tl

it

popularvision of the universal possibilities of ethnic assimilittiorr.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was loosely based ott tltt' t tovt'l
of the same title by the Chinese American author C. Y Lee. l,cc's ttovt'l
was a more dark-humored exploration of the difficulties of assirrtilltion
and generational conflict among American-born Chinese and thcil irrrmigrant parents. When Flawer Dru.m Song opened on Broadway as a ligh t.
hearted musical, the reviewer for Time rnagazine said that the theme ol
romantic triumph over cultural conflict had already become hackneyccl
after South Pacif,c and 'fhe King and 1, both Rodgers and Hammerstein
productions. Besides, tlte Times reviewer noted, San Francisco's Chinatown was less genuinely exotic than the "real" Asians of The King and l.aa
Commonweal, a liberal journal that had long actively promoted ethnic assimilation and racial harmony, praised the musical's emphasis on virtue
and its civility.a5 The reviewer for the New Yorher was less kind when she

.....',1

'",,!',:.

wrote,
Irr a l<rvc st:cnc in Sayn,altr,, I lirna ()gi is <lrcssc<l in a traditional kimono.
Still < orrltt'sy of'lltt. Mrrs<'rrrn ol Mo<lt:r'rr Art !-ilrtr Archivcs

middle-class family life and an escape into the exotic (although her

flir-

tatious relationship with Nakamura is deflected). On the other hand,

Hana Ogi (for whom the theater has been family and the source of order
since the death of her father and brother) breaks from the exoric to
reconstruct a familial life with Gruver. Ultimately Hana Ogi, like pocahontas, will give up status and prestige in her native land to live in the
imperial metropole, where she will represent the domesticated exotic.
Assimilated, with her transgressive sexuality in check, she is now a real
woman. In the last scene of the film, when Hana Ogi and Gruver decide
that love will conquer all, they resolve the question of their (future)
multiracial children by making them America's future. Like pocahontas
portrayed as a lady of the Elizabethan court, Hana Ogi, with Gruver as
husband, is now portrayed as the mother of a new nation.a3

"l
In

Enioy Being A

Girl": Flower Drum Song

1960, fouryears after Sayonarawas released, the filmFlozuerDrum Song

showed Asians in America as, if not yet a model minority, at least perfectly suitable candidates for ethnic assimilation. The musical comedy-

The authors' attitude toward exotic peoples in general seems to have

changed hardly at all since they wrote "South Pacific" and "The King and
I." If friendly, the natives have a simple, primitive, childlike sweetness. If
girls, they do not know how to kiss, but once they have been taught they are
wild about it. They also beg to inquire, please, just what it is that is said with
flowers. In their conversation, as you may have gleaned, there is more than
a smidgen of pidgin. . . . It seems to have worried neither Mr. Rodgers nor
Mr. Hammerstein very much that the behavior of war-torn Pacific islanders
and nineteenth-century Siamese might be slightly different from that of
Chinese residents of present-day California, where "Flower Drum Song"
is

fictionally

sung.a6

Flower Drum Song's Chinatown is a yellow{ace version of State Fair's

small-town America. Set down on San Francisco Bay, Chinese America
is representative of ethnic Americans generally. Ironically, in a film in
which ethnicity displaces race and cultural transformation is a measure
of assimilation, it is 126s-2nd the tradition of not being able to tell one
Asian from another-that lends the film its supposed authenticity.
Although the all-Asian casting of Flouer Drum Song represented a

breakthrough for Asian American performers (with the exception of

.|uanita Hall, a veteran African-American singer cast as Auntie Liang);
none of the actors, except Benson Fong, who played the patriarch of the
Wang clan, was actually Chinese American. The cast included Miyoshi
Urneki (from Japan) as Mei Li, a recent arrival from China; James Shigcta (.fapanese from Hawaii) as Wang Ta, the serious and sincere eldest

17

The Cold

Chopter Five

son of the Wang clan; Patrick Adiarte (Filipino American) as Wang San,
the hyperassimilated teenage son of thc Wang family;Jack Soo (Korean
American) as Sarnmy Fong, a somewhat sleazy, somewhat hip nightclub
owner; and Nancy Kwan (Scots-Irish ancl Chinese from Hong Kong) as

