nuAZN | #32. MYTHOS

nu AZN mythos

Editor in Chief

Kaavya Butaney Publisher

Yinuo Wang

Print Managing Editor

William Tong

Leisure District Editors

Cate Bikales, Meryl Li

Leisure District Assistant Editor

Katie Tsang

Creative Directors

Gracie Kwon

Michelle Sheen

Photo Director

Lianna Amoruso

Worldwide Editors

Aviva Bechky, Casey He, Jerry Wu

Worldwide Assistant Editor

Esther Lian

Corporate

Selina Jiang, Maya Ramaswamy Multimedia Editors

Kunjal Bastola, Shravya Pant, Anavi Prakash Multimedia Producers

Indra Dalasaikhan, Meryl Li, Xiaotian Shangguan, Diane Zhao

Photographers

Erica Cao, Joyce Huang, Yujin Tatar Section Designers

Jessica Chen, Indra Dalasaikhan, Jackie Li, Mariana Ma, Xiaotian Shangguan, Julian Tang, Maya Wong, June Woo, Allen You, Diane Zhao

Web Developer

Beatrice Villaflor

Contributors

Edward Simon Cruz, Misha Oberoi, Moksha Paudel, Rachel Yoon, Jerry Zhou Models

Bethany Cho, Toubby Chau, Jenny Guo, Zara Hasnani, Henry Im, Ady Lam, Palmy Lamsam, Wes Lu, Cadence Mark, Thrinav Sathya, Ada Zhong

Editor’s Note

To write a story is to retell it — pick the moments to emphasize, details to crystallize and images to immortalize. A story lives beyond words on a page, the product of generations before us and a stepping stone to the future. We pass down stories, transforming them as we do, molding the greatest ones into intergenerational, continuously evolving epics.

Myths can conjure widely held falsities, tales of origin and legends of beasts and humans. A deeper look, though, yields a larger understanding that myths are the roots of not just the stories we tell, but the lives we live. They shape the branches of the world we continue to create.

Throughout these pages, find the mythos we both love and despise, the complex beliefs and experiences that we, as Asians and Asian Americans, contain. On page 12, hear Asian American men interrogate their gender against an emasculating Westernized lens. Flip to page 14 to see how the model minority myth places overwhelming burdens on

young shoulders. Peak through page 19 to watch myths unfold in our own gardens and backyards. On page 35, read how an old fable translates to a hectic day at Northwestern.

The 32nd issue of mythos. It reflects its talented staffers and refracts their work and reflections back at you through its carefully curated pages. In this magazine, we intend to give you another perspective on and expose some of the misconceptions within our daily lives. Beyond this magazine, you can find our staffers’ multimedia productions on our new website, nuazn.com. Without our creative writers, meticulous editors, artistic designers, inspired photographers or skilled producers, our mythical vision wouldn’t have become a reality.

GLASS SKINSHATTERING

Deep cleansing Korean skincare.

STORY BY RACHEL YOON | DESIGN BY MARIANA MA PHOTOS BY JOYCE HUANG

Iopened up FaceTime on my laptop.

After a few rings, my friend picked up from across the country. We exchanged hellos, and then she said the best compliment a Korean can hear: “Your skin looks really good.”

Double cleanse. Glass skin. The never-ending rotation of Korean beauty products that command the attention of influencers. As the beauty industry shifts into minimalism and embracing “natural beauty,” skincare has become a key weapon in the battle for authenticity. If you can be “beautiful” without makeup, you’ve won.

In the U.S., social media craze and marketing rhetoric have mythologized Korean skincare into a gilded promise: the key to unlocking glowy, clear skin, behind smokey mirrors of mystical Asian practices and exotic ingredients.

Every few videos on my TikTok For You feed are reviews raving about the latest imported moisturizer, cleanser or sunscreen. They reflect the growing reach of Korean skincare in America. According to the International Trade

Council, Korean beauty products, also known as K-Beauty, have increased their exports by 21.7 % from 2023.

“My entire skincare routine right now is Korean, minus some of the topical creams,” Communication first-year Sally Hyouji Joo says. “They’re all the super popular ones right now you see all over TikTok.”

As a kid in a Korean household, Joo says she became self-conscious about her skin because of frequent comments about it from her mom. To avoid buying too many popular products, she says she does her research by consulting reviews on YouTube as well as Olive Young, a popular health and beauty store in Korea.

Although this buzz around K-Beauty seems relatively recent, its growth has been years in the making. Korean skincare first entered the US market in 2011, when skincare brand Dr. Jart+ hit shelves at Sephora. Now, newer brands like Beauty of Joseon, Anua and COSRX have dominated the skincare landscape.

McCormick first-year Clarissa Shieh says she started using skincare in middle school when she needed to treat her cystic acne. She had an elaborate skincare routine

throughout high school, but has recently found Korean skincare because of TikTok.

“At least compared to American products, I feel like they have more special ingredients for a more affordable price,” Shieh says. “I think a lot of [ingredients] are targeted towards calming, unlike a lot of American skincare, which is harsher.”

Charlotte Cho, co-founder of major U.S. and Korean skincare retailer Soko Glam, echoes this in an interview with Shondaland. She says K-Beauty is not a “quick fix” but an investment consumers make that is “grounded in Asian cultural practices.”

The exoticism of “the East” often pervades narratives about Korean skincare to the point of muddling why exactly it is considered so much better. To learn more about common Korean skincare ingredients, I started reading a Refinery29 article only to realize that each ingredient had links to three products I could buy. Can you really trust a source if they’re trying to sell something to you?

While skincare has generally been built on the insecurities of consumers, this specific glorification of Korean skincare rubs me the wrong way. The very philosophy of Korean skincare, such as the use of “gentle, medicinal

ingredients” or the detailed, multi-step skincare routine, makes it an inextricable part of daily life. Just as marketing can convince you to take your vitamins in the morning, it integrates skincare into your life, telling you to double cleanse and use toner before serum. Korean skincare moguls transform skincare into a “need,” marketed as an act of healing — as if unclear skin is a sin.

One company called byAVA sells a variety of supplements and teas that are supposed to improve your health and, by proxy, your beauty. Upon closer inspection, their site spouts more mythicizing rhetoric: “ancient herbs, superfoods, and fortunately, my family’s secret traditional recipes that have been passed down through generations.”

There is nothing wrong with using skincare, but the Korean skincare craze equates it to a necessity. Korean skin has been compared to glass, which is truly apt for how skincare makes many feel: always on the outside looking in, almost enough but not quite (unless you use the new Beauty of Joseon cream and

serum, a combination “designed to work in synergy, providing your skin with the nutrients and care it needs to glow from within” — whatever that means.)

At the end of the day, skincare is made for profit. According to a report by Straits Research, K-Beauty products had a global revenue holding of $8.3 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $18.32 billion by 2030.

Not only do consumers run the risk of thinking skincare is necessary, but Korean skincare hosts many problematic subliminal messages. How many times have I tried a product in Korea only to spot the words “anti-aging” or “brightening” and immediately feel a sense of dread? At the ripe age of 18, I am being guilted about my tan and considering wrinkles I may not get for another decade or two.

Until I moved to Seoul eight years ago, I did not think much about my appearance. There, I stuck out, boasting a tan only a Korean raised in America could possibly have. Pale skin is the order

Glass or Pass

Retinol - skeptical, skin cell proliferating and exfoliating, anti-aging, but can cause dry skin, irritation, peeling

Rice water - skeptical, helps with dry skin/skin irritation, but claims about benefits for acne, skin lightening, and inflammation unproven

Centella asiatica (Asianitic or Indian pennywort) - skeptical, moisturizing and antiinflammatory, but claims about anti-aging qualities unproven

Propolis (resin) - helpful, antimicrobial and antiinflammatory, used to treat wounds, anti-aging antioxidants

New show, old fans

STORY BY MOKSHA PAUDEL

DESIGN BY DIANE ZHAO

Nostalgia bends Avatar live-action reactions.

Almost 20 years after the show first aired, animated childhood favorite Avatar: The Last Airbender captured its former viewers’ attention with a new live-action show. The transition to a live-action format brought both anticipation and scrutiny. Historically, ATLA has been an important show to Asian Americans when many Asian characters in Western media have been sidelined. Fans eagerly awaited how their beloved characters would be reimagined, focusing intently on every detail, from casting to cultural portrayals.

SESP first-year Kris Yun is among many who enjoyed the show growing up, but she says she didn’t watch the live-action.

“I’m a big believer in if the first take was good, I don’t see why you need to remake it,” Yun says.

She says she often finds that liveaction adaptations skip over many of the details and subtler moments.

“With Avatar, the small details and those small story devices are what make it so special,” Yun says.

Yun adds that ATLA characters evolve and confront their flaws, unlike many other shows where the characters might be presented as perfect. She says seeing these vulnerable characters tackle difficult situations makes them more relatable and inspiring.

