Asian Fetish in Salsaland

The other night, I happened to be in the vicinity and eavesdropped on a fellow salsera, who I believe is an ethnic Filipina, angrily retorting to her interrogator: “I’m American; that’s all you have to know.” Missing the conversation, I am not in the position to judge, but I can’t help speculating. Although we haven’t had a chance to talk beyond exchanging names, I have certainly been paying attention to her since I joined the local salsa community six months ago. She favors tight clothes in sharply contrasted colors, often showing a sizable area of bare skin, and her dance moves are unambiguously exaggerated with frequent hopping and skipping. An eye-catching presence on the dance floor, she is also popular and partners with many good dancers. I am unsure how much of her visibility is due to the fact that she looks Asian. Perhaps partly because of jealousy, I feel averse to her style and subconsciously do everything to avoid being like her. I wear rather conservative clothes, form-fitting but in decidedly obscure colors, and focus on dance techniques instead of overly explicit self-expression. It is curious – and sometimes irritating – that some men with whom both of us dance, be they African-American, White, or Latino, mix up the two of us. Her frustration, however, unexpectedly strikes a chord with me.

I have “slanted eyes,” which is a single factor that has shaped a big part of my Salsaland experience. For example, not long ago, a new dance partner who had done mostly American Heartland-style salsa, after complimenting my dancing, asked: “Where did you learn to dance like that? In Japan? Korea? China? Vietnam?” To answer this multiple-choice question, I said: “I started in San Francisco and later took classes in New York; you know, they are small towns just outside of Tokyo.” Another man offered to teach me English if I was willing to “help him out” – whatever he meant by that – just because I didn’t feel like engaging in an in-depth conversation about the meaning of life over the deafening music, and he consequently thought that his English was better than mine. Having compared notes with other similarly experienced salseras of different racial backgrounds, I realize that the number of men who have demanded aggressively to be my “boyfriend” is disproportionate. On the dance floor, I often have to hold myself against hysterical grinding by a particular body part that the men possess and feel compelled to put in use when they are inspired by bachata; the cumulative effects have led to my bachata-phobia, which requires taking shelter in the bathroom when such music is played.

I should say that I’m much luckier than Vincent Chin, a Chinese American who was attacked and bludgeoned to death in 1982, in High Land of Detroit, by two autoworkers who had mistakenly thought he was Japanese and, in their mind, responsible for the loss of jobs in the US auto industry. Comparing to Chin’s tragedy, my inconvenience on the dance floor is as innocuous as water off a duck’s back, if I weren’t – as some may put it – so “hypersensitive.” Arguably, nowadays many are genuinely fascinated by Asian culture. I’m fully aware, however, that there is a fine line between a sincere interest in my culture and some people’s need for categorizing and taking advantage of me. It is hard to differentiate the motives; there are many indicators – the context of the exchange, the contents of the question, the tone in which the question is asked, etc. – but none is foolproof. In any case, I doubt that pestering and grinding me on the dance floor will improve one’s knowledge about Asian culture. Conversely, the necessity to maintain one’s dignity often calls for a more defensive attitude. In the past, after each bad incident of harassment, I quit salsa – the longest interval was nearly three months – just to be lured back by the magnetic power of salsa music; I’ve surely had a difficult relationship with salsa.

Mild and harmless as it seems, such an “Asian fetish” is, in essence, a combination of racism and sexism. Asian and Asian-American women were historically portrayed as submissive, exotic sex objects by popular media – Madame Butterfly, The World of Suzie Wong, etc., were famous examples – but such stereotypes have largely abated during recent decades. Since I immigrated to Salsaland, however, I feel as if time has been set back to the 1930s. This appears to have a lot to do with salsa’s Latin American roots. Machismo is a hallmark of Latin American culture; despite several prominent female leaders, Latin American women’s current social status is equivalent to – or even worse than – that of American women before the civil rights movement. Enchanting as salsa music is, many songs’ lyrics are imbued with male chauvinism and twisted ideas of female beauty. On top of such sexism, the relatively small sizes and invisibility of Asian populations in Latin America have perpetuated the mystery and distortion of Asian culture, especially of Asian femininity; cultural sensitivity is out of the question in this part of the world. In Guatemala, I once saw a newspaper advertisement for a Korean automobile, accompanied by an enlarged, comically depicted “slant eye” and, next to it, a dangling earring; such an image, I’m sure, would ignite protests and a boycott of the product in cities like San Francisco or New York.

For a while, I tried to divide the pests and grinders on the dance floor into two varieties – North American and Latin American – in order to figure out what cultural influence was the major culprit. I soon realized that it was an exercise in vain, because the boundaries were frequently blurry and exceptional cases outnumbered the norm – it was the same reductive approach by which I have often been categorized. It is probably not fair to blame solely Latin Americans and those of Latin American descent for my plight on the dance floor; many of them, like me, while living in the US, are at the receiving end of racial discrimination. (The question, “¿De dónde eres?” sounds more benign than its English version, “Where are you from?” – I can often interpret the former as an intention to find common ground rather than to separate “you” from “us.”)

Losing one’s individuality – in the most individualistic country – is a really sad thing. Unfortunately, race and gender always trample the uniqueness of individuals. In Salsaland, the tales may tell you that all Blacks have been born to dance and all Latinos are native speakers of salsa, yet we often see struggling beginners among African Americans and dance with Latin Americans who are consistently off the beat. Acknowledging each person’s particular situation, I am patient with them as long as they truly want to improve their dance skills. Nonetheless, many men automatically assume that I learned salsa in Japan and came here just to be ground, like a mortar, by that body part of theirs. (To poke fun at these guys, I’m tempted to invent stories of geisha girls now being trained to provide their clients with a service of salsa dancing; realizing that few of them are sophisticated enough to recognize the humor and fictitious nature of the story, I think I’d better stop.) An open, unbiased mind and sincere endorsement of mutual respect – not merely etiquette – are critically needed in Slasaland.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about that ethnic Filipina. Thanks to her, I know I’m not alone. I can say that she’s not my type, mostly because our dancing and dressing styles don’t match, but I’m also wondering how much of my thinking this way is due to the inferiority complex and self-hatred – often in the subconscious mind – of my type.