Embody

Issue 10

Redefining Masculinity

By Alexandria Ng

Sweat drips down his chiseled jaw line as he flexes his muscles and lifts weights. He knows that after he finishes at the gym, he must go to the bar, discuss football with his bros, check out girls at the bar and eat his body weight’s worth in meat all the while hiding his inner feelings rather than openly talk about them.

“The femininity or background placement of minorities is to reduce the obvious perception of threat.”

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Redefining Masculinity

By Alexandria Ng

The culture was created by black and Latino inner-city youth trying to express themselves artistically by speaking on discrimination and the harsh conditions that plagued the South Bronx in the 1970s, according to Ibram X. Kendi, a University of Florida professor, who will teach a history of hip-hop course in Spring 2016.

This image of conventional manliness has pervaded society through a variety of platforms in modern American media.

Whether advertisements show cleancut men attracting the attention of all the ladies because of a certain “manly” cologne, or halfnaked models showing off Calvin Klein boxer briefs, this notion of male masculinity centers around a Eurocentric ideal—that to be considered handsome, one must be buff and Caucasia.

Meanwhile, Asian American masculinity is often toned down and quasifeminized in the media. This, of course, ignores the growing minority’s ability to redefine what it means to be masculine, said University of Florida political science professor Samuel Stafford, who teaches a course on ethnic migration.

“The femininity or background placement of minorities is to reduce the obviousperception of threat.”

Such threat, according to Stafford, reflects the idea that within the next few centuries, the complexion and culture of this country is going to change. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “the browning of America.”

According to this theory, the rising population of different ethnic groups will eclipse the traditional “American Caucasian” person, and therefore challenge the status quo.

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However, this idea of preserving conventional white male masculinity is not one that has surfaced in recent studies, but rather, one that has been persisting for decades.

Jeshow Yang, a University of Florida’s Queer Asians and Pacific Islanders organization facilitator and Asian Pacific Islander American Affairs ambassador, agrees with Stafford’s viewpoint, believing that it even started in the postWorld War II era .

“After World War II, white males didn’t want Asian men to seem masculine and strong, so it would make white men look better,” Yang said. “That’s when Asian American men began to be seen as more effeminate and emasculated so they would seem weak. Femininity was attached to certain things like drinking tea, doing yoga or listening to classical music, so if you did any of these things, people would consider you feminine.”

Finley’s passion led him to apply to UF after finding out there were multiple hip-hop dance groups on campus. He graduated with his bachelor’s in sociology and is currently getting his master’s in management.

“I don’t know what I would be doing without hip-hop,” Finley said. “Probably living a more sheltered life -- not developing myself more as an individual.”

However, with the increase of diversity awareness, the issue of underrepresentation of minority groups in media has become an emerging topic of conversation.

“With what we grew up with, masculinity is idealized European features, like how handsomeness is based on extremely muscular Greek statues,” Yang said. “In media, Asian American men often fill those stereotypical background roles, especially in comedy.”

Mainstream American culture within the film industry tends to cast the lead male role as a tall, athleticlooking white man, Yang said. Seldom do Asian American men secure a part as the main character. Rather, they are frequently reduced to the socially awkward nerd who can’t get the girl or the friend whose only purpose is to provide comic relief.

The stereotype that Asians have a greater mental prowess than bodily strength defy society’s expectations of conventional masculinity causing many Asian Americans to be overlooked when considering what defines “a real man” in the physical sense.

Although traditional manliness focuses on the physical, masculinity is a frame of mind and comes from within, Stafford said. Although western culture equivocates masculinity with strength, it could also encompass confidence, interaction with one’s environment, as well as how one moves through space, Stafford said.

“Being a man means being committed to a longterm vision, being confident, being grounded in your values and have your actions align with your commitments,” University of Florida freshman Dylan Nong said. “To me, being a man is being vulnerable and not wearing a mask.”

This mask refers to the feeling of needing to put up a front to be seen by others as a true man. Whereas the societal stereotype may include talking about sports, picking up women at local bars and building tool sheds from scratch, the lessmentioned facet of masculinity includes being mature in one’s development as a human being, Nong said.

“In a sense, masculinity is being mature, wise and openminded,” said University of Florida senior Ravik Samaroo, a member of the multicultural fraternity Sigma Beta Rho. “Everyone is slightly different when it comes to working out, but not everything can get that big; everybody has their own potential with their body, so when it comes to the physical aspect, you can’t discriminate. That’s why I stress intelligence.”

