Interior Chinatown, Epigraphs, and Unrecognized Diversity
Yu, in Interior Chinatown, begins each section with a unique epigraph, strengthening the themes throughout the book while highlighting the racism and stereotypes endured by Asian Americans. The first epigraph, quoted by Bonnie Tsui, states, “[i]f a film needed an exotic backdrop... Chinatown could be made to represent itself or any other Chinatown in the world. Even today, it stands in for the ambiguous Asian anywhere” (xv). Tsui claims that in any situation where an Asian location is in demand, that demand can be easily fulfilled with any Chinatown, playing the universal role of a generic living situation in Asia. The emphasis on any Chinatown possessing the power to represent any other Chinatown shows one of the problems Yu tries to highlight—the diversity between Asian Americans that goes unacknowledged and unrecognized. Starting Interior Chinatown with this blunt epigraph lays the foundation for Act I and the rest of the book to characterize the vast difference between what society thinks Asian culture is and Asian culture.
In Act IV, Yu includes a backstory of Ming-Chen Wu
containing events where Asian Americans from different cultures are lumped
under the same category, ‘Asian man’, to continue to bring awareness of the
diversity unrecognized by Americans. The story of Ming-Chen Wu’s past is about
a group of Asian American roommates; one of the roommates is beaten to near
death because of the Pearl Harbor bombing. After the brutal assault, the
roommates all realize, “Allen was Wu and Park and Kim and Nakamoto, and they were
all Allen. Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam. Whatever... [b]ecause now they
know what they are. Will always be. Asian Man” (148). It doesn’t matter where
the roommates are from—where Asian Americans are from—because in society's
eyes, they will always be given the title: Asian Man. Additionally, Allen’s
cause of assault being the attack on Pearl Harbor, while not having any
Japanese descent further highlights the categorization of all Asian cultural
groups into one.
The last epigraph of Interior Chinatown relates to
the first one, defining what Chinatown truly means. The quote by Philip Choy
does such: “Chinatown, like the phoenix, rose from the ashes with a new façade,
dreamed up by an American-born Chinese man, built by white architects, looking
like a stage-set China that does not exist” (261). Because Chinatown was built
from the ground up by people having never stepped foot in China, Chinatown is
more of a reflection of society’s perspective of China, based on stereotypes,
than what it is supposed to represent, China itself. Yu emphasizes that China
and Asia are represented by stereotypical ideas rather than the culture
practiced bringing awareness to the falseness of Asian stereotypes society
accepts as truth.
How could anyone live in an environment, much less feel at
home, where their culture is aggregated with others based on stereotypes rather
than a genuine reflection of their own cultural practices?
I found your argument to be extremely compelling about the continuous stereotyping of Asian cultures in the United States and how that affects Asian-Americans, like in the assault of Allen in the novel. I also liked how you brought attention to the epigraphs, which are an element of the novel that I really hadn't paid attention to if I'm to be honest. One that adds onto your argument is found on page 183. In this quote from Bonnie Tsui, she says "Local Chinese children were also dressed as rural peasants by day to add to the ambience. By night they changed back into their normal Western clothes." To me this quote reflects your argument of how many in the United States view Asian-Americans: as a stereotype, like a Chinese peasant from the early 1800s. They are dressed up to fit our view of Asia and to not mess with an established worldview. It's only when they are back home where they are away from society's eyes that they are viewed as normal Americans. This is much like how Willis and others can only be seen as normal when they are away from the prying eyes of the public, sequestered in the mythical interior Chinatown.
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