#joshua luna

Happy#AAPIHeritageMonth! This self-care kit for Asian Americans applies all year round (and maybe even for years to come).

The post in this link analyzes how Asian men are being hidden in anti-Asian hate crime data. It’s unbelievable that this is even happening and allowed to continue.

Thisnext post analyzes how journalists are part of the problem (including Asian journalists who uphold and defend racist white-controlled platforms/institutions).

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Western media downplays anti-Asian racism and manipulates narratives about it in order to reinforce the Model Minority Myth, the Asian gender divide, and geopolitical tensions in Asia.

Even in so-called progressive outlets, U.S. media invokes Orientalism and even gendered depictions of Asian countries to create a contrast: Evil Misogynist Asia vs. Benevolent White Male West. The goal is to dehumanize Asians, deify whiteness, and justify warmongering against Asia.

Whenever diasporic Asians are harmed by racist violence, U.S. media takes one of three approaches: 1) ignoring the incident, 2) reporting on the incident but erasing the Asianness of victims, or 3) reporting on the incident but questioning whether it’s really racism to blame. 

To ensure AsAms don’t work together to push back against this, U.S. policies and propaganda create a gender divide. The 1942-1943 Mixed Marriage Policy ranks Asians, with monoracial Asian men the least valuable and most threatening. This ranking still exists.

Four years ago, I made a sincere effort to help heal this gender divide by pointing out how all AsAms were hurting and at risk of falling into a cycle of retribution. Instead of taking accountability, AsAms in power targeted, harassed and blacklisted me.

I—along with anyone else who dared to speak up—was repeatedly scolded with the refrain that the harm Asian men experience is not meaningful. Yet looking at the recent data and media narratives about anti-Asian hate crimes, we now have damning evidence of how untrue that is.

In my previous post, I did an in-depth analysis of anti-Asian hate crimes and the role of Stop AAPI Hate as a primary source of data collection. Now I want to talk about how journalists—especially AsAms—have skewed this data into a violently racist narrative.

After the Atlanta shootings, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) shaped the media narrative about Atlanta and anti-Asian hate crimes in general. The problem is that they relied on Stop AAPI Hate data—which over-prioritizes East Asian women over other AAPI victims.

There’s more than sufficient evidence from trustworthy sources like AAPI Data to show Asian men are as likely to be victims of hate crimes as Asian women and also more likely to experience physical assault. So why isn’t AAJA promoting this narrative?

One look at the governing boards of AAJA says a lot. For an organization that is supposed to promote inclusivity of Asian voices in media, there aren’t many Asian men represented. Not only that, but there are more white men than actual Asian men seated in the Asia division.

This erasure of Asian men in anti-Asian hate crime narratives is eerily similar to what happened with my comic Reconciliasian and how Asians in power erased Asian men back then too. Seeing AAJA’s guidance on the Atlanta shootings provides new insight.

What I thought was a fringe mindset among a handful of AsAm journalists was actually a product of top-down marching orders sent out to all AsAm journalists, which then gets disseminated as the mainstream narrative. This intentional erasure of Asian men is racist and violent.

It’s ironic that AsAm leaders push for restorative justice for anti-Asian hate crimes—which emphasizes communication between the perpetrator and victim—yet none of them has owned up to how much harm they’ve caused with their bias. Whenever they’re caught, they just go quiet.

That’s the part of the betrayal that hurts the most. Violent perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes get more sensitivity than actual Asian male victims of hate crimes. I can’t even put into words how heartbroken and angry I am to see this racist abuse play out again and again.

For example, I never forgot the contrast in Juju Chang’s interview of two Atlanta shooting victim’s children. To a daughter she says “your mom would be very proud of you” and to a son she says “what do you think your mother sacrificed for your benefit?”

The lack of empathy towards Asian men is so normalized in media narratives that it’s not even questioned. Here’s a person who lost his mom to a violent hate crime, yet an AsAm journalist felt the need to imply he should feel shame—which is so inappropriate to ask of anyone.

The point of these posts isn’t to say East Asian women or AAPI women in general shouldn’t get attention and resources. It’s to correct the harm of AsAm leaders erasing Asian men, and to make sure all AAPI can get meaningful victim support, resources, and media attention.

But I’m not holding my breath. This requires big changes—including giving Asian men like me a voice—and so far, Asian American leaders have demonstrated strong resistance to holding themselves and their friends accountable. They profit off the harm, and want to continue doing so.

So I anticipate they’ll do what they’ll usually do. Quietly lurk on my posts, steal the content, & then speak over me and other people they’ve harmed in order to portray themselves as the heroes who came in to save the day. With fellow AsAms like these, who needs enemies?

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent
https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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The mainstream media narrative about anti-Asian hate crimes consistently erases Asian men as victims. So when AAPI Data—a well-known source of reputable stats—acknowledged this issue in March, I felt validated for the first time, and decided to find out what went wrong.

Is the erasure of Asian men in anti-Asian hate crime narratives occurring during data collection, analysis, or interpretation by mainstream media? The answer is that deep-seated bias against Asian men is present at all three levels of the process, causing harm along the way.

