Tigertail

Some East Asian-Americans have to [s]tell their story to American audiences... for "representation" or "to be heard" or something. Duty to family, lost love, poor father/child relationships, etc. The same themes repeated over and over again...

Do these Asian-Americans have nothing to say about what it means to be "Asian-American" in the United States? They are focused so much on family issues and family drama, which is often linked to some trauma suffered back in the homeland.


Perhaps there is an awareness that they aren't really Americans, and one of the few markers of identity they have is their family (and its problems). Being a "banana" isn't acceptable either, because it means that they have no "Asian" identity; any sort of depiction of them participating in Anglo-American society as Anglo-Americans do, embodying the same values, isn't allowed because it's not "authentic" or because it's whitewashed (in more than one sense).

With such identity issues, I don't know if they have what it takes to be integrated into an Anglo-American community.