I've been following this story at Angry Asian Man: Cornell Blog Thinks Asian Suicide is Funny. The Cornell blogger, D. Evan Mulvihill, wrote a pathetic piece consisting of mashed-together racist jokes about Asians; the low point was a joke about Asian-American students killing themselves, drawing from a sad history at Cornell. The original piece was taken off, and the blogger left a typically passive-aggressive non-apology in its place. He changed his tone yet again after people pointed out he wasn't really apologizing. Perhaps he's finally learned a lesson. The topic of suicide was very much on my mind recently after reading this story about suicides in Okinawa during WWII. In popular American culture, suicide is associated with Japan more than any other country. Who doesn't know words like hara-kiri and kamikaze? I grew up knowing about this stereotype, and I always hated it. Japanese don't value life, worship death, aren't fully human... that's what it suggested to me. It's obvious that this kind of specialized stereotype has also started extending to all Asians/Asian-Americans. In reality, the nationalities most likely to kill themselves are predominantly Eastern Europeans. Here are the latest figures. Yet there's no white suicide stereotype. The reasons behind the Okinawa suicides were complex and historically contingent. They were not caused by some mystic quality inherent in Japanese culture. Similarly, ignorant people like D. Evan Mulvihill like to think of Asian-American suicide as reducible to a single, culturally bound factor. Those mean, strict Asian parents! His very first commenter does a great job of pointing out his mistake.

Claire: [...] and, as comfortable as it would be for you to believe that white american institutions are driving asian americans to suicide because we can’t handle the pressure of high expectations, that’s not actually at all the case. the east asian educational systems that korean american, chinese american, and japanese american immigrant parents are coming from is MUCH higher pressure/higher expectation than the floppy, sad, post-bush american school system. so exactly the opposite would be true: asian students would be finding an advantageous differential in the amount of academic pressure they get in the US. THIS is in fact why asian american students–especially the children of immigrants– do so well in american schools. the factors that ACTUALLY lead to asian american depression are: institutionalized bullying and poor or no anti-bullying strategies by institutions, the constant pressure of being treated as an outsider by individuals and institutions in the country you grew up in, a lack of opportunities that match your educational level and familial expectations, failure to see yourself reflected or celebrated in our country’s image of success or normativity, constantly being viewed and discussed publicly as a problem, institutionalized mockery (like your article)–especially when that is the only media image in which you find yourself, lack of public social support for yourself, your family, and your other relationships, etc.

Average: Select ratingCancel ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome

No votes yet