Linda Low, the femrne fatale nightclub dancer. The complcte reliance
on the racial appearance of the actors in establishing the show's ethnic
credentials is underscorcd by the use of statrc sets. In the openine number, when Mei Li sings "One Hundred Million Miraclcs" in a "Chinatown" park, the Asian passers-by who gather are, without exception.
dressed as middle-class white Americans of the period; rnen in suits and
ties, women wearing sensiblc Republican cloth coats. The crowd in China-

town includes an apparently Chinese policcman who gives them directions to the Fong household.
The lilm's premise is set by the arrival in San Francisco of Mei Li and
hcr father (Kam Tong) as undocumented immig;rants. They have come
to the United States so that Mei Li can be married to Sammy Fong, a
somewhat spoiled nightclub owner whose mother has arranged their betrothal. Sammy, however, is not ready to get married and has a girl{'riend
besidcs, the exotic dancer Linda Low. He tries to pawn offMei Li on the
wcalthy \At:urg farnily. Mzrstcr Wirng, or \Arans Chi-yang, who is looking for
an tplrropliatt'ly tmrli{ionul wili' lirl ltis <:lclcst stln Wang Ta, approves of
thc olrcclit:n1 aurl rcsl>c< tlirl Mt:i l,i. I lor'vt:vcr sincc Sammy has resisted a
conrnritnrcnt l.() rllal'ri2rgc, [,irrtla Low, with an cye to the main chance,
has bcen uoing out with Wang Ta. Resolving the plot complications is a
rnattcr ol'appropriate ly rnatching up the marriage pairs.
With the hopc ol'introducing Mei Li and Wang Ta, Master Wang

invites the

girl to a party to celcbrate Wang Ta's college graduation

and Auntic Liang's Anerican citizenship. Much to everyone's surprise,

Wang Ta announces his engagement to Linda Low. Sammy Fong sabotages the engagement by inviting the Wang family to the nishtclub,
where they discover that Linda is an exotic dancer. Scandalized, Wang
Chiyang forces Wang Ta to break their engagement. Meantime, Mei Li
has fallen in love with Wang Ta at first sight, but believing that he loves
his devoted friend Helen (Reiko Sato), Mei l,i fbrces Sammy to honor
his contract of marriage to her.
Wang Ta now realizes that he really does love Mei Li, despite the fact
that she is his father's choice fbr him. Finally, all is resolved when Mei Li
announces that she must release Sammy from his obligation to marry her
because she has deceived him by coming to America as an illegal "wetback." This allows Wang Ta to marry her voluntarily and with full knowledge of her immisration status. In a double wedding ceremony, Wang Ta

Wor Origins of the Modcl Mirror ily

Myllr

lTlt

then marries Mei Li and Sammy Fong marries Lirrtl:r l,ow. All's lvcll llr;rl
cnds well.

These alliances set up a universal generational cortlirrrl:rliorr irr ctlr

nic families between the modern American-born second gcl t<'t :t liorr :r r rr I

the traditional immigrant generation. In Flower Drum Son,g tltt' rtrrrsir :rl
comedy, the theme of an ethnic generation gap is substitutcd lol tlrt'
interrogation of racial exclusion that organizes the novel. Fl,otaer l)nt.trr
Sbrzg creates a paper tiger conflict betlveen an anachronistic (if quaint),
str.rltifying (if wise), oppressive (if loving), traditional world view held by
the immigrant generation of Chinese parents versus the shallow (yet
glamorous), modern (yet materialist), romantic (yet rootless) world view
t-rf American-born Chinese kids. This is played out in a sons and dance
routine, "\Atrat Are We Going to Do About the Othcr Generation."
Flower Drum Song's generation-gap depiction of ethnic assimilation is
weak tea, however. It provides neither space for Wang Ta to negotiate
between the sterile traditionalism of his father and the vacuous rootlessness of his younger brother, n<-rr the racial history which might enable
him to critique Chinese America. At the graduation/citizenship pargr in
which the Wang family celebrates its entry into American society, the
family organizes a square dance to a song titled "Chop Sr.rey." Not only
is the sqr.rare dance, like the quilting bee or barn raising, a nostalgic icon
of American culture, it is popularly identified with a specifically white
Arrrerican rural community. Chop suey, the hash invented in San Francisco and served in Chinese restaurants throushout the country is cmblematic of the inventedness of ethnic' ickrnlily. Itcrlilrmccl togcthcr,
song and dance simultaneorrsly cclcbr-irtc tlrc lrlrsor'ptivt' t:uput ily ol tlrt:
American melting pot and rurclcrscorc its rrrotlt:ssrtcss. Atttt't'it:t is it vltst
chop sueyjoint in which anyonc can consurlrc irrr t'tlrrric irlt'rrtity. OIrop
suey ethnicity erases from memory the history ol' tht: ( lhitrt:sc itt Atttt'r.it rt
as a racialized minority, a history that makes Mei Li and hcr-I'athcr illc{ral
immigrants and constmcts Chinatown as an Oriental fantasy world in the
Iirst place. Chinese Americanness is reduced to little more than paper
lanterns and chopstick hairsticks.aT
In Flnwer Drum Song's world of assimilation, it is the women who know
the way out. Linda Low, Mei Li, and Auntie I-iang, despite their obvious
differences, are all liberal pragmatists. They hold the keys to successful

ethnic assimilation.'Like Hana Ogi in Sayonara, Linda Low represents

thc clesired exotic. It is no accident that Nancy Kwan, who hadjust made
lrcr movie debut as a Hong Kong bar hostess in the World of Suzie Wong
(1960, also directed byJoshua Logan), was brought in to replace the
<'xrrbr:r:rnt but considerably less sultry Pat Suzuki, who had played the

t'it;

Chopter Five

The Cold

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

177

wage earner) readily satisfied. Being a "girl" means lrt:irrg :r < ottstrrrrt't ol
lirrs, perfume, a sporty car, and a nice house.
To be sure, Linda Low represents a modern girl. Shc is irrrl<'lrcrrrlt'rrl
rrnd sexually assertive, but what she wants is a husband. Firl l,irrrlrr l,ow,
it is less "a man to share her life with" than a man with whorrr lo slr:rlt'
a lifestyle. In the dream sequence "Sunday" [picture here], [,in<llr irrrrl

in nightclothes, surrounded by the luxuries ol'rni<kll<r

life, including children playing cowboys and Indians. In Sa,yur,rrxt,
Ilana Ogi must be domesticated before she is allowed entry into tht'
American family, and her sexual domestication is itself a sign of Amcrir:an triumph.In Flower Dntm Song, Linda Low is already safely domesticated; in her we see what Hana Ogi can become.
On the surface, Miyoshi Umeki's Mei Li is a reprise of her role as Katsr"rmi in Sayonara: a "traditional" Asian immigrant woman, self-effacing
:rnd self-denying. Like Katsumi, who thinks that an eyelid operation will
Ibol her oppressors, Mei Li is always positive, willing, and innocent in the
Iace of adversity. Her theme song is, after all, "One Hundred Million
Sammy lounge
t:lass

Miracles."

\Atrile Mei Li is portrayed throughout the film as traditional and

"(

ilrop

Sr

rt

"

s<;r

urr

t'

l:r

rr <

t': I ltc r ral

rr':rl izlrl ior r/gr':r<lrrat

ion p:rrty

rl tlr('Wrngs' itt liltntut I)nrnt

part ()n Broaclway. Despite the lact that Miyoshi Umeki had won an
Academy Award for her earlier role as Katsumi in Sayonara, it was Nancy
Kwan and her image as suzie wong that was featured prominently in all
of the billboards and promotionals for Flower Dnrm Song.
Like Hana Ogi, Linda Low is the personification of sex'al fantasy;
indeed the fact that both are dancers allows the use of the dance to display the exotic. The dance scene ar the nightclub is similar to that of the
Matsubayara review in sayonara; it presents a pastiche of international
sexual commodification. The song and dance that defines Linda Low,
however, is not transgendered in the way that Hana Ogi's clance was.
"I Enjoy Being a Girl" is uncompromisingly-and, to its presumed audience, reassuringly-heterosexual. Linda Low's sexuality is contained
and domesticated by its transformation into consumption. The song fetishizes the female body, which the Barbie doll (a new hit on the toy
market that year) was making into a new vehicle of consumption. l,ike
Barbie, which had started out as an "adult novelty" in Germany but had
been_cleaned up for her debut in the United States, Linda Low is sexy
but not dangerous. Like those of the American Barbie, Linda Low,s
desires are transparent, understandable, and (for the micldle-c:lzrss rn:rlc

Srrnrlay rrrolrring in the American dlcam:

l ,irrrl;r l .or'v ( N:rnt v l(wan) and S:rrnnry Fong (.Jack Soo) daych'earn of assimilation int<r
I 1)50's srrlrrrllrirr in lihntrr l)nrn Song.

l7l^i

Chopter Five

The Cold

respectful of her elders, the wealthy, and men in general, her story suggests more agency than is conveyed on the surface. It is she who has
brought her aging and somewhat ineffectual father to the United States,
stowing away in a ship. She demands that Sammy Fong uphold his agreement to marry her, and she decides to break off the impending wedding
ceremony.
\A4rile Mei Li and Linda Low are played as opposites, they ultimately

share many

of the same characteristics. Both Mei Li and Linda Low

demonstrate the same instrumental need for husbands. In 1960, finding a husband is the expected route into the world of middle-class consumption and assimilation. A husband is required for a life in the United
States.

For Mei Li, like Linda, it is the consumption of American popular

culture that makes her American. Linda's status as an All-American girl
is measured by her clothes, perfume, jewelry and cars, items that transfbrm the Asian body into an American body. Mei Li is transformed into
an American by television. The solution that Mei Li comes up with to
lree herself (to marry Wang Ta) and Sammy (to marry Linda) comes
fiorn zr TV show. Mei Li, it is rcvcaled, has been an inveterate consumer
of tclcvision sin<:c hcr. irrriv:rl in ilrc Uni{.ed States. Through television,
shr: has absorl>r'd (hc plain lansrurec (the ironic ref-erence to wetbacks)
:rnd pr:rurn

ut

ic virl r rcs :r rr<l sol

rrl i orr s o['

Arnerican liberalism.

Arrntic l,iane is tht: lil>cral pra5;matist and paragon of ethnic assimilation who rncdiatcs bctwccn older and younser generations. Unlike Wang
Chi-yang, who hidcs his money under his bed, she is not afraid of modernity. She shares Wang Chi-yang's conservative goals (the marriage of
Wang Ta and Mei Li), but she recognizes the nee d for new modes of
behavior to achieve them. She admonishes the elder Wang to let the children decide for themselves whom they will marry just as she scolds him
for not trusting in banks. Marriage for love, and savings accounts, are
part of the modern world with which one must come to terms.
The liberal pragmatism represented in these women is critical to
Flower Drutn SoTzg's narrative of ethnic assirnilation. Unlike the men who
struugle over the meaning of tradition, the women use it or ignore it
as it suits their purpose. Mei Li invokes traditional forms of deference
and television, as the situation dictates. Tradition is good only as it is
useful; it is only the individual freed of the burden of history who can
successfully negotiate modernity. Nevertheless,I-lozuer Drum Song's liberal
pragmatism is only instrumental; the ends of its ethnic assimilation saga
are conservative. The musical's Oriental women have become Arnerican
without making a sound in American society.
Sa,yonara

in 1956 and

Flower Drum Song

in

1960 were

Holllwood's ncw

Wor Origins of the Model Minority

Myth

179

liberal narratives of national origin. Liberalism was thc i<lt:olos-it::tl t:orc

of'the decentralized political structure of American irnpt:r.irrlisrrr. l,t'ss rr
national ideology than a world view, liberalism is the ideoltlgy ol rrrork'r'nity, deeply identilied and aligned with science and, like Marxisrrt, ttrt ivt t salist.as As a science of modernity, Iiberalism could be deployed clotttcstically as a progressive but moderate response to the demand for raci:Ll
cquality and internationally as an alternative to the anticolonialist t:r'itique and socialist promise of Lenin and Marx.
Sayonara and !-lower Drurn So'ng both celebrate American liberalismln these Iilms, ethnic assimilation is the vehicle through which the social identities of race, class, sex, and nationality can be displaced by
the individual embrace of the modern. The "naturalized" (heterosexual
and Americanized) nuclear families simultaneously fetishizc ethnicity
as cultural artifact and render race invisible as a social relationship of
power. The nuclear family, the end result o['both thcse lilrns, is expr:cted
to produce a new American: a liberal indivicltralist lvlto tr:rnsccnds social origin. Befbre they can becomc tltc tnothct-s ol'tht: ncw Attlt'ricatl
nation, Hana Ogi and Linda Low rnltst bc dotttcstit:atc:cl, ttalttralizccl,
t.ransformed fiom exotics into American girls strit.:rblc lor nt:rrt iagc zrttd
motherhood.
Sayonara a:nd Flouer Drum Song follow in the Pocahontas tradition as
narratives in whictr the woman of color becomes mother of the nation
through a process of ethnic assimilation; the history of race relations is
effaced in favor of romance and individual transformation. The Oriental
woman is assimilatetl through the domestication of her exotic (racialized) sexuality. In Sayon,ara as in the Pocahontas legend, marriage between the woman o{'color and white man embodies the highest stage of
assimilation. Hana Ogi is the native daughter of a conquered tribe whose
erotic difference is domesticatccl by her devotion to her white man. In
I'-louer Drum Song, the Oriental woman is assimiiated through the corlsumption of Amcrican culture and marriage. Linda Low's all-American
sexuality is revealed to be only an expression of her saf'e (satiable) desire
[br durable consumer goods. In both cases, the domestication of exotic
sexuality re-creates the Oriental woman as a naturalized woman, ready
Io assume the mantle of mother of a newAmerican empire.

I l' 'i== i'- l" ''re=' I 'l

Notes to Poges 120

YellozLt

Peril: Race,

Sex,

and l)iscursiue Strate-

,sinHollyuoodFi'ction(Berkeley:UniversiryofCaliforniaPress,1993),14'
56. Ibid.,10.
57. rbid.,1B.
different way'
58. Ibid., 21. Gina Marchetti makes this point in a somewhat
hence
assimilated'
nor
ggesting that Tori becomes neither excluclibly alien
rpotent.
Women's

Asia: Americtt'n Women and the C'ende'ring of Amer-

1870s-WWil (Providence, R'I': Unpublished Ph'D' dissertation'

-crwn University, 1997) 34-102.
'lB'
60. Gina Marchetti, Romance and the YellotLt Peril'
'Family,"'
73-87
'
"Restructuring
the
61. Eileen Boris,
zn Oriental)sm,

62. Cited in Said, Orientalism, 149'

63.LindaGordon,Henlesin,theirOwnLiues:ThePoliticsandHistoryofl,amill
iolenu (Boston: Virago, 1988), 219'

64. rbid.,223.