Weinberg first-year Abigail Jacob says she thinks the live-action cast the characters well.

She highlights Dallas Liu’s casting as Zuko, as she says it was hard to find people of the right age with martial arts experience.

However, she says the accusation that the actor for Sokka, an Inuit-based character, faked his Indigeneity “threw [her] off.” The actor, Ian Ousley, says he is of Cherokee ancestry. However, an account on X, formerly Twitter, posted that his tribe is not officially recognized by the U.S. government.

Weinberg third-year Stacy Caeiro appreciates the production and cinematography of the new live-action show, saying it had its own spin.

“There are changes that are pretty positive,” Caeiro says. “It’s a lot darker of a tone. You really see more of the impact of the trauma on the characters and how that impacts their life decisions.”

However, Caeiro ultimately preferred the lighthearted tone of the original, she says.

"I think that the storytelling of Avatar is really unique in that it embraces imperfect characters and character growth in a children's TV show in a way I haven't seen in other stories," Yun says.

Jacob also says the stories didn't translate well from the animated original.

“I dropped the series at episode four … because I could not stand [it],” she says. “They changed all the characters. They erased certain stories.”

While Jacob did not expect a replica of the animated show, the way the characters were altered did not feel as though they fit into the overall storyline, she says.

She specifically notes how in the animated show, Sokka overcame misogynistic beliefs through meeting and learning to respect his love interest Suki, while in the live action, the plot point was cut out.

“That honestly felt more misogynistic to me,” Jacob says of the plot.

While Jacob did not want to see women’s romantic lives erased, she says the live-action version erased much of their character in favor of highlighting their relationships.

Caeiro says the way the remake handled Katara, one of the main characters, was disappointing. She says the new creators “dampened” her and took away many of her lines and her anger. She was relegated from a main character to the sidelines of the plot, Caeiro says.

Generally, Caeiro says she was disappointed with how the show handles female characters.

“The female characters in the animated version are a lot more fleshed out,” Caeiro says. “I feel like all the female characters in the live-action are hollowed out to be ... love interest[s].”

Western standards, Asian mothers. RAISED BY TIGERS

STORY BY ESTHER LIAN | DESIGN & ART BY JUNE WOO

In the 2021 documentary Try Harder! Alvan Cai’s Taiwanese mother opens her son’s university application letters and forces him to attend the University of California, Berkeley for its prestige and proximity to home.

The film juxtaposes Cai’s mother with the mother of Ian Wang, Cai’s classmate. Wang’s mother is softspoken and introduces herself as “the opposite of a tiger mom.” She encourages Wang to take fewer AP courses in high school so he has time to properly pursue whatever he loves. Wang’s mother speaks in eloquent English while Cai’s mother speaks haltingly in a heavy Chinese accent. Wang’s mother seems reasonable and loving while Cai’s mother seems invasive and outdated. Through its broad, sweeping characterizations, Try Harder! presents Asian tiger mothers as destructive forces that their children must escape from.

As a teenager, whenever my relationship with my mother got especially turbulent, I looked to the internet for commiseration, poring through melodramatic articles about

tiger mom behavior and searching through films for evidence of my mother’s wrongdoings.

I believed that Cai’s mother represented the issues with mine. The tiger mom archetype she embodied validated all the builtup angst I harbored against my mother’s supposed psychological and behavioral control of my life.

But there’s more to our tiger moms than meets the silver screen. Some Northwestern students say seeing our Asian mothers through the lens of their often one-dimensional media portrayals can affect our understanding of their complexity.

“Tiger parenting” was coined by Chinese and Filipino American author and law professor Amy Chua in her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua raised her now Harvard- and Yale-educated daughters with an iron fist, banning them from watching television, attending sleepovers or playdates with friends and receiving any grade less than an “A.”

Many Western-produced media have emulated that trope, misrepresenting Asian women and their parenting styles, according to Chinese literature and culture and gender and sexuality professor Paola Zamperini.

“[The stereotype] demonizes the way in which non-Western women relate to motherhood,” Zamperini says. “The mother is this monster that will constantly imprison and repress.”

Despite the plethora of media portrayals, tiger parenting is not the most popular form of Asian parenting. A study on Chinese Americans by the

Asian American Journal of Psychology reported that supportive parenting made up the largest population, followed by tiger parenting.

TV tiger moms’ warped behavior is rooted in the “model minority” myth: the theory that Asian immigrants were the most successful because they were quiet and worked diligently. This has exacerbated the tense relationship between work ethic and familial relationships in Asian American communities. And while tiger dads do exist, mothers are stereotyped to be the primary caretakers and are thus more susceptible to the tiger parenting trope.

In the American comedy series Never Have I Ever, a first-generation Indian American struggles to balance her coming-of-age with the tigermom-like expectations of her mother, Nalini Vishwakumar.

Because of minimal South Asian representation in the media as a whole, Never Have I Ever inadvertently stood for the community. It was inevitable that it would receive both praise and

NALINI VISHWAKUMAR

criticism, as one show could not possibly encapsulate the complexities of every South Asian mother-child relationship.

“Things that you see on TV, especially as it relates to communities of color, are not one-size-fits-all,” says second-year biomedical engineering graduate student Nikita John. “I’m sure those stories may resonate with people, but they also probably are not the most representative.”

John says she felt “simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable” watching Never Have I Ever, ultimately only watching a few clips. She appreciates the show’s diverse cast and realistic portrayal of the protagonist’s relationship with her mother. However, she says that many other shows dramatize interactions between Indian mothers and daughters, which can generalize and misrepresent South Asian people.

When writing Battle Hymn, Chua dramatized her harsh behavior and minimized the softer sides of her relationship with her daughters because she wanted the book to stand out. Much of the provocative language she uses in her writings, like “Why Chinese mothers are superior,” is meant to be satirical. Nevertheless, many American readers accused her of abusing her children by ruthlessly dictating their lives.

Chua later regretted speaking to her children so harshly, but maintained her belief in instilling grit in her children. Her husband believed that critics did not recognize the reasons behind her brutalism. To their family, Chua’s tiger parenting was evidence of her love for her children and her belief in their abilities.

When she was growing up, Medill first-year Ashley Wong says she could not understand why her mother placed such a strong emphasis on education. However, Wong can better understand her mother’s motivations through more

nuanced portrayals of tiger moms in shows, she says. She now takes pride in her upbringing under a tiger mom, or a “helicopter mom,” as they are known in Singapore.

Wong says she recommends being brought up by a tiger mom.

“Her love for me is not always easily understood, yet unmistakably present.”

“I come from such a background where I really fell down many, many times, before I knew how to get up,” she says.

Wong says she sees the tiger mom archetype as fairly accurate to the values of Southeast Asian families: education, filial piety and respect for elders. For Wong, what is depicted on the television is not incorrect, but rather a simplified version of most Southeast Asian mother-daughter relationships.

Wong often watches movies with tiger mom characters with her mother as bonding experiences. Sometimes, her mother jokingly points out to Wong specific interactions in the movie as reminiscent of their own past experiences, Wong says.

“[Asian representation] in media helps me contextualize that the way that I feel towards my family and towards the way I was brought up is not as unique as I thought,” Wong says. “The so-called suffering that I’ve been put through [and the] socalled hardship that I’ve been forced to endure is universal for all my fellow Asian counterparts.”

During my adolescence, my perception of my mother was frustratingly limited by the media I consumed. As more movies with multifaceted Asian moms emerge, I recognize true agency in seeing her without the filter of TV tropes.

There is so much beauty in my own mother’s sacrificial nature. Her love for me is not always easily understood, yet unmistakably present.

The media often

shows tiger moms clawing for control over their children’s

Casey He

caseyhe2026@u.northwestern.edu

DESIGN BY JACKIE LI

Sponsor my American Dream

Navigating the impossible internship search.

Filling out a job application has almost become second nature to me.

Start off with the name — both legal and preferred, of course. After five years in the U.S., I identify with my English name more than my Chinese name.

Next, education and past employment. As I fill in a list of experiences carefully curated to not reveal my foreign status, I wish that maybe, just maybe, I won’t encounter the all-too-menacing question.

But there it is, just before the application promises that the newsroom is an “equal opportunity employer” and believes “diversity and inclusion” among staff leads to better news coverage:

“If you are a foreign national, will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship for employment?”

With a bitter chuckle, I select “yes” to the question and move on with my day. A week later, I receive an email from the newsroom I applied to, assuring me it had carefully reviewed the “merits” of my application but would not be moving forward with my candidacy. Unfortunately, the difficulty of navigating job searches and visa rules isn’t just my experience — it happens all too often for international students and workers in the U.S.

On an F-1 visa, the most common type for international students, I am authorized to work in the U.S. during my academic program and for three years after graduation based on my degree (when I’ll be on Optional Practical Training, a benefit that comes with F-1).