The ongoing generalization that Asian American men are usually shorter, smaller and weaker than men of other ethnicities contributes to a possible lack of selfesteem in Asian boys who grow up in America and feel that they do not measure up when compared to their Caucasian peers, said University of Florida freshman Victor Lin.

“I’ve always been a really skinny person and sometimes I didn’t feel that confident,” Lin said. “We live in America, which is predominantly white, and they have roots in European culture, so the media here is still tied to that. We [Asians] are different, but we have our own culture where our standards of handsome men are different.”

Just as beauty for women is defined differently around the world, beauty standards for men also vary.

According to BuzzFeed News, Asian countries such as South Korea and India encourage soft facial features, makeup wearing and skin lightening among men. The emphasis on male cosmetics has made the Asia Pacific region the largest consumer of men’s skincare products, male cosmetic surgery hot spot and men’s fashion.

However, the Asian male tendency to dress themselves in fashionforward clothing as an emerging trend of metrosexuality can be seen as femininity in America.

Another persisting stereotype against Asian American men and the measure of their masculinity has to do with the size of their genitalia. Although there is little scientific evidence to prove this theory, this idea continues to be circulated throughout popular culture.

“It goes back to controlling to minimize fear,” Stafford said. “It is a way by the majority western culture to downgrade or minimize the perceived threat or fear of a seemingly intellectually superior identifiable group, especially males.”

Despite similarities in what is considered handsome and manly in other countries, such as a lean, muscular body, American media rarely portrays Asian men as sexual beings or the image of masculinity. The stereotype that Asians are purely academic persists even into the 21st century, Samaroo said.

“[Asian Americans] shouldn’t be offended; every culture, every ethnicity has their own stereotypes, whether it’s true or not,” Samaroo said. “There will always be stereotypes, and that will never change, but as long as people don’t let it affect them, then I don’t really have a problem with it.”

As more Asian Americans come into the spotlight, they prove that Asian men are well- rounded and cannot be generalized as merely skinny and submissive males as often portrayed in the media. Actors such as Ken Jeong, Aziz Ansari and Randall Park pioneer the way for more exposure to Asian American males in American culture and redefine the conventions of the physicality of masculinity.

“We need change in the future because this society is robbed of the benefits that can be offered if men don’t put forth, or aren’t able to put forth, and invest all that they have in a particular country, culture or location,” Stafford said. “You’re going to have half the power for discovery and for productivity.”

Hijabi

By Nicole Dan

“If you Google ‘Muslim woman,’ there is a pretty distinct image that comes up,”

said Rana Abdelhamid, a 22yearold student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Hijabi

Lorem Ipsum “If you Google ‘Muslim woman,’ there is a pretty distinct image that comes up,” said Rana Abdelhamid, a 22yearold student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

“It’s of a woman that’s wearing a niqab that’s completely black, which is very uniform and not representative of the diversity and heterogeneity of Muslim women,” she said, referring to the veil that entirely covers the woman’s face, popular in some predominantly Arab countries such as Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Seeing a lack in media representation for Muslim women and the prevalent misconceptions of women who wear hijabs, Abdelhamid created the Facebook page ‘Hijabis of New York” to highlight the stories of hijabis, in a style similar to the popular Facebook page, “Humans of New York”.

The Movement

Abdelhamid started “Hijabis of New York” to humanize Muslim women, who are particularly susceptible to hate crime.

“There is research that shows that 80 percent of hate crimes that happen against Muslims, happen against Muslim women,” Abdelhamid said. “Hijabi women are a subset of Muslim women who may be more vulnerable to attack because of the visibility of their faith identity.”

While Abdelhamid acknowledges that this project cannot completely solve the problem, she hopes to make a difference. Through “Hijabis of New York”, she has learned about the diversity of experience among Muslim women, and found that some of the violence hijabis experience comes from within the community. In her trips to Spain and the U.K., Abdelhamid found similar narratives.

“I went into this thinking that this would be a platform to raise awareness for other people, for nonMuslims, and for men and nonveiled people who maybe might better understand the experiences of veiled women,” Abdelhamid said. “But what ended up happening was a lot of the engagement that we had was from Muslim veiled women themselves.”

Abdelhamid, a hijabi herself, wears it for religious purposes but also as a form of self- expression.

“If I’m feeling edgy, I wear a turban,”

-Abdelhamid said.

Getting her style inspiration through social media, Abdelhamid said she feels empowered by the newly thriving hijabi fashion industry, which has elevated the number of outlets about Muslim fashion.

Beauty and Fashion

“I definitely had my awkward hijabi days,” said Mariam Sleiman, a 24yearold who works in publishing.

