Stereotypes inadequate

To some of my friends, I am known as the “crazy, loud
Asian girl,” while others say that I am
“whitewashed” or a “banana” ““ someone
who is yellow on the outside and white on the inside. When I hear
people use these terms to describe who I am, I usually laugh and
shrug it off, or reply with some supremely witty comeback like
“shut up” or “whatever.”

Yet much as I try to disregard such comments, I think these
labels are absurd. They bother, and at times, anger me, and after
years of hearing them I still do not understand what they really
mean.

What is the significance of the label “crazy, loud Asian
girl” anyway? Do other ethnic groups not have girls who are
crazy and loud? Why must there be a specific subset for Asian
females? And what does it really mean to be
“whitewashed”?

Just because I grew up watching “The Brady Bunch”
and “The Wonder Years” instead of kung fu movies, and
buy my clothes at surf shops and listen to Led Zeppelin, does that
make me less Asian?

I wasn’t even aware that there was a scale that measures
one’s level of “Asian-ness.” Yet such a scale
must exist because apparently I can lose my Asian-ness all
together. What I want to know is, at what point does one stop being
Asian and become white? No one ever told me there were specific
requirements to being Asian.

People employ these labels to make up for the inadequacies of
their pre-existing ethnic stereotypes.

If someone does not fit the traditional view of an Asian woman
as being submissive and quiet, she must be “crazy and
loud.” If she happens to skateboard and listen to classic
rock and has a poster of Pink Floyd hanging in her room, she must
be “whitewashed.”

The same applies to people of other ethnicities. White people
who rap are “acting black,” while black people who like
country and punk rock are “confused” and have lost
touch with their roots.

There must always be a reason why people do not fit the
stereotype ““ and that reason is interpreted as having
something to do with them.

But couldn’t it be possible that it is the stereotype that
does a poor job of defining the person instead of vice versa?

If people do not fit our stereotypes, we create labels to fill
in the gaps between who they are and who we want them to be.
Instead of just doing away with our traditional stereotypes, which
are themselves absurd, we create additional ones to account for the
difference.

And we do all this in an effort to make life more comfortable
and simple for ourselves.

Sure, we as humans need stereotypes. It may even be argued that
they are useful from an evolutionary standpoint to increase our
fitness. But there comes a point when we must recognize the
shortcomings of the stereotypes that we employ and realize that
people, whether as groups or individuals, are simply too complex
and varied for us to label.

I am crazy and loud because that is who I am. I like Led
Zeppelin because their music sounds good. But I also speak
Vietnamese at home, eat with chopsticks, and practice Buddhism.
I’d like to see a stereotype explain that.

The point is, no label can explain or describe me. So
don’t try to use one to understand me because you will just
end up empty-handed, with one pissed off Asian girl.

Du is a fourth-year psychology and political science
student.