Frank Wu: As trade war heats up, why I care about the Chinese

Frank Wu | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption AP Top Stories July 6 A Here's the latest for Friday July 6th: US, China enact trade tariffs; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt resigns. Secretary of State Pompeo in North Korea; Thailand Navy Seal Commander says time is limited for cave rescue.

People ask me in good faith why I should care if the Chinese face discrimination. They point out I have spent my lifetime as a Chinese American insisting that I am a kid from Detroit, and that Chinese Chinese are different. The distinction eludes most people, other than Chinese Americans. There are white Americans and there are Europeans; they are not the same, and nobody takes the former to task for the conduct of the latter — you don’t blame a random Caucasian in the States for the Brexit vote, even if her name is as Anglo as it could be. Yet as the Chinese increasingly are attacked openly, as a group, based on identity, I am alarmed. I urge Chinese Americans of every generation, confident that they have been accepted, not to turn our backs on Chinese.

The reason is that I know there is a discrepancy between how I see myself, a loyal citizen of my homeland, the one with the "Star Spangled Banner," as its national anthem, and how others see me, inscrutable, a perpetual foreigner, perhaps a spy or member of the "Yellow Peril" intent on global domination as in the comic books of my childhood. The problem is the “slippery slope.” People who hate, or even those who suffer from unconscious bias, do not pause to ask about your passport, and it wouldn’t be quite right if they did that anyway. They have long said, also with utmost sincerity, “You all look alike.”

Thus the problem is that if someone is angry about the Chinese government, a Chinese company or the trade conflict between the U.S. and China, the ordinary “man on the street” cannot do much about either, far away in Beijing or Shanghai. They can, however, take out their anger on their neighbor or co-worker who happens to have an Asian face, even if they are mistaken about the exact ethnicity. Their sentiment directed toward foreigners slides over to tourists, then to foreign students and expatriates staying here temporarily, finally landing on naturalized citizens and even native-born citizens. They may be unaware that there are sixth-generation Californians of Asian descent. Chinese soldiers even fought on both sides of the Civil War.

This is not a hypothetical risk. The internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II included “enemy aliens” as well as Nisei and Sansei, the second and third generation, who were classified as no better. The immigrants had been denied any possibility of equality. Although forgotten, there was a color line that prohibited Asians, regardless of whether they had arrived with or without papers, from claiming citizenship. They were deemed not to be “free white persons.” Their children and grandchildren were protected by the 14th Amendment though. Against official objection by the executive branch, the Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that a Chinese man born in San Francisco enjoyed birthright citizenship. Yet two generations later Japanese Americans were locked up without due process.

I know that there are Asian Americans who might cringe at their cousins — as vice versa. That is wrong. Asian Americans disrespect overseas relatives at their peril. Other communities have had the same phenomenon. The more assimilated have tried to disassociate themselves from the “fresh off the boat” to use the pejorative phrase that is being reclaimed. They don’t want others to assume that the individual who is confirming to a stereotype is their relative. So they are more ticked off at another Asian, a stranger who will be taken for kin, than the person who holds prejudice. I propose the opposite attitude. We need to see our common cause.

The headlines are dire. Demagogues predict war, whether cultural war, trade war, a new cold war, and even actual military war. They are starting a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is a better course for humanity, and those of us who can build bridges have not only a right but a responsibility.

In the internet era, it is possible to be both Chinese in ancestry, celebrating Chinese cultural heritage, and American in citizenship, embracing American constitutional ideals. We should not be forced to hate our parents to be accepted by our peers. Our ability, as a diverse democracy, to incorporate so many traditions is more than so much rhetoric. It is our very real comparative advantage.



