A Comparison of The History of Irish & Asian Stereotypes in America

A Comparison of The History of Irish & Asian Stereotypes in America

One of the best methods of discerning the changing mentality of American society is to study the images and ideas that have been present in its popular culture. Through examining any era's music, literature, and fashion, one can determine the philosophy and mindset of the people of that era in American history. In doing so, however, one must remember that the images and ideas present in popular culture are not simply indicators of what a society loves, but what it fears as well. Typically, popular culture reacts in one of two ways to objects that it fears in order to offset its threat: demonization, which portrays the object as evil so that something else can appear better by comparison; desexualization, which makes the object lose its appeal. This concept is quite evident in the manner in which American society has historically portrayed two of its immigrant groups: the Irish, and Asians. Though their respective great waves of immigration to America are separated by almost a century -- the Irish came to America en masse starting during the antebellum era until the latter part of the nineteenth century, while Asians only started coming to the United States in droves after World War II -- there are very striking similarities in the way both groups were received into American society, and portrayed in American popular culture. Both groups, first of all, were seen as threatening to Americans. The Catholicism and poverty of the Irish who came during the nineteenth century set them apart from the well-to-do Protestant immigrants who had come before them. This overwhelming xenophobia and paranoia toward the Irish way of life, which Americans considered depraved, required some kind of coping mechanism in order to counteract the fear. Hence, the depictions of Irish people in popular culture. In theater, literature, songs, and the press, nineteenth-century Americans depicted Irish men as bumbling, hideous drunkards; their women were ill-tempered, unladylike scolds (demonization). Both Irish men and women were shown as having very little charm or sexual appeal (desexualization). Through these stereotypes, Americans turned the Irish into objects of ridicule or frivolity, and made the threat which the Irish represented less real to them. Though Irish have become almost completely assimilated into American culture, these stereotypes still persist to this day, and appear now in cinema and television as well.

Asians, too, were viewed as a threat upon their arrival in the United States because of their marked differences in culture, religion, language, and physical appearance. The Americans of the twentieth century, like Americans during the first wave of the Irish migration, needed a method of contending with a group they perceived as a threat. Therefore, they responded to the Asians as they did to the Irish a century before: with grossly exaggerated, stereotypical portrayals. Stereotypes of the crafty, inscrutable Asian villain (demonization) or the unattractive Asian male genius (desexualizaton) pervade every form of modern media. Though the parallels between the depiction of these two immigrant groups in the history of American popular culture are not always precise, the similarities in between them suggest that historically, American popular culture's reaction to groups that the society perceives as threats has been to make these groups seem trifling and harmless in order to allay its own fears.

When portraying the Irish and Asians (and indeed, all ethnic groups), American popular culture frequently depicts those groups using stereotypes that highlight their most notoriously negative traits, which society accepts apply to the majority of the members of that group. Historically, entertainers and artists use such stereotypes for comedic effect. However, there have been certain instances in the history of American popular culture where such negative stereotypes have been used as a rallying cry by propagandists who see the presence of certain immigrant groups as a step toward depravity. In order for the entertainer to elicit laughter from his audience, or the propagandist to get his audience to fear a certain immigrant group as he does, both must use exaggerated images of the perceived flaws of that group in order to produce the desired effect -- in other words, he must demonize that group. While the intentions of the entertainer and the propagandist may be different, the essential result is the same: other groups who see the exaggerated depiction of those negative stereotypes feel validated; they can tell themselves that they do not act in such a fashion, and are therefore somehow better. Consider, for example, the American reaction to the Irish drinking culture. While drinking copiously is an essential part of the Gaelic culture, such a practice "scadalized native-born Americans." ¹ Though drinking is decidedly more a part of Irish culture than American culture (which has its roots in the Puritan ideal of sobriety), it was far from absent in American culture, as Williams notes. Still, even alcohol was a part of American life, they seemed completely outraged when it came to Irish drinking habits, and demonstrated this point of view in their popular culture. The popular depiction of a stage Irishman was that of a drunkard "who could not say 'no.'" ² This reaction suggests that while the "drunken Paddy" may indeed have been a comic character, Americans used his example to demonize the Irish community for their drinking habits, while denying the existence of alcohol in their own culture. Americans, in addition to depicting the Irish as drunk, also portrayed them as unintelligent. For example, during the antebellum era in New Orleans, where there was a substantial Irish population, the newspapers seemed insistent on perpetuating the image of the ignorant Irishman. For example, certain anecdotes related in a New Orleans newspaper "assumed that Paddy had never seen a gun; another, that Bridget had never seen a rat." ³ Such anecdotes were presented with the purpose of making readers laugh, but as E. F. Niehaus points out, the newspapers released a good number of these articles during the height of the popularity of the Know-Nothing party, a nativist political party which was notoriously anti-Catholic. ⁴ This suggests that, perhaps, these articles were being printed not simply for comedic value, but perhaps had a more insidious purpose: to make a mockery of Irish Catholics and show how out of place the Irish were in society, in order to portray them as the foil to purportedly more intelligent, native-born Americans.

