Asian American Rage

by Jalyn Wu

Content Warning: Misogyny, anti-Asian violence, racism, gender-based violence

It’s time to get angry at the world! You’ve heard that before.

ANGER! RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! Because there’s a lot to be angry about.

I guess no one realizes that I’ve BEEN angry. At everything. It’s hard to notice because everyone deals with anger differently. For better or worse, society has taught us how to handle our rage in “tolerable” ways since birth. But rage is not inherently accessible to every group of people — BIPOC in particular are seen as violent, evil and dangerous, while Asian people are seen as passive and submissive: “effeminate” men and “docile” women.

My mom taught me not to cry. This made me cry harder. Heartbreak was supposed to translate into bullet journaling, face masks and sad Taylor Swift songs. Failure was meant to look like moving forward and working harder.

As I grew older, I began getting angry at politics. I saw school shootings addressed with only “thoughts and prayers” and politicians on TV calling for truth and justice (I was never really sure what they meant.) I’d ponder that question when doing lockdown drills. I learned the truth when Donald Trump was elected to office. He was an embodiment of the dystopian electoral politics of the United States: a populist pundit that shrewd commentators, reporters and bureaucrats alike could project their policy agendas onto. I realized that there was no truth nor justice, nor did that matter: our media, politics and education systems thrive off of white supremacy, and seek only to benefit those in positions of power.

For starters, these systems emphasize peaceful protest over any other form of social resistance. Consider the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd. Media coverage called activists “rioters” and “thugs” and portrayed the events as violent. The January 6 insurrection, by contrast, was embraced as “civil disobedience” and “patriotism.”

But nowhere had I ever seen Asian rage. Protests never highlighted a wide range of Asian emotions. Violence against Asian people wasn’t unheard of, sure, but I didn’t ever hear of unified anger or rage in Asian American communities in response. Mostly, my community was praised for keeping our heads down and working hard to be accepted.

I knew then what I knew now: I occupy a perpetually foreign position in America. No matter what injustices are done to me, no matter how many times I’m pushed down and get back up, it won’t matter. That’s what “truth and justice” meant: double standards. Every part of my life, from interpersonal to macro political interactions, felt like hypocrisy. Broken promises.

Eventually, I spiraled into psychological exhaustion. I became apathetic to everything around me. I got super pessimistic — I started seeing it everywhere. I saw it in my mother when she explained for the hundredth time why she was scared to divorce my father. I saw it in my cousin when she confessed feeling burned out in her picture-perfect ca- reer.

I saw it in the mirror this morning. In my community, gendered violence starts from home. Our Asian mothers don’t consider divorce an option, facing immense familial and cultural pressure to stay in unhappy marriages. And while patriarchal structures are at the root of this unfair pressure on women, they also have negative consequences for men. Toxic masculinity in Asian communities directly contributes to harmful physical and emotional environments for Asian men. Too often, men are left to deal with their rage alone. It’s my brother that refuses to see a therapist, my neighbor that spends more time watching TV than spending time with his wife, my father that left.

Sometimes, they’re driven to im- plode and silently suffer through mental health issues. Too often they explode and direct their violence towards others. Their rage goes to anyone from domestic partners to strangers in the public sphere to their own children. a. A drum set (while screaming) b. Electric guitar c. Pots and pans d. I’d rather smack someone honestly. e. A squeaky-sounding violin f. A saxophone g. A baseball bat a. Being lonely is worse tbh… b. There’s nothing wrong with either. c. He don’t give a shit about me, so I dont give a shit about him. d. You’re probably jealous of my Audi. e. Both are just misogynistic phrases used to describe emotional women f. I’d rather be crazy. g. Being in love is worse.

Consider the life of Asian man Elliot Rodger who murdered six people in 2014, two of them women, in a violent display of misogynist rage. According to his 140 page manifesto, women were both the object of his desire and of his hatred. I felt appalled as a young Asian woman to know that my body was one meant for inherent sexualization and fetishization, and that it was somehow all my fault.

It should go without saying that there is no justification for violence against innocent people as a response to rage. Rage that harms others, whether mentally, emotionally, or physically, is counterproductive and needlessly detrimental. Some might point to policing and the US criminal justice system as a solution to “punish” violence. Yet, macropolitics is part of what rips communities apart and causes rage to begin with.

Alternatively, I rage for a world of peace: of community care, of reparative and transformative justice, of joy.

Rage is not meant to be individual — especially for cultures with more collective values. The same communities that can tear us down should instead be safe spaces for us to share and reflect our ideas freely.

That’s part of why our rage has been co-opted or stamped out whenever it occurs. Those in power fear our collective action because it threatens the very structures they stand on.

Anger inherently disrupts the status quo: it’s an individual struggle to feel something, to do something and be a part of something liberatory. I advocate for a method of rage that meets no constraints, no principles, no justifications. I like the idea of being incomprehensible, like Chinese women screaming and creating commotions in courtrooms while being tried as “prostitutes” in 1854. I envision a world of collective action, like the sex workers that organized funds and vigils for the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings early 2021. Grassroots, community oriented and meaningful.

I know it creates discomfort to rage. But I just want to reach the point where I’m comfortable creating discomfort, rather than being forced to internalize it. I want to start speaking up for myself, and I want people around me to respect me more for it. I want to tell my mom that she means the world to me, and I want her to say she’s proud of me. I want to interrupt my racist uncle at the dinner table and I want to cut out my sexist friends. I want to be seen as more than just a simple stereotype: docile and submissive. Instead, I’m ready to embrace the real me: multifaceted and complicated.

No matter what you’re angry about, will you join me?

1Which instrument would you want to smash to pieces after your first sold-out hometown concert?

2Which would you rather be described as: jealous or crazy?