The reports I read came from a variety of sources: AAPI Data (national surveys), Stop AAPI Hate (community reporting), hate crime statistics (national law enforcement data), and articles and reports from Asian academics and journalists. I focused on these four reports in particular.

Here’s what I found. National survey data (AAPI Data) is considered more reliable than community reporting (Stop AAPI Hate), yet mainstream Asian-led media has relied heavily on Stop AAPI Hate data. Which might not be so bad—if Stop AAPI Hate didn’t show several signs of bias.

Stop AAPI Hate has pushed a media narrative that East Asian women are at the highest risk of physical assault. Yet their most recent national report and survey of AAPI women show that Asian men, enbies, and South Asian women are the most likely to experience physical assault.

Stop AAPI Hate has also pushed the narrative that Asian women are uniquely targeted because of their gender. Yet in both their national report and survey of AAPI women, victims of all genders overwhelmingly attribute these hate incidents to race & ethnicity, not gender.

The omission of Asian men from the narrative of anti-Asian hate crimes is more glaring when Dr. Janelle Wong’s report shows that there’s evidence—even before 2021—that Asian men report violent incidents more often, self-report to community organizations less, and get less media coverage.

It seems Stop AAPI Hate suffers from two major problems: 1) it ignores important patterns in its own data if it doesn’t validate a narrative centering East Asian women, which 2) suggests a biased over-prioritization of EA women in outreach efforts—which impacts self-reporting.

Additionally, Stop AAPI Hate doesn’t collect race data on perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes. Its vague language and ambiguous framework of restorative justice & education seems to favor the perpetrators’ needs more than the needs of actual AAPI victims—which is concerning.

Restorative justice is well-intentioned but has major flaws, including the assumption that the victim has enough English proficiency to understand procedures and communicate their needs. Given what we know about many AAPI victims, this assumption is dangerous and can cause harm.

Anti-Asian hate crimes are vastly under-reported in national law enforcement stats because AAPI feel the least comfortable in reporting them and, like in Atlanta, law enforcement routinely downplays anti-Asian racism due to white supremacist apathy and the Model Minority Myth.

AAPI victims worry about drawing attention to themselves in reporting hate incidents, so they may feel pressured to rush through restorative justice procedures or acquiesce to whatever is proposed, regardless of whether they agree. This defeats the purpose of empowering them.

Also, national hate crime stats show 75% of perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes are white, 25% non-white. So why is restorative justice, an approach meant to protect POC from disproportionate levels of judicial punishment, being applied in a one-size-fits-all approach?

To understand why this is harmful, let’s consider the Atlanta shooter. The AAPI community had to fight loudly to overcome the racist narrative that he had a sex addiction and “had a bad day.” According to Stop AAPI Hate, should we drop all charges and just get him in a classroom?

Overall, vague restorative justice procedures could end up reinforcing the status quo that already exists: perpetrators don’t face appropriate consequences and AAPI victims are disempowered. AAPI deserve full transparency on what restorative justice looks like—upfront.

This doesn’t mean Stop AAPI Hate’s work is useless. But the severe de-prioritization of Asian men raises red flags on what the organization’s purpose is and how much bias is corrupting its work. It means that Asian men are being double victimized—and by our own community no less.

So until Stop AAPI Hate publicly acknowledges the harm it’s caused in its erasure of Asian men, improves its methodology and analysis, and centers victims completely, it shouldn’t be relied on as a primary data source to shape the media narrative about anti-Asian hate crimes.

In this post, I focused mostly on the data and analysis of anti-Asian hate crimes, and Stop AAPI Hate’s role as a primary source. In my next post, I’ll focus on journalism and the mainstream media messaging about anti-Asian hate crimes that gets produced from this data.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my work, please pledge to Patreon or donate to Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these kinds of essays, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent

https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304

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Knowledge is power, but power can corrupt. White institutions teach a select class of Asians to adopt elitism and gatekeeping in order to harm their community and deny lived experiences.

Asian Americans have the largest wealth gap of any U.S. racial group. Elitist Asians are a small percentage, yet they’re purposely given the largest AsAm platforms and resources in order to perpetuate the Model Minority myth and downplay anti-Asian racism. (for more info, see my Monomyth comic)

To be clear, higher education isn’t inherently bad. It’s like any other tool—it can enlighten and empower, or be misused. There are many Asian academics, educators and journalists who resist white supremacy and fight for their communities. But we’re talking about the ones who don’t.

These elitist tokens claim to fight for the most marginalized. In reality, they want to be the only Asian at the white table—the voice for the “voiceless.” White supremacist institutions are happy to seat them there, since tokens don’t dismantle the system but reinforce it.

Netflix’s show The Chair inadvertently captures this dynamic. It was widely touted as positive Asian rep, yet Sandra Oh’s character protected and prioritized a white male colleague/lover from accountability while treating marginalized students and her Black colleague as obstacles. When I saw prominent Asians and other POC gush about feeling seen by Sandra Oh’s The Chair character, I was disappointed—but not surprised. It speaks to their lack of self-awareness and how accustomed they are to trampling over their own people that they don’t think it’s wrong.

