Asian stereotypes began when Asians began filling the streets of the western world in the 19th century. When asians began immigrating into America in large numbers, it scared the Americans because of such a large amount of people migrating over. They believed that the Asians would soon infest the land with a foreign language and take over American jobs. That’s when stereotypes began in order to relieve the scare.
The Yellow Terror stereotype began when German missionaries were murdered in China. A man named M.P. Shiel took advantage of the situation and used it to illustrate his feelings toward the Chinese.
However, today’s perspective on the Asian culture is quite different than those of the past. Instead of murderous little Chinese men, it focuses more on the Asian accent and appearance. When one says “look, there’s a Chinese man,” the first thing that comes to many peoples’ minds would be slanted eyes and possibly a long white beard (like those in martial arts films). Here is a comic of Captain Marvel that depicts this:
Although the physical appearances are quite similar, the theme behind the pictures are not. The 19th century picture depicts a dangerous Chinese man because of the threat of having an overly populated country by a foreign race while the second and more modern picture simply makes fun of the Asian language.
In conclusion, although stereotypes still exist, it is nowhere close to what they used to be in the 19th century.
Picture links:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/YellowTerror.jpg
http://everydayislikewednesday.blogspot.com/2007/04/dr-sivana-man-of-thousand-faces.html
May 12, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I agree that the stereotypes that are used today, are not as malicious as they have been. I believe that stereotypes are created out of fear of the unknown. Because asia and china are such different cultures people really didn’t know or understand them, so they feared them and created stereotypes, and this is the reason why it isn’t seen as big of a problem as it was in the 20’s. People now have a better understanding of asian society and no longer fear them.