Asians in America

[Anonymous]

A front-page article in the California section of the LA Times for Saturday, April 28, 2008, "Protest reflects a shift in Chinese Americans' views," reports a gathering of about 1000 Chinese Americans across from the CNN building in LA to protest characterizations of PRC officials as "goons" and "thugs" by Jack Cafferty, one of CNN's stable of xenophobic talking heads (Lou Dobbs et al.) A larger protest had been held earlier in San Francisco and the Chinese foreign minister had demanded an official apology. But the article is more than mere reporting. It focuses on the way that recent xenophobic, anti-Chinese comments by the American media have galvanized a more aggressive sense of ethnic identity on the part of Chinese-Americans, from university students to older entrepreneurs.

As various posts to this thread have noted, many Asian-Americans growing up in the US have been concerned traditionally about "fitting in" and gaining acceptance as "true Americans." Often these same people, as college students and adults, have reconsidered and even rediscovered their identities as Asian-Americans, in some cases studying the languages and histories of their own ethnicities. The recent assertion of Chinese-Americans' identification with and support of the PRC is an important step in Asian-American self-identity, even in what, to use an old-fashioned term, might be called "ethnic pride." Chinese-Americans are officially welcome in the US with their high academic test scores and strong capitalist work ethic but they are not encouraged to identify too strongly with the old country, unless they happen to come from Taiwan or Hong Kong. Supporting the PRC has always been, as the Germans like to say, verboten. China, or "Red China," as the American media used to call it, was the great villain, along with the former USSR, of the Cold War, and even after the Berlin Wall came down, leaving China the world's only major Communist country, American attitudes remained guarded, at best. Even now, when China has emerged as the most aggressive and economically successful capitalist manufacturer and exporter in the world, if something goes "wrong" in China, like the Tibetan uprisings, the American media are quick to shake fingers and hurl epithets. But for many Chinese-Americans, things have changed, especially this year with China hosting the Olympics. Just as Japan used the 1960 Olympics to spotlight the new industrialized Japan, the PRC rightfully hopes to use this year's Games to showcase the new, economically vibrant and competitive China, distinct from Good Earth and "Red China" stereotypes alike. That Chinese-Americans are feeling pride at this moment, and a strong identification with the PRC, and resent China-bashing from CNN is, one would think, entirely understandable, even laudable.

Of course the same xenophobes who love to bash China have accused the LA protests of being "staged" or instigated by some sinister commissariat somewhere in Beijing. But Clay Dube, who is quoted several times in this article, points out that the protesters did not need to get any marching orders from the PRC. The Chinese-Americans quoted in the article are adamant in their assertions that the PRC did not "sponsor" the protest, that it was fueled by indignation over Cafferty's CNN comments in particular and the anti-Olympics, anti-China protests in general. Asian-Americans have been regarded usually as part of a "good," which is to say "invisible," ethnic community. Protests like those in San Francisco and Los Angeles suggest that they are starting to become signficantly more visible.

Leigh Clark
Monroe HS

[Anonymous]

I am watching the pre-olympic trainning (on NBC) and just became aware of Liu Xiang, who appears to be a world record holder in track and field. The announcers continue to repeat how much pressure lies in this one person to win at the olympic games this summer. In speaking of the 1.3 billion people in the home country of this athlete, Liu gets disqualified for a false start and that appears to support the commentators theory. I just wonder if this athlete fears failing because of the love of sport or pride of China? Also would he consider suicide if he earns less than a bronze at the games? Does that cross his thoughts is what I mean?

[Anonymous]

I dont know the particular athlete, but I'm sure the Chinese govt provides mental health as well as physical health care for its athletes. I doubt suicide is on their minds if they lose. Just a guess.

[Anonymous]

This is just a random though and I was wondering how this dynamic played out in the Asian American community. I think that it's fairly common knowledge in the US Latino community that we often find it hard as a group because of out own intra power struggles, Cuban vs Mexican vs Puerto Rican and the such. I was wondering how this played out in the Asian American community. I have met several Korean Americans who were adamantly anti-Japanese. This particular guy ended up dating a girl who was half Japanese, her grandmother freaked because she was dating a Korean guy. I have also had Southeast Asian students refer to themselves as the "ghetto Asians". I guess that this just fascinates me because I know that things play out similarly at times in the US Latino community. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I attended a Korean wedding this past weekend for a co-worker of mine. I was blessed as the young bride had shared much of the pre-wedding process, fears, and joys with me. I really felt a part of the wedding.
The element that strikes me here, after reading several of the postings within this thread, is that a shared faith, in this case Christianity, seems to mute or at least significantly quiet the racial issues that may exsist between peoples. I never once felt an outsider and when meeting the parents, I could tell by their response to me that they already had common feelings of love and pride with me as they obviously knew how much I loved, supported, and cherished their daughter...that we had common values already in play. And those of course are based upon a common faith.
Although many negative things can be said about organized religion, there is a flip side. This past weekend was a powerful reminder of the good that can come. Unity. Unity regardless of nationality, sex, or race.

