Kawaii Sweets and Boba Liberalism
Desire and Disgust for Asian American Girl Culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2230407 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Erica Kanesaka, Erica Kanesaka Kalnay (0000-0002-3867-513X, Emory University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 369-396 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/733037 |
| OpenAlex | W4407118647 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article explores how attitudes toward the sweetness and cuteness ascribed to Asian American girlhood are interlaced into what has derisively been called “boba liberalism,” or the reduction of Asian American politics into a form of mainstream liberal activism embodied by the Taiwanese beverage. As a complex political symbol of Asian America, boba’s qualities—sweet, cute, colorful, frothy, plastic, and fun to drink—associate it with normative conceptions of girlishness. This article questions how the politics of race, gender, and age converge around boba and artifacts of Asian American girl culture that draw from Japanese kawaii (“cute”) aesthetics, inspiring feelings of desire and disgust among diverse Asian American communities. Since the emergence of the term, “boba liberal” has shifted from a concept used to critique liberal multiculturalism into a slur used to harass Asian American feminists in digital spaces. This article argues that the affective ambivalences produced by sweetness and cuteness cast light not only on this contemporary phenomenon but also on long-standing anxieties in Asian American politics that have clustered around Asian American girlhood. Finally, this article works through the problem of how to critique liberal multiculturalism without denigrating sweetness, cuteness, and the satisfaction of girlish pleasures
Aesthetics · Art · Developmental psychology · Disgust · Girl · Liberalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice
Cuteness and Disgust
From The Cultural Politics of Emotion
Sugarwork
The Bourgeois Cinema of Boba Liberalism
Sipping tea, plastics performing
Yellow Peril, Oriental Plaything
MRAsians
Beyond “Living La Vida Boba”
Racist Love
Kawaii Asian Girls Save the Day! Animating a Minor Politics of Care
Pink Globalization
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |