hardboiled

race to disgrace: countdown to asian american sellouts

You've waited. The suspense has been building throughout the year and all the talk around the water cooler has been, "Who's going to take the one spot?" Well your patience has paid off. Millions of people across the country have turned in their votes. These votes were subsequently thrown away because that's really not how we decide this thing, I'm not sure why you wasted all those envelopes. Anyhow, cue the drumrolls and start up the band 'cuz here we have our number one man.

#1 S.I. Hayakawa

It's fitting that in the year where we've seen a resurgence of the third world Liberation Front on this campus and attacks against Ethnic Studies around the nation, that our top pick, the most sellingest-out of sellouts, is a man infamous for escalating brutal state repression against striking students of color at San Francisco State forty years ago. S.I. Hayakawa encapsulates all the contradictions, ignorance, and violence a sellout represents, and for that we dishonor him with the title of #1 Asian American sellout.

Starting in 1968, students at SF State, seeing the ways in which the university marginalized their existences in the classroom and oppressed their communities outside, demanded a relevant education committed to social justice and self-determination. These students recognized the administration's half-hearted approach at negotiations required more confrontational tactics and formed the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), a coalition of Third World students fighting for fundamental change in how education relates to communities of color. TWLF and other radical groups on campus staged sit-ins, demonstrations, and in November called for a strike. What resulted was one of longest and most violent student strikes in American history.

There are few figures who represented the arrogance and lack of compassion of the university students were fighting to change better than S.I. Hayakawa. Originally an English professor, Hayakawa was chosen as interim president of the college. His appointment foreshadowed a disturbing trend of neoconservatives of color being used to legitimate racist practices that continues to this day. Hayakawa prohibited meetings and gatherings on campus, called strike leaders "a gang of goons, gangsters, con men, neo-Nazis, and common thieves," and unleashed police brutality on the campus with complete disregard for the safety of the students. He infamously pulled the speaker wires during a campus rally, a move that won him many fans amongst moderates and conservatives, but showed his eagerness to suppress student voice. Hayakawa symbolized the viciousness with which elites try to contain resistance, but in spite of his efforts, the students succeeded in bring about the first School of Ethnic Studies in the country.

Hayakawa excelled so well as a sellout at SF State that following his tenure as President of the College, he went on to sellout on a national level as a US Senator. After California voters elected him in 1976, Hayakawa introduced the first attempt at an English Language Amendment, which would make English the official language of the country. The proposed amendment would have required all government business to be conducted in English. The amendment failed but after leaving the senate, Hayakawa founded U.S. ENGLISH, a pro-official English organization which, in addition to lobbying for a national language, has helped pass official English legislation in thirty states, California among them. English-only policies only serve to erect barriers preventing immigrants and refugees from using desperately needed services. Denial of access and denial of voice are the results for these communities and Hayakawa's efforts have laid the foundation upon which anti-immigrant policies have been built.

Hayakawa also opposed the redress movement for Japanese American internees and once stated that "the wartime relocation, despite the injustices and economic losses suffered, was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast." I mean, come on, this is just too easy. The rest of the sellouts on this list pale in comparison to how hard Hayakawa sells out.

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With the conclusion of our countdown, I've had to give a lot of thought to this notion of a "sellout." This series has been a difficult one to write, not only because of the challenge in starting a countdown when the full list is still undecided, but also because of what questions are raised in the discussion of sellouts. What does it mean to be a racial sellout? Who gets to decide who is a sellout? How do we understand sellouts of color in the context of a society that devalues that which is dark?

These are extremely important questions to ask, and I don't claim to know the answers to any of them, if there are any to begin with. But I will say this. In labeling someone a "sellout" to the Asian American community, we are not trying to create some essentialized identity, some defined boundaries to who Asian Americans are. Such a move would be as damaging to our communities as the "sellouts" themselves and it not our intent to police what is acceptable or unacceptable Asian Americaness. Rather, with this series we have tried to take to task those who cause harm to our communities. I believe it is possible to identify when individuals elevate their interests at the expense of perpetuating injustice to others. What this series has been about is highlighting the violence these sellouts have done to Asian Americans and marginalized peoples in general.

So to S.I. Hayakawa and all the other problematic peoples who have (dis)graced our countdown, enough with the hate. And for any potential sellouts out there, know that hardboiled is still out there, kicking ass and taking down names. You've been warned.