After that clock runs out, the most common work visa is the H-1B visa for skilled workers, which requires employer sponsorship. Whether I obtain it is entirely at

the whim of a company agreeing to pay thousands of dollars upfront, then waiting months to see if a lottery system will pick my name. During the fiscal year 2024 registration period, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received a shocking 781,000 registrations for the legally capped 85,000 visas.

These rigid visa rules make hiring international candidates an unfavorable option to many employers, especially for entry-level positions. Optional Practical Training only lasts a limited time, forcing employers to go through the headache of sponsorship or losing hired talent. The complicated lottery system for the visa could mean wasted time and resources if an H-1B petition is denied.

The journalism industry I dream of setting foot in already relies on short-term contract jobs, and this year’s mass layoffs and high-profile newsroom dissolutions

“Huh? Where did he go?

make it even harder to land a work visa. According to a 2019 analysis by Kaidi “Ruby” Yuan at the University of Southern California, while companies like Google and Amazon submit thousands of petitions each year, the top sponsors in the journalism industry submit only around 10. Many do not sponsor visas at all.

After applying to every journalism internship I could find without so much as a response in 2023, I turned to the internet. A casual stroll through the World Wide Web yielded some helpful advice: Use your preferred (in other words, English) name on your resume; replace your home address with your U.S. address; strip your education and employment experiences of identifiers that look like they took place abroad, or, better yet, don’t include them at all.

I followed some of this advice — but begrudgingly. How could I feel good about hiding part of who I am just to get to where I want to be? How could I justify obscuring my experiences to work at newsrooms that claim to seek diverse perspectives? How could I lie to get a job that seeks truth, especially when that was the mission that drew me to journalism?

My passion for journalism came later than many of my peers, two years after I came to the U.S. to attend high school in Maryland. Five months after the first reported case of COVID-19 in the U.S. and facing tremendous uncertainties, I decided to return to China to stay with my family.

In the year that followed, I found myself in a lockdown that seemed perpetual. I devoted much of my free time clinging to the stories of people around the country whose lives were not just upended by a pandemic but also the full force of an authoritarian machine.

“How could I lie to get a job that seeks truth, especially when that was the mission that drew me to journalism?”

The experience profoundly shaped my perspective on journalism and the flow of information. In a country notorious for its heavy-handed tactics to stifle press freedom and suppress dissent, I lived through the dread of censorship every day during lockdowns. People faced relentless obstacles to even relay calls for help, and we woke up every morning only to find the government telling us that everything was fine.

But everything was not fine, and it was during those trying times that I decided to dedicate myself to journalism. I wanted to become a voice for those who couldn’t speak freely and to bring to light untold stories that needed to be heard.

It’s cliché to talk about the American Dream, and it’s almost as cliché to talk about the myth of it, how the promise of American prosperity doesn’t always bear fruit. But for me, the American Dream has taken on a different meaning. The type of journalism I want to do — news that speaks truth to power, or simply has a voice independent of the state — is incredibly difficult and dangerous in China.

It is here, in the U.S., where I can have the freedom to dream of becoming a professional journalist. It is here where I have the freedom to publish stories that might make an impact on the place I was born and raised.

The archaic work visa system, with its artificial cap set in the early 2000s, overwhelming costs and suffocating uncertainty, threatens to dash my dream. It may prevent me and many others from entering an industry that has touted its mission to diversify but is still lacking in real progress.

However, I’m not giving up. Though the clock is ticking, I still have time. I hope for a future where the annual cap of temporary work visas is significantly increased or even eliminated. At the very least, the U.S. government should make substantial efforts to streamline the registration process and battle filing fraud so every applicant will have the same chance of being selected.

At a time when some of the biggest news stories look at changing demographics and geopolitics, a foreign reporter like me brings valuable life experience and perspective to the table. Even if I remain unhired, I refuse to believe I’m one bit unhirable.

Unmasking masculinity

Asian men reclaim gender beyond stereotypes.

STORY BY SHRAVYA PANT | DESIGN BY MAYA WONG | PHOTOS BY YUJIN TATAR

They’re too nerdy, can’t talk to girls and their dicks are too small; Asian men face some challenging stereotypes when it comes to sexuality and dating. These inescapable myths permeate American culture, molding Asian men into characters meant to be laughingstocks for the audience. Recall Ravi from Jessie or Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles. To the mainstream media, Asian men are one-dimensional, valued only for their brains and admirable work ethic, but otherwise unwanted.

“They’re robots or studying, whatever. Anything but having sex, or being in relationships or that kind of thing,” Weinberg third-year Abhi Nimmagadda says. “They’re almost desire-less.”

There is a surprising amount of data confirming that these racialized stereotypes affect Asian men’s dating experiences. A 2015 study published by the National Library of Medicine found that while over 75% of Black, Hispanic and white men ages 25-32 were in relationships, only 65% of Asian men were. OkCupid

founder Christian Rudder reported that on average, women consider Asian men the least attractive racial group, rating them 1-2 stars lower than those of other identities. Additionally, using data from personalized online dating ads, white women were most likely to exclude Asian men among all races from their preferences. Gay Asian men have also reported feeling similar discrimination in the LGBTQ+ dating scene, according to researchers from Middlebury College in 2018.

“Growing up, it’s not that I thought I was unattractive,” Nimmagadda says. “But I definitely did not think of myself as attractive.”

Asian Americans are typically more highly educated and have the highest household median net worth among all racial or ethnic groups in the U.S.: a classic draw in dating, even if it does not reflect the complexity of the community. Despite that, systemic biases render being Asian and dateable discordant.

The history of negative sexual stereotypes around Asian men dates back to the origins of “yellow peril” in the U.S. In the mid-1800s, a wave of Chinese people immigrated during the Gold Rush. As they entered the workforce, predominantly white communities perceived them as threats to their economic security, leading to Asiatic immigration bans and even mass lynchings. Negative perceptions of East Asian immigrants became pervasive, as white Americans viewed these individuals as contaminating American values and spreading disease following a 1900 plague outbreak in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This anger resulted in villainized depictions of Asian men in caricatures with exaggerated yellow skin and thin, slanted eyes.

Much of the discomfort with male Asian immigrants arose from their willingness to take on jobs that Western society commonly associated with

women. Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants, for example, often worked in laundries, house cleaning or food preparation. Additionally, Asian women were banned from immigrating to the U.S., and miscegenation laws prohibited interracial sexual or marital relations until Loving v. Virginia in 1967. Thus, Asian men became perpetual bachelors, and their asexual stereotype was born.

“Asian American sexuality, the representation of it, is limited by legal constraints,” Asian American studies professor Michelle Huang says.

South Asian men also face stereotypes of being creepy or incels. Searches for “Indian creeps” on TikTok yields a series of videos from white female creators poking fun at Indian men trying to slide into their DMs.

Many of these perceptions fit the larger notion that men of color pose a sexual threat to white women, a stereotype that especially targets Black men.

“Me being Indian — that stereotype was the most detrimental in terms of finding partners or finding a relationship,” Weinberg first-year Ethan Parekattil says.

With such misconceptions tarnishing perceptions of Asian males as viable romantic partners, some younger members of the diaspora say they feel discouraged. A developing body of psychological research indicates adherence to masculine norms correlates with detrimental mental health consequences in men. One 2010 Yale School of Medicine study found Asian men who endorse traditional masculine gender norms reported more severe depressive symptoms. The combination of striving for masculinity and a model minority mentality can also deter Asian men from seeking psychological help.

Weinberg third-year Toubby Chau identifies as Chinese American and says he’s questioning his sexuality. Reflecting

on his upbringing, Chau recalls gravitating towards female friendships, loving glitter and playing with Barbie dolls. While he says he has been “fortunate” to have adults accept his more feminine personality, expectations surrounding Asian masculinity had an impact on his experiences navigating mental health.

“I’m not allowed to cry or have emotions,” Chau says. “Or if I was dealing with a mental health crisis, I was generally dissuaded from reaching for therapy.”

Despite having Indian heritage, Parekattil says he never felt a close affinity to that aspect of his identity. Nonetheless, he says stereotypes surrounding South Asian men were a salient part of his adolescence. He refused to wear glasses to school for fear of being seen as a nerdy Indian and wondered whether these stereotypes affected his experiences with potential partners compared to his peers.

“I mean, I was tall, my mom raised me right,” Parekattil says. “It wasn’t anything I was doing wrong, per se.”

Parekattil says his first hookup was a moment of redemption.

“It really was redeeming to the fact that I was no longer that Indian nerdy kid who had trouble with women. I was no longer fitting that stereotype,” he says.

He says the hook up led him to explore further his sexuality, something others had not credited him with up until this point.

“I never was able to get that before,” Parekattil says. “I wasn’t able to just have a girl have a crush on me in class or have a girlfriend.”

