My sister once received a message on social media from a BYU student she had never met. Before he asked her even a single question, he told her, “I think you’re so pretty. I’m also really into Korean girls.” When my sister asked him why specifically Korean girls, he said, “I just always have, I think Koreans are beautiful.”
Many BYU students go on missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a period of 18 months to two years. Sometimes they go to a different country, learn a different language and come back with a love for the culture and the people they were surrounded by.
There is nothing wrong with appreciating cultures and people from a specific country, but there is a problem when individuals only date people because they come from a specific country and are a specific type of people.
“Yellow fever” is the fetishization of Asian women and is deeply rooted in racialized and gendered stereotypes. It’s different from “having a type.” Chin Lu speaks directly about this in her article “Why Yellow Fever is Different than Having a Type.”
“We can’t help whom we’re attracted to, and a lot of us ‘have a type,’ but no one should project the kind of personality, behavior and values they like in a romantic partner onto someone else, let alone an entire ethnic group,” she said.
Michelle Erdenesanaa from Yale News Daily said that when girls feel that they are being loved not as who they really are, but only for the culture they come from, they feel they are being tokenized and fetishized.
An article from NCAA Together by Britney Hong exemplifies this idea that “Asian American women are more self-conscious and doubtful in dating because they can’t tell if men are attracted to them for them or if it’s for their race.”
Hong included a poem in her article that said, “If men are the ones contaminated with this illness, then why am I the one who feels ill because I can no longer tell if I’m wanted for who I am or for my race.”
Many times I have gone on a date with someone who served in Asia and wondered if they have yellow fever. Did they ask me out because I’m Asian? Do they even genuinely like me as a person? If I don’t go on a second date with him, will he just go and ask out another Asian girl?
Some BYU students have mentioned to me that they only date girls from a specific ethnicity because they exemplify certain traits. They date Latina girls because they’re fun and open, Japanese girls because they’re submissive and polite. They go for Korean girls because they’re smart and quiet.
These girls, they say, are the ones they want to date because they remind them of their missions and the people they served around for a short two years.
Perpetuating these stereotypes puts minority women in a box, making them feel as if they are only wanted or valued if they fit a certain stereotype.
This limits the amount of freedom these women feel, making them feel that they have to act a certain way or refrain from saying certain things, because that will keep them likable enough to be dateable.
One time while on a date, the guy who asked me out told me I was different than what he had expected. I was different because I wasn’t as “Korean” as he thought I would be. He told me that I was too loud and didn’t focus as much on my grades as he thought most Korean girls did.
In that moment, I knew he was just seeing me for my culture, but not for who I was. He was stereotyping me and realized I didn’t fit that compartmentalized definition of a “quiet and smart” Korean girl.
“When you simplify us to our exotic features or stereotype us as quiet, submissive, obedient, you deny us of our culture, complexity, strength. I think of the Asian women I know who are all loud, confident, strong,” Hong said in her poem.
Instead of generalizing women from a certain country or ethnicity, everyone should check the unconscious biases that dictate their actions and realize that Asians are not a monolith. All Asians have unique circumstances and personalities. They should be treated as individuals, not just a cultural add-on, especially in dating.
— Kristine Kim
Senior Reporter
