Melanie
Manuel
ASA 114
001
20 February
2020
One of the
themes in Bernard Scott Luscious’s “Into the Black Pacific: Testimonies of
Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Displacements” is colorism and its role on the
discrimination of Vietnamese Amerasians in Viet Nam. As a Filipina American, I
am quite familiar with colorism. This hyperawareness of the color of one’s skin
posits a strong sense of eurocentrism, where darker skin is looked down upon
and paleness is celebrated and even preferred. I recall this as a process of conditioning
that we continue to uphold even now, at least within older generations such as
our grandparents and sometimes even our parents who put more value to lighter
skin tones than darker ones. In recent years, I think the celebration of melanin
and darker skin tones has been much more prevalent, but I remember how having
tan skin was always commented on when I was growing up. I didn’t quite
understand what was wrong with it, but these little comments had planted a seed
of self-loathing, causing me to wish for much paler skin. It is a problematic
practice that reifies white hegemony. A country like the Philippines still
supports these skin whitening practices, as long as I could remember, there had
been soaps that could lighten the skin, and now, there are also surgeries that will
inject some sort of skin whitening chemical into your skin, though this is not always
approved by the Food and Drug Association.
I am
embedding this video that Refinery29 did to inform its viewers about this
practice. I have also included a photo a skin whitening soap that is used in
the Philippines and often advertised.
Works
Cited
Luscious,
Bernard Scott. “Into the Black Pacific: Testimonies of Vietnamese
Afro-Amerasian Displacements.” Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in the
Americas. Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Image
Used
https://www.mybenta.com/classified/130158/skin-whitening-bar-(luxxe)
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