He was Asian, but let me explain.
Yes, the cut mics, the outsider status, the lack of endorsement from Asian American groups played a part, but the real reason is the fact that Asian Americans aren’t in America’s history books.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have history here. Asians literally built the backbone of this nation’s economy. They built the railroads, they man the stores, and they’re a huge part of the workforce. But there is very little representation to show for it.
Maybe it’s because they’ve been able to succeed in spite of the racism. The “model minority” myth makes it so that nobody talks about us except to use us as examples of how America is equal and if you work hard… Except no matter how hard you work, you’ll never get your place atop the system because the system isn’t built for power transfer.
Maybe it’s our own culture. The one that teaches us to work for harmony, not take credit, and ask nicely instead of take by force. The cultures that largely value hard skills like STEM over arts and entertainment. So that white people have consistently played us on film. And the only thing positive representation we have in cinema—Martial Arts—can be turned into an epic starring a white woman, by a white director who last year turned the icon without whom his epic wouldn’t have been possible into a buffoon who could barely fight. Where were the Asian community leaders expressing outrage at this portrayal? Where were the Asian politicians demanding the director never make another movie? Where was the Asian Spike Lee calling for boycotts?
Because we refuse to insert ourselves into the narrative, others are doing it for us. Because we’re solely focused on hard work, others are stealing its fruits.
Andrew Yang is a badass in many ways. He’s smarter than all the other candidates, his book doesn’t read like other candidate’s ghost-written fluff so you know he can get a point across, and he might even be able to outshoot Obama in a game of HORSE. But when people look at Obama, they can think of a long tradition of strong black leaders, from W.E.B Dubois to Marcus Garvey and MLK. When they look at Andrew Yang… all the Asian leaders that come to mind are dictators from our ancestral homelands.
Because we chose to be invisible for so long, America has no frame of reference for what an Asian American president might look like.
But the good news is, it’s starting to change and it’s not too late. There’s been more representation in the last five years than I’ve seen in the 20 that preceded it.
But it’s not enough, because the best way to prove a stereotype wrong, is to defy it yourself.
The best way to stop personal injustice, is to speak up for all injustice.
That strange proverb about how crisis and opportunity are the same Chinese word might be an American lie, but it’s one we can work with.
We have a history here, and it needs to be part of the narrative. The fact that there is no Asian American Amistad, or Roots, or Schindler’s List, doesn’t mean we have to act like similar crimes never happened to our people. It just means that there’s plenty of story to tell.
And the fact that there are scant few Asian American icons just means it’s up to us to start acting more iconic.