Effeminate stereotypes, particularly the fetishization of Asian men, have a unique impact on the gay community, Nimmagadda says. He says he and other Asian friends have experienced this discomfort in pursuing relationships.

“You can tell that the way that certain men speak to you is different from the way that they speak to even other types of POCs,” Nimmagadda says. “They will focus on specifically your twinkishness or your svelte figure. They expect you to be a bottom, submissive, receptive — honestly just grateful that they’re showing you any kind of attention.”

If being Asian and male is to be feminized and undesirable, can there even be an Asian masculinity? A recent evolution of Asian representation in media has begun to shift the paradigm about Asian masculinity. Henry Golding’s role as Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians, Simu Liu’s appearance in Shang-Chi and

the Legend of the Ten Rings or Barbie and Dev Patel’s work in Monkey Man are some of the most recent blockbuster Asian hot shots, garnering their fair share of thirst tweets and fancams.

Chinese literature and gender and sexuality studies professor Paola Zamperini says that while it may seem “simplistic,” this Asian male media revolution can be traced back to Bruce Lee’s martial arts movies in the 1970s. Zamperini says Lee’s popularity represented an emergence of bodies that were definitively shaped by Orientalist perspectives but still maintained masculine energy, although not in the conventional Western way.

Huang, similarly, says Bruce Lee was able to “stand his ground,” which provided a symbol of power in a way that did not center whiteness.

There is also a growing acceptance in society for Asian men who choose to embrace their feminine sides.

“That doesn’t mean every single member in my family has been accepting either, right?” Chau says. “For example, my parents are just like, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re cool with it and everything, but maybe you shouldn’t tell your grandparents.’”

Tides are turning, and breaking away from Asian stereotypes may undo much of the damage characters like Ravi and Long Duk Dong did. But perhaps so will letting go of the obsession with traditional masculinity.

Pretending to be

perfect

The model minority myth’s mental health burden.

STORY BY CATE BIKALES | ART & DESIGN BY GRACIE KWON

Content warning: This story contains discussions of self-harm and suicide

My eyes filled with tears as I handed in the first math test of ninth grade.

The problem was not just that I knew I had gotten questions wrong. I knew many of my peers had struggled too. But I had come to my predominantly white high school acutely anxious that the students around me would expect me to do better, to live up to the stereotype of the “Asian math whiz,” and I was already failing to fill that role.

Nevertheless, I spent the next four years trying to be perfect.

I wanted to appear as a “model minority” — which to me meant I should be naturally intelligent — and, because of the pressure I put on myself, my mental health suffered.

The model minority myth is a narrative about Asians that has been around for more than 70 years, suggesting that we are more hardworking and successful

because of our race. The pressure to succeed that the myth creates can have negative impacts on mental health, especially among young Asian Americans. For students, the expectation to be an overachiever and get straight A’s can be emotionally straining, according to Vijay Prashad, a historian and journalist. He is also the author of The Karma of Brown Folk, a book explaining the history of the model minority myth and challenging how it’s applied to South Asians.

“There’s despair underlying this,” Prashad says. “There’s an expectation [students] will do well. They don’t do well, they despair.”

That despair hurts our mental health. In 2019, suicide was the leading cause of death for Asian/Pacific Islanders ages 15 to 24, according to the U.S. Office of Minority Health.

Molding the model minority

The model minority myth first began circulating after World War II.

Many Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in internment camps during the war later got jobs and became successful, seemingly without assistance, says University of Oregon psychology professor emeritus Gordon Nagayama Hall. Hall has done research on Asian American physical and mental health.

This idea that all Asian Americans were successful was not true, but it was used to pit racial groups against each other, Hall says.

“Politicians tried to say, ‘This group has been successful in picking themselves up by their own bootstraps. Other groups should follow their lead,’” he says. “This ignored centuries of discrimination against other groups, such as African Americans, Latinx and Indigenous people.”

During the Civil Rights Movement,

the myth became more popularized as a way of minimizing the struggles of Black people in America. In the 1966 New York Times article “Success Story, Japanese-American Style,” sociologist William Petersen described how Japanese Americans succeeded despite having faced “the most discrimination and the worst injustices,” contrasting their experiences with the struggles of Black communities.

Though the myth initially targeted East Asian communities, it impacts Asian Americans of many ethnicities, Hall says. Although people often view the stereotype as positive, it can invalidate the complexity of people’s experiences, making it seem as if Asian Americans do not — and should not — struggle.

Pressure to live up to that standard puts an undue burden on Asian Americans’ mental health, says Eric Cho, a licensed clinical professional counselor in the Chicago area who has worked with young adults dealing with the impacts of the myth.

“It’s incredibly reductive, and so it can be really detrimental in folks not really feeling seen or understood for the depth and breadth of who they are,” he says.

Striving for impossible heights

Growing up Korean American, nothing scared me more than failure.

At school, I tried to become the straight-A student the model minority myth dictated. But I could never really live up to that standard. I came to define myself only by my academic achievements,

and as I pushed myself to become perfect, I developed extreme exam anxiety.

Almost every month, I found myself having to skip school on test days, so overwhelmed that I would throw up and have panic attacks. I often considered hurting myself to get out of exams. When I got anything less than 100 percent, I told myself I was worthless and stupid.

And yet, for years, I refused to seek out help. I knew I was struggling, but I did not want to believe I was anything less than perfect or that I could not do it on my own.

Many of my Asian friends and classmates also refused to get mental health treatment, reinforcing the idea that I should not need it. In 2018, an Office of Minority Health study found that Asians were 60% less likely to receive mental health treatment as compared to non-Hispanic white people.

“The assumption is that you should be able to do this yourself,” Hall says. “That’s the whole model minority myth: You don’t need help. You’re inherently smart. You’re smarter than everybody else — just by virtue of being Asian.”

I had internalized that message from an early age. It was not always explicit, but I saw how my teachers would leave me and my fellow Asian students to figure out problems on our own while supporting our white peers. I saw the media depictions of one-dimensional Asian students defined by the white gaze and their extreme intelligence, like Cho Chang (Harry Potter) and Baljeet Tjinder (Phineas

and Ferb). It was obvious who I was supposed to be.

This messaging can be especially potent when there are not many other Asian Americans around us.

Weinberg second-year Sahil Desai says that as one of the few Indian students at his high school, he was often stereotyped as being “nerdy” or “introverted.”

“It took a lot of time for me to come to terms with the fact that others’ perception of me was not wholly shaped by my actual personality, but whatever stereotypes they had about my ethnic identity,” he says.

And even in areas with large Asian American populations, students like Weinberg fourth-year Carolyne Geng say they still felt pressured to achieve certain test grades or results.

In high school, Geng says people frequently asked her about assignments and tests in non-academic settings, like at school dances. She says it made her feel like she was only defined by her academic strength.

“It felt like this continuous performance I had to live up to,” she says. “If I didn’t live up to these expectations, I would somehow be letting myself down.”

The pressures of perfection

When college admissions rolled around in March 2022, I did not get into a single Ivy League school. Like Geng, I felt like I had failed myself and the people around me.

In the weeks following, I felt like I had nothing to live for. I had been working to get into an Ivy my whole life, and a few rejection emails had made all my effort worthless. But even as I despaired about my future, I still had finals and International Baccalaureate exams to worry about. I pushed myself even harder to make up for my rejections.

In early May of that year, I reached a breaking point. Years and years of trying to be perfect caught up to me all at once. I just wanted everything to be over. I wanted to be at peace.

Letting go of exceptionalism

These days, I try to approach life with a different perspective. I appreciate the little things. I go on walks around the Lakefill. I treat myself to matcha lattes. It took me a while, but I have come to realize that there is more to life than academic success, and that I am more than just my grades.

It has not been an easy process. Two years of therapy have helped me to understand how deeply I internalized the model minority myth and to navigate the unrealistic expectations it places on me. It helped me accept that no one — including me — is inherently intelligent, hard-working and successful. Most importantly, it taught me that it is OK to reach out to my support system when I need help.

Prashad says the model minority myth must be broken down from its racist roots.

But many people outside of Asian American communities may not even be aware of the harm of the myth, Hall says. Though Asian Americans may be stuck leading the charge in educating others, he wants to see more classes on Asian American culture and mental health integrated into schools and universities.

If I had not reached out for help that night, I would not be here today.

“I’m not OK,” I sobbed to my mom.

It was the first time I had really admitted to her — and myself — how much I was struggling. My parents immediately drove me to the emergency room, where I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I began taking antidepressants, and I met with a therapist for the first time. Through it all, I was terrified.

I had opened Pandora’s box. All the thoughts and feelings I’d repressed for so long were finally out in the open. I could no longer pretend to be perfect.

My mask came off, and I began the slow process of learning to live without it.

