“One of the defining features between an individual of Asian descent and someone of Western descent is the presence of an upper eyelid crease. Approximately 50% of Asians do not have an upper eyelid crease. The double eyelid operation, or creation of a supratarsal crease, is the most common cosmetic procedure requested in Asia and the third most common procedure requested by Asian Americans.” \u00a0<\/span><\/em>Marilyn Q. Nguyen, Patrick W. Hsu, and Tue A. Dinh. \u201cAsian Blepharoplasty.\u201d Seminars in Plastic Surgery (August 2009). Cosmetic Surgery in the Ethnic Population: Special Considerations and Procedures.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As you may have already heard, talk and reality TV show host Julie Chen<\/a> recently admitted to having surgery to create a supratarsal crease and remove the Asianness from her eyes, namely, her epicanthic fold.<\/p>\n Many news sites and bloggers have already picked up on the story, expanding on the racist surgery that so many Asian Americans elect. Few people, however, know the surgery\u2019s relationship to U.S. imperialism and colonialism in Asia. Specifically, I want to alert you to the story of Dr. J.R. Millard<\/a>, a U.S. military doctor who was stationed in Korea at the end of the Korean War.<\/p>\n The above quoted article describes \u201cMillard[\u2018s] comments that to get a true \u201cround\u201d or Western eye, the epicanthus must be eliminated.\u201d This was his benevolent gesture to Koreans, particularly those among the war brides whose assimilation would be smoother were they to transform their bodies and faces for their new White families and communities (Note: Over 172,000 war brides came from Asia between WWII and the Vietnam War, with the help of the U.S. War Brides Act*<\/em>). Specifically, Millard wrote the \u201cAsian eyelid produces a passive expression which seems to epitomize the stoical and unemotional manner of the Oriental.”<\/p>\n Sound familiar? Maybe you heard Chen recount how her news director<\/a> in Dayton, Ohio told her \u201cthat because of [her] Asian eyes\u2026[she] look[s] disinterested and bored.'”<\/p>\n The creation of the Asian \u201cother\u201d, underscoring the phenotypical differences, the assigning of character traits to those differences between Whites and Asians, the value placed on–and the normalization of–racial brands of beauty, i.e. Millard\u2019s \u201cWestern\u201d eye, are all products of racism and cultural hegemony. The same racism that allow G.I.\u2019s in Asia to dehumanize sex workers<\/a> on and around U.S. military bases, that allowed for hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Vietnam to count any dead Vietnamese as an enemy casualty through the \u201cMere Gook Rule<\/a>\u201d, and for the U.S. to kill up to four million people through aerial bombs during the Korean War, and for the U.S. to exterminate one-sixth of the population of Luzon in one of the shortest, most forgotten and most invisible wars in U.S. history in the Philippines.**<\/p>\n The invisibility of Asia and Asian Americans from American history and the literal scars that non-White bodies bear. If that isn\u2019t a direct experience of oppression, or any of the other sh*t that is breaking our backs as Asian, black, indigenous, Latina, or otherwise \u201cotherized\u201d bodies, I\u2019m not quite sure what is for Ms. Chen or Chen\u2019s co-anchor Sheryl Underwood<\/a>.<\/p>\n *Sheridan Prasso. The Asian Mystique “One of the defining features between an individual of Asian descent and someone of Western descent is the presence of an upper eyelid crease. Approximately 50% of Asians do not have an upper eyelid crease. The double eyelid operation, or creation of a supratarsal crease, is the most common cosmetic procedure requested in Asia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[184,952,953,944],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-anti-asian-racism","tag-dr-j-r-millard","tag-eyelid-surgery","tag-julie-chen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6841"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6997,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions\/6997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/static\/mt\/assets\/food\/misskoreas650.jpg\")
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\n**Elaine Kim. Preface to Charlie Chan is Dead 2<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"