In the Eye of the Beholder?: Eyelid Surgery and Young Asian-American Women

Not long after his new baby arrived home from the hospital, Chung Jin Park* peered down to examine her scrunchy pink face. Though it was still too early to determine the shape of his daughter’s eyelids, Park turned to his family and jokingly announced, "Well, there goes the money for her surgery."

Traditionally a procedure sought only by patients with excess eyelid skin or those hoping to lessen signs of aging, eyelid surgery or Blepharoplasty has become popular among young Asian American women and accepted as just another cosmetic choice in an array of many -- like tinting your eyelashes or straightening your teeth. Approximately half of Asians are born with eyelids that are naturally smooth and uninterrupted by a crease in the skin. Asian patients seek out blepharoplasties to create or exaggerate a crease in their eyelids commonly referred to as "double eyelids."

Some parents, like Park, assume that paying for eye surgery as just another part of raising a daughter. This acceptance of surgery within the Asian American community, while not surprising, is now being seen by more and more feminist Asian Americans as the product of an ethnocentric, racist culture. The fact that professionals use the terms "Occidentalize" or "Caucanize" to describe the effect of the process, without thinking twice, is in itself-very telling.

Blepharoplasty is a simple procedure and is usually performed on an outpatient basis. It begins with cutting the upper eyelid into two parts and removing a sliver of skin millimeters wide as well as some of the fat underneath. Then, the surgeon reattaches the lower eyelid flap slightly beneath the upper to create a crease. It lasts less than one hour, requires a week of recovery and an antibiotic regimen, and has permanent effects.

	"The women I know, their mothers ask them casually when they plan to do it. It’s like how girls go to get their ears pierced here -- like a right of passage."

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons there were 142,000 blepharoplasties performed in 1999 -- a number that has more than doubled in the seven years since the ASPS began to keeping count.

And now, thanks to greater availability and a cultural (some argue ingrained) preference for larger eyes, eyelid surgery has become the most popular surgery in the Asia-Pacific region. Demand is highest among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese women, though anecdotal accounts point to rising numbers of Asian men requesting the surgery.

"Eyes that are done look better," insists Silvia Kim, who operates a Korean cosmetics counter in Flushing, Queens. "The crease brings out the eyelashes and makes the eyes look bigger," she says, emphasizing the size difference with her thumb and forefinger.

Critics of eyelid surgery believe it is a cosmetic cop-out for Asian Americans who want to downplay their race, since all Caucasians and most non-Asians are born with the crease. Still others argue personal confidence is the issue, since an estimated fifty percent of Asians are also born with the eyelid fold. But Asians have been characterized by their eyes more than any other feature by Westerners (think Fu Manchu-style caricatures and slant-eye miming in the schoolyard.) This deep-rooted, racist cultural imagery makes it somewhat impossible not to see the widespread effort to alter this trait as a reaction. as well as a statement about the effects of Westernization on Asian Americans.

Those who oppose the surgery fault the pervasive influence of American culture on women’s self-esteems worldwide, especially with the expanding reach of the Internet. Theoretically, globalization of the media over the past few decades should have fostered a diversity of images, the result of a two-way transmission of cultures -- and body types. But some believe the marketing power of Hollywood, coupled with a Western tradition of colonialism, has sown cultural insecurity among Asians and other groups.