“It’s hard. And it’s OK that it’s hard. And it’s OK to want to get support around what’s hard,” Cho says. “It doesn’t mean that something is wrong with you or you’re not good enough. It’s about getting support around and understanding what you’re struggling with.”

For Geng, it has been a “journey” grappling and coming to terms with the pressures she felt because of the myth. When she came to college, she says she no longer wanted to be defined by her grades, doing “seemingly rebellious things” to avoid seeming “academic.”

Now, in her last year, Geng says having the space to discuss her experiences with the model minority myth has helped her come to terms with her identity.

“I’m able to recognize that there are other parts of my identity, family and culture that I love having,” she says.

Of course, truly breaking down the myth at an individual level is impossible. It is a job that cannot be done by a singular person, or even by Asian American communities writ large. After all, I internalized this narrative from countless people’s behavior and decades of media.

Desai says he wants to see that education extend into Asian communities as well. He says that, in the Indian community in which he was raised, having mental health struggles — especially related to academic and occupational stress — was very stigmatized. For him, the first step in addressing the issue is simple.

“We need to stop conveying this idea that mental illness is weakness,” Desai says.

I, too, am still working hard to stop believing this message. I still have a long way to go on my mental health journey. I still fall back on my perfectionist ideology some days, spending hours editing an article or a paper because I need it to be flawless, even though I know it never will be. I still panic before exams sometimes, feeling as though the world will end if I do not get an “A.”

When that happens, I remind myself: Just be yourself. You do not have to be the model minority. It is hard to remember, and even harder to believe. But I have repeated that mantra to myself for two years, and over time, the thought has come to me more and more naturally. I just have to be myself, and everything will be OK.

REVISITING MYTHOLOGIES Charting womanhood through Hindu stories.

STORY BY KAAVYA BUTANEY

Content warning: mentions of suicide and purity culture

As a kid, I had a fantasy of being Durga, the Hindu warrior goddess riding on a tiger and swinging swords — molded by all of the gods in order to battle an evil demon who could only be slain by a woman. Blame it on being a short middle child with anger issues. My adoration for Durga made me love Hinduism.

That appreciation did not stick.

Hinduism has its share of misogynistic myths, its standards of womanhood based on impossible conceptions of purity and duty. But stories are not just stories — iterations

DESIGN BY MICHELLE SHEEN

and retellings are products of society and culture. The way we learn and understand them makes us who we are.

Every Sunday for about 13 years, my dad took my younger brother and me to Bala Vihar, a one-hour class on Hindu beliefs and stories. Each week, we learned something new, from creation myths to the reincarnations of Vishnu, the preserver god. Even long after I stopped believing in any deity, I found myself at Bala Vihar every week, in the same linoleum-lined, high school halls with carpeted ashram floors. I sang prayers, ate samosas, drank tiny cups of chai and pored over storybooks. There, between the lines of religion and culture, I found the beautiful and ugly nuances of my inheritance.

My preferred place to find these stories, however, were the Amar Chitra Katha comic books — beautifully illustrated, concise, tucked in the corner of my room, a massive collection I grew with every trip to Bangalore, India.

This is where I found Sati, long before I understood the myth properly. Sati is the first consort of the destroyer god Shiva, one of the Big Three Hindu gods. The two were madly in love, but their marriage was against her father’s wishes. He was so ashamed he didn’t invite them to his great sacrifice — when she arrived, he didn’t even want to see her. Sati, out of rage, said she would be reborn with a father she could respect and jumped into the fire, reincarnating as Parvati, Shiva’s consort in most myths.

Initially, I was confused. Over time, the confusion morphed into frustration as I continued to question why her shame and rage forced her death.

But what is truly painful is the custom named after it: sati, wives ritually sacrificing themselves after their

husbands die. It struck an uncomfortable chord in me, opening an unwieldy door to doubting my heritage. It’s part of why I — a newly turned atheist and dramatic feminist nihilist — sometimes disliked being Indian in high school.

These seemingly prescribed and absolute standards gave me a difficult relationship with Hinduism. I resented the ideals I was told and slowly began to resent the people, history and values behind it. To be honest, none of it was unfairly placed, but it’s naive to think Hindus were the only ones to sacrifice women in the name of obligation.

Duty is a tricky thing. Sati has a variety of forms rooted in misogyny around the world. We don’t advertise the complicated parts of where we come from. Bala Vihar taught me the story of Sati in five minutes, and so we left those difficulties and complications behind us, to tell only the beautiful parts.

It’s a part of growing up — to learn the parts of stories that we want to forget. After all, six years after I learned the Ramayana, I finally understood Sita’s fate.

I first heard the Ramayana when I was 10 years old. Sita is the wife of Rama, the reincarnation of Vishnu, and she herself is a reincarnation of Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. Rama and Sita are exiled from his kingdom for 14 years by his step-mother. In the 13th year, the demon king Ravana kidnaps Sita, and Rama spends a year battling to save her.

When he does, though, she has already spent a year in the home of another man. Rama

sees her as impure, and therefore does not take her back as his wife. Details here vary — it is unclear whether Rama implicitly or explicitly makes Sita walk over fire to prove her purity — but Sita’s honor is taken into question and to keep it, she puts her life on the line. She walks out unscathed, proving her unsullied. When they return to the kingdom, their own people do not trust her purity. Sita, betrayed, is sent to the forest where she gives birth to Rama’s sons. When her sons are grown up, they go back home, and Sita is swallowed by the earth.

I don’t remember having learned that Sita was slandered by her own people. I remember the story tying up neatly, even though I found the fire-walking ordeal cruel. Only when I was 16 did I learn about the betrayal of Sita on the internet and start to despise the Ramayana.

Rama is supposed to be the ideal man — my teachers and my culture always told us how merciful and kind he is, how he forgives his wife for her transgression (being kidnapped, apparently). At the same time, he abandons her. The people abandon Sita over and over, and while some say her death was her choice, her family renounced her first.

This story is not just a story. Passed down for thousands of years, it is an epic with hundreds of forms that reflect and inform South Asian society and its treatment of women.

As my adolescent angst persisted, it was easy to believe South Asia was the single problem. I simply knew more about that region than almost any other. The truth is that many legends replicate sexism. Take Aphrodite in Greek mythology. Most of her stories are somewhat misogynistic, such as her famous cheating scandal with Ares. Sexism is a beast with many arms, and oversimplified white versions of Indian stories have certainly affected the way I see South Asian and Hindu culture.

But Hindu myths are moral lessons. They’re not supposed to be literal. Durga

isn’t something Hindus actually believe in — the religion is monotheistic. Instead, these stories are essentially detailed instructions to follow sanatana dharma (the upstanding way).

There is a long way to go to make these stories equitable. Modern writers are trying to remodel old epics like the Ramayana. In the process, many find themselves trapped by these myths’ unequivocal inequality, reflections of a culture that we cannot completely rewrite. It is difficult to make a version of the Ramayana that does not blame women for sexual violence. It is almost impossible to make the “ideal man” a good man. I’ve read the books, found woker Sitas and more powerful goddesses to idolize, searched for an easy answer to a complicated problem, but the easy way out is performative.

We cannot deny our history, but we can mold some kind of better future.

“ ”

If a story reflects millennia of Hinduism, both wonderful and horrible in its intricacies, then perhaps Hinduism is what needs to change. When we subscribe ourselves to retelling old stories rather than trying to consider the whole breadth of our culture and maybe even faith, we miss the chance to become something better. We cannot deny our history, but we can mold some kind of a better future.

Check out other nuAZN staffers’ childhood myths and relationships to them at nuazn.com

As Asian and Asian American students, myths and word-of-mouth stories are a part of our everyday lives. Our grandparents warned that we should follow rules so Durga won’t smite us with her third eye and spun tales of a lonely yet powerful goddess who floated to the moon against her will; they passed down all of our cultures’ beautiful and scarred histories. Here, we commemorate some of our most special stories, showcasing Durga, queen of the Hindu gods, Chang’e and more, illuminating how these legends live on in our own lives.

While many of us no longer believe in these childhood stories, as Northwestern

students, we live the model minority myth: that we are nothing more than the product of our studies, our success merely a facet of our ethnicity rather than a result of hard work and sacrifice. Yet, we are more than our accomplishments.

We are the new, living legends of our generation — the legacy of all these myths and more, a culmination of those who came before us in fiction and in reality. As you view these snippets of mythos, think of the ones you carry, the stories you tell, both those that hurt and heal. How will you carry with you the mythos of the past and rewrite your own?

— Lianna Amoruso

AMORUSO

ART BY MICHELLE SHEEN

Scaling the firewall

University of Virginia first-year Adam He uses WeChat almost “every single hour” of the day, he says, checking in with friends and family abroad.

Several months before coming to college, He found out that his school — along with other Virginian highereducation institutions — would be restricting the use of WeChat on campus as a result of state law. As an international Chinese student, he saw the news on another popular Chinese social media app, Xiaohongshu.

