Intersectionality of Race and Gender

    The clear issue that we follow throughout Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown is race and how it affects Willis Wu’s opportunities in life. He’s stuck in the roles that society has allotted for him based on racist stereotypes. But, Willis fails to realize how gender is an important factor in women’s life experiences, especially Asian women. While race does inevitably play a large role in how society views an individual and how they experience life, ultimately gender plays a role in worsening women’s life experiences by shrinking them down to just their physical appearance. Yu successfully portrays this through the characters of Karen Lee and Old Asian Woman.

    When Willis and Karen have their first conversation and talk about their backgrounds, Willis is very judgemental of her looks and her supposed privilege. He mistakes her for being completely white, “Things work out pretty good for your kind [white]” (Yu 164). Furthermore, when he finds out about her heritage and how easily she can slip into different roles, he thinks she must love her life. But, she brings the situation back to reality when she says, “I can be objectified by men of all races,” (Yu 165). While Willis looks at her and sees how many roles she can play because she looks white, he fails to realize the complexity of her life as a woman. He simply dismisses her statement by restating that she can “pass for anything” (Yu 166) but doesn’t comprehend how limiting objectification can be, especially when it comes to the roles she can play. Willis himself classifies her as a “Pretty Girl” (Yu 164), confining her to a role that is only about her looks. Yu here makes the commentary that intersectionality is often overlooked by people, especially by people who are singularly affected by an oppressive system. Yu shows this through Willis’ dismissal of Karen’s experience as a woman because she looks white.

    Another woman, specifically an Asian woman, that is severely limited by her physical appearance is Willis’ mother, Old Asian Woman. At the beginning of the novel, we learn about all the roles she plays throughout her life and most of them are related to physical appearance. She plays roles such as Pretty Oriental Flower, Asiatic Seductress, and Beautiful Maiden Number One (Yu 8). What we notice upon observation is that most of these titles reduce her down to her race, her beauty, or both. This phenomenon is once again observed when she recounts her role as a nurse’s assistant and is sexualized by the patients, some calling her a “China doll” (Yu 134). In this part of the novel, Yu points out how Willis’s mother is forced into roles that are stereotyped both by race and gender. She is not just a seductress, she is an Asiatic Seductress. Along the same line, she’s not just a pretty flower, she’s a Pretty Oriental Flower. This is important to highlight because Asian women are sexualized and fetishized by Western countries, leading them to be viewed from a very limited perspective.