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- Title
De-exceptionalizing Sunisa Lee: Uneven Gymnastics and a Hmong American State-less Critique.
- Authors
Pha, Kong Pheng; Smalkoski, Kari
- Abstract
Hmong American gymnast Sunisa "Suni" Lee won the gold medal in the individual all-around event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This essay analyzes the media frenzy surrounding Lee's rise to Olympic stardom in US gymnastics. In particular, it focuses on how the media narrate Lee's family and Hmong ethnic history of being refugees to becoming an Olympic gold medalist. This essay deconstructs how the state exceptionalizes this history in the context of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in service of the imperial US nation-state in ways that recuperates US empire and bolsters US nationalism. The essay reveals the ways that ongoing anti-Asian racism in the US contradicts the state's claim to Lee's gold medal. Ultimately, the essay argues that Hmong American writing during Lee's Olympic journey presents a "state-less critique" that situates Lee's success in her ethnic Hmong American community and not within the nation-state.
- Subjects
HMONG (Asian people); ANTI-Asian racism; GYMNASTICS; OLYMPIC medals
- Publication
American Quarterly, 2023, Vol 75, Issue 3, p609
- ISSN
0003-0678
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/aq.2023.a905866