He says he wasn’t surprised because American institutions have wanted to ban TikTok and WeChat since August of 2020.

“So far, we can still use it normally,” He says.

Both He and his partner, UVA secondyear Selena Zeng, say they can continue using various Chinese social media

STORY BY JACKIE LI & DIANE ZHAO DESIGN BY MICHELLE SHEEN

Students skirt multinational censorship on WeChat.

platforms — including WeChat — even on school Wi-Fi. UVA specifically banned usage by university employees on university-owned devices and networks. The school also banned specific students who work for the university or are part of specific groups from using the platforms.

As to why such a restriction was issued in the first place, He says he thinks the U.S. and state governments distrust Chinese products, generally under the impression that all Chinese apps are directly under government control.

Founded by Tencent in 2010, WeChat — 微信 (wēixìn) — is China’s most popular multi-purpose messaging platform. Recognized for its iconic white-and-green logo and interface, the app has amassed 1.2 billion users, according to World Population Review. About 190 million of them live outside mainland China. Even as the U.S. begins making moves to ban WeChat and the platform implements censorship, it’s essential to Chinese communities around the world for dayto-day communication, students say.

Weinberg third-year Lucy Zhang says Chinese international students pick up the habit of using WeChat as early as “the end of elementary school.” WeChat remains crucial in allowing Zhang to stay in touch with friends, many of whom go to school in other parts of the U.S. and China, she says.

According to Zhang, WeChat has dominated the Chinese social media market because it allows for more “close-bonded communication” than its counterparts like QQ, another messaging

platform owned by Tencent. She says while QQ is used to discuss hobbies, WeChat is for messaging friends, family and other important people in your life.

WeChat has also grown to include many other everyday functions. Medill second-year John Xu says his family in Shanghai and Hong Kong love to send voice messages, another signature WeChat feature, allowing for effortless communication. Xu added that WeChat has a slate of other features, including healthcode forms, tax filing and sending family members red envelopes.

For McCormick second-year and Chinese International Students Association president Siqi Zhao, WeChat is crucial to club communication.

“It has group chat functions, and we send out notifications so everyone knows we are hosting events,” Zhao says.

WeChat has become the ideal format for the club to build community and host events. Zhao says she also appreciates how responsive people are on WeChat since many members check the app often.

While it’s most often used to connect with individuals or small groups, WeChat has also adopted forms of public-facing content for people to engage with. Most notably, WeChat has “Top Stories” and “Channels” tabs where users can engage with news articles and short-form videos from “public accounts” — that is, if they do not violate the app’s rules regarding appropriate information.

Yang Xiang, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago and WeChat educational content producer with around 70,000 subscribers, has been on the receiving end of WeChat’s censorship.

Eight years ago, he wrote an article challenging 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Jim Webb’s perspective on the South China Sea. Even though the article was “pro-China,” Yang says WeChat flagged it and suspended his public account for a month.

“[It was] just because they have some update on the book list of sensitive words,” Yang says. “This whole thing is hilarious and kind of absurd. That points to this retrospective censorship and how easily the techspace platform can be censored.”

Censorship comes in two forms, Yang says: explicit and implicit. Explicit censorship is where certain words, phrases and sentiments are restricted, while implicit censorship utilizes social mechanisms — like cancel culture — to inhibit the spread of specific beliefs. According to Yang, Western social media often only use implicit censorship, whereas the Chinese government has successfully used both methods to phase out controversial content and sensitive information.

“China is famous for its sophistication of censorship regime,” Yang says. “But I will say, anything that’s political or challenges the CCP falls [victim] to this implicit censorship. There are different

Amidst the heavy censorship, Chinese netizens have developed means to bypass the potential restriction of sensitive topics, known as 梗 (gěng) culture, roughly translated as “meme” or “gag,” Yang

“ Anything that’s political or challenges the CCP falls [victim] to this implicit censorship.”

— Yang Xiang, University of Chicago Ph.D. candidate

logics running through this whole censorship regime. It’s not as simple as one single mechanism.”

Recently, the government has banned news surrounding COVID-19 and debates concerning the status of Hong Kong by inhibiting critical voices.

Xu says he intentionally does not use WeChat’s reels function, which was modeled after TikTok.

“There’s a lot of nationalist messaging on there, with ads and propaganda,” Xu says. “Some [Chinese] people think it’s positive energy.”

says. It’s comparable to Algospeak in Western social media, where TikTok users modify flagged phrases — such as turning “kill” to “unalive” — to avoid being censored.

However, Western slang and Chinese gěng still largely differ from each other. While Western internet slang uses euphemisms, Yang says many phrases from gěng culture feel more “absurdist” and highly specific. For example, “1450” is, in many Chinese online spaces, another way of implicating

someone for working with foreign intelligence organizations.

“The concept of gěng is broader than simply slang,” Yang says. “Some words have a different meaning, just because the recent political censorship or political narrative has changed.”

Gěng accelerated when people held up pieces of white paper in protest of China’s COVID-19 restrictions, Xu says. The protest was in response to an incident in November 2022 when at least 10 people died in Ürümqi, China, after being prevented from escaping a high-rise building fire due to strict COVID-19 restrictions.

“It came from Hong Kong’s white paper movement, when the government said ‘Don’t post anything and you’re not allowed to protest with speech,’” Xu says. “People interpreted it as a soft resistance, so they would protest with a paper with no text.”

Yang also says there is a diverse array of methods to subvert content restrictions — in some cases, people post upside-down screenshots of what they intend to say or simply use initials to refer to sensitive individuals. Though gěng and other tricks netizens use may serve as a way to bypass censorship authority, Yang says subscribing to it may not entirely be beneficial.

“If you use gěng in a very smart way, you can avert many explicit censorship,” Yang says. “It can also help you navigate this dark water Chinese censorship regime, but it shows some sort of submission to this censorship regime.”

As a journalist, Xu says it’s interesting to see both sides of

“ If you use gěng in a very smart way, you can avert many explicit censorship. It can also help you navigate this dark water Chinese censorship regime, but it shows some sort of submission to this censorship regime.”

censorship. And as someone studying abroad, he is wary of how true either side is.

Xu says the dangers of Chinese social media lead to more risk for protesters. It also perpetuates CCP propaganda, he says. He says many young people in China are becoming increasingly political and displaying stronger nationalist support for China.

Yet, young people also have the power to turn Chinese social media on its head, Xu says.

— Yang Xiang

As an example, Xu mentions the white paper movement in his hometown of Shanghai, which sprung out of Hong Kong’s initial protest. He says during the white paper movement, many students, especially those originally from Shanghai, found the experience of seeing photos and videos of the protest on social media very emotional.

“It has allowed people to see resistance,” Xu says.

Mapping Christianity

Asian American Christians reconcile faith with identity.

STORY BY EDWARD SIMON CRUZ

Catherine Zhong’s parents were the first people in their family to convert to Christianity.

Both were born in China during the Cultural Revolution, when the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on religious practice by destroying historical sites and reeducating clergy members in an effort to eradicate foreign, capitalist values from Chinese culture. After growing up atheist, they immigrated to Provo, Utah, to study at Brigham Young University, where they found an Asian community in the evangelical Christian church.

The two converted, becoming active members in the university’s Asian evangelical community — even as BYU remains affiliated with the non-evangelical Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By the time Zhong was born, their parents were regular church-goers, and when the family moved to Seattle, Zhong’s parents brought them to a majority-Chinese church each week.

Zhong attended that church until they began high school, when they moved to a majority white megachurch. They then began questioning their evangelical

faith, as well as their gender and sexuality. Like other students, Zhong continued exploring these differences after coming to Northwestern. As an undergraduate, they joined the University Christian Ministry, where they say they found a welcoming, comfortable space. Now a first-year graduate student studying Marriage and Family Therapy, Zhong says that UCM is one of the reasons they chose to stay at NU.

Many Christians throughout the Asian diaspora have their own complicated, nonlinear journeys. Christianity traveled several distinct colonial paths across the continent, and Asian Christian enclaves both there and in the U.S. have become distinct, important places of community. As some Asian American students at NU continue developing — and questioning — their relationships to their faith and other identities, they gain unique understandings of what it means to place their faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Clashing Cultures

At the majority-Chinese church Zhong used to attend, they saw their

PHOTOS & DESIGN BY ALLEN YOU

heritage and whitewashed American ideals conflict with each other. Though Chinese culture and Christianity both emphasize filial piety, Zhong says implicit collectivist elements of the former became “side dishes” to the “main course” of more explicit individualistic American values they associated with their religion while growing up.

Similarly, Weinberg first-year Rohun Chivate also found multiple belief systems clashing during his upbringing. The Indian American student grew up in a multifaith home, but his Hindu father rarely took him to temple, often practicing privately. Instead, his Christian mother’s religion was his primary influence.