This is the major disconnect. We supposedly understand how structural racism works and that higher education—like every other industry in the U.S.—perpetuates white supremacy. Yet POC who get accepted to ivy leagues are not only celebrated, but viewed as automatic leaders.

The truth is, these institutions would never allow POC to matriculate if there was a real threat of them dismantling their bigoted systems. The token’s purpose is to insulate these institutions from accusations of bigotry, promote bootstrap narratives, and keep other POC out. Asian tokens know that to keep these prestigious positions of power, they must avoid being seen as a threat by white people. So, despite making outward claims of dismantling the Model Minority myth, they internalize it as fact—to the point of adopting white guilt as their own.

Tokens mask their gaslighting, bullying, and abuse by over-intellectualizing racism—the way white people taught them to. We’re seeing this with anti-Asian hate crimes, and how tokens police language and emotions while creating a hierarchy of which victims matter and which ones don’t.

This includes the thorny but necessary conversation of holding other POC accountable for anti-Asian violence—especially the Black community. Even though white people commit the majority of anti-Asian hate crimes, there’s also a significant pattern of Black people doing it too.

But according to elitist Asians tokens, that pattern isn’t relevant, and Asians shouldn’t be upset or talking about it. This is because, in internalizing the Model Minority myth, elitist Asians see themselves as above other POC and think accountability is anti-Black. It’s not.

Let’s be clear: assaulting Asians for being Asian is violent racism. The attacker’s race doesn’t change this. While we should be sensitive to the context of white supremacy when holding Black people and other POC accountable, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss it at all.

Yet elitist Asian tokens sabotage efforts towards solidarity, healing, and progress because they project their class privilege onto a community that is larger and far more vulnerable than them. Meanwhile, white people are happy to let tensions between Asians and Black people remain.

The situation is frustrating and sad. How much violence could we have prevented if our communities did a better job of educating and tackling difficult conversations head-on instead of avoiding them? How much solidarity is lost because we’re at the whims of tokens who don’t care?

It’s ironic that the ones who supposedly understand the power of education the best are using it the worst. But that’s exactly what white supremacy wants: violence, division, and ignorance. That’s why it’s up to all of us to speak up and spark these conversations—so we can learn.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent

https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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We’re told the play Hamilton is progressive because of its racial diversity. So I wondered, what other white male historical figures will benefit from such revisionist storytelling?

When it comes to race, liberals and conservatives have a good cop/bad cop dynamic. Even though they show it differently, both are racist and use the same tactic of weaponizing POC as tokens. Hamilton is a perfect example of the insidious ways bigotry functions in liberal spaces. Whereas POC tokens on the right espouse obvious bigotry, tokens on the left will mask their self-hate by appearing to push back on racism. Instead, they perpetuate racism through more “acceptable” means, such as colorism, colorblind casting, classism, exceptionalism, etc.

As many in the Black community have pointed out, the so-called progressive casting of Hamilton and its hip-hop infused storytelling turned Black characters into slave owners and villains to the lighter-skinned heroes. But none of that criticism mattered because liberals loved it. Once liberals love something, it feeds an impenetrable ouroboros-esque media ecosystem—from who gets cast, which platforms write about it, who goes viral for praising it, etc. They push white-worshipping narratives into the mainstream to say to POC “this is how you do it.”

A few years ago, most of the complaints about Asian representation is that there wasn’t any. Since then, we’ve made progress in getting more Asian faces on screen. However, many of the narratives for this newfound Asian rep is still white at their core—the same way Hamilton is.

Darren Criss is a good example of what white-worshipping media liberalism looks like in action for AsAms. He once said “I always say one of my favorite things about myself is that I’m half-Filipino, but I don’t look like it. I just look like a Caucasian guy, which is nice.” Criss refused to apologize or acknowledge he (and other white-mixed Asians) benefit from the colorism he blatantly gushed about. Everything he said afterward was clearly damage control and revisionist. But here’s the most frustrating part: he’s still touted as positive Fil-Am rep.

Darren Criss is hardly the only example. Media like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before or Raya and the Last Dragon have been touted as progress, but they’re just Asian faces on white stories. White people—especially white men—still control the purse strings and decide what gets approved.

Where does that leave creators of color who truly challenge white supremacy? They get left behind, while the ones who mold themselves into tokens—to keep the system in place—get boosted to the top with resources and accolades because they don’t want to “throw away their shot.”

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent

https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Make America Mask Again (even though it barely did to begin with).

Unlike Asia, the West associates wearing masks with weakness and fascism, rather than a civic duty to protect themselves and others. As if forcing sick individuals to work or be in situations that can literally kill—just to keep the capitalist machine running—isn’t tyrannical.

Asians are triply targeted in this pandemic. We are potential COVID victims like anyone else, yet also get blamed for the pandemic, and then get treated as “dirty” carriers of the disease even more when we wear a mask. This leads to violent anti-Asian hate crimes against us.

