Many scholars have carefully examined the idea of ​​moving “beyond black and white” as it relates to the construction of Asian American identity. Many arguments have been put forward to explain the possible factors that ultimately lead to the perpetuation of the “model minority myth” and the “perpetual stranger syndrome,” as Frank Wu puts it. This essay, therefore, aims to provide a detailed analysis of some pertinent factors that lead to the construction of Asian American identity based on Claire Jean Kim's notion of “racial triangulation.” Additionally, the works of Frank Wu, Kandice Chuh, and Stephen Hong Song will be used in conjunction with this idea to connect their arguments to the portrayal and treatment of Japanese Americans in Otsuka's novel When the Emperor Was Divine. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans, Kim argues that racial positions are defined by two axes: “superior/inferior” and “internal/foreign.” .” This argument is further developed in his article when he proposes the processes that lead to the racial triangulation of Asian Americans relative to Blacks and Whites. These processes include “relative valorization” and “civic ostracism” (Kim, 1999). By analyzing these two processes, it provides a definable space in which Asian Americans are made to feel inferior to whites and superior to blacks, but still remain an “alien and unassimilable” entity in mainstream American culture. He further goes on to argue that this process has existed throughout history. Indeed, she is not the only scholar who has succeeded in presenting the construction of Asian American identity in this way; other scholars have provided an analysis based on the same criteria used by Kim. Kandice Chuh provides a better insight into how an identity is formed within a society. It takes “a transnational approach” to understand the processes through which “Asian American social identities are constructed” (Chuh, 2003). Chuh therefore aims to trace the arrival of Asians to America, an approach also taken by Kim, who argues that the arrival of Chinese in America served as a “temporary economic purpose” (Kim, 1999). Chinese immigrants were called “coolies,” a term that directly linked them to “black slaves as part of a degraded and unfree caste” and which “led to the resurrection of slavery in another form” (Kim, 1999). It was then that the Chinese were identified as “cheap labor” who would be “foolish not to exploit,” as argued by Stuart Creighton Miller, who added that “the Chinese were not fit for the American melting pot” (Miller, 1969). From this argument it can be seen that the Chinese were accepted into America based on what Kim called a “temporary economic purpose.” In all cases, they were marginalized. Finally, Kandice Chuh cites Neil Gotanda's claim that “US nationalism has repeatedly denied or “undoed” political citizenship by creating “Asians” as different from “Americans” (Chuh, 2003), which emphasizes that Asians do not could ever belong to America. Frank Wu goes on to provide a clear picture of how an Asian American is marginalized in mainstream American culture, using the perspective of a child as Americans by Frank Wu are able to feel what an Asian-American child usually feels when he realizes how his classmates make him feel different from them just because he is Asian constructionRacialism is created through social discourse, that is, everyday interaction. If children can understand racial differences, racism is truly a serious social concern that doesn't stop at school. Even at work, racist statements are made by people who claim they are not racist. Popular culture also tends to portray a stereotypical portrayal of an Asian American, which is Johny Sokko, who usually plays a negative character. However, as a child, Frank Wu's character fails to notice the problematic portrayal of his favorite character. Indeed, Keith Osajima writes: “The year 1986 marked an anniversary of sorts: twenty years earlier, the first articles proclaiming Asian Americans as a “model minority” appeared in the popular press” (Osajima, 2005). Stephen Hong Sohn focuses his analysis on how literature uses a dominant narrative to portray racial stereotypes by providing a hierarchical representation of characters; argues that minor characters often tend to serve the “function of clarifying the comparative and asymmetric nature of racial exclusions” (Sohn, 2012). Popular culture and literature, accessible to most individuals, play a substantial role in the construction of racial stereotypes that are easily assimilated by the audience or reader. This may be one reason why Stephen Jay Gould has argued that “our thinking, conditioned by European ethnological frameworks of centuries past,” is “subject to visual representation, usually in clearly definable geometric terms” (Gould, 1996). The media and popular culture play into the subconscious constantly representing a minority discourse that perpetuates stereotypes. The conflict between ethnic and national identity still reverberates. Ethnic identity becomes a means to address and combat these constructed discriminations, as they contain a sense of belonging that opposes racist ideas. produced by the dominant society (Mossakowski, 2003). Returning to the work of Frank Wu which tends to describe how racialization operates as a means to define and discriminate, we can see that racial constructions have become a common process that, unfortunately, plays out. an important role in shaping an individual's life: “Even if I didn't consciously see him or myself as Asian, they clearly saw it. They saw me more or less like Johny” (Wu, 2002). In addition to that, he was given “many masks to wear” and these included “worker,” “saboteur,” “kamikaze pilot,” “obedient servant,” “tyrannical intent,” and “an enemy,” among many others. (Wu, 2002). These terms tend to cast being Chinese in a negative light, leading the child to question his parents, “Why are we Chinese?” (Wu, 2002). These terms also reflect stereotypes that unfairly generalize the entire Asian American subject. Something similar happened in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. All Japanese Americans were seen as enemy aliens. They were identified based on their race. In light of this issue, Julie Otsuka wrote When the Emperor Was Divine to describe how Japanese Americans have to pay a high price for being Japanese. Although it was only a small group of people who were Japanese who attacked Pearl Harbor, most Japanese Americans were persecuted and sent to internment camps, where they were subjected to cruel treatment. Even the children were not spared. They had to face these harsh situations only because they possessed Japanese ancestry. Under such persecution, Japanese Americans faced exclusion in the name of “relocation.” When the Emperor was Divine traces the journey of one of many.