Long hair, mono-lidded eyes, pale skin, big eyes and dark skin - these characteristics all carry cultural connotations and meanings. Until I was in the 11th grade, my hair hung way past my waist, and for as long as I could remember it was always plaited into a neat braid down my back. My family is Punjabi, a minority group in India, and long, uncut hair is one of our defining characteristics. My mom would give me long sermons about how important it was to stay true to my cultural roots. Even though I hated my hair with a deep, burning, all-consuming passion, I was never allowed to cut it. The summer I entered the 12th grade, I worked up the nerve to defy my mother, and I chopped it all off. I then proceeded to dye it, started wearing makeup for the first time, broke away from my family’s more conservative dress code, and became interested in piercing and body tattoos. I determined that I liked what I saw. I felt more confident, as though through this process of transformation I had somehow become more myself. In my eyes, I was still the typical Punjabi girl my parents had raised me to be, just in a different packaging. But in the eyes of others, I had assimilated into white culture. Then, about a year ago, I watched Anna Choy’s documentary, “Change my Race.” The documentary took its viewers along three women’s journeys as they underwent double eyelid surgery, breast enlargement and nose and chin reshaping. It also touched on issues of skin lightening creams, eyelid tape and other cosmetic practices taking hold of the Asian beauty market. In the U.S., the U.K. and Australia these types of procedures fall under the category of ‘deracialization’ surgeries. But as I watched the women in the documentary, I felt a strange feeling come over me. I felt as if someone were taking a scalpel to my skin, and slowly but methodically cutting me open as if to say: “HERE, WORLD! Behold the Asian woman and all her bodily neuroses! See every minute thing she hates about herself! Look at these self-hating slant-eyed, curry smelling, twinkie, ABCD, poor white washed girls. PITY THEM.” I’ve always been told that I was trying to be this, I was that or was not enough of X or Y or Z all because of something that I didn’t like, the way that I spoke or something I had worn or done to myself. You’re too Indian. You’re not Indian at all. You’re so Americanized. You’re not Americanized enough - you’ll never be one of us. My skin was a sign that kept me from being Americanized and my style of dress was a sign that kept me from being Indian. I guess I chose to write this article to voice my frustration. It was a feeling that Choy’s documentary dug out from where I had kept it hidden. Choy’s documentary is part of a recent upswing in media coverage in “Western” countries of Asian beauty trends- an upswing that coincides with the dissemination of more Asian pop culture into the Western mainstream. In the last decade, there has been a lot of discussion about beauty and media. Issues surrounding the portrayal of women in the media, the effect beauty trends have on the average consumer, and how beauty trends can have the power to shape how women view themselves, have all been widely discussed. Growing up, I remember having to sit through Media and Culture classes that were taught concurrently with Sex Ed, and Health. We would talk about anorexia, cosmetic surgery, makeup, Photoshop, celebrities- all of the things that come to mind when we mention the words “beauty” and “media.” The one thing that we never talked about was race. It was kind of ironic in hindsight. Our teacher was white, we often talked about white celebrities and American culture, but all of the students, except for two, were Asian: Chinese, Korean, Malaysian, Filipino, Cambodian, Indian, Vietnamese, etc. Looking back, I realize it should’ve bothered me more that we didn’t talk about this divide. But at the time I didn’t recognize the hidden implications in our discussions. There was an unspoken understanding that these Eurocentric standards of beauty were universal because they were dominant. They applied just as much to us as they did to white society at large because we as Asians were submissive objects of domination. We have a desire to conform to white beauty standards because we have been taught by hundreds of years of colonialism that being white is superior. Worst of all, we’ve completely bought into it. We’re the precious model minority. Model minority. The term is like a pat on the back that’s simultaneously a slap in the face. It seems to say congratulations: you’ve been forced to assimilate to avoid all the crap you would otherwise have to put up with! You have to work twice as hard for the same reward! But most importantly, you’re different. But at least you’re not black. Woo hoo! Good for you. In discussions about race and race relations, we’ve been reduced to a submissive, self-hating, homogenous mass that wants to be white, and that hates our “natural bodies.” Today, criticism of Asian beauty trends attempts to unpack racial tensions but does so by using terminology that is already full of racist implications and assumptions based on microaggressive ways of thinking about Asian ethnicity. The term “microaggression” was used by Columbia