08.15.02 Fast, and Furiously I have a dirty secret: I want a tricked out import car. A silver Mitsubishi Eclipse v6 2002 with brake lights that look like targets, and interior blue dome light and fancy daytons. Oh yeah, cold air intake system, new exhaust and header would be nice too. And a little "got rice?" sticker on the bumper. Yeah yeah, I know, I'm supposed to be an Asian American activist who doesn't concern himself with such trivial, material things. Well, fuck you. I'm sick of driving around in a 10 year old car with electrical glitches, a car that recently has been topping out at 65 mph. Let me dream for a minute, dammit. Not like I can afford a ricemobile on a poet's salary anyway, the closest I'll get is Hot Wheels or Grand Turismo. But something I've been thinking about recently is how Asians and Asian Americans are associated with import car tweaking/racing - and how it makes for an interesting case of how flexible and insidious racism is. During the early 80's there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment, the general perception being that the Japanese auto industry was destroying the American auto industry and forcing good (white) Americans out of their jobs. No, it wasn't because the white CEOs of the American companies mismanaged them, it must be those sneaky Asians yet again! So make sure you put up signs and stickers that declare "Buy American" and sneer at anyone who would dare buy a Japanese car, even if the American car you bought was actually built in Mexico by exploited labor and Japanese cars were being built in American plants. Perhaps the most infamous tragedy that occurred relating to this race based xenophobia was the murder of Vincent Chin, killed by two white Detroit autoworkers - a Chinese American, but I guess the flexibility of racism allows us all to look and be the same to white people when they need us to be. Skip ahead a decade or so to "The Fast and the Furious," a movie based on an article written by an Asian American about the predominantly Asian American import street racing scene - a movie whose only Asian characters were minor (villain) roles. $144 million at the box office, by all means a success, and suddenly a lot of the same people who dissed Asian men for being into cars are ranting about how hot and cool Vin Diesel is. Vincent Chin was murdered in 1983. It's 2002, less than 20 years later. In the context of history, that's a very short time frame. Yet within it, the flexibility of racism has allowed being associated with import cars a justification for xenophobia (then), and the appropriation of the import racing scene and continued invisibility/exploitation of Asians (now). Fast, and furious.

close