The Lebanese American sees finding the perfect hijab style like finding the perfect haircut.

“Eventually things clicked and it was just a matter of constantly experimenting with how to wear the hijab.”

For Bushra Rashid, a University of Florida sociology senior and health disparities minor, experimenting meant watching YouTube videos to try to see what works for her face shape.

“When I first started out, I did what the basic hijab style is,” Rashid said, which involves using a square that is folded in half and pinned by the neck.

“But my face is really round,” Rashid said, “so I looked like a big tomato. That was not ok.”

Coming to college allowed her to experiment in a way she couldn’t in the more conservative community she grew up in.

“I don’t want to say it’s an accessory, because that’s diminishing its value, but there are a good amount of scarves in my drawer.”

Rashid has about 40 scarves in her drawer, and she can wear them with anything in her closet. Among Muslims and nonMuslims, there is a lot of judgement on what the perfect way to wear hijab is.

“Everyone’s allowed to wear what they want to wear. It’s their freedom to do it,” Rashid said. “You want to show people that wearing hijab isn’t restrictive, and that you are happy wearing the hijab.”

Faith and Fear

However for Rashid, wearing her hijab is more than just an accessory.

“It’s so that I can realize my own devotion to God,” she said. “It’s not just to show others that I’m a follower of Islam.”

Rashid starting wearing the hijab after her parents got divorced, a major change in her life. Many of her relatives did not approve of her wearing the hijab, out of fear that she would be subject to Islamophobia and discrimination. She first made the decision to wear the hijab in middle school, but stopped after about a month due to physical bullying.

“There was so much Islamophobia, even then,” Rashid said.

She started permanently wearing the hijab on the first day of 10th grade. Learning how to keep the hijab in place and finding a style that was flattering for her face was a struggle because Rashid did not have many people to ask how to wear it.

But for Malaysian American Wan Ainal Yaqin, 36, learning to wear a hijab was not as difficult.

“Everything in your life, if you do it with your heart, you can feel like it’s easy for you,” she said.

Yaquin started wearing the hijab at 13 years old. By that time she was used to wearing hijab for prayer and had seen many women put it on, which she said made it easier for her.

“It’s your responsibility to yourself, responsibility to your religion, responsibility to your parents,” Yaquin said.

For Sleiman, wearing a hijab is a careful balance between displaying one’s faith and maintaining its sanctity.

Sleiman said she is offended by those who appropriate the hijab, because the hijab is a religious and political symbol and wearing it as a non Muslim devalues it.

“Completely divorcing it of its religious meaning would be an injustice,” Sleiman said.

Politics and Sexuality

Growing up, Sleiman did not see her culture as at odds with society, but she now sees the hijab as a loaded religious and political symbol.

But for Tesneem Shraiteh, a 22yearold fourthyear linguistics major at UF, the hijab’s political symbol has often lead to unpleasant and unsolicited questioning.

As a Palestinian American, in Walmart, people will come up to Shraiteh to discuss the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Others will ask where she is from, even though she has lived in the U.S. her entire life. “The fact that I’m wearing hijab doesn’t mean that I’m just an open book for you to learn from,” she said.

Blood Lines

By Alyssa Ramos

A look into a Lost Culture that is More than skin deep

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Blood Lines

“How could I refuse my dying father?” asked Lane Wilcken softly.

After Wilcken’s father, Willis Lane Wilcken, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, doctors suggested marking his skin so they could track the radiation that would soon be used to fight the aggressive disease.

Wilcken’s father didn’t want a stranger marking his skin, so Wilcken found a stick, shaped a hole inside and plucked a thorn from his mother’s lemon tree.

While his brother stretched their father’s skin, Wilcken used Indian ink and the Filipino tattoo method of tapping to paint his first tattoo on his dad.

At the time Wilcken had no intention of becoming a tattoo practitioner and the tattoo he drew was not a traditional one either, but by tattooing his father, Wilcken carried on a Filipino tradition.

Method and History

As a Nevadabased tattoo practitioner and writer of the book “Filipino Tattoos Ancient to Modern,” Wilcken has spent 25 years studying this tradition of “batok,” the name of the traditional Filipino tattooing method. According to Wilcken, the practice is deeply ritualistic.

After a client researches his ancestry, the tattoo practitioner helps them choose a design and placement of the tattoo in accordance with the client’s religious practices.

Then, he follows the detailed, traditional process: There is a food sacrifice where blood is drained to ward off evil spirits and Wilcken speaks ancient prayers. But before the food sacrifice is put away, the client is asked to speak something from their heart, and the food offering is burnt or buried.

