Yellow Face

The first part of Act II highlights different points of view on race and nationality through the eyes of HYH, Marcus, and DHH. HYH’s idealism about America is framed in the rhetoric of “colorblindness.” Both HYH and Marcus believe that the goal of American equality should be a post-racial world where one’s appearance does not matter. But the truth is that race does matter. Race is the source of the discrimination both men face as well as The Historical Marginalization of Asian Americans. Their identity as Asian Americans, whether real or invented, is the reason they are under investigation for espionage and suspected of colluding with the Chinese government to influence the US elections. 

Though HYH and Marcus may share a vision of a colorblind society, their beliefs arise from very different backgrounds and motivations. HYH believes in the American ideology that hard work and determination lead to success. He feels joy and pride in being an American. A post-racial, colorblind America appeals to him because it would enable him to fully assimilate with the American culture he identifies with. Rather than take offense that Marcus is pretending to be Asian, he surmises, “Maybe, in my heart, if I can be Gary Cooper or Clark Gable, then maybe—in his?—he can be Marcus Gee” (40). However, HYH’s desire to attain the same status and have the same rights as the white heroes he sees in American cinema is different from Marcus’s desire to pass for Asian. Marcus’s false identity is an appropriation of Asian American identity from which he extracts professional and personal gain while simultaneously marginalizing Asian American voices and agency. His version of “colorblindness” upholds whiteness as the default and the universal by making it a blank slate onto which any identity can be projected. Marcus’s performance of yellowface is a demonstration of his white privilege; no Asian actor would be cast to play Gary Cooper or Clark Gable. Conversely, HYH’s longing to not be judged by his appearance is a commentary on his exclusion from the world of white privilege. A colorblind America is the only America in which he could fully belong.

As for DHH, his objections to Marcus’s false identity are rooted more in pettiness and competition with Marcus than a desire to protect the integrity of Asian American representation. DHH expresses outrage that Marcus has been promoting Asian American rights under his false ethnicity, yet DHH has no self-awareness when it comes to his own participation in Asian American politics. When he brags to his father that he participated in hunger strikes in college, he adds, “Dad, I’m not stupid, of course I ate” (40). DHH’s protest is merely performative, lacking substance or integrity. The episode highlights the ways that Hwang presents DHH as an Asian American who performs a type of cultural “yellowface.” 

Hwang further explores DHH’s cultural yellowface and the theme of Cultural Identity and Authenticity when DHH participates in his own self-exoticization as the “face” of Asian American theater. He is hired as a consultant on Margaret Cho’s television program, the first primetime sitcom to feature a predominantly Asian American cast, to make it more “authentically” Asian. DHH recommends adding clichéd signifiers of Asian identity to the set dressing, such as chopsticks and an abacus. His contributions show that he is not engaging meaningfully with Asian heritage, but rather recapitulating Asian American marginalization by reducing their cultural identity to stereotypes that are legible to an implicitly white audience as “Asian.” Yet DHH is arguably responding appropriately to the job he has been given. He recognizes that what the studio means by asking him to make the show “authentically Asian” is that they want it to be recognizably “Asian” to a mainly non-Asian audience. They are not interested in authentic Asian American cultural identity—nor is there a single, universal Asian American identity for DHH to provide. Leah accuses DHH of being a “fake Asian” for presenting himself as an activist in the public’s eyes but not truly caring about the issues affecting his community, and in a way she is right. Both Marcus and DHH present “fake” versions of Asian American identity to the world, but at the same time, there is no singular “real” or “authentic” Asian American identity to adhere to or deviate from. 

The diversity of Asian American identities is reiterated in the scene set in 2006 where Marcus has been living in China and befriends a local in the Dong village. Marcus initially romanticizes the people he meets as “exotic” “Others” who possess an “authentic” Asian culture untouched by the modern world. He is disappointed to learn that the Dong song he hears is a performance geared toward tourists and endorsed by government funding. In this scene, cultural authenticity is not fixed and natural but something manufactured for an audience. Marcus sees relatable and modern objects like satellite dishes and cell phones, items that would be deemed “inauthentic” in a remote Chinese village for cultural tourists like him. These props harken back to DHH’s role on Margaret Cho’s show, where objects like chopsticks signify “Asianness” to American audiences but satellite dishes and cellphones do not. To Marcus, the image of a modern Chinese villager is incongruent with his expectations of an authentic Asian. However, Hwang demonstrates that the Asian fisherman in a remote Chinese village with a cellphone is only considered “fake” by those who hold an orientalist view of China as a pre-modern landscape frozen in time.