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Jeremy Lin puts the ball in Asian Americans' court
The New York Knicks' overnight sensation is helping reshape the popular imagination around Asian Americans in sports.
By Oliver Wang, Special to the Los Angeles Times
February 21, 2012
The rise of New York Knicks basketball player Jeremy Lin has drawn fans as diverse as Harlem street ballers, late-night talk show hosts and Sarah Palin, but nowhere has his story been more deeply felt than within Asian Americans.
In the Asian American community even third and fourth generations must contend with being treated as perpetual foreigners. So it comes as no surprise that they have embraced the big pop culture bang that created "Linsanity" — a force that already has turned long-entrenched cultural stereotypes on their heads and made the Ivy League-educated point guard the most visible Asian American in the country, if not the world.
"[Lin is] definitely a departure from the invisibility or the erasing of Asian American-ness of Asian American players," said Kathleen Yep, a Pitzer College professor of Asian American studies and author of "Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled at the Chinese Playground." "There's a fascinating thing of many people claiming Jeremy Lin ... as part of the American story."
The overnight NBA sensation is also helping to change the conversation around Asian Americans and race, especially in the media, where the phenomenon has been fueled by social media chatter, 24-hour sports networks and a zero-to-hero storyline straight out of a movie script.
More: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-jeremy-lin-20120221,0,1690202.story?track=rss
By Oliver Wang, Special to the Los Angeles Times
February 21, 2012
The rise of New York Knicks basketball player Jeremy Lin has drawn fans as diverse as Harlem street ballers, late-night talk show hosts and Sarah Palin, but nowhere has his story been more deeply felt than within Asian Americans.
In the Asian American community even third and fourth generations must contend with being treated as perpetual foreigners. So it comes as no surprise that they have embraced the big pop culture bang that created "Linsanity" — a force that already has turned long-entrenched cultural stereotypes on their heads and made the Ivy League-educated point guard the most visible Asian American in the country, if not the world.
"[Lin is] definitely a departure from the invisibility or the erasing of Asian American-ness of Asian American players," said Kathleen Yep, a Pitzer College professor of Asian American studies and author of "Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled at the Chinese Playground." "There's a fascinating thing of many people claiming Jeremy Lin ... as part of the American story."
The overnight NBA sensation is also helping to change the conversation around Asian Americans and race, especially in the media, where the phenomenon has been fueled by social media chatter, 24-hour sports networks and a zero-to-hero storyline straight out of a movie script.
More: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-jeremy-lin-20120221,0,1690202.story?track=rss