Editor’s Note: The following is an email discussion that took place between Sarah and Nicole on October 20. Nicole Cliffe saw our tweets about some of the articles discussed below and the challenges of writing about Asian Americans, and asked us to write up our conversation for The Toast. 

Nicole: Hey, Sarah. Before we get into Jack Linshi’s Time article (“The Real Problem When It Comes to Diversity and Asian-Americans”) and Julianne Hing’s response at Colorlines, I just wanted to acknowledge something you said about cringing in anticipation before you read the original piece. Because I had that same reaction when I saw the headline, and I admit, I immediately checked the byline to see if the writer had an obviously Asian name. Not that that’s any guarantee you won’t dislike something you read on this subject, but it’s the first thing I do when I see any story about Asians. Like you, I was relieved that the Time article wasn’t worse.

Sarah: I think this point is actually super important to the discussion. A lot of the stuff we see written about Asian Americans and race is just plain bad. And that totally colors our perception of Linshi’s Time article, and our reaction to Hing’s critique.

Let’s review our initial reactions to Linshi’s piece in Time. I think I said something like, “It’s fine, I just really didn’t have to read that.” It’s pretty basic stuff, information that circulates fairly regularly among people who take an interest in Asian American issues.

Nicole: My reaction was nearly identical to yours: this is okay, but it wasn’t written for me. And that’s fine, it doesn’t need to be written for you or me; it can be aimed at mostly white readers of Time and/or people who don’t read much about race.

But I feel as though many, many articles we read about Asian Americans and diversity never move much beyond the “Asians are being left out of the conversation!” point, and that always makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes we are “left out” because we don’t face the same racism. I think it’s disingenuous to claim to be “left out” of the black/white framing, and then conveniently ignore or not talk about the ways Asian Americans benefit from not being seen as black.