Asian pride is a term that encourages celebration of Asian ethnicity and culture, with various interpretations and origins. [1] In international relations, it can involve advancing Pan-Asianism and critiquing the West. In the United States, it has roots in counter culture, rejecting stereotypes and empowering Asian Americans. The term gained modern use through hip hop culture, promoting a positive stance on being Asian American. The phrase "Got Rice?" emerged as a symbol of cultural identity and pride, often tied to Asian Pride. It humorously references rice as a staple food in Asian cultures. The term was adopted in T-shirt campaigns and seen as a way for Asian Americans to define their identity and counter stereotypes.
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Asian pride is a broad term that can cover several topics. Within the international relations context, Asian pride can be seen within Asian politics as advancement of Pan-Asianism through heavy criticism of the West. [2] [3]
While 'Asian pride' is a term often associated with international relations and the advancement of Pan-Asianism, its significance resonates within the Asian American community as well. This concept serves as a bridge between the experiences of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in the United States. It reflects the shared journey of individuals who have migrated to the U.S. from diverse Asian countries and their descendants, who have grappled with questions of identity, belonging, and cultural pride. [4]
For many Asian Americans, [5] the notion of 'Asian pride' represents a source of empowerment and cultural celebration. It emerges as a response to historical discrimination, stereotypes, and a sense of 'otherness' that many Asian Americans have faced in the United States. By embracing 'Asian pride,' individuals within the Asian American community reclaim their cultural heritage and assert their unique identities.
The pan-ethnicity Asian American concept is not embraced by many Asian Americans in the United States. [6]
In the United States the term has older roots within the counter culture movement among Asian Americans in the 1960s. [1] During the period there was the Black Power movement, and Asian Americans seeing the impact it had on African-American culture and overall society, rejecting being called "Oriental" and the stereotype of the "yellow peril" used the term Asian Pride, along with "yellow power", to advance empowerment of Asian Americans. [1] [7]
A more modern usage of the term "Asian Pride" (also spelled AZN pride) the United States is a positive stance to being Asian American. [8] The term arose from influences of hip hop culture within Asian American communities in the Western United States due to the creation of an Asian American pan-ethnicity (the concept was influenced in the late 20th century due to the influence of publications such as Yolk and Giant Robot magazines) that did not specify a specific ethnicity (such as Vietnamese, or Hmong). [9] [10] One manifestation of this was the Got Rice? term, which spun off from the advertising campaign Got Milk?. [11] Younger Asian Americans are finding strength from their Asian identity. [12] Another usage of the term was Greg Pak's Asian Pride Porn!, which used politically correct pornography parody to present Asian Americans in a positive light compared to their portrayal in late 20th century mainstream media. [13] Sometimes this arises due to being made to feel different from the prevalent culture surrounding the Asian American youth. [14]
The term is often used negative connotation, being used to describe individuals who prefer only to have Asian American relationships, a stance supported by the majority of Asian Americans, with the exclusion of potential diverse relationships. [15] It has also been criticized as being primarily a marketing gimmick that "is wide open to model minority accusations." and allows for racial name calling. [16]
The term has been adopted by a few Filipino American gang members in Los Angeles, who used the term to assist them in their construction of their ethnic identity. [17] It has also been used as the name of a gang in Florida [18] [19] and Colorado. [20]
The phrase "Got Rice?" is a term and an image artwork that was coined by Asian American youth, Jonny Ngo, in the 1990s shortly after the original "Got Milk?" advertising campaign for the California Milk Board in 1993. [21] The phrase has since come to be used as a symbol for the cohesiveness of Asian American cultural identity and cultural pride, especially on the Internet. It's usually mentioned close to the Asian Pride slogan. [21]
The humor is derived from the fact that rice is a staple food in many Asian cultures. The slogan can thus be viewed as an Asian American cultural response to American media and advertising. [21]