Chivate attended church regularly while growing up. After a medical scare on a ninth-grade church trip where he had three seizures in 24 hours, though, he found his faith strengthened. Despite not experiencing any long-term effects, he felt anxious when driving for multiple years following the incident. After taking his grandmother’s advice to pray every time he entered the car, he says he felt more peaceful.

But his growing Christian faith sometimes conflicted with Hindu practices around him. Only about 15% of Indian Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2023 identified

as Christian, compared to about 48% who identified as Hindu. While many of Chivate’s friends growing up were Indian, few were also Christian.

Chivate often tagged along with them to Hindu celebrations for Diwali and Holi. He did not participate in certain dances or prayers to avoid worshiping other gods or idols though, because of a commandment to only worship the Christian god.

“I feel conflicted because my religion is not the predominant Indian religion, so a lot of festivities like Diwali and stuff that are celebrated — I can’t fully celebrate them,” he says. “But obviously that hasn’t made me less excited about Christianity.”

Other students do not necessarily see disagreement between their religious practices and culture. McCormick second-year Jeremy Hwang grew up in Seoul, South Korea, and moved around frequently as a child. His father, part of a family line of Methodist pastors, often led congregations in early morning prayers and time-intensive Bible readings.

To Hwang, his Korean background shaped and reinforced these religious practices. His religion and culture both emphasize working hard to achieve one’s goals, he says. Even so, Hwang says his Korean culture isn’t necessarily the defining element of his spiritual journey.

“I can’t say, ‘My culture is the reason why I came to Christ,’” he says. “Christ is the reason I came to Christ.”

Alternatively, Medill first-year and Bangladeshi American Norah D’Cruze began questioning certain elements of her Catholic faith as she received Bible lessons from her mother, a former Catholic school teacher. She says she especially opposed whenever conservative people invoked Catholicism to justify treating women, LGBTQ+ people and other historically marginalized groups unequally. She says these exclusionary interpretations of Christian teachings distanced her from the religion as she grew older.

“I don’t feel like I could ever discriminate against someone for something that they don’t have control over or something that they are doing to protect their life,” she says.

Varying Histories

D’Cruze’s parents were persecuted for their faith in Bangladesh before they immigrated to the U.S. — less than 1% of Bangladeshis are Christian.

D’Cruze says her father is mostly indifferent to political topics that did not directly affect him, whereas her mother developed more progressive values after her experiences in

Bangladesh led her to oppose the marginalization of minority groups.

“It’s just very important for [my mother’s] morals to be accepting of others, nonviolent, peaceful,” she says. “And I agree.”

D’Cruze says her family’s practice of Christianity combines Indigenous Bangladeshi practices like reverence for nature with more traditional Catholic influences rooted in Bangladesh’s colonial history. Portuguese explorers and missionaries introduced the religion to the area in the 1500s.

Bangladesh isn’t the only part of Asia where Christianity and colonialism are intertwined. In Maharashtra, the Indian state where Chivate’s parents grew up, some people began converting to Protestantism in the 18th and 19th centuries under the colonial East India Company that brought British and American missionaries to India. In the Philippines — one of few majorityChristian countries in Asia — many Spanish colonizers and missionaries converted local residents to Catholicism beginning with their arrival in 1521, and they expanded these efforts once they took control of the region in 1565.

Weinberg third-year Francis Velasco was raised Catholic, but he says he saw his religion as separate from his Filipino identity while growing up in Decatur, Illinois. Many Catholic families in the

Philippines attend a late-evening mass on Christmas Eve and have a traditional Noche Buena dinner late at night. However, Velasco and his family do not observe these traditions.

Until fourth grade, he received focused instruction on religious teachings and the Bible while attending a Catholic school. (“The nuns were scary,” he says.) Afterward, he continued to go to church and receive his religion’s sacraments of initiation, rituals that Catholics believe are ways of receiving God’s grace. These practices aligned him with the Catholic supermajority among both Filipinos and Filipino Americans.

However, Velasco says he has “drifted away” from practicing elements of the faith other than going to Mass, like praying before meals and bedtime. He says he is somewhat, although not fully, content with his current practice, but his parents would likely be “disappointed” with his more “laid-back” approach.

Yet Velasco also began connecting more closely with his cultural heritage as he entered college, having grown up in a city where about 1% of all residents are Asian. He joined the Filipino affinity group Kaibigan, eventually becoming a co-president of the organization. He says he rarely discusses religion directly at Kaibigan, though he and close friends in that group have opened up about their religious backgrounds. Velasco also

took a seminar on race in America as a first-year at NU, learning to recognize Catholicism as a “remnant” of the Philippines’ violent colonial history.

“I don’t know if I ever did come up with why I should accept it, but I just did,” he says. “Whatever has happened in life has happened for a reason, and even though it came with a lot of suffering, I am who I am because of my past and my present, so I accept who I am fully.”

New Forms of Spirituality

Like Velasco, D’Cruze says she learned more about her faith at college. She tried exploring different churches at NU but says none of the environments established by their respective priests resonated with her.

D’Cruze says she gradually developed a “broader” view of Christianity throughout her childhood: after her parents divorced — a frowned-upon practice in the Catholic Church — she began attending Mass less regularly and developing her own individual spirituality. She says her parents’ divorce made her more open-minded about her faith, which she continues to learn about after her arrival at NU.

Now, D’Cruze combines certain Catholic teachings with her own beliefs; she says she does not align with conservative interpretations of

Christianity but has not disavowed the religion. In addition to regularly practicing gratitude and meditation, D’Cruze says she spends time outdoors to appreciate God and his creations, which reflects both her interpretation of spirituality and her Indigenous Bangladeshi culture’s respect for the environment.

“You don’t just need to pray to God,” she says. “You can pray to the sun or the Earth. I think of the universe and everything that exists as being God.”

Meanwhile, during their childhood and early time at NU, Zhong struggled with what they call the “imposing” nature of evangelical churches, which emphasize conversion through the process of being “born again.” As Zhong entered college, they explored various evangelical and majority-Asian churches.

Zhong remained religious, but they have shifted away from a specific denomination. Toward the end of their first year, they joined UCM, which was more inclusive and racially diverse than the churches they attended growing up, they say.

“I wanted a space that wasn’t just Asian,” Zhong says. “I wanted a space that was open, that other types of people felt comfortable being in.”

As Zhong learned more about their gender and sexuality, they also sought to find acceptance within historically exclusionary religious spaces. The churches they attended growing up did not discuss gender and sexuality outside heteronormative standards, so only in college did Zhong explore what it means to simultaneously be queer, non-binary and Christian. Having left groups that sometimes pressured Zhong to present themself as straight or female, Zhong says UCM welcomed them and helped them feel comfortable with their faith.

“It’s ebbed and flowed through the years. It’s gotten stronger at different points; it’s gotten weaker at other points,” Zhong says. “But it’s always been home. It’s always been a place to come back to at the end of the day.”

Too Tan to be Chinese Identity is more than skin-deep.

STORY BY KATIE TSANG | DESIGN BY

There is no way you’re Chinese,” Isabel told me, matter-offact. “You are probably Filipino, or maybe Hawaiian. Chinese people are paler than you.”

I was flabbergasted. I’d never had to prove my Chinese-ness, even though everyone insisted I was tan for a Chinese person. But this girl in my gymnastics class stated it as an irrefutable fact – arms folded across her sparkly pink leotard. I tried to tell her that both my parents were Chinese, that there was nothing else I could be, but she held her ground. Squirming in the backseat on the car ride home, I remember asking my mom if she was positive we were fully Chinese. Maybe we could get one of those ancestry tests, I suggested, wringing my hands and contemplating how my skin was estranging me from my own ethnicity.

The fair-skinned Chinese beauty standard is not one that I have ever fit into. I later learned that, especially in Asia, pale skin is associated with wealth and a comfortable life indoors, while darker skin signifies more frugal backgrounds, laboring outside under the sun. Chinese actresses never had skin as tan as mine, and the traditional artwork around my grandparents’ home illustrated women with a complexion as pale as milk. As a kid, I remember staring at a Chinese porcelain doll in our dining room and wondering why my skin did not match hers.

In my predominately white Connecticut hometown, my mom scouted out and befriended two other Asian moms in the area. I grew up with two half-Chinese, half-white friends and one friend who was adopted from China into an Italian family. Despite being of Chinese descent, their ethnic experiences differed from mine as a Chinese American with

two Chinese parents (though they, too, were fairer than me). I remember my third-grade teacher complimenting my complexion one day at school, telling me people pay good money to be as tan as I am. Although I realized she meant it as a compliment, I scrubbed hard at myself in the shower that night, desperate to wash my tanness away.

the sunny town of Los Altos, California. On the first day of fifth grade, I stood on the blacktop, gaping in shock at how many other tan Asians were on the playground — people who looked like me.

