‘Desperate’ Slur: A good reason for Filipino American History Month

By: Emil Guillermo, Oct 12, 2007, ASIANWEEK

The sad part about the Desperate Housewives slur on Asian Americans of Filipino descent is that few people got it: not the perpetrators from ABC, and incredibly, not even some Asian American watchdogs.

But the Filipino community felt the sting, and that’s all that matters to make a simple throwaway line unacceptable.

In case you were watching PBS’ The War (which had great Filipino stories), here’s the cause of the latest media transgression.

On the Sept. 30th episode of Desperate Housewives, the Teri Hatcher character is about to see a doctor and says, “OK, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Because I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines.”

Ouch. And right on the eve of Filipino American History Month, the month we celebrate the first time a Filipino ever step foot on America, just off California’s Morro Bay on Oct. 18, 1587.

After all this time, people are still ignorant about Asian Americans of Filipino descent.

What is known is the typical cultural shorthand that informs the ignorance of writers at Desperate Housewives and then reinforces the collective ignorance among TV viewers.

That’s how stereotypes fester and become part of the accepted bigotry of modern America. You can’t make a joke out of Filipino med schools unless you believe in the inferiority of everything Filipino.

That such a line could get past the standards officials at ABC is truly amazing.

Using the math principle of substitution (all you APAs should know that one), if the show featured a Passover Seder, you wouldn’t hear stereotypical Jewish jokes bandied about, I assure you.

More frustrating, the true butt of the joke here is not the Filipino but the white American.

They’re the ones not smart enough to find a spot in a U.S. medical school and desperately seek a placement anywhere they can.

But the Desperate writer didn’t know that Filipino medical schools generally are among the best foreign schools, and that Filipino doctors educated both here and in the Philippines are among the most respected in the world.

Other countries do have medical schools that fall well below the U.S. standard. Remember when Reagan invaded the tiny country of Grenada in the ’80s?

The only Americans there were medical students not smart enough to get into a U.S. med school.

EVEN ASIAN AMERICANS MISSED THE MARK

But here’s a truly frustrating thing: when I contacted MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, I figured it would be leading the fight against the networks.

Incredibly, even MANAA, which has fought Hollywood for years on these sorts of issues, didn’t feel any outrage.

When I contacted Guy Aoki, the MANAA guru, he e-mailed, “You’ll probably hate me for saying this, but we didn’t think it was a big deal. If they mention any foreign country, people descended from that country are going to be upset. We have no idea about the caliber of doctors from the Phillippines [sic], only that there are a lot of Filipino nurses. Besides, we don’t usually get involved when foreign countries are involved.”

Now, I love Guy Aoki, have publicly praised his efforts in general and still want to work with him.

But his reaction is troubling because I’m sure he’s not the only non-Filipino who felt that way. To many, Filipinos still don’t rate on the “offend-o-meter.”

Fortunately, Karen Narasaki, another legendary community advocate who works with a coalition of media diversity activists, recognized the slur and helped in the peacemaking between ABC and the Filipino community last week. The network has agreed to remove the slur from all repeats and DVD compilations.

But that’s not enough. Removing the slur sounds like a nice gesture, but it only erases the incriminating evidence.

It doesn’t deal with the insensitivity.

It whitewashes the episode and shines up ABC’s image, like it never happened. ABC is left smelling like a rose.

And the Filipinos? To ABC and to the millions who bought into the slur in the first place, we smell the same as ever.

Nothing is done to restore our lost esteem.

In fact, ABC merely erases us totally from memory and returns us to our natural state — invisibility.

It wouldn’t be an issue if there were simply more references, positive or benign, just not negative. For now, that’s all there is.

That’s why the protest should continue — at least through Filipino American History Month – until ABC truly makes amends. Me, I’d like to see a Filipino on Desperate do something heroic — like teach Teri Hatcher’s character a lesson. I’d volunteer for that.