Nov 23, 20224 min read

The History and Harm of Yellow Fever

Updated: Dec 15, 2022

TW: mentions of misogyny, racism, sexual violence, and gun violence

“Yellow Fever- an uncontrollable desire for Asian women that is so powerful that having it is comparable to contracting an illness — and racial fetishes, whereby people choose partners solely on the basis of race” (thebolditalic.com). Coined in the 18th and 19th centuries (ncaatogether.org), “yellow fever” describes the racial fetish for Asian women. While yellow fever is experienced by men and remains genderless, Asian women have a long and complex history with hyper-sexualization and Western colonization of their bodies that contribute to the fetish recognized today.

The stereotypes of Asian women are those of docility and submissiveness— as filmmaker Debbie Lum puts it, the assumption is that “Asian females are willing to listen, willing to adapt, [and] willing to accept what the guy says” (thebolditalic.com). These stereotypes did not come from nowhere. In fact, the roots of these harmful assumptions are directly linked to the history of Western colonization of Asian countries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1875, the United States signed into law the Page Act of 1875. The law “prohibited the importation of unfree laborers and women brought for ‘immoral purposes’ but was enforced primarily against Chinese” (immigrationhistory.org). Thus, the promotion of the sexualization and promiscuity of the Asian woman’s body began. U.S. military camp towns in Japan and Korea, during World War II and The Korean War respectively, enslaved “camp town women,” often orphaned and impoverished. They were “charged rent for rooms in which they serviced men'' which further contributed to the hyper-sexualization of Asian women. The American soldier was taught and peer pressured to “release [his] anxiety, self-loathing, and hatred of the enemy onto Asian women’s bodies” writes Time Magazine (time.com). South Asian countries experienced the same threats— Vietnam War, Indochina Conflict, and the Philippine-American War saw similar atrocities of Asian women being reduced to the sexualized enemy of the United States (vox.com).

While history set the foundations for the Asian woman’s stereotype, 20th century film and media propelled forward and universalized the toxic representation. Overwhelmingly, Asian female characters in films, plays, and television shows were caricatured as overly promiscuous and hyper-sexual, mysterious, and submissive (scientificamerican.com). In Miss Saigon (1989), a play depicting the interpersonal struggles during the Vietnam War, Kim, a Vietnamese bargirl, is characterized as loving a U.S. soldier, Chris, so intensely that she is willing to give up her life for him. Not only is Kim hyper-sexualized, her submission to Chris promotes the docile stereotypes of Asian women (vox.com). Other common examples that perpetuate stereotypes are the Japanese geisha (ncaatogether.org), Madame Butterfly (vox.com), and the Lotus Flower stereotype (https://time.com/5952819/history-anti-asian-racism-misogyny/). Nowadays, filmmakers and writers of the like have taken steps forward in broadening Asian women’s roles on the screen and have moved away from past dangerous formulas. But it was these types of representations that perpetuated the stereotypes of Asian women in the United States. And it is these representations that have allowed yellow fever to exist and suffer Asian women for so long.

Perhaps the most common rebuttal against yellow fever is that the fetishization could be considered “a harmless ‘type’ or preference of romantic interest” (thebolditalic.com). The “motivations involved in racial fetish are often assumed to be positive or at least harmless” (camrbridge.com). But yellow fever enforces stereotypes onto an entire ethnic group, forces the woman to balance the pressures of fulfilling or rejecting the stereotype, and robs her of agency at the same time. Does this person like you as a person, or just because you’re Asian? Asian women dealing with yellow fever “feel subjected by men, along with the significant emotional labor required to fulfill, resist, or otherwise negotiate those stereotypes” (cambridge.org). Yellow fever strips women of autonomy and disallows them to live outside of the boundaries enforced by such dangerous stereotypes. People with yellow fever are attributing what they believe Asian women will be like based on what they’ve seen in the media and expecting her to behave in that curated image.

Yellow fever is costly in how Asian women interact with and are perceived by the rest of the world. The harmful stereotyping damages self-worth and traps women in a box of patriarchal submission. But the consequences of such fetishization can also be deadly. On March 16, 2021, 21-year old Robert Aaron Long killed eight people, six of which where women of Asian descent, across three different massage parlors. Long cited his struggles with “sexual addiction” and “targeted [the] businesses where the victims worked to rid himself of temptation” (nytimes.com). The tragedy was part of the rise of Asian American hate during the ongoing pandemic (bbc.com) and contributes to the fears Asian Americans, specifically women, feel at the cost of stereotyping.

Understanding the history of Asian American women in the United States is paramount to dismantle “yellow fever” and other harmful stereotypes. As filmmakers and television writers make slow steps of progress towards more accurate, empowering representations of Asian American women, their true stories are being heard and known. This is necessary for Asian women, in fact all women of color, to take back their agency and force the world to acknowledge their struggles in this country.