The Wasian discourse is weird (as an Asian Australian)

As an Asian Australian, I’ve always looked at discourse from Asian Americans with a sense of incredulity. There’s a strange foreignness to the discussions that travel online from across the Pacific, with seemingly innocent ideas being blown out of proportion, and quickly descending into rhythms where the term “problematic” is used at alarming rates.

This year has seen the peak of online interest in “Wasians”, including the surge of the term “Wasian” and hilarious derivatives like the fictional country of “Wasia”. (We used to call them “halfies” in Australia, like the Brits.)

Of course, this stems from a long-simmering fetishisation of Wasians (and non-White mixed Asians, and people of mixed heritage, generally), brought to the fore with the recent virality of Hudson Williams (first, from Heated Rivalry (its own can of worms) to his embrace of the spotlight with his bratty personality), Alysa Liu and Eileen Gu’s gold medal wins at the Olympics, and musicians like Laufey (who isn’t American, by the way) and Megan Skiendiel (one-sixth of Katseye). Their successes, combined with them all being conventionally attractive, really lit this Wasian powder keg on fire.

From what I’ve gathered through the Instagram Reels that keep hitting my algorithm:

1. People of White and Asian descent organised “Wasian meetups” in New York and San Francisco. A Wasian-centred Discord server was created.

2. They were receiving increasing calls from people of non-White mixed Asian descent making a very fair point that their meetups didn’t include them, since the names of the events and promotional materials exclusively used the term “Wasian”.

3. The organisers made half-hearted attempts to pivot them to being mixed Asian meetups, like changing the event name and social media handles, but continued to use promo material that only used the term “Wasian”.

4. At the events, the organisers were continuing to hand out materials that only used the term “Wasian”, like “Wasian bingo cards”. According to comments, some people of non-White mixed Asian descent were told to leave when they turned up at their local Wasian meetups. Various other comments allege discrimination based on appearance or attractiveness and even neurodivergence.

5. After the weekend events, over the past week, people started criticising the meetups for being exclusionary, most notably Mad Tsai in a Reel and Aki Lee Camargo’s Start Wasian Hate?. This discourse devolved to threats and slurs.

These “Wasian meetups” themselves are distinctly American phenomena. What started as an online meme, focused on the stereotypical “good look” of Wasians, escaped containment into IRL events designed for social media attention. They’re the product of a post-Covid youth clamouring for in-person connection, who now have a blueprint thanks to Partiful and 2024’s Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park that spawned many, many copycats. (Also, why does it seem that everything interesting happens in that one park?)

These teetered on the line between being a mildly funny development and being taken seriously. Unfortunately, these tripped onto the side of The Discourse. The events exposed the hollowness of developing “Wasian” from a meme term to an “identity”. As Camargo visited the NYC meetup and asked attendees what actually defines “Wasian culture”, they all struggled to come up with a cohesive answer. Of course, no one expected Wasians to be able to have a clear answer to what makes them unique to people of other mixed ancestry beyond aesthetics and having a White parent. Because we all knew it’s an “Internet identity”. One of the organisers betrayed this by offering the answer, “We take pride in our beauty.”

The combination of a very online youth, the cultural dominance of America in global media, that same media increasingly centring Wasians, and that internationally famous American bravado all resulted in these Wasian meetups being organised in the first place.

And this all culminated during “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month” in the US—which is the only country that has a specific month clumping Asian cultures (which is already a dubious classification, given the continent of Asia is home to 60% of the world’s population) with the very distinct Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander cultures, who deserve to have their own dedicated celebrations. The concept of heritage months doesn’t really exist outside the US. Asians in Australia don’t feel a need to hold one (despite having similar experiences of discrimination like the White Australia Policy), and if cultural groups in Australia do, we’d need more than twelve months. (Though we do have NAIDOC Week, which focuses on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who continue to face the ongoing violence of colonisation in Australia.)

The discussion around the exclusion of non-White mixed Asians from these meetups then expanded into the term itself being labelled exclusionary and “centring Whiteness”. But “Wasian” is simply a term that (very efficiently) refers to people of both White and Asian ancestry, and it started as a meme because of how ridiculous it sounds. It is a term that, referring to a specific group of people, can be used to be exclusionary, like hosting a Wasian-only meetup. But to suggest that the term itself intentionally centres Whiteness or is a “symbol of White supremacy” quashes this distinction, and, in fact, erases the Asian identity it refers to. It only makes sense if the letters ‘asian’ were replaced with ‘hite supremacy’. There’s a reason that no one has made the argument that “Blasian” centres Blackness or “bisexual” centres straightness. Because it’s nonsensical. If words like “Wasian” truly do centre Whiteness and shouldn’t be used, then what of the term “White”? What should we call them?