It isn’t Asian to care about others and mask up. It’s basic empathy and hygiene—which many Americans lack. To my fellow Asians out there who’ve been masking from the start and never stopped even though it added another target to your back, I see you. Hang in there.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent.
https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Although the popularity of K-pop and K-dramas has increased the visibility of Asian men in the U.S., it hasn’t cured anti-Asian racism—it just gave it a facelift.

Before we begin, let’s remember plastic surgery is a sensitive topic. This isn’t about body-shaming individuals who get it. It’s about understanding the broad patterns of racism and systemic body-shaming that pressure Asians (and other POC) into getting surgery in the first place.

Many people see K-pop and K-dramas as an organic expression of Korean culture, immune to the long reach of U.S. imperialism. This is due to the misconception that Asians in Asia are culturally purer, a group untouched by Western influence, compared to a “diluted” Asian diaspora.

Yet South Korea is like the Philippines—their wars with the U.S. may have ended years ago, but U.S. influence and control didn’t. Instead, these countries became de facto neo-colonies, which is reflected in the kinds of media that gets produced and is allowed to reach U.S. shores.

In the Philippines, 333+ years of Spanish and U.S. colonization created a preference for actors with Spanish/white features. This minority population is used to represent the majority and to promote narratives that depict their features as superior—thus reinforcing the preference.

This is similar to the U.S., where white-mixed and white-passing Asians dominate the few Asian media roles available—like Keanu. He’s often touted as the most famous AsAm rep, yet always avoids directly calling himself Asian and said he doesn’t want to be a spokesperson for AsAms.

Korea is different. It doesn’t have a sizeable white-mixed population like the U.S. or Philippines. If the U.S. had a foothold in Korea for as long as Spain did in the Philippines, we’d likely see the same casting preferences. Instead, cosmetic surgery is used to compensate.

Double eyelid surgery was popularized during the Korean War by Ralph Millard, a white male military doctor who first used it on war brides brought to the U.S. His goal was to “deorientalize” them. To him and other whites, bad Asians had slanted eyes, and good Asians had surgery.

Since then, double eyelid and other surgeries have been normalized for all genders in Korea. Boys as young as 13 start to visit clinics for procedures. The current estimate is that 20% of Korean men get surgery, but some surgeons say it’s 30-40%. All agree the number is growing.

This violent “deorientalization” of the Asian face doesn’t stop with eye shape. Jaws, noses, cheeks, lips, brows, and dark skin are all eligible for being broken, shaved, filled will silicone implants, bleached, reshaped. The ideal Asian face has as few Asian features possible.

After all, the U.S. has always depicted Asian men as violent and misogynistic savages. Whether it’s Little Brown Brothers, Yellow Peril, or current tensions with China, the message is the same: Asian men are a violent threat to be exterminated.
This pressures Asians to be “good.”

That’s why K-dramas are increasingly filled with U.S.-friendly content—like product placement (Subway, eat fresh!), English loan words, clothing with U.S. college names on them like Harvard or UCLA, and storylines that portray the U.S. as a superior destination to study and live. 

The U.S. is more than happy to encourage this. It’s consistent with its strategy of dividing “good Asians” from “bad Asians.” It’s the same reasoning for the Model Minority myth, Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942-1943, and the separation between North and South Korea. (Mixed Marriage Policy: https://joshualunacreations.tumblr.com/post/652731177564766208/masticasian)

The Mixed Marriage Policy and War Brides sound like a bygone era. But a recently released American Girl doll is a modern example of how this racist messaging persists. The doll is meant to raise awareness of anti-Asian racism, yet Asian males are not included as victims.

This disturbing storyline suggests an off-screen Asian ex-husband (their kids are monoracial) who offers less money and less of a home environment than the rich white new husband. This teaches Asian kids to think white men are superior and not the architects of anti-Asian racism.

Those who are threatened by Asian men having a healthy self-image often dismiss these issues as “desirability politics” and don’t treat it as the violent, hateful racism it is. Normalizing this dehumanization leads to violence like COVID hate crimes and war. It’s not trivial.

So while we can enjoy K-pop and K-dramas for the entertainment they give (I certainly do), we can also critique the damaging anti-Asian narratives they’re promoting and not internalize them. Everyone deserves to love their face and their body as it is—regardless of race and gender.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Holy manananggal, Batman! Since #FilipinoAmericanHistoryMonth coincides with both #Batober and #Halloween, I thought it’d be fun to re-imagine Batman and Batwoman as Fil-Ams.

Bruce Waynaldo wasn’t born to extremely wealthy parents who were killed by a petty thief. Instead, his parents were struggling immigrants, who spent years laboring in inhumane working conditions in U.S. factories and were ultimately killed by the corporate thieves running them.

He dons the Batsuit to steal from corrupt elites to not only give back to Fil-Ams and other communities of color, but also finance his campaign of vengeance against his powerful enemies. He’s aided by his tito Alfred, who gathers intel on the rich as a housekeeper for hire.

Kate Kanalan enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps to make her military family proud, only to later realize she was just a pawn for the U.S. empire and its colonization of Asia and the Pacific. She retires and becomes Batwoman instead, protecting civilians from police brutality.

