As if I didn’t have even more of a bone to pick with Chuck Grassley, the soon to be nonagenarian US Senator from Iowa, this happened. When the news hit on Wednesday, I was literally struck dumb. I’ve had something similar happen to me, as have almost all Asian Americans, where a white man complimented me in a backhanded manner. Last year, when I spent almost four months working as an order taker and saute cook because the restaurant I managed was all but shut down, a man told me I’d get through it, because “your people are resilient.” My people? The sixty or so employees that we furloughed, and whose health and livelihoods we were worried about? My people, as in, the hospitality industry as a whole, which has bounced back after repeated recessions and downsizings? Or did you mean my people, as in, those who look like me and whom you automatically assume to be foreign?
When will it end? By “it,” I mean, old white men who continue to act and believe and speak as if Asian Americans generally — and Korean Americans specifically — haven’t been around for so long that we have children who are third or fourth generation Americans. I’m so tired of being othered, being denied my American-ness by dint of my appearance. And, I suspect, the Honorable Lucy Koh is as well after Wednesday’s confirmation hearing.
I couldn’t bring myself to care that Senator Grassley’s daughter in-law is, indeed, Korean American. If anything, that realization made me feel sorry for her, for being related to a live action version of Statler & Waldorf from the Muppets. Will she speak up, or as seems more likely, will she remain quiet, unassuming, and acquiescent — all qualities that Senator Grassley has probably come to expect from an Asian woman? What made the exchange so squirm-inducing for me was that Judge Koh thanked him after his ignorant “compliment.” And I understand, she wants to be confirmed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but God almighty, that stung. Grassley may as well have patted her on the head.
Senator Grassley later doubled down, insisting that he was being complimentary. That, however, begs the question, “to whom?” Was it Judge Koh’s parents, who immigrated from South Korea and whose lifetime of hard work, while important, had no bearing whatsoever on their daughter’s qualifications for the apellate bench? To Judge Koh, who like millions of Asian Americans, was born and raised in the United States? This is coming from a man who refused to state unequivocally that the former President was racist for telling a group of minority Congresswomen — Americans — to go back to where they came from, so I fail to see sunlight between that action and his “complimentary” words at the hearing..
Let’s set aside the tired old trope of Asian Americans as the “model minority,” because it’s reductive. You’re either a good minority, working quietly but hard, not bothering your white neighbors with calls for equal treatment under the law, and definitely not threatening those white neighbors’ senses of superiority and privilege. Or you’re not, and now pose an existential threat. And we wonder why replacement theory has gained so much widespread acceptance, after rightfully being on the fringes of conservative thought for years. Even with “model minorities,” our nonwhite appearance can lead to violence, which is how Trump’s gross simplification of Covid as the “Chinese virus” led to an over 200% increase in anti-Asian crime since last spring, and Robert Aaron Long seems to have intentionally targeted Asian women, killing six of them after having “a bad day.”
As you could probably tell, I’m angry. I’m angry that the pushback to a doddering old man using a racist diminution of a federal judge has mostly only come from Asian Americans, while for most non-Asians, that was but a blip in our world’s incessant news cycle. I’m angry that such attitudes continue to exist in the upper strata of our government, a representative democracy that Senator Grassley has been quite busy attempting to undermine. I’m angry that words like Grassley’s continue to have any sort of power, but they do. Those hurtful words will continue to poison the waters with respect to acceptance of Asian Americans as just as American as any old white man on a Senate dais.
Appa For Two 