Asian and Asian-American students spoke candidly and passionately about issues regarding race, gender and sexuality Tuesday night at Norris University Center.
“These conversations don’t happen often,” said Kristin Millikan, a Chicago anti-violence activist. “We should have lessons teaching us anti-oppression and how to deal with confrontation. We talk about ‘Friends’ and ‘Joe Millionaire’ but not issues that affect our lives.”
Millikan and Rahul Sharma, director of resources for sexual violence prevention at the University of Chicago, led a 15-person discussion about the expected social and gender roles of Asians and Asian-Americans. The event, which lasted for almost three hours, was sponsored by Northwestern’s Office of Asian and Asian-American Student Services.
The workshop attendees first were asked to list stereotypes about Asian men and Asian women. The group mentioned stereotypes that Asian men are asexual and unattractive, passive, computer nerds and Kung Fu masters. Stereotypes for Asian women included them being seen as overly sexual, exotic and docile.
Millikan used the stereotypes to highlight reasons why interpersonal and domestic violence happens in Asian and Asian-American relationships. Relationships between Asians are supposed to be calm and harmonious, where the passive Asian women always agrees with her husband, she said.
But, Millikan said, the harmonious relationship is not often the case, and it can result in violence. Sharma reinforced the point.
“Gender relations and violence are on a continuum in society,” Sharma said. “From society we learn a hierarchical structure. We experience sexism every day. The two are interrelated.”
Students also lamented about the reinforcement of negative stereotypes and the misrepresentation of Asians in mainstream media. Some said they did not know how to respond to racist jokes based on generalizations of Asians.
Millikan suggested students question their friends to ensure they have racial understanding.
“People need to learn how to understand culture but not to stereotype people,” Millikan told the group.
Sharma and Millikan also led a “fishbowl” discussion where people of one gender talked candidly about the opposite gender, while members of that sex looked on.
For example, Sharma asked the males, “What makes you most uncomfortable about Asian women?” The men responded by saying Asian women have an ability to “guilt trip” men. There was also debate about Asian women only dating men outside their race.
Then, Millikan posed the same question to the women. They said they were uncomfortable with men’s invasion of their personal space and dealing with the expectation of being “a good Asian wife.”
Some of the participants said the event was satisfying and helped build a sense of camaraderie among NU’s Asian-American community.
“I felt I could identify with what everyone was saying,” said Cuijun Hu, a Communication graduate student. “There’s a commonality between our experiences although we are different.”