Openly gay, she uses her media visibility as Batwoman to campaign for equal rights and better legislative protections—striking fear in homophobes and awe in the ladies. Inspired by Bruce Waynaldo’s example, she donates her pension to homeless veterans and LGBTQ youth organizations.

While re-imagining white superheroes as people of color isn’t a perfect panacea, it’s one way to improve a lack of Fil-Am representation in comics and other media. So if DC wants a Fil-Am creator to write a Fil-Am Bat family, they know where to point those Bat-Signal lips.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent

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Last weekend at Diversity Comic Con, I spoke at the Countering Asian Hate panel with Enrica Jang, Wendy Chin-Tanner, and Dr. Kyunghee Pyun about anti-Asian racism, institutional barriers in comics and publishing, and how Asian American creators can confront it.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhkGXmI2CeA

This panel was a great opportunity to have difficult but necessary conversations about issues our community is facing. For me, I shared my experiences of being rejected by Image and getting harassed online for my AsAm comics, and my journey of developing racial awareness in my work.

Even though AsAms are struggling, I find hope in how we’re coming together as a community to tackle these issues, and using art & storytelling as one of our tools to do so.

Thank you Ramon Gil for inviting me and creating a space for AsAm creators to speak about our experiences.

If Garfield was Filipino. Or Furipino. Or Purripino?

Update: I’ve had quite a few people online tell me they’re interested in purchasing the ‘‘not a tabo’’ mug, so I decided to make it and offer it as merch. Stay tuned!

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Although I majored in Sequential Art (comics) in college, I also took acting classes as electives because—like many—it was a childhood dream. But what a professor said to me was a wake-up call.

Obviously, it wasn’t just one moment or individual that deterred me from pursuing acting. It ultimately wasn’t my calling—comics were. But I highlight this moment because it’s a symptom of how Asians are viewed and portrayed on a larger societal and institutional level.

SCAD was majority-white, so there were few Asians and other POC on campus. I remember being shocked seeing a Filipino guy perform in the play HAIR, and at the time, a lot of Hollywood productions were being filmed in Savannah. So this environment inspired me to try out acting.

For the most part, I realized breaking in required two things: knowing martial arts, and serving up Asianness for laughs. This isn’t to knock martial arts because it’s part of our culture and we should be proud of it. The problem is Asians are rarely depicted as full human beings.

In every kind of media, Asians have been and continue to be used as props for a non-Asian gaze, restricted from the full spectrum of the human experience. For Asian men, this means kung fu masters, nameless goons, or Ken Jeong-types whose sole purpose is to self-denigrate.

It says a lot that to this day, 42% of Americans can’t name a single famous Asian American. When asked to name one, the top response was “don’t know,” followed by actor Jackie Chan in 2nd—who is not a U.S. citizen—and deceased actor Bruce Lee in 3rd.

The worst part is Asians are blamed for our own oppression. We’re fed myths about how we lack personalities, marketability, good looks, etc. Usually, Asians are perceived as likeable only if there’s white heritage—which is why half-white Asians tend to get more opportunities.

Although I entered the comic book industry as a writer and artist, I ended up in Hollywood spaces anyway via the TV/film adaptation process. From there I learned it doesn’t matter if Asians are in front of or behind the camera—the stereotypes hold us back no matter where we are.

This is why Asians need to be in control of our own stories, and we need Asian creators who don’t cater to a non-Asian gaze. For more of my thoughts on this subject: https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1305941251393544193

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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Pet owners don’t usually think about how our culture affects our pets. Seeing my dog Pogi grow up, I wonder how much of his preferences are influenced by being in a Fil-Am home.

Here’s Pogi. No matter what’s going on in life, he always makes me smile.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

I lost my publisher, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent.
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#StopAsianHate is meaningless until we acknowledge white men as the architects of anti-Asian racism, and the blueprints they use to divide the Asian community and sabotage progress.

Understanding anti-Asian racism means connecting its history in the U.S. with its history in Asia, instead of treating them separately. U.S. imperialism, war, and colonization abroad directly informs the racism Asian Americans experience because the goal is the same: divide, conquer, and kill.

White men used war to split Korea and Vietnam in two, and divide AsAms the same way. One blueprint of the U.S.’s domestic anti-Asian strategy is the Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942-1943. Implemented during Japanese Internment, it gave certain Asians special exemptions to leave camp.

Internment was meant to harm Japanese Americans, not white men with Japanese families (whiteness is why few German and Italian Americans were interned). So, the Mixed Marriage Policy let Japanese leave camps if they:

1) married a non-Japanese

2) proved a “Caucasian environment.”

The Mixed Marriage Policy had two versions. In 1942, few Asians were eligible—especially monoracial Japanese men. The 1943 version greatly expanded eligibility for monoracial Japanese women and mixed-Japanese adults, but eliminated nearly all eligibility for monoracial Japanese men.

Each eligible case required proving a “Caucasian environment.” So while on paper the MMP offered exemptions to non-white mixed-Japanese couples and their kids, they were rarely granted. The MMP’s real goal was to benefit white men with Japanese wives and mixed-white Japanese children.

