Dancing between model minorityhood and yellow peril: accusations of needing “personality”

Abstract

AbstractThis article traces one manifestation of the unique process of Asian-American abjection (Shimakawa, K. [2002]. “I should be—American!” Abjection and the Asian (American) Body. In National Abjection (pp. 23–56). Duke University Press.), produced from a dialectic of an aspirational model minority myth and the targeted status of an ever-evolving yellow peril. I highlight the nuances of such abjection through a “lacking personality” metanarrative imposed on Asian-American finalists on the reality television show, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). I forward an Asian-American rhetorical approach informed by critical rhetorics of race by Lacy and Ono (2011. Critical Rhetorics of Race. New York University Press) and Ono and Pham (2009. Asian Americans and the media, Vol. 2. Polity) to problematize rhetoric that abjects Asian-Americans. I suggest that depictions of Asian-Americans as lacking personality in popular media are part of the same continuum of racialized yellow peril abjection, upholding a conditional belonging that allows anti-Asian racial violence to flourish, particularly in moments of crisis and public moral panic.