Ethnic Stereotypes

(One of the hypocrasies of dissertation writing -- or life itself -- is that one is simultaneously self-destructive and self-improving, preoccupied with the analysis of pretty much everything and, at the same time, fascinated by bad TV. Cases in point: tonight I watched Wife Swap and am now writing my thoughts here while I drink de-toxification tea. But none of this took place until after I smoked a cigarette.)

My thoughts are malformed, but it's clear to me that I'm working backwards and that what really interests me right now is the Lower East Side today, not so much post-slumming, but rather in the midst of a different, more postmodern style of slumming. I'm drawn in by the need of so many -- real estate developers, preservationists, historians, long-time residents, current residents, visitors, shoppers -- to identify the Lower East Side with its ethnic past. It's as if the stamp of "ethnicity" (whatever that means in a particular context) somehow adds just the right touch of authenticity. Some examples leap to mind. One is this report from Gawker that the new Whole Foods on the Bowery is trading in ethnic stereotypes. Similar images to these appear in the windows of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum office windows (photographs of which appear to be unavailable on-line, but the images appear at the 91 Orchard Street location.) While these paintings are far from the simian creatures one sees in caricatures of the Irish in the 19th century, or the thick-lipped, pickaninnies of Thomas Nast's creation in Harper's Weekly, they still oversimplify ethnicity and reduce identity to recognizable , categorizable, historical (and still tainted) visions.

To illustrate, compare the Chinese character in the Whole Foods ad with this one from a late 19th century picture book. Of course, the 19th century image is packed with feminizing elements like the fan and flouncy sleeves, not to mention that the picture is titled "John," a catchall name white Americans assigned to Chinese men in that era. And the Whole Foods image is better in that respect. Still, the Whole Foods man, wearing his buttoned-up smock and enjoying his bowl of noodles (because, after all, Asian people not only don't dress like us, but they eat rice and noodles and...well...rice noodles, right?) hardly represents a 21st century China. Indeed, it's this sense that the historical image -- touched up for maximum quaintness -- is what Whole Foods wants to sell. And why? Is it to distract shoppers from the displacement of Chinatown? Is it to give Whole Foods some sort of extra cache? Is it to say, yes, we Whole Foods respect our neighborhood and understand its history? Which brings me to another question I have no energy to address tonight: what about Essex Street market?