Modern-day Asians suffer from the same ridiculing portrayals that beset their Irish counterparts in the nineteenth century. Though some depictions of Asians, like the Irish, are meant only to entertain, others serve to pillory Asian culture, displaying its foibles, so as to seemingly elevate American culture by comparison. For example, a 1994 episode of the television show Law & Order revolved around a Caucasian woman's murder of a Japanese businessman, who is her former employer and lover. The woman had lived several years in Japan, come back to the United States, and waited until he was in the United States to murder him. Her lawyer uses "battered woman syndrome" as her defense, saying that the "inherent sexism" of "male-dominated Japanese society" is what drove her to commit the murder, and the jury finds her innocent. ⁵ This suggests the scorn with which modern American culture holds many Asian societies -- as if to tell themselves that they are somehow more enlightened. As American popular culture in the nineteenth century flaunted the image of the drunken Irishman in order to feel confident its own sobriety, modern American popular culture shows images of sexism within an Asian society in order to serve as a comparison with a supposedly more open-minded American one. However, also like the nineteenth-century Irish, the demonization of Asians in this era's popular culture need not be so overt, and at times may even be humorous. In numerous modern day television shows and films, the misunderstandings that ensue when an Asian character with limited knowledge of English attempts to communicate with English-speakers provides hilarity for the audience. One example of this is a recent episode of the television show "South Park." The main characters, four eight-year-old boys named Stan, Kyle, Eric, and Kenny, decide to telephone the local Chinese restaurant, City Wok, in hopes to hear the waiter mispronounce the word "city" as "shitty." ⁶ As the four boys giggle uncontrollably at the waiter's mispronunciation, the waiter is completely bemused, unaware that they are having a laugh at his expense. While clearly not as prejudiced a portrayal as the former, it nonetheless serves to emphasize the "foreignness" of Asians by showing their supposed inability to pronounce common English words. The depiction in this show of Asian peoples' supposed ignorance of the language of their host country parallels the anecdotes of the New Orleans newspaper, which suggested that the Irish living in that city were ignorant of American culture, and indeed, the world around them. This, in turn, provides entertainment for an audience, who laugh at the deficiencies of others to remind themselves that they possess no such shortcomings, and thus feel more at ease with themselves. The group becomes an object of ridicule and thus becomes less threatening in the eyes of the viewer.