My new Chinese friends never questioned their Chinese identity, despite not being pale. As the years passed, I realized that although I didn’t fit into the stereotypical Chinese image that I thought I needed to, it didn’t undermine my ethnic identity. I wasn’t an outlier. I was one of many.

Over spring break, one of my mom’s mahjong friends looked me up and down. “I finally figured out why you look different, Katie,” she announced. “You are so light! You look pale enough to be Chinese!” The whole room laughed, myself included. I hadn’t noticed how the Chicago winter had gotten to me until her remark brought it to my attention.

Even though I was closer to the pale skin I wanted, my complexion hadn’t made me any more Chinese. I even started to miss my California glow because, like my background, my skin tone is an inseparable part of my identity. I no longer question my Chineseness, my sense of self or my capability to be beautiful. My younger self believed those statements of glorified paleness and was profoundly affected by them. But my older self knows culture and beauty are more than just skin-deep.

sorry i could not travel both distance makes the heart grow distant.

STORY BY MISHA OBEROI | DESIGN BY JULIAN TANG

there is something so difficult about penning down how it feels to be 12,011 kilometers from home. even now, i am thinking i should have probably said that in miles. i should have probably pronounced can’t like kant and not kahnt. i should have probably pronounced water like woder and not wotter. i should have probably said yes instead of haan. there are so many words in the hindi language that i can’t say to you, my friends, meri jaans. so many feelings i have felt that you will never know — english has always been too limiting, too suffocating. but hindi, hindi is vast. no, i am not “hurting,” but haan dard ho raha hai. no, you are not just “beautiful,” tum khoobsurat ho. shayad mujhe pyaar ho raha hai. [translations may be correct but the feelings are not the same.]

sometimes i am disappointed in how american i’m becoming. i went on a date last week and he said, “your accent is so light.” and i hate that he sounded impressed. i could have left then and there, but the chair forced me down in a way this country always manages to. march is the month of holi but instead of playing outside i watch the basketball game at 7:09 p.m. i eat a burger and fries instead of dal and chawal and i tell myself it’s ‘cause it’s convenient. march is the month of summer at home but snow is falling outside my window and i tell myself this is just as pretty. this is just as nice. the heat was always too much for me anyway. i am sad, udaas, but there is no time to think about these things. papa has always said most people don’t even get to be here. most people kant dream of it.

i say i love chicago but i walk around with a barely beating heart. my parents call and ask me about college and i say life has never been better. i go to devon avenue and tell myself: well this will suffice. i’ll buy some namkeen from patel brothers and eat kulfi at bundoo khan and listen to “tu jaane na” with my friend tazwaar and it will suffice. i will get by this month without texting my best friend from home that “no one will ever be like you.” i will get by this month without looking at social media posts of friends who stayed in india and thinking i should have stayed. i will get by this month without falling apart. maybe i should have just said yes when dadu said i could come home. i should have taken the easier road, even if it was more traveled by. i am sorry. in another life, i would have traveled both. in another life, i wouldn’t have dreamed of more. kisi aur zindagi mai.

i video call my grandparents and break down the second after we say goodbye. in english they say i love you in hindi we say meri jaan ho tum. you are my life. my dadi tells me she misses me but it is too embarrassing to tell her i miss her too. i should be the strong, independent granddaughter who is gunning hard for the american dream, hands on my bootstraps, but it’s terrifying to admit that it is all a little too much. that most days this country of 3,809,525 square miles makes me feel too small. that most days it is too hard to convert kilometers to miles and celsius to fahrenheit. that most days i am scared i’ll call them and there won’t be a voice on the other side of the line and i will still be stuck here. that most days i wish i could just eat the rajma chawal dadi makes with dahi on the side and wash it down with a chocobar from kwality walls.

there are few things in life that i hate more than time zones. i reach for my phone thinking i’ll call mumma before i realize it’s the middle of the night there. it happens again the next day and again the next and again the next until it hits me that it’s been three weeks since i’ve heard her voice. it hits me at times that i could die in illinois and it would take hours before the news hits noida. a dark thought, bura khayaal. but so truthful it hurts. you are so alone here and nothing fixes it. no number of friends or sasa events or family visits mend the hole that india leaves in your heart. mujhe ghar jaana hai. bas. mujhe bas ghar jaana hai. [i want to go home].

If you drink cold water, you’re going to hell. ‘Lies’

from the

motherland

My parents always told me to eat fish and peanuts so that I could be smarter.

When I grew up, I learned that wasn’t quite true. Although these foods do not automatically boost my IQ, they are rich in nutrients necessary for the development of a young child, physically, emotionally and intellectually.

Growing up, our parents tell us plenty of half-truths — usually out of love and with our best interests at heart.

STORY BY XIAOTIAN SHANGGUAN

Kunjal Bastola

There’s often a larger story behind these “lies,” as they pass on cultural beliefs and unconsciously instill certain habits within us. But how much truth are in these “lies”? Should I be listening to my parents?

Editor’s Note: Some of these “lies” have been edited for brevity.

Kaitlyn Wang

My parents used to tell me that if I ate fried rice and drank cold water at the same time, I would die. My mom wasn’t completely wrong; drinking cold water with meals does contribute to poor gut health. However, the fact that I still think about my mom’s prophetic threats every day doesn’t mean I actually live by her health advice. I love iced coffee with any meal. It’s a source of guilt, paranoia and a good laugh.

My mom used to tell me that I have to make sure my pillow is not facing north in order to sleep well and be healthy. This practice stems from Hindu tradition as a way to ensure wellbeing, and it was passed down to her through my grandma. While the superstition hasn’t been scientifically proven, it’s been so ingrained in my upbringing that I still follow it anyways in the hopes of sleeping better and living a healthy life.

Mariana Ma

My parents always tell me that eating ginger and brown sugar on your period reduces cramps. Throughout my childhood, I attributed the concoction my mom made to just another one of her weird health superstitions. After recently finding out that ginger and brown sugar are actually scientifically proven to alleviate period cramps, I’ve had to reconsider the way that I approach my parents’ “lies.” While I used to think it was my mom’s nagging, it’s now a health practice I incorporate in my life.

Maya Ramaswamy

My parents told me that every time I lie, an innocent rabbit will die. We’re vegetarian because of my family’s cultural beliefs, so the prospect of an animal dying is wrong. I think this lie made me closer to my parents because I never really lied to them.

Off the vine

Stop and eat the strawberries.

WRITTEN BY JERRY ZHOU | DESIGN BY XIAOTIAN SHANGGUAN

An old Zen Buddhist parable goes like this: A man is chased by a bloodthirsty tiger off a cliff and clings to a dangling vine for dear life. As the tiger roars above him, a mouse crawls out of a hole in the cliff face and begins gnawing at the vine. Drawn to the commotion, more tigers gather in the valley below him. As the vine grows increasingly thin, he notices a strawberry growing out of the cliff amidst the chaos. He takes it, eats it and smiles.

I am hanging from a cliff in the middle of Tech: I went to bed two hours ago, but if I fall asleep in class one more time, Prof. Hu is going to pounce across the lecture hall and tear my windpipe right out of my neck.

I am held up by nothing but a fraying vine, and the mouse chewing on it is regretful to inform you that due to the extremely competitive nature of our application process we are unable to offer you a chance to live at this time.

Below me are 14 bloodthirsty co-managing-president-editors of orgs whose meetings I must attend, emails I must read, stories I must write, futures I must live. My flailing legs meet the rock face, sending pebbles tumbling down into the chasm below. I stare into the abyss which is too busy cramming for its next set of midterms to stare back, so I throw up in the Tech bathroom, minutes trickling out my throat — drip, dripping away, flushed down by the whirlpools of time. How do I get out of this? How did I get here?

Maybe I would remember if my eyelids weren’t pressing down harder than the hand of Buddha that imprisoned the Monkey King for five hundred years. No time to ponder the past, no time to worry about the future — just get through this day pretending to succeed, pretending to understand this math lecture, pretending to be human but the fibers of the vine stretch and snap, and my grip on reality thins to a fine strand; dead in this chemistry lab, unable to move from past to future, choked by deadlines and hydrobromic acid fumes, stumbling out of class running on empty bluffs that seem to stretch on forever, but forever is a fickle joy:

is coming across the new boba machine in Tech Express. It has strawberry-flavored boba. I’ve never tried strawberry-flavored boba. I let go of the vine, and pluck the strawberry from its stem.

The tea is perfectly sweet, compressorcooled, but warmed by my touch.

The tiger’s roars are drowned out by the powerful stillness of a sudden spring rain, pitterpattering against the precipice.

I hold the drink up against my cheek and the soft plastic infuses calmness into my skin and delight to my tongue. For a moment, the unspeakable infinity that lies between then and now and after and my dreams feels light, feels like nothing.

I taste the moment between the rain and the horizon.

And it is delicious.