The escalation didn’t stop there: Camargo’s post made the incendiary statement, “if Wasian identity begins and ends with aesthetics, that’s eugenics.” This was a direct response to Laufey exclusively featuring Wasians in her ‘Madwoman’ music video, since she “felt a general lack of representation for people who looked like [her] in music and media.” Instead of looking at it with a charitable lens (or even Occam’s razor)—where she could have been thinking of mixed Asians generally, but has a cultural blind spot for non-White mixed Asians (especially since migration to Iceland is minuscule), or her singular focus on Wasians being a result of the recency of their fame—Camargo chose to dunk. Using this as an example to fill in the blank left by the nebulous concept of “Wasianness” as eugenics, an incredibly loaded term that ought to be treated seriously, in a post titled “Start Wasian Hate?”, is acting in bad faith.

People defending the events haven’t always spoken in good faith either, with one of the organisers claiming their Wasian meet up was inclusive because it included… “gaysians”.

There have also been people using phrases like “Wasian supremacy”, a descendant of “edgy” Internet humour like the “PC master race” (which has always treaded the line). The difference here is that “Wasian supremacy” is only five letters away from white supremacy.

These discussions have rightfully foregrounded the privilege Wasians have due to their proximity to Whiteness, privilege that can easily be invisible to them. But the incessant stream of hyperbolic, inflammatory statements (“this whole Wasian construct is building community […] but it is also hinged on division”, “don’t just centre yourself and call it a day because that’s White supremacy”) has left Wasians feeling like they have to hide their identity—the exact opposite of the goals of the Asian American movement.

This continues a trend of didacticism and moralising in American discourse, especially on race. I distinctly remember the confusion I experienced when Filipino Americans started saying Filipinos are Pacific Islanders… it was news to me and other Filipinos living in Rest Of World that we were closer to the cultures of the Pacific Islands than our neighbours in South-East Asia. Or when the term “Filipinx” was attempted to be imposed on us, despite Filipino languages already being gender-neutral and the letter X being exclusively used for foreign loanwords. If everything’s bigger in America, it definitely includes their high horses.

These discussions almost exclusively come from the US, and lend to the perception that, like UV being more intense under the Australian sun, the lens of race is much more intense in America than anywhere else. Which is odd, given they’re not the only Western country with a highly multicultural population.

What is bizarre about this whole situation was eloquently captured by Chris Zou: there’s a lot more time and energy spent in taking down the Wasian meetups than there is in actually organising a more inclusive and diverse mixed Asian one. The problem was quickly diagnosed, but there was still a wave of people staring at their front cameras to dunk on people with their Notes app statements, all delivered with smirks.

And what’s even more bizarre? The sense of helplessness from this reaction. America mythologised itself as being the land of opportunity. And yet the prevailing action seems to be calling out Wasians for not providing the platform or the attention to other mixed Asian groups.

If the struggle is representation for non-White mixed Asians, unfortunately, the reality is that this will still need to be fought for. This is all built on the struggle for Asian representation generally in America—and that wasn’t just handed to Asians on a silver platter. Recent heights of cultural recognition, like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Parasite winning Best Picture at the Oscars, were the result of persistent hard work from Asians. The repeal of racist, anti-Asian laws was the result of persistent campaigning and activism.

What this episode makes clear is that the same thing is happening to non-White mixed Asians because Wasians have that cultural blind spot (as all people with privilege do), so this will take both Wasians using their privilege to uplift non-White mixed Asians and, unfortunately, non-White mixed Asians having to put in an imbalanced amount of work to achieve this.

We can’t expect everyone to be aware of all their privileges all the time and be perfect all the time. Wasians were rightfully called out, but the overheated reaction only caused infighting amongst Asian Americans.

This all feels like the persistent infighting on the left side of politics, which created a vacuum for centre-right politicians to fill the void and squander opportunities (see also: how the 2010s became Australia’s lost decade as a result of ineffective conservative governments) and far-right populist movements to simmer and rise (see also: open any news site). And yet, there are clear historical examples of how solidarity can be used to effect change: from the Asian American movement that rose in the ’60s and the banding together of queer people to push the needle on queer rights. And this feels like another “culture war” trap that has now divided the Asian American community. There’s a very clear modern example of how to overcome this—and he’s even Asian American: when Zohran Mamdani was campaigning for the mayoralty of New York City, he was laser focused on improving the material condition of New Yorkers to achieve social justice, rather than just talking about social justice and trying to score points to achieve some vague ideal on representation.

Asian diasporas in Western countries are built on the labour of generations of migrants who worked hard to make a living and create roots in the cultures where we live now, in a culture entirely foreign to them. They had a clear goal of building a life with a stable financial situation and providing their children, and their children’s children, the best possible opportunities. They stopped at nothing to achieve that. If there’s anything that underpins our identity as Asian diasporas, it’s this hard work that seized opportunity. We’re talking about organising social gatherings here, not moving to another country. If Wasians could organise multiple meetups across America, why can’t other Asian Americans?

And if you’re an Asian American reading this, don’t forget: you are still American. Your voice and vote have an unfair, outsized influence on the world. Why are your gas prices so high? Are they also high in Rest Of World? Are they unaffordably high in your home countries that people are going hungry? (Hint: Philippines) Once you’re done overcoming the insurmountable challenge of … organising a mixed Asian meetup … maybe you could organise around using your privilege as Americans to improve the lives of people around the world, especially the Asians whose culture you claim deep roots to. Because right now, all of you sound like this.