ABSTRACT
Pertaining to the issue of changing images and stereotypes, activism by Asian-ethnic professionals in the media industry to improve representation of Asian Americans in television, film, and theater appears to have begun to bear some fruit. The lower barriers that the women in the author's study in general enjoy within the interracial marriage/dating market compared to the men stem, as discussed, from persisting image of Asian American women as exotic, submissive, yet hyper-sexualized. Even for such interracially married women, various degrees of internalized self-doubt appeared as an undercurrent in their narratives; this demonstrates that even Asian American women, despite their purported advantages in the dating/marriage market, are not exempt from the silent but pervasive psychological traumas stemming from racism. These narratives indicate that such feelings of internalized inferiority often lead to, and are based on, the idealization of White women as the standard bearers of beauty.