65. Broken Blossomg D. W. Griffiths, dir'

66. Ibid., 149.
67. Gordon, Heroes, 216.
68. rbid.,225.
69. Lothrop Stoddard' 'fhe Rising Tide of

Color againsL

Wite

World-SuPremaq

70. Ibid.,20.
7r. tb\d.,226.
72.Llniterlstatesu'Ptha,grtisinghThincl,citedinKim'ed''AsirtnAmerican'sa'nd
Court,536.

73. Stoddard , The Rising

Tide of Color, 240

rlnrltheSupremeCourt:ADocumenLrl'r1lli''sl'ttty(Wl.rl1rr,rIlllllllr=;r:il....iil
1992). 528.

87. SeesuchetaMazumdar,"cOlOniallrrtlrltttltttrll'rilr1,rlrl li|rliir'1li*rrl"lli:

lli'r*r't; ;rr tlt' L'it t
United states," in Labor Immigration Llnder crlittt.li.tr/. ,ltt,ttt
StatesbeforeWort,d,Warll,ed'LucieChengandEdrral}trttlltirIr(llt.rlrlrtl,tti''l
/'rr.rrrr1,,'l'trtttt ltttltrr \zi't*
,ioToriurir"."iapress, 1gg4),316_336; andJoanJenscrr,
Illt{l{t
In,,ilianlmmigrantsi,nNorthAmelica(NewHaven:YaleUnivt:r.sityl,tt.::.
llt,
Antrtrtrtttt,rtt,l
Asirzfl,
Kim,
in
cited
singhT-hind,
stil,tes a. Itha,gat
Bg. unitirl

Supreme

Court,536.

89. ibid.,540.
90. Ibid.,540.
91. Ibid.,541.

92. Morrison u. California, cited ibid', 410'

Mulh
Five: The Gold Wcrr Origins of lhe Model Minority
Asian-American
1. Frank Chin et aI., eds', Aiiieeeee! An Anthotogl of

tr|o-1'

The Llntold,

can

H'

lrons,Justice aL War: The

SLory oJ theJapanese

1983)
Internment Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press'

Ameri-

'

3."HowtoTellJapsfiomtheChinese"'/'r/z'Decemberlg'1941'14;"Howto

194I' 33'
Tell Your Friends fiom theJaps ," Tinte, December 22'
ltl'
4. "How to TellJaps fiom the Chinese"'

5. Ibid.,14.

'

74. rbid..236.
75. rbid.,240.
76. Ibid.,235.
77. rbid.,240.
78. Ibid.,220.
79. Ibid.,219.
80. Ibid.,220.
Bl.SrrchengChan,ed.,EntrlDeni'ed,:ExclusionandtheChineseCommuni$in
1991); andJeffery
America, 1SB2-1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press'
Court' l740L"rr"., :'Al*uys Outsiders: Asians, NaturJization and The Supreme
|()44," AmnasiaJournal I2:1 (1985-86) ' 83-100'
Natiaism 1860tt2. John Higham, Strangers in the Land': Patterns of American
1985).
Atheneum,
York:
1925 (New

Writers

(Washington, D-C.: Howard University Press' 1974) '

national security but
2. In this case, the goal was not to meet a real threat to
to mobilize support
and
preparedness
government's
to ease anxieties about the
Weglln ' Years of
Michi
example'
for
See'
sacrifice'
ani
austerity
for policie s of
William Mor(New
York:
Story of America's Con-centratirtn Camps
row & Co., 1976) ; and pete'

New York: Scribner's Sons, 1920), 20'

he Supreme

-=- I

-141

.65. Gina Marchetti, Romance and, the

59. l.lu.i Yoshihara,

; i tr:-:

6.

Korematsu

n'ni'
u. Unitetl S'a'as in Flprne-chan Kim' ed'' Asian Americans

the

Sutru*uCo*t,833-S6T.Under"srictscrutiny"'discriminationbythestateon
thebasisofraceisheldtobeillegitimatcrrniessthestatecanshowanover.rid_ a
"suspect category'J' became
ing national interest. This ruling, that race is a
racial discrimination. Unmich_cited justification of subse[uent rulings against
granted a new trial in
were
Yasui
Hiratayashi' and

d.er coramrzo&lq Korematsu,

the government decided not to
1984. In 1986, Hirabayashi was viniicated' and
Ilreaking the silenu: Red'ress and'
Takezawa,
I.
Yasuko
See
contest the other cases.
Ethnicity (Ithaca: Cornell Universiry Press' 1995) '
Japanese American
7. FredWarrer-tRigg,lP'n"I'resonCongress: ASturLloftheRepealofChineseExclusion (New York: King's Crown Press, 1950)

'

8'ReferencetoAsiaticBarredZoneoflglT.Asianimmigrationwas..normalized"undertheprovisionsofthelmmierationActoflg24'whichhadestablished

ofvisas equivalent
of national quotas' Each country was assigned a quota

t]3.Cite(linYujilchioka,..TheEarlyJapaneselmmigrantQrrestforCiti4"2
zt'nslrip: The Rackground of the lg22 Ozawa Case"' Amerasia Journal

a system

(te77), t-22.

residedintheUnitedStatesinlg05.TheresultingquotaforChinesevisaswltslr
linrited to 100 lir|t'rr.lr
rnere 105 per year, and Indian and Filipino visas were

tt'I. lLt'printed
135. lbi<1.

ir-r

Kim,

Asian Americans and the Supreme Court'

375'

521J.

