Special Issue • MAY 16, 2023
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Good morning and welcome to a special issue of The Yappie’s AAPI politics briefing — your guide to the policy news and activism affecting Asian Americans + Pacific Islanders. Please s
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— Edited by Shawna Chen, Mary Yang, and Samson Zhang
OUR CULTURAL LEGACY
From Merle Oberon to Michelle Yeoh: the complicated history of Asian representation in Hollywood
Michelle Yeoh’s recent groundbreaking Oscar win is part of a long, complex history of Asian representation and discrimination in Hollywood, all of which started over 85 years ago with Merle Oberon, the first Asian Best Actress Oscar nominee who hid her heritage all her life.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh made history earlier this year as the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Chinese immigrant mother Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022). But Yeoh is not the first Asian to be nominated for Best Actress. That groundbreaking honor goes to Merle Oberon, who was nominated for Best Actress 87 years ago for her role as Kitty Vane in the 1935 film “The Dark Angel.”👉 The catch: No one knew it at the time—she had hidden her South Asian heritage her entire life.
The biography Oberon maintained for herself was that she was born to British parents in Tasmania, Australia and that her birth records were destroyed in a fire.
The truth of her heritage was never disclosed in her lifetime, and Oberon passed away never admitting her heritage. It wasn’t until 1983 when authors of her biography “Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon” located her birth certificate in India that the truth of her story finally came out.
Named Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson, Oberon was born in Bombay in 1911 to an English father and a Sri Lankan mother who had Māori ancestry.
Though Oberon kept her ancestry a secret, a few other Asian actors were open about their identity at the time—usually because they had to be.
The most notable was Anna May Wong, who is often called Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star. In contrast to Oberon’s success as the lead in several films, Wong struggled to land leading roles herself.
The roles Wong did land perpetuated stereotypes of the lotus flower and the Dragon Lady, and as a result Wong stepped away from Hollywood for many years.
Though Asian actors were largely shut out, Hollywood frequently and flagrantly engaged in the practice of yellowface.
One of the most egregious examples was “The Good Earth” (1936), a film about Chinese farmers struggling to survive. Producers of the film cast white actors as the film’s leads and put them in yellowface using offensive makeup and costuming because they deemed an all-Asian cast unappealing to American audiences.
“The Good Earth” was later nominated for Best Picture, and white actress Luise Rainer won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Chinese wife O-Lan in 1938.
Today, Asian actors still face limited options while films continue to perpetuate stereotypes. Yeoh herself turned down Hollywood parts for a few years because she refused to be cast in stereotypical roles.
Still, recent film and television releases like “The Farewell” (2019) and “Beef” (2023) were hailed for their depictions of relatable Asian American experiences. Likewise, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” received praise from audiences and critics alike for its themes of intergenerational trauma and immigrant life, going on to win a leading seven Academy Awards including Best Picture.
In her acceptance speech for the Best Actress Oscar, Yeoh said: “For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof—dream big—and dreams do come true.”
— By
John Camara
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SNAPSHOT
IN THE PACIFIC, LEGACIES OF SEGREGATION REMAIN: Last fall, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case by American Samoan civil rights groups seeking to overturn a set of laws known as the "Insular Cases," which disqualify American Samoans from obtaining U.S. citizenship at birth. The denial received pushback from civil rights groups, saying the insular cases are a legacy of segregation.
Why it matters: The Insular Cases were authored by the same court that passed Plessy v. Ferguson, a Supreme Court case that upheld racial segregation. Lawyers for lead plaintiff John Fitisemanu, who was born in American Samoa but holds a U.S. passport, argued that denying birthright citizenship to those like Fitisemanu is a legacy of that ruling, which was overturned. The landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision found racial segregation in schools to be unconstitutional.
Yet, American Samoan government officials praised the decision, saying the laws allow American Samoans to preserve their culture.
In their words: “I welcome this outcome from the Supreme Court and the fact they chose to respect the self-determination of the people of American Samoa, and the emphasis our people place on preserving our Fa’a Samoa (the Samoan way),” Del. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R) said in a press release. “This result is of utmost importance to preserving the American Samoa we know with the continuation of family land and our matai heritage,” she continued.
🏫 In March, Guam Del. James Moylan (R) introduced a proposal to integrate students attending schools operated by the Department of Defense into schools under the Guam Department of Education.
Moylan’s five-year plan to merge the two school systems would dissolve those Defense Department schools, first established in 1997, and direct funds toward improving Guam’s public schools.
The Defense department currently operates four schools on Guam, one of 20 districts covered by the department’s education activity initiative.
Remember: The U.S. military's decision to withdraw children of service members from Guam public schools was met with significant backlash. “Our relationship is built upon people relating to other people, and the military will destroy this with their effort to divide our youth and to promote separate communities,” then-Guam Del. Robert Underwood (D) said in a 1997 congressional floor speech. “Guam has to be seen as part of America by our fellow Americans.”
— By
Mary Yang
MAPPING HISTORY
💡 HOW GUAM AND THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS BECAME TERRITORIES: Over two centuries after a long, violent period of Spanish colonization, political sovereignty over the Mariana Islands archipelago exchanged hands multiple times among colonial powers as concessions of war.
Beginning in the late 1600s, Spanish explorers violently subjugated Chamorros and native Micronesians on Guam and the northern islands. Spanish colonizers brought with them diseases that decimated the indigenous population and assimilated islanders into adopting Christianity, suppressing the Chamorro language. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American war, Spain ceded territories to the United States, placing Guam, the southernmost Mariana island, along with the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and parts of Cuba, under American control in 1898.
The Northern Mariana Islands went to Germany, which purchased the territory from Spain and brought to the islands its own religious and education systems.
The Japanese Navy occupied the Northern Mariana Islands during World War I, taking control from Germany and using the land to further its economic interests. Japan gave little emphasis to education but pushed native Micronesians to learn Japanese. During World War II, Japan also occupied Guam, which remained under Japanese control for three years before Allied forces recaptured the island in 1944. Following the end of World War II, the United Nations oversaw governance over the Northern Mariana Islands, which became a “Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands,” a designation shared by the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Caroline islands, which is now split between Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.Reunification efforts fall short: A decade-long bid by Guam and Northern Mariana legislators to incorporate the Northern Mariana Islands, and eventually pursue statehood, was eventually struck down despite initial popular support.
The resolution, which called for a day “when all the Chamorros once again will be reunited within a homogenous political and economic union under one governmental administration,” was adopted by the Guam Legislature on July 8, 1958 after winning support from two-thirds of Guam voters.
But a decade later, Guam voters struck down the measure in a special 1969 election with 3,720 saying no to unification and only 2,688 voting yes. That result was due partly to low voter turnout ahead of a major election year.
🏛️ Paths to Congress: Guamanian Antonio Borja Won Pat (D), the son of Hong Kong immigrants, was elected to represent Guam in Congress in 1965 as an unofficial representative.
After years of lobbying, Won Pat became Guam’s first non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives in 1973 after winning approval for the position from the U.S. government the year prior.
Worth noting: In the 1972 election, Won Pat faced Republican challenger Pedro Diaz Perez, a senator in Guam’s legislature, who pushed for a congressional vote.
And in 2008, Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D), who is Chamorro, was elected as the Northern Mariana Islands’ first non-voting delegate.
— By
Mary Yang
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