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© 2012 Myra Susan Washington © 2012 Myra Susan Washington BRANDING BLASIANS: MIXED RACE BLACK/ASIAN AMERICANS IN THE CELEBRITY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX BY MYRA SUSAN WASHINGTON DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communications in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Kent Ono, Chair Professor Angharad Valdivia Professor Lisa Nakamura Professor Ronald Jackson III Professor Norman Denzin Abstract Contemporary multiracial discourses rely on two overarching frames of mixed-race: mixed-race as uniquely new phenomenon and mixed race as resistant to dominant paradigms of race and racism. Both have been necessary for multiracial activists and the mixed race movement, and have served as the foundation for much of the current research in mixed race studies. This dissertation posits that a third frame exists, one that neither sees mixed-race as new or unique, nor as a racial salve to move the United States past the problem of the color line. This third paradigm is pluralistic, fluid in its ambiguity, and allows for the potential of ambivalence and contradictions within mixed-race. This paradigmatic shifting view of race rearticulates what it means to be Black, Asian, Other, and results in the creation of multiracial/other subjectivities which can become a formidable obstacle to the racial order of the United States. Importantly, this dissertation argues Blasians trouble the logic of existing U.S. racial classifications, without establishing their own. Blasians (mixed-race Black and Asian people) are challenging the hegemony of race constructed around the lives of not just Blacks and Asians, but all members of U.S. society, as we are all embroiled in the illogical (and contradictory) discourses framing our identities. I do not offer Blasians as a racial salve, as resistant to or prescription for either race or racism through virtue of their mixed-race bodies. Instead, I have used this dissertation to describe the emergence of Blasians, not to add to the research that divides monoracials from multiracials, but to muddle the lines between them. The analyses of these celebrities acknowledge that to understand what is a Blasian, means to first understand, and then complicate, hegemonic notions of race as it applies to both Blacks and Asians. Contextualized against those dominant discourses, Blasians explode the narrow boundaries of authenticity ii around racialized categories. Blasians, as I discuss them in this dissertation do not escape race, or erase race, but they do force the reconstruction of normative instantiations of identity. iii Acknowledgements If graduate school is a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, writing this dissertation was a perpetual downhill thrill. I have loved every minute of writing my dissertation so much that I am still not tired of writing, reading, thinking, and talking about Blasians and celebrities. I know without a doubt a large part of why I loved dissertating was because Kent Ono is the very best advisor ever. Thank you Kent for being a never-ending well of encouragement, patience and support, especially during those moments when I doubted the significance of my work. Thank you for treating me as a colleague and regarding my thoughts and research as important, even though I secretly felt I would never be anywhere close to as brilliant as you are, and my project would dishonor your impressive cohort of former advisees. Thank you also for the innumerable close readings of my countless revisions, and the invaluable editorial suggestions and meticulous corrections. Thanks for answering my many questions – even the ones I asked repeatedly– at all hours of the day (and night). Some of my most favorite moments were our weekly meetings, which lasted longer and longer because I became distracted and took us off track on some unrelated tangent, or would ask you about the meaning of life (for an academic), or would pester you for stories and advice, and you would unwearyingly guide me back to my dissertation each time. At the beginning of this process you said by the end we would be friends, and I thought at the time that was both crazy and implausible, but you were absolutely right, and for that I am the most thankful. I am also thankful to my committee, which I dubbed The Best Committee Ever Assembled, and if I could trademark that I would. Thank you Anghy Valdivia, Ron Jackson, Lisa Nakamura, and Norm Denzin for your unwavering support, guidance, advice, and thought-provoking questions. Each of you serves as a model of exemplary scholarship and pedagogy that I hope to emulate as I leave here. If I can come anywhere close to being as brilliant as the members of my committee, I know I am in fine form. I am also indebted to a few exceptional scholars who allowed me