The actual design is done by a tapping method, in which a piece of lemon thorns or boar tusks are carved to fit into the end of a stick. A hammer is lightly tapped against the stick to poke into the skin.

Though Filipinos were originally dubbed “los pintados,” or “the painted people,”by the Spanish. Today, Filipinos are far from painted.

The Lost Culture

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Because of society’s association between crime and tattoos and coupled with the tendency for Filipinos to migrate to other countries for work and education, the traditional art of Filipino tattooing is endangered according to Wilcken.

“The tendency of those who migrated away is to assimilate into the predominant culture of wherever they are living,” he said. “So we lose language, and we lose the practices, which usually happens with the first generation.”

According to Wilcken, this lost culture is what drives his passion for spreading cultural awareness through his tattoo work. He contends that the common thread that pulls modernday Filipino Americans to get traditional tattoos is a search for identity and belonging.

“The tattoo isn't about you, most of the tattoos are about being part of something bigger than yourself,” Wilcken said.

The People

Felicia Perez, a psychology teacher at Diablo Valley College in California, embarked on a journey into her Filipino roots after her father’s death. She said always felt that her ancestors wanted her to take on a tattoo, but an email from Wilcken was the push she needed to finally do it.

For Perez, her tattoos are visual reminders of that connection.

"Tattoos ground me,” Perez said. “When I look in the mirror, I'm like, ‘Yes, this is who I am.’ It's a reminder I'm from an indigenous culture that has a lot of gifts to give to the world.”

According to Wilcken, by receiving a tattoo, an individual is establishing an open relationship with their ancestors for protection and wisdom. The artist said that this feeling is similar to one of instinctively taking another route home and later finding out the original route was clogged with traffic.

“Those designs represent the ancestor spirit and their communication with the person,” Wilcken said.

Perez also said that her tattoos not only link her to to her ancestors, but mark who she is as a person and the obstacles she’s overcome.

"It's like sharing the same space in time,” Perez said. "Things are changing all the time and reconfiguring itself, but it also still feels anchored in the past."

For other recipients, the Filipino history of earning tattoos is more important.

Lauren Funiestas, a 32yearold health coach, waited five years after meeting Wilcken to get a tattoo.

She waited until she finished her graduate studies and started her career so her tattoos could represent something she earned. Funiestas said that her tattoos decision was an act of following her ancestor’s footsteps.

Funiestas, who has 11 tattoos, said that her the traditional ones were less painful but the process was imbued with a lot of emotional meaning.

“There was more care”, Funiestas said. “Lane sat down and talked to me and explained every line, what it meant and why it was there. It meant a lot to me that my ancestors were coming in this tattoo. I felt like I was being honored and not like a cattle coming in a tattoo shop and coming out.”

Past and Future

At 21 years old, Jasmine Mendoza, a student at San Francisco State University, received her first Filipino tattoo. The communications studies student understands both the media and the younger generation's role in making traditional tattooing more known to Filipino Americans.

Filipino Americans should do their research. The biggest challenge is educating Filipino Americans about their own culture, according to Mendoza.

“I feel like having this media attention is the first step but it also stems deeper than that especially for this generation, especially for us raised in America when we don't even hear about our history let alone our history in America, so it's an education thing,” Mendoza said.

At its core Batok focuses on family, a cultural value that remains relevant to this day. Wilcken emphasizes that respecting the ancestors who are alive are equally important as respecting those who have passed.

“It’s the pinnacle of our past culture,” Wilcken said.

“Many know Filipinos for their hospitality, basing a strong support system in their family. Traditional tattoos seem to bring those full circle.

The title of Mababatok, or tattoo practitioner, is usually given by a village, but Wilcken has been able find a community where he has made his mark. Now, clients like Lauren Funiestas, Felicia Perez and Jasmine Mendoza refer to him with the same title as those before him: Mababatok. Like the tattoos that were given to Filipinos in centuries past, Lane Wilcken is immortalizing and honoring his ancestors through his work and giving that gift to others.

“The designs themselves are repetitive for a reason,” Wilcken said, “It shows the continuity of the family line. We are just part of a link in a chain of ancestors and descendants going back through time and forward in time, that we're part of a whole."

Big appetite, little time

By Rakell Merci

The timer is set, the challenge is ready, and there’s only one thought running through Nathan Figueroa’s mind: Leave no crumb behind.