professor Derald Sue to refer to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” For example, the term “deracialization surgery” suggests that race is something that we can just shed, like a coat that we don’t want anymore. Or that certain features are the exclusive domain/characteristic of a certain group of people. The current conversation about deracialization cosmetic surgery also troubles our ideas about the ‘natural’ unaltered body and points to an Eurocentrism that sees the desire to look white everywhere. I’m not denying imperialism and cultural domination don’t have anything to do with the fascination with white skin in Asia, but they’re one small factor among many in the complex web of race and beauty. On one level, arguments about imperial legacies make perfect sense and superficially seem like totalizing explanations. Britain and Europe colonized most of the world for centuries. Hundreds of years of being told over and over, both explicitly and implicitly, that you and your people were inferior must have had some effect on local culture, right? We eventually began to see ourselves from the gaze of the foreigners and found that we didn’t like what we saw, in some cases internalizing their dislike of our hair, eyes, skin, and culture. Today, America dominates the world culturally--a kind of cultural imperialism if you will--and everybody knows at least a little something about American films, books, music, and TV. If American culture dominates the world, then who largely dominates American culture? White Americans. White skin carries with it, among other things, connotations of power, dominance, wealth, beauty, and sexual desirability. Isn’t it human nature to want to project an image of these things from ourselves? Questions of power make the world go ‘round. Who holds power? Who doesn’t hold it? Who has the strength to take it? And power often goes hand in hand with money. As Anna Choy’s documentary suggests, these questions of power may be the reason for the global fascination with whiteness: “The people who have the economic power globally dictate what kind of media representations we get and have the power to define beauty aesthetics and culture.” When we buy from brands like Dior, Burberry, Chanel, Apple, and the like, we are partly doing so because of the images of success and wealth behind it. It’s a sign that you’ve made it. Similarly, if we extend this argument, when Asians undergo these so called deracialization surgeries, invest into skin whiteners, or otherwise assimilate themselves to fit into white society, we’re buying into the status and power that comes with having white skin and being a part of white culture. This argument has merit. It’s also the argument many critics will make. But this argument is also deeply flawed. It assumes that power springs from one source and only one source. It assumes that power is static when in reality, it is not. Power dynamics are called such because they’re just that, dynamic. Power shifts over time, it transfers, it is invested in various peoples, to different degrees, at different times, for different lengths of time. Unlike a fountain with one source, power is more like a bunch of rivers all flowing into one giant ocean. It’s a total of different parts. While white standards are dominant in America and dominant overall globally, they are by no means equally dominant in every country and haven’t always been dominant. It’s a false equivalence to say that the preference for fair skin is a preference for European looks. When people assume that fair skin equals European, or that the desire for large eyes, or high noses is European and only European, that is a form of microaggressive racism in the sense that it plays into stereotypes of Asians as submissive, easily dominated, homogenous, and static cultures. It designates for us a place of natural inferiority. The ubiquity of the desire to look white is the remnant of a Euro-centric superiority complex that views Europe as the only source of power in the world and the only history worth retelling. The assumption of Eurocentrism denies Asians of our histories and places European imperialism as a centralizing point in our lives. It separates our lives into a 'before Europe took over' and 'after'. As we all know, it doesn’t matter what happened in the 'before' because it is the 'after' on which we focus in our studies of history. Take India for example. India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. There are thousands of years of culture and history present, yet almost everything most people know about it centers on the British domination of it. With China, we do the same; we skim over thousand of years of history to become fixated on the Opium Wars. The Before and After. In Asia, the reality is there are different sources of dominance and power at play in terms of beauty and how we choose to project power and success. That’s why we have to turn to a more Asian homespun explanation as to why Indians aspire for Fair and Lovely and the Chinese chase after the elusive 白富美 (bái fù měi, “white, rich and pretty”) emphasis on the 白(“white”). One such explanation is that our ancestors were farmers. Farmers worked in the fields under the sun, and so had dark