{lt.'litkrrttOztt.trttttt llrri,t,tilsktkts,c:itedinl{ytu-rg-chanKim'ed''ArianAm(rit(tn\

to5percentofthetotalnumberofimmigrantsfromthatcountryoforiginwh<l
country.

252

Notes to Poges I

49-157

9. William Peterson, "Success Story:Japanese-American Style," Nzzr YorkTimes

Magazine (January 9, 1966), 38; "Success Story of One Minority in the U.S.," US.
News and, Workl Report (December 26,1966),73.
10. Lee Rainwater and William Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of
Controaersl (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1967), 79.
11. rbid.,124.
12. Ibid., 49. The likelihood that Moynihan also drafted Johnson's speech
does not negate the point that the speech and the report reflect two quite differ-

Notes to Poga:;

chinese

Amnica: History and Perspectiues (san Francisco: chinese HistoricalAssocia-

tion of America, 1992), 3-82.

16. See Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking oJ'Asian America through Immigration Poliq, 1850-1990 (Stanford: Stanford Universiry Press, 1993); Robert G. Lee,
"The Hidden World of Asian Immigrant Radicalism," in The Immigrant Left in the
United States, ed. Paul Buhle and Dan Georgakas (Albany: SUNYPress, 1g96),
256-288.
17. George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s (Urbana
and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994) .
18. David M. Gordon, Richard Edwards, and Michael Reich, Segrzazterl Worh,
Diaid,ed Workers: 'I'he Historical'l-ransformation of Lahor in the Llnited State-s (New york:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), 170.
19. Claudia Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 152.
20. George Lipsitz, Rainbozu at Midnight,69-95.
21. Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter, Im,perial Brain Trust: The Council
on Foreign Relations ancl United States lbreign Polic_y (New York: Monthly Review
Press,1977).
22. In 1960, the United States still enjoyed a favorable balance oftrade ofsix
billion dollars.
23. Cited in Noel J. Kent, Haanii: Islands unrJer the InJluence (New york:
Monthly Review Press, l9B3), 95.
24. Noel Kent claims that in this period the United States' direct investmenr
abroad grew by approximately 10 percent annually, or twice as fast as the U.S.
economy as a whole. Ibid., 97.
25. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democrag, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), lxxii.
26. See, for example, Franz Schurmann, T-he Logzc of World PouEr: An Inquirl
[nto the Origins, Currents, and Contm,r],ictions of World Polltlcs (New York: Pantheon
R<roks, 1974), 16-19, 9l-114, and passim.
27. Mary 1,. Dudziak, "Desegregation as a Cold War Imperarive," Stanforri Law
llruirzu 4l (Novernber l9BB): 105.

?lJ. Ibirl.. | 10.

5tl I /.l

29. Rainwater and Yancey, T'he Moynihan Report,,79.

30. Ibid., 17;thefulltextof Glazer'sessayisinNat.harr (lllrzcr, illfrttrttttrt,rltrt
crimination:EthnicInequalityandPublicPoliey (NewYork; Ilasic lirol<s, I1)7Jr)
31. E.FranklinFrazier, TheNegrointheUnitedStates,rev. c<l. (Nt'w\irrli; l\l,rr
millan, 1957), 681.
32. MiltonGordon,AsslmilationinAmericanLife(NewYork:OxlirlrIIIrrivtrsrr\
Press, 1964),249.

33. John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters,282.

ent ideological tendencies.

13. "Success Story of One Minority in thc U.S.," 73-78.

14. Yasuko I. Takezawa, Breahing the Silence: Redress andJapanese American Ethniciry (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell Universiqr Press, 1995).
15. See H. Mark Lai, "The Chinese Marxist Left in America to rhe 1g60s," in

34. rbid.,292-293.
35. Elaine Tyler May, Homewatd Bound: American Famili.es In The Cokl

Wt,y l',nr

(New York: Basic Books, l9BB), 102-104. See also Guy Oakes, The Imagi,na,rl Wr,r:
Ciuil Defense And American Cold, War Culture (New York: Oxford University l'rtss,
1994).
36. Bok-Lim Kim, "In the Shadows: Asian Wives of U.S. Servicemen," Amtttt:;itt.
See also Michael C. Thornton, "The Quiet Immigratiorr:
Foreign Spouses of U.S. Citizens, 1945-1985," rn Racia@ Mixed Peopk in Amn i, tt,
ed. Maria P. P. Root (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992),64-76.
37. David M. Reimers, Still the GokLen Door: T'he T'hircl Wodd Comes to Ameriut,
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1 985), 2 1 - 28.
38. Hing, Mahing and Remaking Asian America, and Kim, Asian Arnericans and

Journal4 (1977):97-98.

the Supreme Court.