As a competitive eater who’s eaten a 10oz. burger, carton of fries and sevenlayer cake at Orlando Universal's Hard Rock Kitchen Sink, and four halfpound beef patties and eight slices of American cheese at Las Vegas Heart Attack Grill’s Quadruple Bypass Burger, eating challenges aren’t unfamiliar to the 28yearold Fort Lauderdale resident.

“I’ve always had a pretty big appetite,” said the half Asian American and half Puerto Rican jokingly.

Though competitive eating isn’t a full-time job for him, and the competitive eater said that he uploads the eating challenges on his YouTube channel “NateFiggs” whenever he has the time.

“I don’t do this every day,” Figueroa said. “I do this once or maybe twice a week depending on what the contest is.”

Though the cost of traveling can rack up, the competitive eater exercises his sport by completing challenges at home or at local competitions. Figueroa said that he enjoys doing challenges because of the opportunities to meet people.

“The cool thing about it - about this - I’ve met some really awesome people. I’ve met Matt Stonie, Miki Sudo... really cool people,” he said.

Matt “The Megatoad” Stonie is the current Major League Eating champion, and Miki Sudo is the top female champion. Major League Eating (MLE) gathers the top competitive eaters to race to eat as much as they can under a set time limit. A goal for most competitive eaters is to join the big leagues and compete against the best eaters of the world. Four of the top ten eaters: Matt Stonie, Miki Sudo, Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, and Juliet “The Lovely” Lee are also Asian American.

Despite the prevalence of Asian Americans in the MLE, Figueroa said that he doesn’t think his culture or ethnicity has anything to do with it.

“Here’s the thing, I don’t have a high metabolism,” Figueroa said.“The reason why I don’t blow up like a balloon is because I work it off. I literally have to work my ass off to keep my weight maintained without me adding extra pounds to my body.”

Figueroa believes his culture doesn’t play a role in his competitive eating abilities, but he was intrigued by the theory.

“I understand what you are saying, there’s something about Asian [American] eating....Miki has a crazy capacity. It’s kind of weird. I didn’t even think about till now,” Figueroa said. “But like I said, I personally don’t think so, there could be something genetic going on.”

Figueroa stops to think and then laughs.

“But as for me?,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

According to him, fitness is a must for a competitive eaters.

“If you look at most competitive eaters, if you see the best competitive eaters in the world, you’ll see that they’re in shape or at least not overweight.”

According to University of Florida food and science professor Laura Acosta, there are some serious risks associated with competitive eating.

“Obviously, the first one would be weight gain, if done on a regular basis,” Acosta said. “There have been some incidents where people vomited, and there have been rare cases of people choking to death.”

According to the professor, training for a competitive eating challenge could stop the digestive system’s ability to contract. This would hinder the digestive tract’s ability to get food through.

“You could end up with gastroparesis, where the food just sits in the stomach and doesn't move along,” she said. “That is absolutely a long-term risk.”

But she said that the frequency of competitive eating makes a difference.

“If somebody does this once, (there’s a) much less likely chance these long-term risks will happen compared to someone who does this as a sport or trains for it,” she said.

Figueroa doesn’t deny this risk.

“It’s obviously not a healthy thing, especially if you are doing it on a consistent basis,” he said. “The way I picture it, I give my body a break from challenge to challenge, contest to contest, so I am okay. I haven’t had any crazy side effects from it, I don’t do it day to day, I do it once a week.”

UF psychology professor Neil Rowland said that, like other competitive sports, competitive eating has more than just physical struggles.

“Like running a race, at some point their muscles are going to be screaming at them,” the professor said. “But they push themselves to keep going, keep going, be faster than the next person.”

Figueroa said that this struggle is familiar to him.

“The brain has a good way in telling you it’s disgusting,“ he said. “And it becomes a struggle to complete (the challenge).”

But the obstacles haven’t stopped him from uploading new eating challenges every week on his YouTube channel.

“I actually do enjoy the food challenges. The only food I don’t really like is pickles,” he said while laughing.

The veteran competitive eater also said he loves the sport because of the opportunities to explore exciting new places, meet interesting people and ultimately be a different person.

For him, the sport is all about the journey.

“I have no idea (the outcome), but I am just playing it by ear, day by day,” he said.

Figueroa said that he would like to enter a MLE competition with the best eaters, like Stonie and Sudo.

“I love the people who compete,” he said. “and I would have not met these amazing people if I wasn’t doing this weird adventure.”

And his reasons for this “weird adventure” is simple, but significant.

“The minority of people don’t eat like competitive eaters, and I like being different than other people. It’s fun,” he said. “Be different.”

Issue 9

Sparks Magazine

University of Florida

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