Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome

Emily Unruh

The Winter Olympics have begun, and with them comes the endless tweets, videos and debates over who “really” should have won the gold. One of the newest Olympic favorites is USA figure skater Mirai Nagasu, from Arcadia, California. This is Nagasu’s second Olympic games, but this one is memorable for another reason. During her skating routine, Nagasu landed a triple axel, one of the most challenging jumps in figure skating.

Along with the challenge of the jump, this is the only jump in which the skater takes to the air while facing forward. Nagasu became the first female American figure skater to land the jump at the Olympics. A triple axel requires three-and-a-half rotations before landing and only two other women have ever completed the jump in a competition.

If you look at pictures of Nagasu, it is easy to see why she quickly became a fan favorite and not just for her jump. After her breathtaking routine, pictures show Nagasu with her hands thrown triumphantly in the air and a bright smile on her face as she lets out a cheer. After scoring second in ladies free skate and helping the US team take bronze, a cheer definitely seems well deserved.

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During and after her performance, the tweets started pouring in with users praising Nagasu’s routine. However, for some users like Bari Weiss, a staff editor and writer for the New York Times Opinion column, their tweets of praise came under heavy fire. Weiss tweeted a video of Nagasu’s triple axel with the words, “Immigrants: they get the job done,” in reference to Broadway’s “Hamilton.”

Weiss quickly found herself under criticism when people pointed out that Nagasu isn’t an immigrant. She was born in California to Japanese immigrants, but Nagasu herself is a U.S. citizen.

While, in Weiss’s defense, it was clear that she meant the message as positive and was praising Nagasu, she missed the mark when she bought into the constant questioning “Where are you really from?” of minorities in America. Huffington post writer, Doha Madani said, “for minorities in the U.S., not being white often means having your status as an American questioned.”

Chrissy Teigen, long-time twitter champion, mentioned Weiss’s reply, calling her actions “perpetual otherism or perpetual foreigner syndrome.” Teigen explained that no one was ashamed of the word immigrant, but it is “tiring being treated as foreigners all the time.”

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And Teigen makes a good point. There is no shame in being an immigrant, or the association that the word brings. In fact, many immigrants are “getting the job done,” but celebrate Nagasu’s historic jump and stop trying to change her representations. The constant association with another country for every minority is a trend that needs to end.