39. For a somewhat diff'erentview of the theme of homeroticisral'in Salonara,

Marchetti, Romance and the Yellow Pnil, 1 36 -143.
40. This is a significantly revisionist response for 1957. One might note that
the less forgiving Bridge on the Riaer IQLtai beat Sayo'nara for the Academy Award
lor best picture that year.
41. Although Pocahontas was a historical figure, the legend of her relationship to John Smith is fiction. Rayna Green establishes an Orientalist folkloric
tradition for the Pocahontas legend itself. She traces the legend to popular rnedieval tales about the European adventurer captured in an "Oriental" land and
his rescue by the Pasha's or Sultan's daughter who has fallen in love at the vely
sight of the pale and handsome stranger. The princess follows the stranger back
see

to his country where he is about to marry a noble woman of his own people.
Once reminded of her presence, the stranger throws over his intended to marry
the darker beauty. In most versions, the princess converts to Christianiry and the
two live happily ever after. "The Pocahontas Perplex," in Unequal Sisters: A Mu,lLi,cultural Reader In U.S. Women'.s History, ed. Ellen Du Bois and Vicky Ruiz (New
York: Routledge, 1990), 17.
42. For an account of Pocahontas as archetypal of the exotic ethnic Arnulican woman, see Mary Lawlor, "Exoticization," inThe Oxford Companion l,o Wnutt.'s
Writing in the United States, ed. Cathy Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martirr (Nt'w
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 290.
43. Simon van de Passe, Pocahonlas (1616), published in.fohn Srrritlr, (i,rrr'rrrl/
HisLorie (I624), reprinted in William M. S. Rasmussen :rnrl ll.olrt'r't S.'l'iltorr. /'rr
t:a.hon.la,s: Her Lif: a'nd Legend (Richmond: Virginia Histoli< irl Socicly, l1)1) l), I I

14. 'l'imc, Dcccnrbt:r 13,

l95f'1,

I'r

254

Notes to Poges 1 73

I l"le-: i" l"t;1e=

- 1 88

Stage: The Peaceable Kingdom," Cotnmonueal,

The Neu Yorker, Decernber 13, 1958, 73'
a

April 14' 1959'

57'

similar reading of this dance scene, see Peter Feng, "Looking Down

r preon Chinatown: Musical Discourscs in Flouer Dntm Sorzg" (unpublished pape

(krnference,
1992)
'
sented at Ohio University Filnr
48. Despite its *'iveisalisl claims, liberalism is historically identified with the
Enlightenment traclition zrnrl thc clemocratic states of the west as "the outstanding Joctrine of Wcstern .ivilizatio.." HaroldJ. Laski, The Rise of European I'i'beralBarnes & Noble
isln: An Essay lrt htl,eflntlrt,t;trt ([,.'clon: Unwin Books, New York:

Inc.,1962).

Six: The Model lhinoritY os Gook

Chapters 9-1I Passim.

:.eaUOng,EclnaBonacich,andLucieCheng,eds',TheNewAsianImmi'gralion
in Los Angekl and, Global Rest:ructuring (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1994),14.

4. Harrison and Blueston e, The Great U-Turn,29 '

5. Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. cloward, The

New class war: Reagan's At1982) and Barry

(New
Pantheon,
York:
tach on the welfure state and. Its clnseqzr,an ce.s
Plant ClosAmerica:
of
Deinelustrialization
The
Harrison,
Bluestone and Bennett
(New York: Basic
Industrl
Basic
of
Dismantling
the
and,
Abandonment
Communiry
ings,

Books, 1982).

6. David M. Gordon, Richard Edwards, and Michael Fieicll,

segtnenterl Work,

DiuidedWorkers, \60.
Har-vey, The Cond'ition of Postmoderniry, 20

1-301 ar'd passim'

B.HowardWinant,Raci'alConditions:Politics,Theory,Comparisons(Minneapo-

with Mary
lis: university of Minnesota Press, 1994). See also Thomas Byrne Edsall
Politics
American
on
Taxes
and
Rights,
Race,
oJ
Impact
The
D. Edsall, Ciain Reaction:
(NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1991).
9. See David A. Bell, "The Triumph of Asian Americans," T'he Neu Republic'
July 15-22, 1985, 24-31.

