Richard Liu

Symbolic Interactionism and Intersectionality

Queer people of color often encounter a unique plethora of symbolic interactionism in a

normative society. This intersectional role sometimes excludes queer people of color from not

only predominantly caucasian heteronormative society but also from various ethnic communities

and LGBTQ community that they identify as part of. The focus of my paper will demonstrate

how symbolism interacts with specifically, Queer Asians in the LGBTQ community by

addressing parallels and applying symbolic interactionism of Asians in heteronormative society

to Asians in normative queer society.

Physical characteristics such as facial features, eye color, and skin color have become

significant symbols to categorize and differentiate individuals of the same human species.

Significant symbols are a type of visual symbolic interactionism that is easily seen and perceived

by other people. Unfortunately, they are often correlated subjectively to non physical

characteristics such as personality, intellect, and culture. People manipulate visual racial

symbolism in conversations with others. These physical characteristics often override other

indicators of a persons background including language fluency during communication.

Where are you from? Your English is perfect.

San Diego. We speak English there.

Oh, no. Where are you from? (Cole)

Nicki Lisa Cole. PhD applies Blumers theory of symbolic interactionism to conversations many

Asian Americans experience. Firstly, people form an initial visual perception based off facial

features, eye color, and skin tone, in this case, Asian. Then based off preformed thoughts and
interpretations of racial constructs, people assume that all Asian Americans are immigrants. This

misconception that all Asian Americans are immigrants stems from ignorance, a product of

social upbringing, consisting of erasure of Asian American history from the mainstream

teaching of American History; underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Asian Americans in

television and film; and the stereotyping of future asian generations based off first generation

Asian immigrants (Cole).

Coupled with Coles article about stereotyping Asian Americans as immigrants, Kim

Eckart from University of Washington, writes about a study that shows correlation between

weight/body structure and racial profiling of Asians. According to the study, asians with a

heavier build or wider body structure are considered more American and can be negatively

treated less foreign. Asians with thinner builds are considered by again, the stereotype of

foreign or immigrants (Eckart). Some would assume that bigger Asians endure less

discrimination; unfortunately, the intersectionality of body form and race gives certain

oppressions for bigger asians. Since the study showed that asians tended to be thinner and

stereotyped as thin, the minority of thicker asians are often excluded from the asian community

itself. Bigger asians also face common fatshaming in normative society where weight is looked

down upon.

Reinforcing on the stereotype of thin and foreign comes the fetishization of Asian

Women. According to Rachel Kuo, because of misrepresentation and under representation of

Asians in mainstream media, films throughout American History such as Lotus Flower in The

Toll of the Sea portray Asian women as exotic, delicate, and obedient. Other films such as Kill

Bill portray Asian women as beautifully evil, aggressive, and also mysterious. (Kuo) Asian
women are hypersexualized as exotic, oriental, delicate, and small. Kuo also states that American

wars with Asian nations reinforce the symbolism of hypersexualized feminine Asian women

with the sex industry. Asian sex workers and comfort women became popular amongst

predominantly white U.S. soldiers. (Kuo) In contrast to the sexualization of Asian women as the

ideal femininity, femininity is negatively reinforced for Asian men. Gender and sex influence the

already symbolically reinforced roles of dominant men and submissive women in normative

hierarchy. Asian men are stereotyped as mismatched feminine and thus undesirable. Stefan

Bondy wrote about basketball player Jeremy Lins thoughts about the stereotype and

emasculation of Asian men. Lin stated "You don't see a lot of the opposite, you don't see a lot of

non-Asian girls go for Asian guys. When they said 'Yellow Fever' growing up, it wasn't all these

white girls going for Asian guys. It was the Asian girls going for the white guys. (Bondy)

According to Lin, besides sexual undesirability in heteronormative culture, symbolic

stereotyping of Asians also discriminate them in athleticism. Like me and John Wall were the

fastest people in the draft but he was athletic and I was deceptively athletic...Ive been

deceptively whatever my whole life... in response former coach Daryl Morey drafting John

Wall instead of Jeremy Lin. Morey would admit the reality is that every person, including me,

thought he was unathletic. And I cant think of any reason for it other than he was Asian.

(Bondy)

Overall, symbolic interactionism has portrayed Asians as thin, feminine, hairless and

foreign. Media, history, and normative gender roles have resulted in fetishiziation of Asian

women, emasculation of Asian men, and immigrant - izing. The analysis of symbolic

interactionism of Asians in white heteronormative society is fundamental to understanding

symbolism of Asians in the LGBTQ community. In addition to under representation and

misrepresentation as Asian Americans, these individuals are even more underrepresented due to

being queer. Many queer Asians leave their ascribed conflicted roles in hopes of finding more

comfort in queer communities. However, oftentimes, queer seuxality aside, Asians still face a lot

of symbolic interactionism.As a queer heavy asian, I have incurred many parallel experiences

within the LGBTQ community. Someone has told me I dont find Asians attractive, but youre

hot. which is on the better side of racism against Asians in the gay dating community.

Fetishization also occurs the gay community. Stereotyped thin, smooth and feminine Asians are

fetishized and in most cases, expected to play the submissive role. (Trott) Fetishization also

occurs to bigger, smooth, and cute Asians in the bear community, a gay community consisting

of homoesxual men who prefer more masculinity, muscular, heavier builds and more

facial/body hair. Unfortunately, in both mainstream gay community and the bear community,

there emasculating discrimination against queer Asians including labels like Rice; particularly

in the bear community, Asians are stereotyped as smooth and discriminated in a predominantly

facial/body hair preferred community. Stereotype assumptions of smoothness inacurrately

discriminate against queer Asians who do have more facial/body hair but opt to not show it on

gay dating sites (Shea).

More recently, in a countershift, the gay community in general has shifted towards

hyperhomomasculinity away from flamboyance and femininity that dominated mainstream gay

culture before. This shift has lead to a growing discrimination with correlating No fems. No fat.

No Asians. In Kornhabers interview with C. Winter Han, Han who participated in RuPauls

Drag Race Season 8 as drag queen Kim Chi, addressed that [Kim Chis] not rising above
being fat and femme or Asian. Shes saying, that fat, femme, and Asian is attractive.

(Kornhaber) Drawing direct parallels to symbolic visual perceptions and assumption of

immigrancy from Nicki Lisa Cole in the beginning of this paper, Han recalled season 3 drag

queen Manila Luzons performance where she spoke with a really thick stereotypically Asian

accent and suggested that the guest star for that show should marry her brother because her

brother needed a green card. She won that challenge. (Kornhaber)

Symbolic interactionism influences treatment of Asians in both white heteronormative

society and white queer normative society. General symbolisms include foreign, exotic,

oriental, immigrant as well as thin, delicate, feminine. Visual symbolisms often provoke

pre-formed thoughts and beliefs associated with race, and that these conceptions often

stereotype, discriminate, and perpetuate against reality. Social upbringing influences these

preconceptions through mediums such as film and history. These lead to behaviors such as

fetishization and emasculation. Particularly, individuals in queer community can face more

complex forms of interaction. Queer asian men face both fetshization and emasculation in queer

communities. Queer asians face unique intersectional symbolic interactionism in queer qualities;

they also face unique treatment in Asian communities. Intersectionality and symbolic

interactionism often create differentially unique roles for individuals such as queer people of

color.
 Works Cited

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