skin. Royalty stayed inside, and so ended up with fair skin. So today, we want fair skin like the royalty. If I had a dollar for the every time I’ve been given this explanation, I would make Oprah look like a peasant. As explanations go, it fits right in with the desire to project wealth and power. Though it’s offered almost universally by Asians, I’ve never been convinced that is captures the whole picture. I come from a family of farmers in India. We’re all, without exception, light-skinned by Indian standards. My grandfather, in particular, is very fair even though he’s spent many years laboring on his farm. It’s because we’re Northern Indians. India is a highly racially stratified society, and it’s been that way since long before the British got there. This stratification is realized in both the caste system and most importantly, in the divide between the North and the South. India has been heavily affected by the caste system. Though there have been laws passed against it though the lives of some members of the younger generation are less focused on it, it remains an important force in India. It can determine marital prospects, job prospects, social status, and earning potential. Certain features and skin color are thought to be more common amongst members of certain castes: the higher castes supposedly have lighter skin and the lower ones have darker skin. But again, like with the farmers, skin color can also depend on where a person is from in India. Indian history is filled with stories of how light skinned Northerners invaded the dark skinned South and ruled over it. Elements of north-south racial divide have been used as critical interpretations of important Indian texts such as the Ramayana, a long epic poem that is one of the two most important poems in all of Indian literature. Hari Kondubolu, a South Indian comedian and social critic, provides a basic, lighthearted summary in his act, saying: “Basically two North Indian brothers travel down South and they encounter two types of beings: monkey men and dark skinned demons with large stomachs and moustaches…so my uncles basically, and that’s what they [Northerners] think of us.” Of course, this interpretation is simplistic, but it does point to a key tension in Indian society. Northerners have dominated Indian society in terms of politics, religion, and, today, culture. Northern Indian media represents a powerful commercial and cultural force. Bollywood is the Indian cultural export. The stars we grow up seeing are the same ones that push fairness creams like Fair and Lovely to the mass public. Lighter skinned actors and actresses dominate even South Indian cinema. Before Fair and Lovely, Indian women used to rub turmeric paste on their skin because, apart from health benefits, the paste has lightening properties. The turmeric/Haldi ceremony is still an important part of many Indian wedding traditions today: friends and family cover the bride and groom with Tumeric and sandalwood. The disdain with which North Indians treat South Indians is tangible, it comes bottled and packaged, sold to us for a few rupees. Surprise! We’re unbearable racists too! The way that Europeans have treated Indians doesn’t even hold a candle to ways we treat ourselves. Preference for fair skin is rooted in the histories of other Asian nations too. China and Japan in particular have shown preferences for skin that is not just light, but a ghostly pale complexion popularized by powdered white makeup. The stark contrast between black hair, red lips, and white skin was seen as highly desirable. Skin lightening techniques such as applying miansoo oil or honey were also popular skin care techniques amongst East Asian women. When we look at these countries, we see once again, examples of the North extending its influence and its cultural preferences into the South. Chinese culture, in particular, has influenced both East and South East Asian countries. As a result, we see the preference for fair skin appear in countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Later, preferences for other features such as big eyes and v-lined faces became popular when the Korean Hallyu wave took over, and Korean music and culture spread across Asia. Women all across Asia started following Korean beauty trends and emulating Korean idols. In all cases, whether in India, in East Asia or Southeast Asia, we see Asians either trying to look more like the higher class of their own societies or being influenced by other Asian groups with whom they have contact. There is no one unique Asian look, however, when we look at the ways in which Asians are portrayed in Western media versus how they’re portrayed in Asian media, we see a huge divide. In the Western fashion world, there are very few Asian models but there is a consistent pattern in terms of which Asian women are hired. The industry prefers Asian faces that conform to the stereotypical look ascribed to Asian women in the West: high cheek bones, mono-lids, slightly smaller noses and mouths. It is the face of the Other and it contributes to the exotification of Asian women in media. This and only this, it seems to say, is what Asian women look like. It is dubbed the “natural” Asian look. These ideas of “naturalness,” “natural