10. Ibid.,30.

..Why Do Asian Pupils Win Those Prizes?,' The New

Yorh Timeq Jarluary 29, 1 9BB, A35.
12. "The New \Arhiz lltds," Time Maeazine, August 31,1987 ' 47 '

11' Stephen G. Graubard,

13.TheU.S'CensusBureauestimatesthatbytheturnofthecenturytwelve
million Asian Americans will make up 4 percent of the national population, and
percent of
by the middle of the next century Asian Americans will account for 10
the U.S. population'

15. See Hing, Mahing ttrttl lil'rrtrrlir tt1', \tr'r tt Itttt

16. U.S. Census Bureau l{cpolt, l1l(l I
17. See Lowe, ImmigrantAt:Ls, l5,l - l'llt; ,rrrrl(

r="

t"t

14. See Bill Hing, Making and, Remahing rf Asian America: Yen lispiritu, Asian(Philadelphia: Tcmplc
A,merican Pan-Ethnicity, Brir)ging Institutions and, Identities
Immigra'l'ion
Asian
Ncztt
[ ) rriversity Press, I 992), ancl Ons et al., The

)ttF1

t,rl . i i, \',;'' t:ii;il

/irrrrrrei

tion, 164-196.

18. 1994 U.S. Census RePorts.

19. 1994 U.S. Census RePorts.

(lrtrl,rtt r'l ,tl , \r]'trr'rrl"l

20. Bluestone andBennett, Thectreat(J:Iuttt; l)ilvitl
Worh, Diuid,erl, Worke.rs;andJoyce
Pantheon Books, 19BB) '

Kolko, Raslrucluting Lln

Wrnf rl I't rttt,ttttl' ( NIrr' \ ' 'r l'

21. Ong etal., The New Asian Immigtation'

22. GinaMarchetti, Romance and the "Yellou Peril"'212'
23. See SusanJeffords,TheRemasculinizationof Am,ehca: Otu,d,utttrtl lltr'l'it'ltrtrttt
War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989)

l. See, fbr example, Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone, The c,reat (l-Turn:
Books, 1988) .
corporate Restructuring and the Pttlarizin,g ot' America (New York: Basic
'2.
the origtns of
Into
Enquiry
An
nuroia Harvey, The condition 0f PosLmotluni$:
1989),
Blackwell,
cambridge
and
fMass.l:
cultural change (oxford fEngland]

7.

Uti l"'
"r

45. "The
46.
47. For

'

24.I'eelacocca,Iacocca,AnAutobiograpl21'(NewYork:Bant:rrrt'11)lJ4)':tll''

Seven: After LA
l. See, for example, the various readings in Robert Gooding-willi:tttts. t'rl.'

l{ortll<'rlgr"
Read,ingRodnry xing, ntaatnsflrbanLprising (NewYork and Londotr:
1993).
t'l (.lrrttt'
2. Peter Kwong, "The First Multicultural Riots," The village voirtt

it'l'ltr"\tttr'
1992): 29, 32; and Edwarcl chang, "America's FirstMultiethnic Riots,"
r:r rr
Aeuilar'*Slrrr.lr
Karin
ed.
1990s,
in
the
Resistance
and,
of Asian America: Actiuism
(Boston: South End Press, 1994), 101-117'
(
3. Miyamoto Musashi, The Booh of Fiue /?irzgi translated by Thorrr:ts llt'rtr v
l'l)1)'l ).
Horrst',
Random
by
States
United
in
the
(Boston: Shambhala: clistributed
l1)l]11).
AlfredKrt<l1ll'
(NewYork:
4. KarelvanWolfren,TheJapaneseEnigma
Samuel P. Hunringtot-r, "rn. clash of civilizations," Foreign Al/it,i.r's 72:"\

5.

(Summer 1993),22-49.

6. rbid.,29.
7. rbid.,24

8. Ibid., 25
9. rbid.,27.

ol tltt
10. Samuel P. Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, \Mhat? Paradigtrts
I {)4'
186
(November
1993),
5
72
:
Affairs
ForeiEn
World,"
Post-Cold War
11. Ibid.,190.
12. Ibid.,191.
13. Ibid.,191.
14. See Nicholas Mills, Arguing Immigration,'l'he Debata our the olt.rutg'irt;4 lit"'"f
Immigration (New York: simon and schuster, 1993); "Demystifying Mtrlli|rrltrrr
All.rr
alism-i'issue of Nati,onalReaiew,Febntary 21, 1994; William F- Ilrrtl<lt^y:rrrrl
,,\44ry Kemp and Bennett are wrong on Immigrati<t|r," Ntr.litttttrl lit'
Brimelow,
Al.int Ntttittrt: ( ttttt
uzez,, November 21, 1994, 36-4b,76, 78; and Allen Brimt:lt>w,
monSenseAboutAmerica'slmmigrationDisasfer(NewY<rrk:l{lrrrtlorrrllotrsr"
15. Brimelow, Alien Nation, 277-272'

16. Michaelcrichton, Ilisingsun (NcwVrrk:

(Pt:tt:r K:urlinart, Twenticth Ot:ntrrry liirx,

I1)1)iJ) '

l1)1lfr)

Allittl l(rropl, l1)1)2)l/itrtrt1l

'\rtrt