Overall, the Mixed Marriage Policy reveals white men’s hierarchy of Asians:

1) mixed-white Asian adults

2) monoracial Asian women married to white men and with white-mixed children

3) monoracial Asian men—preferably deported, divorced, detained in an internment camp, or dead.

By explicitly laying out white men’s hierarchy of Asians, the MMP is an incredibly revealing anti-Asian document. Which is perhaps why it’s so difficult to find—the original documents are at the National Archives and aren’t digitized (must pay to see them).

There’s good reason for white men wanting to hide the MMP. It’s a Rosetta Stone for understanding the motivations of many modern anti-Asian hate crimes like the NYC Hammer killings, Atlanta spa shootings, and Isla Vista massacre. Each can be directly tied to the roadmap MMP provides.

The 2019 NYC hammer killings occurred when a white man saw films vilifying Asian men and wanted to “defend” Asian women. He entered a buffet to hammer random Asian men in the head. They all died slowly: Fufai Pun later that day, Kheong Ng-Thang 3 days later, Tsz Pun a week later.

The 2021 Atlanta spa shootings occurred because a white man blamed Asian women for his “sex addiction.” He shot at multiple Asian massage workers and planned on targeting more. Victims include Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue.

The 2014 Isla Vista massacre occurred because a functionally-white, white-mixed Asian hated white women who rejected him & men of color. He assaulted monoracial Asian men several times and murdered three—Cheng Yuan Hong, Weihan Wang, and George Chen—by stabbing them 15, 25, and 94 times.

Many people believe anti-Asian racism started with COVID, but as these examples show, Asians have always suffered violence. The problem is our stories are purposely erased and twisted to double-victimize us and reinforce the lies of the Model Minority Myth. This happens two ways.

The first erasure comes from white people in government, news, education, and more. White men know coverage can humanize—or destroy. That’s why the racial component of Isla Vista was removed, the hammer killings were downplayed, and “sex addiction” was used to justify Atlanta.

The second erasure sadly comes from complicit Asians. The MMP’s core concept is clear: to be spared fatal anti-Asian racism, you must actively show loyalty to whiteness by proving a “Caucasian environment"—in other words, dodge the bullet by redirecting it to another Asian’s head.

Complicit Asians say criticizing their complicity condemns interracial relationships. It doesn’t. There were Japanese whose white spouses stood by them—like Arthur Ishigo, whose wife Estelle voluntarily joined his camp. He later died of cancer and she lost her legs to gangrene.

These days complicit Asians aren’t restricted by gender or marriage. Anyone can be one (although partnering with white men remains the easiest way to do this). To prove their "Caucasian environment,” they must punch down on Asians with equal or greater hate than white men do.

For ex, complicit Asians write articles telling Asian Americans to not label anti-Asian violence as hate crimes until white officials say so, disrespect Asian male Isla Vista victims by blaming their deaths on Asianness, and so on. They’re not bringing awareness—they’re sabotaging it.

That’s by design. White men know in-fighting wastes AsAm energy. So, they recruit complicit Asians, give them a monopoly on AsAm resources, microphones, and platforms—despite being a minority in AsAm spaces—and watch as they perpetuate the status quo rather than dismantle it.

This all comes back to the same violent, imperialist strategies white men have used against Asian countries for centuries: rape and pillage, divide and conquer, install puppet leaders. Drive Asians out of Asia through violence, dangle the “American dream,” then murder us more.

This means the MMP’s relevance is twofold: 1) white men’s hierarchy of Asians endures to this day, and 2) rising hate crimes show how easy it is to bring internment back. Between 2020 and 2021, overall hate crimes dropped by 7%, but anti-Asian hate crimes spiked 149%.

So to #StopAsianHate, it’s not enough to talk about the "easy” topics. We must also address the “taboos.” This includes the violent ways whiteness recruits Asians so it can Trojan Horse its way into our communities, shut down progress, and endanger us all—exactly as intended.

Thank you to Ashlynn Deu Pree, Paul Spickard, and Adrienne Edgar for their help with points of contact and data.

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When you think of Mormons, you probably think of whiteness—and you’d be correct, since 93% are white. What you don’t think of is Filipinx.

And yet, for two years, I was a Mormon.

Before this, I grew up in a loosely Catholic upbringing and rarely went to church. But after my dad left the U.S. Navy and our family, we moved back to the U.S. and lived with cousins who were Mormons. There, we were regularly visited by missionaries, and eventually converted.

Much like being a Navy brat, converting was less of a choice and more of a package family deal. I just went along with it to make everyone happy. But what I didn’t know was that going from kind-of-Catholic to Mormon was stepping out of the kiddie pool and going in the deep end.

I learned of their living prophet and apostles, the Book of Mormon and its golden plates history, and Jesus coming to America after resurrection. I saw ostentatious temples, and heard about special underwear and polygamy. But I wasn’t taught its racist roots—that was something I felt, not knew.

Meanwhile, my art at the time was inspired by graffiti/tagging and the AZN pride era, a pan-Asian movement that cultivated a positive view of being Asian American. It was the era of tuner culture, souped up Hondas, spiky hair, TRG, Asian Avenue, and AIM screennames like aZnBbyGrL.

