‘The Tyranny of Appearance’: Chinese Australian Identities and the Politics

Abstract

Literature located within the burgeoning field of Chinese Australian and AsianAustralian studies highlights salient issues the descendants of Asian migrants face as aracialised minority living in dominant white Australia. This literature has often beeninspired by a growing array of visual and textual narratives written and produced bymulti-generational Asian Australians who explore what it means to be a gay/straight,male/female person of Chinese/Asian descent living in Australia (Ayres 1998, 1999,2000; Chan 2000; Leong 2000; Shun Wah 1999; Wang 1998; Yang 1994, 1995, 1996).Emerging from this, Australian academics and scholars have begun to interrogate theconstruction of contemporary hybridised Asian Australian identities (see Ang et al.2000); gendered representations of Asian Australian identities within Australianliterature (Khoo 1999, 2003a, 2003b; Louie 2002; Louie and Low 2003; Tucker 2000);and the nature of identity politics Asian Australians are forced to engage in as aracialised minority within dominant white Australia (Ang 2000, 2001; Khoo 1999,2001, 2003a, 2003b; Luke and Carrington 2000; Luke and Luke 1998, 1999). Whilethese works are extremely valuable, there is still room for extensive research to becarried out in this field.