ABSTRACT
Identity is salient for many Asian Americans because of cultural margin-alization (Song, 2003), and popular media are powerful sites in creating racist and marginalizing discourses about Asian Americans (Espiritu, 2004). Popular media consistently exclude Asian Americans, and when Asian Americans are represented, these media rely on stereotyped tropes to represent them. The invisibility of Asian/Americans 1 in popular media damages Asian Americans' self-image by withdrawing popular legitimation (Yamada, 2003), and stereotyped representations of Asian/Americans weaken identity and self-esteem. This is evident in the literature in both psychology and critical cultural studies. Though not specifically writing about media, Tajfel (1978) pointed out that ethnic minorities are at greater risk for lower self-esteem. Asian Americans, in particular, have been found to have the lowest ethnic identity scores and the lowest self-esteem of all major racialg roups in the United States as are sult of societal stereotyping (Martinez & Dukes, 1997). Kohatsu et al. (2000) argue that as “middlemen minorities,” Asian Americans experience increased internalized racism because of the pressure to identify with Whites.