By painting the Irish and the Asians as some kind of backward, less sophisticated culture, and highlighting its weaknesses, American popular culture of both the nineteenth century and the modern day have made both these cultures less appealing to the society of the day. However, the demonization of a group serves only to make the perceived personality traits of that group seem unattractive. Though the viewer may feel validated in his own righteousness when he sees an inebriated, pugnacious Irishman or the sexist way in which an Asian man treats his wife, he may not feel validated in a more physical sense. American popular culture historically has had a method of coping with this problem as well: desexualizing both the men and women of a certain immigrant group. When the creators of popular culture want to make something seem undesirable, they stress how far from the societal ideal members of said immigrant group are. Many works in American popular culture depict members of immigrant groups society perceives as threatening as unappealing in every fashion -- not simply in terms of personality, but physically as well. During the nineteenth century, for example, it was quite common in political cartoons to portray Irishmen with simian features, as if they were monkeys trying to be men. Irishmen were usually depicted as "a bizarre individual, proposterously dressed in a red-flannel fireman's shirt, affecting a swagger, and with a shillalah in hand to knock out all others in the cast at the proper moment." ⁷ Clearly, there is nothing physically nor mentally appealing about the stage Paddy: not only is he unsophisticated and cocky, but poorly dressed as well. Irish women, were likewise portrayed in an unflattering light, both in their personality as well as their physical traits. She was unladylike, in contrast with the softspoken paragon of American femininity. An advertisement for a runaway female indentured servant stated that "Upon her tongue she wears a brogue,/And was she man, would be a rogue." ⁸ The Irishwoman's saucy tongue already made her character unappealing to most men of the day, but in addition to being depicted a difficult shrew in the press and the theater, she was supposedly ugly as well. Far from being the ideal of the delicate, feminine American woman, an Irish woman was "large and round from neck to hips,/Brown hair, red face, short nose, thick lips;/Short, thick and clumsy in her jog/As neat as any fatten�d hog." ⁹ Indeed, while some may not have perceived the Irish woman as unattractive, in some circles, she was thought to be devoid of sexuality altogether. This stereotype, in fact, made her prized as a domestic worker to many families. Many critics extolled the fact that Irish women were prudish, saying that "her employers rarely had to contend with sexual deviance and with the problems of having to fire her, unmarried and pregnant." ¹⁰ While one could interpret such a statement as a compliment, it nonetheless shows that it was a popular assumption during this era, and often taken for granted, that Irish women simply would have no sexual life.

Contemporary representations of Asian males in American popular culture are also markedly desexualized. While many programs and films suggest that the knowledge of martial arts is prevalent among Asian males, which embodies the masculine virtue of knowing how to fight and defend oneself, Asian males are all too often shown as a "sidekick" -- either a scholar or child prodigy who plays a supporting role to the sexually attractive (usually Caucasian) leading man, a wizened older man who imparts sound advice to his protégés, or simply an unassuming, friendly individual who is simply happy to serve. For example, in the movie The Karate Kid, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita plays an elderly karate master who teaches a frequently-bullied adolescent (Ralph Maccio) about the art of self-defense. While he helps his young friend win the heart of a girl, he himself has no discernible sign of a relationship in his past or present. He gives no indication of any sexual desire whatsoever, and instead, serves as a fount for wisdom for the young protagonist. American popular culture also desexualizes Asian men by painting them as submissive individuals who are passive in personality and small in stature -- which, in almost all cultures, are considered feminine ideals. For example, a song by comedian Stephen Lynch called "Little Asian Man" tells of a delivery man who will risk his life to ensure that his customers receive their food. The lyrics read: "He may just get run over while bringing you lo mein." ¹¹ Similarly, a song by the comedy troupe Monty Python called "I Like Chinese" contain the lyrics, "I like Chinese/They only come up to your knees/But they're always friendly and they're ready to please." ¹² This demonstrates the prevalent view of Asians as docile, passive, and submissive. In addition, the description of the Asian man�s height as "little" results in three things: first, it trivializes him, to paint him as childlike, thereby removing any possible semblance of sexual appeal. Second, if the song states that he is a "little" Asian man, there must be some basis for comparison; the implication is that he is "little" compared to American men, who conform to the masculine epitome of being tall and strong. Third, the depiction of the Asian man as a compliant server who "aims to please" also contrast with two other ideals of the American man: assertiveness and aggression. While American popular culture desexualizes both the Irish and the Asian man, American popular culture in the nineteenth century did so by painting the Irish man as some kind of eccentric monster and therefore making him sexually unappealing. Contemporary American popular culture, by contrast, does not paint the Asian male as some kind of walking beast, but instead deemphasizes his potential threat by portraying him as someone who has no need for sexual contact, or by robbing him of his masculinity, trivializing him, and almost femininizing him.

