We Should Be Better Than That: Examining the Symbolic Significance of WMAF Relationship Stigmas

Lecture presented by guest speaker, Dr. Olivia Hu, Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Olivia Hu draws on 116 in-depth interviews with U.S.-born/-raised East Asian Americans in interracial/-ethnic relationships, she asks: (1) What cultural logics, racial ideologies, and subjective experiences underlie some later-generation East Asians’ stigmatization of WMAF couples? and (2) What do intragroup disagreements over the meaning and significance of WMAF unions suggest about East Asian racial politics more broadly? Most East Asian women with White partners reported experiencing stigma from East Asian communities, and many also expressed guilt around how their choice of a romantic partner may reflect negatively upon their commitment to Asian uplift. Meanwhile, a vocal minority of East Asian women with partners of color expanded the conceptual bounds of this sellout stigma to include a perceived disloyalty to all people of color, rather than solely to East Asian communities. Lastly, some East Asian male participants deployed sexual racism stigma when describing WMAF unions. These men typically invoked their negative experiences with East Asian women’s sexual racism when portraying WMAF unions as products of East Asian women’s exclusionary preferences. Ultimately, I argue that WMAF relationships are politically significant symbols that U.S.-born/-raised East Asians use to articulate both their apprehension towards assimilation and their complex orientations toward intersecting race and gender systems.