AZN spaces weren’t utopias by any stretch. But at its core, it represented community and herd protection in a country that didn't—and still doesn't—want AsAms here. While non-Asian spaces pressured me to assimilate, AZN spaces provided a bubble where I could be myself more.

For Asians, the pressure to assimilate and learn self-hate is universal. But for Filipinx, there’s an added pressure with religion. Everyone who hears I was once Mormon thinks it’s the strangest thing (which I get), but the concept of Filipinx being converted is far from new.

Catholicism was forcibly thrust onto the Philippines upon Magellan’s arrival, and subsequently reinforced through 333 years of violent Spanish colonization. Today, the Philippines is 1 of 2 Southeast Asian countries with a majority Christian population (the other is East Timor).

Even though I’m Fil-Am, I feel connected to my ancestors through my experience of white Mormon missionaries dunking me in their colonizing waters, washing off “sinful” mindsets or behaviors that didn’t fit their specific mold. No matter where Filipinx live, whiteness finds us.

To this day, I feel pressure to “purify” my art and make myself smaller as a Filipino man. I know I’m not alone. Every day, Asians struggle with “baptisms.” We search for an AsAm pride, but it’s something we must create ourselves—not despite anti-Asian racism but because of it.

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For Fil-Ams and other people of color, the “American Dream” often means toiling away just to obtain a small piece of the spoils that were violently ripped away from your community.

Second-gen Asian Americans like me grow up oblivious about our own histories because the U.S. education system purposely withholds information about it, and our parents try to outrun their trauma by never sharing their experiences, instead pushing their children toward an assimilation sleepwalk.

AsAms realize too late we’ve inherited a deal with the devil we never agreed to: we can keep our language, but only if we speak it privately. Our food, if we serve it. Our culture, if it upholds the illusion of America as a benevolent melting pot that saved us from ourselves.

But AsAms aren’t the only ones ignorant of this history. Few Americans know of the Philippine-American War and the atrocities the US committed. Even fewer understand how the U.S.’s ongoing legacy of war, destruction, and colonization in Asia is a major reason the AsAm diaspora exists.

Americans aren’t taught about how centuries of exploitation of the Philippines’ resources by Western powers has led to most of its workforce immigrating and becoming a global servant class called Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Instead, they’re taught that poverty is inherent to Filipinx culture.

Americans aren’t taught about how the US installs and props up puppet leaders and dictators—like how Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan fully backed Marcos as he ruled under martial law and committed human rights violations. Instead, they’re taught corruption is inherent to Filipinx culture.

Americans aren’t taught that colonization is bipartisan and Trump and Biden agree on their view of the Philippines: a de facto colony whose resources and bodies can be exploited with impunity for the US war machine. Instead, they’re taught servitude is inherent to Filipinx culture.

Americans aren’t taught about one-sided US military agreements used to keep an imperialist foothold: the Mutual Defense Treaty, Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, Visiting Forces Agreement & Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Instead, they’re told it’s for mutual benefit.

American’s aren’t taught about how many AsAms struggle with poverty, institutional racism, and violence. Instead, they’re taught the Model Minority Myth—created by white people and propagated by all races—that says Asians don’t suffer race-based oppression.

Americans aren’t taught about how Fil-Ams give earnings to family, live in multi-generational households to pool money together, and how the Philippines’ economy would collapse without OFW remittances. Instead, they’re taught Fil-Ams have a high median household income amongst AsAms.

Americans aren’t taught about how AsAm leaders are installed with white backing the same way puppet leaders are, and use their shared race to hurt their own and prevent true progress. Instead, they’re taught that privileged, out-of-touch blue-checks are the voice of our community.

So if Americans aren’t taught any of this, who will teach them? The ugly truth is that AsAms who try to speak up are often crushed into silence by non-Asians who benefit from the status quo, and by Asian puppet leaders who’ve been installed to protect their masters’ interests.

Overall, being Filipinx and Asian means constantly navigating survival between rotating oppressors.

As an ex-Navy brat who grew up overseas, I’ve struggled with my concept of home and at one point believed “home” was a US military base. But maybe that’s as Fil-Am as it gets.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent

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joshualunacreations:

(Please don’t repost or edit my work. Reblogs are always appreciated. Support my work here: https://www.patreon.com/joshualuna)

History has shown Filipinx are valued for our labor, not our voices. But the only thing more consistent than our exploitation and oppression is our resilience in the face of it. #FilipinoAmericanHistoryMonth

There are many horror stories about Filipinx being mistreated. Whether working in our home countries or as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), we’re treated as a servant class no matter where we are—suffering long hours, low wages and benefits, and intentionally dehumanizing treatment.

For example, in 2019, a Filipina maid in Saudi Arabia was tied to a tree as “punishment” by her employers. An animator in the Philippines was fired for demanding a full-time salary for his full-time work. Filipina nurses who tried to quit an abusive New York nursing home got stuck in indentured servitude. Out of 66 US allies in WWII, only Filipino vets were denied payment and benefits that the US promised. Call center employees working as outsourced low-wage labor for US corps who’ve earned promotions and higher pay are given unrealistic quotas to get them fired. The list goes on.

