Melancholia and Inscrutability: Affects Surrounding Asian American History

Abstract

Feelings change how we interact and perceive the world around us. Asian American history has been permeated with affects and feelings that shaped how Asian Americans were perceived and continue to be perceived in a white supremacist America. This paper aims to examine affect’s relationship with Asian Americans and how certain cultural histories and memories have “stuck” to Asian Americans. Asian Americans have been branded as the “Other” due to white supremacy and cultural histories associated with it. The Yellow Peril ideology, a result of U.S nationalism and white supremacy, instilled fear into (white) citizens, portraying Asianness as a threat. The Model Minority Myth, on the other hand, pitted Asians against other people of colour in America by portraying Asians as the “good” minority that would not threaten white supremacy. These mythologies and discourses created a certain cultural history and memory of Asian Americans, manifesting specific emotions (socially moving) and affects. Melancholia and inscrutability can operate as forms of resistance against the existing affects about Asian Americans. Melancholia is defined as a death that is continuously mourned, and this paper looks at how assimilation causes melancholia. Inscrutability operates as a form of resistance by the refusal to be affected by previous affects and cultural memories for Asian Americans.