There is also a parody song called "Got Rice?", often referred as AZN Pride, which samples 2Pac's "Changes". [22] [23] The song dates back to at least 2000, and has been described as being in the raptivist genre; [22] it is also noted as an example of Asian Americans, specifically Chinese Americans, adoption and adaption of Hip Hop culture. [24] It has also been referred to as "satirically pro-Asian", for its use of the AZN terminology which is not fully embraced by all Asian Americans. [25] The Fung Brothers released a modification of the song in 2010. [26]
While the phrase itself presumably began as Asian American slang, the first notable usage is the T-shirt campaign first started by the Asian American magazine Yolk . [27]
Soon, other Asian American organizations began promoting the phrase and selling similar T-shirt designs. The organizations and their proponents intended for the T-shirts to be a fun way of promoting Asian American cultural heritage:
"Political identi-tees don’t all have to be so in-your-face. The Japanese American National Museum in L.A.’s Little Tokyo offers an array of kinder, gentler tees commemorating aspects of Japanese-American heritage both fun and serious. Among the most popular designs, a line of adult and baby tees feature the rallying cry of the lactose liberation movement, "Got Rice?" [28]
Many in the Asian American community viewed the design as evidence of significant progress for the viability of Asian American culture and identity; whereas before identity may have been enforced on Asians via stereotypes from the dominant society, the "Got Rice?" shirts were an attempt by Asian Americans to define their identity and to take back those symbols used to stereotype them. [29]
Fusion cuisine is a cuisine that combines elements of different culinary traditions that originate from different countries, regions, or cultures. They can occur naturally and become aspects of culturally relevant cuisines, or they can be part of the post-1970s movement for contemporary restaurant innovations.
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is often used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism.
Desi is a loose term used to describe the Indic people, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent and their diaspora, derived from Sanskrit देश (deśá), meaning "land, country". Desi traces its origin to the Indic people of the South Asian republics of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and may also sometimes include people from Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives and Bhutan.
Pachucos are male members of a counterculture that emerged in El Paso, Texas, in the late 1930s. Pachucos are associated with zoot suit fashion, jump blues, jazz and swing music, a distinct dialect known as caló, and self-empowerment in rejecting assimilation into Anglo-American society. The pachuco counterculture flourished among Chicano boys and men in the 1940s as a symbol of rebellion, especially in Los Angeles. It spread to women who became known as pachucas and were perceived as unruly, masculine, and un-American. Some pachucos adopted strong attitudes of social defiance, engaging in behavior seen as deviant by white/Anglo-American society, such as marijuana smoking, gang activity, and a turbulent night life. Although concentrated among a relatively small group of Mexican Americans, the pachuco counterculture became iconic among Chicanos and a predecessor for the cholo subculture which emerged among Chicano youth in the 1980s.
The term "person of color" is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the United States; however, since the 2010s, it has been adopted elsewhere in the Anglosphere, including relatively limited usage in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, and Singapore.
The phrase fresh off the boat(FOB), off the boat(OTB), are sometimes-derogatory terms used to describe immigrants who have arrived from a foreign nation and have yet to assimilate into the host nation's culture, language, and behavior, but still continue with their ethnic ideas and practices. Within ethnic Asian circles in the United States, the phrase is considered politically incorrect and derogatory. It can also be used to describe the stereotypical behavior of new immigrants as, for example, their poor driving skills, that they are educated yet working low-skilled or unskilled jobs, and their use of broken English. The term originates in the early days of immigration, when people mostly migrated to other countries by ship. "Fresh off the Boeing 707" is sometimes used in the United States as a variation, especially amongst East, South and Southeast Asian immigrants. In the United Kingdom "fresh off the boat" are referred to as freshies or simply FOBs.
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominent post-Ku Klux Klan group Stormfront and a term used to make racist/racialist viewpoints more palatable to the general public who may associate historical abuses with the terms white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist.
