PLASTIC SURGERY, aside from when it's reconstructive or for health reasons, is never necessary. There is no need to correct something that is natural, and from nose jobs to liposuction, plastic surgery in all forms shows a desire to strive for an unnecessary ideal. One of the most quickly growing types of plastic surgery is eye-widening surgery, which many young Asian women in the United States undergo to alter their appearance. This desire to conform to a Caucasian ideal of beauty is weak-minded and demonstrates a lack of cultural pride. It is shameful that Asians feel the need to change their eyes in pursuit of this Caucasian ideal.
Blepharoplasty is the scientific name for this eye-widening surgery, and its original use was to smooth out the skin around the eyes in order to decrease the signs of aging. The process itself involves cutting the upper eyelid into two halves. Flesh and fat is then removed from the eyelid, and the lower part of the eyelid is reattached slightly beneath the upper part in order to form a crease. Thus, the process succeeds in widening the eye, and it creates the appearance of a crease in the upper eyelid, which around half of Asians lack ("In the Eye of the Beholder?: Eyelid Surgery and Young Asian-American Women," March 6, 2001).
In recent years, this type of surgery has become enormously popular and has grown beyond its original purpose. According to a Wiretap.com column, in 1999, 142,000 of these surgeries were performed in America, and in the previous seven years that people kept track of these amounts, the number of annual surgeries has more than doubled. This surgery has also become popular among young Chinese, Japanese and Korean women, and according to the column, Asian men are also among those who are requesting the eye surgery. Likewise, this eye surgery has now become the third most popular type of plastic surgery in America behind breast augmentation and liposuction, and many families actually view this surgery as a rite of passage for teens.
The Asian community is damaged by the popularity of this surgery in a predominantly Caucasian society. By widening their eyes and attempting to make them look less slanted, Asians only support negative interpretations of these traits. From schoolyard taunts to the infamous Caucasian portrayals of Charlie Chan, the East Asian's slanted eyes have been a source of ridicule in the same way that people painted their faces to imitate blacks. Plastic surgery to widen Asian eyes shows that some Asians are ashamed of their appearance. If Asians are getting corrective surgery to widen and crease their eyes, then they are treating their eyes as things that need to be fixed. Natural appearances should not be treated as deformities, especially when those natural appearances are the focal point of criticism by racists. These people do nothing but damage the Asian community if they reinforce the belief that their eyes are abnormal to begin with.
Asians are under the disillusion that they will look more beautiful by having the eye surgery done. In the Wiretap.com column, Silvia Kim, a Korean cosmetics woman who works in New York City, stated, "Eyes that are done look better. The crease brings out the eyelashes and makes the eyes look bigger." Kim is making a very sweeping statement about Asian eyes. If she believes that all Asians who go under the knife look better afterward, then she is not judging Asian eyes on their own terms.
The mentality that all Asian eyes would look better if they are wider shows that Asians are holding themselves to Caucasian ideals of beauty. These ideals are completely senseless, because a group of people should not adhere to an ideal that they cannot meet without unnaturally changing themselves. Lastly, it is also wrong of these Asians to say that one standard of beauty is the correct one. There are different ideals of beauty in different cultures, and there is no reason why a person has to hold herself to any one in particular -- especially if it is one that she cannot naturally attain.
Racially-driven insecurity and self-doubt helps to keep Asians from being accepted as equals in American society. It shows a complete lack of self-confidence and betrayal of roots, and this type of assimilation, through physical alteration, is painfully obvious. For Asians to gain respect in Western society, they have to be accepted on their own terms for what they truly are, and they should not have to disfigure themselves in order to accomplish it.
(Kevin James Wong's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kwong@cavalierdaily.com.)
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