I even experienced this myself in May, when I lost my publisher of 10+ years for—ironically—talking about the racism and oppression Filipinx and other Asians face. They were happy to publish my stories centering non-Filipinx, but not when I decided to center myself and other Fil-Ams.

In my industry (comics), the exploitation of Filipinx is a well-kept secret. In a recently released video by DC Comics—which was meant to highlight Filipinx creators—they inadvertently admit to hiring Filipinx only to circumvent paying striking American creators better wages.

But Filipinx don’t stay silent, we fight back. From legendary Lapu-Lapu, Gabriela Silang, and the Katipunan—who resisted Spanish colonization and fought for independence—to Fil-Am labor leader Larry Itliong, Filipinx have a long tradition of organizing protests and revolutions.

Yet when we do speak up, our contributions can still be erased—sometimes by other POC. Itliong spearheaded a highly effective labor movement in the 30s and 40s when he organized the Delano grape strike and unionized laborers, but his work is often credited solely to César Chávez. A search for Itliong’s name will result in articles and books that always acknowledge his collaboration with Chávez. But if you search for Chávez’s name, Itliong is rarely mentioned. This erasure hurts even more so because the whole movement was about solidarity between Mexican-Americans and Fil-Ams.

What this means is Filipinx are seen as exploitable labor by pretty much everyone: whites, other POC, even our own. That’s why a major part of the Philippines’ economy relies on remittances from OFWs sending their earnings home—one of the country’s biggest exports is people.

So on this last day of #FilipinoAmericanHistoryMonth, let’s all commit to fighting racial and class injustice, uplifting Fil-Am and Filipinx voices, and recognizing Filipinx contributions all year-round.

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to Patreon or donate to Paypal. I recently lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent.

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Happy Birthday to Fil-Am hero, Larry Itliong, who gave America the finger. (Three, in fact, which he lost in a cannery accident.)

joshualunacreations:

White supremacy benefits from the low voter turnout of Asian-Americans. Why? Because when we do vote, we have the potential to make up the winning margin.

This Election Day, Fil-Am Man wants you to #FlipTheHouse. Vote on Nov 6!

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In 2018, we flipped the House. In 2020, let’s keep the House, and flip the White House and the Senate.

It’s not a perfect solution, but voting is one way to use your voice and work towards something better than this nightmare. #Vote#VoteEarly

The reason America hates wearing a mask is because it prefers showing its true face.

For some, this spike in anti-Asian racism comes as a surprise, or seems like it’s the first time it’s happening. But that’s because the Model Minority Myth—created by white people—has tricked both white people and POC into thinking Asianness is a privilege. (For more info, see my comic “Asian American Monomyth” https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1107709119992119297)

But history shows what America really thinks. The Page Act of 1875 legally codified Asian women as immoral, disease-carrying prostitutes in order to ban them from the US and extended that ban to Asian men with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. These sentiments have never left. This is why Asian Americans are always portrayed as the perpetual foreigner—we “don’t belong here” and can be removed on a whim via ongoing deportations or mob violence, such as the 1930 lynching of Filipino men in Watsonville and the 1871 lynching of Chinese in L.A., and the current COVID-inspired attacks.

Trump calling COVID “the Chinese virus” has the same intent—to distract from his violent negligence, stump for war with China, and put a target on Asians so we’ll bear the brunt of COVID frustrations instead of him. Over 2,500 anti-Asian incidents have been reported since March. As if anti-Asian violence weren’t enough, structural racism means COVID is more deadly to POC. For example, Filipinx nurses comprise 4% of nurses in the U.S., but make up 31.5% of all nurse deaths. Also, many Fil-Ams live in multi-generational households—which increases risk.

Trump and his supporters know COVID is deadly, but sabotage efforts to stop its spread because their goal is eugenics—the same way the U.S. infected Native Americans with smallpox, or how the Reagan administration ignored HIV since it disproportionately killed LGBTQ and Black communities.

But right-wingers aren’t the only racists. If you’re wondering how a man who wants to “Free Hong Kong" hates Asians, it’s the same reason why racists claim to support Uyghurs yet don’t care about Trump’s Muslim ban, U.S. atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, or oppression of Palestinians. It’s the same reason the U.S. “supports” Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines, Hawai'i, and Japan, and why U.S. soldiers took Asian wives via the 1945 War Brides Act (a loophole to anti-immigration laws). It’s not because they like Asians and Pacific Islanders—they see us/our lands as strategic assets or spoils of war.

This shows how diasporic Asian lives are always inextricably linked to the fate of Asians abroad & vice versa. US imperialism has murdered millions of Asians via war in the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos & left a multi-generational impact. (For more info, see my comic “Detonasian” https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1181638490120957952)

So it isn’t enough to stop the spread of COVID—we have to stop the spread of anti-Asian racism too. That means rejecting the lies of the Model Minority, speaking out against anti-Asian COVID attacks, and acknowledging just how pervasive and deeply embedded anti-Asian racism is.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304
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