Greasers are a youth subculture that emerged in the 1950s and early 1960s from predominantly working class and lower-class teenagers and young adults in the United States and Canada. The subculture remained prominent into the mid-1960s and was particularly embraced by certain ethnic groups in urban areas, particularly Italian Americans and Hispanic Americans.
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity may refer to the subjective feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. National identity is viewed in psychological terms as "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'". National identity also includes the general population and diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation while being made up of several component ethnic groups. Hyphenated ethnicities are an example of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity.
Pan-nationalism is a specific term, used mainly in social sciences as a designation for those forms of nationalism that aim to transcend traditional boundaries of basic or historical national identities in order to create a "higher" pan-national (all-inclusive) identity, based on various common denominators. Pan-nationalism can occur as a specific variant of all common forms of nationalism. In relation to classical state nationalism, pan-nationalism manifests itself through various political movements that advocate the formation of "higher" (pan-national) forms of political identity, based on a regional or continental grouping of national states. In terms of ethnic nationalism, pan-nationalism can also manifest itself through specific ethnic movements that advocate setting up "higher" (pan-national) forms of common identity that are based on ethnic grouping. Other forms of nationalism also have their pan-national variants.
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change. Linguistic reclamation can have wider implications in the fields of discourse and has been described in terms of personal or sociopolitical empowerment.
Stereotypes of South Asians are broadly believed impressions about individuals of South Asian origin that are often inconsistent with reality. While the impressions are wrongly presumed to be universally true for all people of South Asian origin, these stereotypes adversely affect the South Asians as well as the acculturation process.
Brown is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown complexion.
Panethnicity is a political neologism used to group various ethnic groups together based on their related cultural origins; geographic, linguistic, religious, or 'racial' similarities are often used alone or in combination to draw panethnic boundaries. The term panethnic was used extensively during mid-twentieth century anti-colonial/national liberation movements. In the United States, Yen Le Espiritu popularized the term and coined the nominal term panethnicity in reference to Asian Americans, a racial category composed of disparate peoples having in common only their origin in the continent of Asia.
In gay slang, queen is a term used to refer to a flamboyant or effeminate gay man. The term can either be pejorative or celebrated as a type of self-identification.
Stereotypes of Jews are generalized representations of Jews, often caricatured and of a prejudiced and antisemitic nature.
Hispanic and Latino are ethnonyms used to refer collectively to the inhabitants of the United States who are of Spanish or Latin American ancestry. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, for example, by the United States Census Bureau, Hispanic includes people with ancestry from Spain and Latin American Spanish-speaking countries, while Latino includes people from Latin American countries that were formerly colonized by Spain and Portugal.
Racism is a concern for many in the Western lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities, with members of racial, ethnic, and national minorities reporting having faced discrimination from other LGBT people.
In sociology, symbolic ethnicity is a nostalgic allegiance to, love for, and pride in a cultural tradition that can be felt and lived without having to be incorporated to the person's everyday behavior; as such, a symbolic ethnic identity usually is composed of images from mass communications media.
A cholo or chola is a member of a Chicano and Latino subculture or lifestyle associated with a particular set of dress, behavior, and worldview which originated in Los Angeles. A veterano or veterana is an older member of the same subculture. Other terms referring to male members of the subculture may include vato and vato loco. Cholo was first reclaimed by Chicano youth in the 1960s and emerged as a popular identification in the late 1970s. The subculture has historical roots in the Pachuco subculture, but today is largely equated with anti-social behavior, criminal behavior and gang activity.
The Asian pride argument is not realistic in these times, at least in most cities and especially at state and national levels. For one thing, what is "Asian Pride"? There is a pan-Asian sentiment among some Asian Americans. Many Americans of Asian background, though, don't embrace the vague "Asian American" sobriquet. The identity label of choice rangers from plain old "American" to particular Asian ethnicity.
Lee, Erika. “A Part and Apart: Asian American and Immigration History.” Journal of American Ethnic History 34, no. 4 (2015): 28–42. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.34.4.0028.