Harmful stereotypes of Asian women in America influenced the first U.S immigration law based on race, the 1875 Page Act, preventing Chinese women from entering the United States. It is important to uncover the history of these cultural misrepresentations and its relationship to pop culture in order to begin to examine the subsequent implications of potential misrepresentations in the 21st century. This is evidenced by the cultural attitudes reflected in both the politics and arts of the time. Though there is no single origin for Asian fetish, the corresponding stereotypes of Asian women emerged in the 1800s due to the increasing Western imperialism in Asia throughout the century. Such stereotypes are widely accepted as the driving factor behind the fetishization of Asian women in the West. The oversimplification of these cultures portray homogenous versions of these groups.
In the United States, women of primarily East Asian (and Southeast Asian to a lesser extent) origin and or descent are most commonly misrepresented through stereotypes as subservient, passive, mysterious, villainous in nature, and hyper-sexual.
See also: Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States