to muddle through early iterations of my research in their classes, and challenged me to explore aspects I had not considered or too-easily dismissed, thank you: Mimi Nguyen, Fiona Ngo, Julie Dowling, Isabel Molina-Guzman, Pat Gill, Dale Brashers, and Cliff Christians. Of course I owe an enormous amount of thanks to my professors at Vanderbilt who made me realize studying rhetoric and media would be infinitely better than becoming a lawyer. Thank you Kass Kovalcheck (and Pat) for the emails of advice, random phone conversations, and for feeding me whenever I would find myself back in Nashville. Thanks also to Chuck Morris who challenged me in his classes and then befriended me after I graduated, and showed me professors were people too. The lion’s share of my thanks is for John Sloop, who introduced me to Kent’s work as an undergraduate. You also encouraged me to go to graduate school, and offered me much-needed advice, read my work, told me when it was terrible and how I could improve it, and mentored me. Thank you also for being the other best advisor I have ever had! Dissertating was a thrilling process in no small part to my amazing community of friends in Illinois. Many thanks to the members of my writing groups, who kept me on task, offered feedback and new directions, and tons of support: Kevin Dolan, Amy Hasinoff, Carolyn Randolph, Amanda Murphyao, Durell Callier, Robert Mejia, Michelle Rivera, and Peter Campbell. I am especially glad Peter and I started at Illinois at the same time, albeit in different iv communication departments, because your ability to break down theories so easily is both maddening and inspirational. I am fortunate that you were here to help me understand these things in class, while writing, and over drinks, and for forcing me to listen to your terribly corny jokes. Michelle Rivera, thank you for being in both writing groups with me, for being the sounding board for my many thoughts, offering your knowledge of popular culture, intersectionality and political economy, for forcing me to have fun on the weekends, and for feeding me lots of Sergio’s delicious cooking. Robert Mejia, I am glad I was the one who told you your California appropriate windbreaker was grossly inappropriate for a Midwestern winter. I am also glad that you were quick to offer your reflections on race, hybridity, racialization and the complexities of all of these things, and that you pushed my theoretical boundaries. I definitely lucked into, and was inspired by, my wonderful cohort of brilliant PhDs and soon-to- be PhDs who were all doing work that I found fascinating, innovative and radical: Owen Kulemeka, Sangdo Oh, Veronica Pomata, Michelle Rivera, Dennis Redmond, Letrell Crittenden, and Sasha Mobley. Special thanks to Sasha for suggesting some key texts, for lending me books to deepen my analysis of sport, for helping really interrogate the role of U.S. military intervention in Asia, and for always having the time and will to talk through my project. To my friends scattered around campus, I am eternally grateful for the encouragement, karaoke adventures, incredible kindness, family dinners, road trips, and willingness to talk about any and everything – all of which made Champaign feel like home, despite my best efforts to hate it: Thank you my sister friends: Geneene Thompson, Emily Skidmore, Ashley Howard, Grenita Hall, Kim Walker, and Kisha Rivers. Thanks also to Ian Hartman, Andy Eisen, Valene Whittaker, Chamara Kwakye, Anna Kurhajec, Dan Wong, Ivory Berry, Molly Niesen, Sayuri Arai, Jungmo Youn, Desiree Yamtoob, James Welker, and Bryce Henson. There are not enough thanks in the world for my friends outside the Illinois bubble who allowed me to at my worst moments: whine, cry, complain, and procrastinate, while offering me support, reassurances, and much needed breaks from the grind of graduate school. Heather and Joon Choi, thank you for tirelessly talking to me about my dissertation, and for opening your home to me multiple times a year, which sustained me and kept me sane. Amber Daigre, thank you for not asking me how my dissertation was going, and reminding me that I was always more than just a graduate student/academic. Thanks also go to: Ken and Tina Harris, Maura Hasenfuss, Neil Jamerson, Alex and Jeremy Payne, Amrita Dutta-Gupta, Dan Lempa, Marissa Shrum, and Rachel McNary for reminding me that friends are just found family. Speaking of family, I could spend the length of dissertation and then some thanking my family, especially my grandmother, Aunt Gloria, and Uncle Bob, for their unending supply of love, support, and encouragement. This dissertation though is really for Clarence, who in exchange for a #1 Dad mug, gave me the cultural competence to navigate a world I found to be confusing, frustrating, fascinating and a little bit scary.
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