bodies,” and “authenticity” are very central to not just Asian beauty, like in Choy’s documentary, but also Asian fashion and culture as it translates to the West. In America we’re given one picture of what Asian beauty looks like and in Asia, we’re given another, but both center on the ideal of the “natural.” In America, the ideal is an unaltered free, stereotypical aesthetic. Deviating from this aesthetic will get you confused stares and comments like, “I thought you were Mexican. You don’t look Indian at all,” or “Koreans that dye their hair blonde are so white-washed.” I’ve personally been at the receiving end of the former comment, and while I generally laugh it off, sometimes it stings and I want to respond with, “Oh I’m sorry. Should I start talking like Apu for you? Should I break out some dandiya and do a little dance for you? Oh wait, excuse my manners, I left my bindi and turban at home. How rude of me.” These ideas about naturalness and authenticity bother me the most about discussions of Asian beauty standards in North America because they center on others dictating to you what natural Asian beauty is or what is authentically reflective of Asianness. The word “natural” was thrown out repeatedly in Choy’s documentary. It was used so often that I didn’t understand what it meant anymore. What does it even mean to be natural or to be authentic when we look at beauty practices and culture? The beauty industry is premised not only on the idea that your unaltered body is ugly and undesirable, but also that the practice of alteration is luxurious, sophisticated, creative, and pleasurable. The beauty industry implies a lot about this concept of the self: identity is elusive, but these beauty practices should help you somehow track it down. It can be a way of becoming yourself and putting on your identity- an identity that is based on individual and cultural notions of aesthetics, innovation, and self expression. Or, it can, as many feminist critics of the 60s have pointed out, be tool of the patriarchy and contribute to the social and economic subjugation of women. And these things are true of both Asian women and non Asian women. I think that when we’re looking at the surgeries women undergo, the beauty practices we follow, the way we dress ourselves, we really have to call into question exactly what makeup, fashion and beauty do for us and how they work. When we follow beauty trends, apply cosmetics to our face, or wear certain clothes, we are not only applying a certain set of signs directly onto our bodies, but we’re also entering into a conversation about what we’ve all agreed that those signs mean, a conversation that has been referred to as a “shared fiction of identity.” The beauty trends we follow do a lot: they advertise social group, life style, economic status, and even political leaning. They also provide an encouragement of what Bernadette Wiggenstein calls the “Cosmetic Gaze,” where humans “view their own or others bodies as incomplete projects that await the intervention of technologies of enhancement which will help better approximate their true self or natural potential.” Try as we might, we can’t change everything about ourselves, and we especially cannot change our skin. Brown skin means one thing in American and another in India, but it is always there. What happens when you find yourself stuck between different worlds and their different meanings? Well, that’s when you get the Asian-American. Asian-Americans are placed into an awkward position because they straddle two worlds: one that encourages alteration and one that does not. One that is the American cultural experience versus one that is Asian, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t completely connect with either. There will always be a gap. Sometimes it’s small and sometimes it’s more like a canyon. It’s like being stuck in a limbo or a purgatory from where there’s no escape because you’re rejected in some measure by both sides. The beauty industry for women of color is a frustrating game to play. It’s based on complex power dynamics between thousand-year-old cultures, eurocentrism, coded readings of our skin, our eyes, our hair, the images presented to us in the media, the images we choose to accept, the images we choose to reject, and, most of all, how we choose to define beauty in the face of all of this. The way that I’ve chosen to define beauty for myself is no doubt shaped by all the factors I’ve discussed but ultimately, it was MY choice. It’s frustrating that criticism and discussion about beauty in terms of Asian women, and especially Asian-American women, has in effect stripped us of agency. We’re always reduced to being objects who are acted upon by outside forces: the patriarchy, racism, imperialism, or culture. They do have an affect on us, but we’re forces as well. We also have preferences. It’s easy to forget that, trust me. We’re aware of all the implications our choices carry. We shoulder the weight of them on our backs throughout our lives. I don’t also want the weight of condescension or judgment to add to the burden. That’s one thing that I refuse to carry. This article was written by Rae Dehal. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Wodu Media