Dear Chris Rock: Your Asian joke wasn’t funny

Dear Chris Rock,

One of the first times I remember becoming conscious of my difference was when I was six. One day, I tried to go play with my neighbor Abraham, and my dad told me we couldn’t play together anymore. The bird flu had broken out in China, and Abraham’s parents didn’t want me near their son in case I would “infect him.”

They’d called my dad on the phone earlier that day (meeting in-person was too risky), and told my lived-in-the-US-for-15 years father that his just-learning-her-ABCs little girl was no longer welcome in their home. They made this request confidently, speaking as if my ethnicity gave me the ability to transcend 7,513 miles of ocean and earth (I wish), as if the color of my skin marked me as more susceptible to disease than any of my dirt-eating, nose-picking classmates, as if no matter how far my parents ran or how hard they worked, we could never be real Americans.

My birthday this year marked two decades of trying to prove that I am. Trying to prove to my preschool teachers who’d only ever eaten peaches canned that, “No, what I’m eating is a Nectarine, not some ‘exotic Asian fruit,’” trying to prove to my classmates the shape of my eyes doesn’t enable my good grades – but my hard work does. Trying to prove to the white guys who “super-like” me on Tinder and only want to talk about Anime that I Will Not Be Anyone’s Asian Fantasy, now or ever.

Two decades of trying to prove that I matter, and it only took you 0:38 seconds to show me how badly I have failed.

I wonder when you decided to make that joke, to use those Asian children as props for the punchline of your standup, you knew that only two Asian Americans have never been nominated for “Best Actor” in 88 years of Academy Awards.

I wonder if you knew the history of Asian American indentured labor and sex slavery, of yellow bodies being battered, raped and mutilated in the same years Mickey Rooney played Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I wonder if you knew that growing up, the only role models I could find in the media were Mulan and “Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior,” because otherwise every Asian I saw on mainstream TV spoke English like a broken cassette tape and carried a calculator like you or I might carry an iPhone.

I hope that if you did, if you really thought about the irony of writing a speech on racism and diversity while furthering the oppression of those marginalized by the same system, you would realize that the pain you were feeling for your excluded black brothers and sisters was also reverberating through Asian Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans alike.

I hope that you would realize that coalitions and successful movements are formed through building one another up rather than sending half of us shattering to the ground. I hope you would realize that your joke was not okay, and the wounds you picked at were deeply felt, and deeply painful.

But I also hope you know that as long as you resolve to do better, I can forgive you. Know that if you take my stories, our stories, all these stories emerging in response to your joke and begin to see Asian Americans and all marginalized groups as united in the struggle, your call for better representation will become exceptionally stronger. Know that if you turn jokes that punch down into jokes that punch up, our combined strength can burst through any glass ceiling.

Mr. Rock, I grew up in a family that came from rice paddies and remote mountain villages. If there is anything I’ve learned from my heritage, it’s the strength to persevere even in the face of enormous adversity. I admire and respect your success and courage despite continued discrimination and disadvantage in an industry that has never valued people who look like you.

Please use the power and platform you’ve gained to pave an easier path for others who face similar struggle, rather than to flippantly reinforce centuries of marginalization as you did with your “Asian joke” at the 88th Academy Awards.

Only together, as allies rather than fractured communities, may we find the power to exact true change in a broken system and achieve a reality where our accomplishments aren’t affected by the color of our skin – a reality in which both you and I fully matter.

Sincerely,
Evelyn Wang