Though Asian women, like Irish women, are seen as chaste, this view has an opposite effect on American popular culture�s perception on the sexuality of Asian women: instead of desexualizing them, they become hypersexualized. This is, in large part, due to the fact that although many Americans hold the stereotype that Asian women are sexually straitlaced, there is also the stereotype that they are submissive and physically unimposing, unlike the Irish woman, who was seen as physically dominating and therefore unattractive. Because American popular culture believes Asian women to have the feminine ideals of passivity and meekness, the chastity of the Asian woman serves as a benefit, not an hindrance, to her sexual attractiveness. David Henry Hwang clearly illustrates this in his play M. Butterfly. When a French judge asks Song, a Chinese man how he managed to masquerade for twenty years as a woman unnoticed by his lover, a French officer, Song explains the advantages of being an "Oriental" and how as a result, Western men automatically assume things about him. He states: "A girl can tell the most obnoxious lies and the guys will believe them every time -- 'This is my first time' -- 'That's the biggest I've ever seen' -- or both, which if you really think about it, is not possible in a single lifetime." ¹³ Although the Irish and Asian man have historically both been desexualized in American popular culture, the Irish and Asian woman do not share that experience. Though it is true that both groups of women share one stereotype in American popular culture -- that is, their tendency toward chastity -- other stereotypes about Asian women, such as their supposed submissiveness, ensure that the depiction of Irish and Asian women in American society are drastically different, and that Asian women are portrayed as sexual objects, whereas Irish women are seen as undesirable. Still, although Asian women are the exception to the rule, for the most part, American popular culture has deemphasized the desirability of Irish people of both genders and Asian men -- not simply their appeal as people in general, but their attractiveness in a very physical sense. This, in turn, helps comfort American society by making them, once again, into objects of ridicule, and using those negative stereotypes to validate their own attractiveness, both physically and mentally.

Though the Irish and Asians came to the United States almost a century apart from each other, there are nonetheless marked similarities in the ways and patterns in which the popular culture of their respective eras depicted them. Because both groups were seen as threatening because of barriers in culture, religion, and in some cases language, American society sought a way to offset that threat and dampen its feelings of insecurity. One way of doing so was to portray these two immigrant groups in the worst light as possible. By demonizing both groups, American popular culture was able to paint Irish and Asians as a morally depraved or primitive people, and thus could feel secure in its own virtue. By desexualizing both groups in their popular depictions, Americans, again, gained a sense of security which they could not obtain from preaching about their moral shortcomings. Both sets of stereotypes display a fear, insecurity, and xenophobia, very strong in nineteenth century America, as evidenced by its depictions of the Irish, and still present today, as is clear from its portrayals of Asians.

Works Cited

"Blue Bamboo." Law & Order. dir. Don Scardino. NBC, 5 October 1994.

Clark, Dennis. Hibernia America: The Irish And Regional Cultures. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.

Diner, Hasia R. Erin's Daughters In America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Hwang, David Henry. M. Butterfly. New York: Dramatists Playwright Service, 1988.

"I Like Chinese." Monty Python. Monty Python�s Contractual Obligation Album. Arista Records, 1980.

"Jared Has Aides." South Park. dir. Trey Parker. Comedy Central.

Lynch, Stephen. "Little Asian Man." mp3.

Niehaus, Earl F. "Paddy On The Local Stage & In Humor." Louisiana History. Williams, William H. A. �Twas Only An Irishman�s Dream. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

back to school projects
home