David Henry Hwang, author of the renowned M. Butterfly, created yet another play in which he questions race. Yellow Face is a satirical memoir featuring David Henry Hwang, Marcus G. Dahlman, and his father, Henry Y. Hwang set in the 1990’s. The entire play centers on DHH writing a new play, Face Values, in response to the yellow face casting of Miss Saigon, but he accidentally casts a white man, Marcus G.Dahlman, to play the leading character. Marcus, accepts his new Asian identity and serves as a catalyst in understanding the contradiction present in the socially constructed idea of race. Throughout the play, we also follow to story of Henry Y.Hwang, a man aspiring after the American dream, but later has it shattered, when the government begins
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When DHH’s father is being investigated for illegal political involvement, DHH is interviews by NWOAOC, an unnamed interviewer. While interviewing DHH, NWOAOC claims that Asian Americans are not American which DHH catches. He questions NWOAOC, “There’s a conflict-between being Chinese and being American?” (55-56). NWOAOC represents the greater white public which often believes that Asians can never truly be American. Race, which should not matter in society, limits Asians.The belief that Asians can never be American further perpetuated the forever foreigner trope.To be forever foreigner is to never be accepted into mainstream society for being too different.In the 1990’s, the Anti-Chinese sentiment was deeply rooted in society, labeling the Chinese as the yellow peril (Power-Sotomayor, 4/15/15). The Chinese were accused of stealing jobs and contaminating the superior race.The murder of Vincent Chin perfectly highlights the consequences in being Asian. Vincent Chin, on the night of his bachelor party, was brutally murdered by two white man who claimed that the Chinese had come to America and stolen their jobs. Obviously Chin was not directly involved in the economy’s dip, but because of his skin color he was marginalized and thus murdered (Wu 1). The hatred towards Asian is …show more content…
Marcus symbolizes the fluidity of race as he changes his mask from white to Asian and back to white. Hwang then juxtaposes Marcus to DHH and HYH revealing that there is a threshold which Asians encounter because of their skin color. There is a limit to the fluidity of race and then Asian Americans like DHH and HYH reach an obstacle known as the bamboo ceiling. From the workplace to the American dream, our society is racialized in a fashion that limits those not of the dominant race.The contradiction Hwang writes about is not occurring in a vacuumed space but throughout history and to this day. In contrary to Asians, the Irish successfully moved into whiteness (Takaki 154). In the America’s history the Irish took of their mask and assimilated into the mainstream society, but like Hwang wrote, the Asian community still has not. The contradiction between the ever-shifting racial skin and the limitation the Asian’s have faced is parallel to contradictions occurring in our
When DHH’s father is being investigated for illegal political involvement, DHH is interviews by NWOAOC, an unnamed interviewer. While interviewing DHH, NWOAOC claims that Asian Americans are not American which DHH catches. He questions NWOAOC, “There’s a conflict-between being Chinese and being American?” (55-56). NWOAOC represents the greater white public which often believes that Asians can never truly be American. Race, which should not matter in society, limits Asians.The belief that Asians can never be American further perpetuated the forever foreigner trope.To be forever foreigner is to never be accepted into mainstream society for being too different.In the 1990’s, the Anti-Chinese sentiment was deeply rooted in society, labeling the Chinese as the yellow peril (Power-Sotomayor, 4/15/15). The Chinese were accused of stealing jobs and contaminating the superior race.The murder of Vincent Chin perfectly highlights the consequences in being Asian. Vincent Chin, on the night of his bachelor party, was brutally murdered by two white man who claimed that the Chinese had come to America and stolen their jobs. Obviously Chin was not directly involved in the economy’s dip, but because of his skin color he was marginalized and thus murdered (Wu 1). The hatred towards Asian is …show more content…
Marcus symbolizes the fluidity of race as he changes his mask from white to Asian and back to white. Hwang then juxtaposes Marcus to DHH and HYH revealing that there is a threshold which Asians encounter because of their skin color. There is a limit to the fluidity of race and then Asian Americans like DHH and HYH reach an obstacle known as the bamboo ceiling. From the workplace to the American dream, our society is racialized in a fashion that limits those not of the dominant race.The contradiction Hwang writes about is not occurring in a vacuumed space but throughout history and to this day. In contrary to Asians, the Irish successfully moved into whiteness (Takaki 154). In the America’s history the Irish took of their mask and assimilated into the mainstream society, but like Hwang wrote, the Asian community still has not. The contradiction between the ever-shifting racial skin and the limitation the Asian’s have faced is parallel to contradictions occurring in our