[Anonymous]

For those interested in statistics about Asian and other populations, there is a very informative book published by the Center for Geographical Studies at CSUN. It is called Changing Faces, Changing Places by James P. Allen and Eugene Turner. I obtained a copy last week and have found statistics, explanations and maps of population patterns of all ethnic groups, including Asian totals and separate data for Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and others. The information covers the five-county area around Los Angeles and is through 2002.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the comments and statistics are great, but I suppose that I have always enjoyed qualitative data much more so than quantitative. I think that I am interested in the conflicts that exist within the Asian-American community. I find that in the Latino community much of it is only privy to the people that exist in the community itself, while to the outside observer everything seems to be homogenous.

[Anonymous]

A great article in the Los Angeles Times today explored the disparity of test scores between Asians and Latinos. Latinos, according to the Times, are resigned to taking a back seat to their Asian classmates. The story does not distinguish among the various Asian or Latino ethnicities. From my point of view it is not possible to ignore the differences between Guatemalan, Salvadoran, or Mexican cultures. I have no non-Philippine Asian students, but I would not want to ignore differences among Chinese, Japanese, or Korean students (not to put too fine a point on it). Nevertheless, the Times article goes no further than parental pressure in accounting for the disparity. It does hint that non-Asians are not welcome on the Academic Decathelon team, but does not suggest that some "cliquishness" is behind the difference in performance. Finally, Latino parents accept less stellar performances. The paper cites the answer one parent of an Asian student who got a "B", do we need to get a tutor? Second best is not acceptable. I used to think that it might reflect a more thoroughly literate tradition (in Asia, writing goes back a long time), or the competitive exam system (the vehicle for advancement), but now I wonder if it reflects a more developed commercial culture. After all, the point of Capitalism is that it takes hard work to get ahead. In Latin America the middle class was notoriously underdeveloped until more recently, an artifact of Spanish colonial policies.

[Anonymous]

For me it is often easier to digest information visually than the statistical chart route. There is a great web site Policymap.com that allows you to filter information according to a large number of criteria--education, money, demographics, jobs, energy, real estate--within a geographic area. One can make the area as small as a few square miles or much larger areas, like states. You can compare data from different regions as well. I plan to present my students with some questions they have to answer regarding ethnicity, school performance, and economic status.

[Anonymous]

Why do Asians Generally get Higher Marks than Latinos?

What a controversial report, but unfortunatly it is a reality. An LA Times reporter sought out to investigate a pretty popular stereotype: that Asian immigrants tend to value education more than Latino immigrants. Before I begin let me state that I am a Mexican-American and I have taught at two high schools, both of which are predominately Latino (95%). That being said, the report verified what I already knew, but it still hurt to read it. According to students at Lincoln High School (both Asian and Latino were interviewed), it boils down to parental expectations. The Asian students said that their parents typically don't pay attention to their grades unless they fall below an A or B+; they are expected to get A's-it isn't celebrated. These students say that their parents show concern when they see grades drop and often have them go to tutoring to get their grades up. One the other hand, many Mexican studnents stated that work is valued over education. That parents want to see their kids get a job, work, get a home, work and provide for their family. Manual labor is highly valued. At one point, an interviewee stated that Asian parents will ask for help from their child around th house, but if the child is working then the parent has the kid finish then go help. On the other hand the Latino parent will ask the kid to stop working and go help out. Apparently a running joke at the high school is that Latino's with good grades are "really Asian at heart" and Asians with bad grades are really "Latinos at heart". What struck me is that this was coming from students. Many teachers were offended at some of the comments and questions and did not participate in the discussion.

I've taught for almost 7 years now and as I reflect I realize that the biggest obstacle many of my students face is their home situation. In addition to single-parent homes, adult-responsibilities and other issues, Ihave also seen that education is important but not the most important thing in the lives of many of my students and their parents. For example, and Im sure you can all concur, the majority of parents who show up for parent-teacher conferences have sons and daughters who are doing excellent, when it should be the other way around. I believe that we need to raise our expectations of our students here at my high school, they are all capabale of learning and most are able to go to college. What do you think?

[Anonymous]

At the Pacific Asian Museum there was a lovely historical look at Asians in America. Unfortunately, Japanese-Americans did suffer in the Internment Camps around World War II. I admire how this culture did not become bitter and how they are very positive about being American. There is a very nice book written by Houston and Houston, titled Farewell to Manzanar that describes this time period and this culture's detention in the camps during the 1940's in the U.S. [Edit by="mdipaola on Jul 22, 6:25:19 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

What about the NO-NO Boys? And Korematusu v US? There is definitely a history of Asian Americans fighting back against the treatment that they have received in the US. And of course, being a good dissenter hardly means you are a bad America, perhaps quite the contrary?

[Anonymous]

Danny - yeah id have to agree that much of the reason why statistically and on average, asian kids do better in school than latino kids, is because of parental expectations. But the question is, why do those parents have different expectations? Is it because of their race?

The answer really is no. Imagine this - if working class filipinos were able sneak into a country that had more jobs and opportunites, then they'd come into that hypothetical country. The big leap of reality has to be made in that we have to imagine that the Philippines was not surrounded by water and was instead, connected to larger land mass. Now, those working class filipinos' kids would probably not do so well in school because their focus would be on getting jobs and working.

What I'm getting at is this: many asians tend to do well in school because of their immigrant mentatlity, and that the fact that those who came to america tended to have some kind of cultural capital, most likely a college education. In other words, many of the lower/working class asians CANNOT make it to america! Those that do come, have some kind of education back home, thus bringing their values here. If working class asians from the Philippines, Korea, Japan, wherever, came to America, then asians wouldnt be doing so well in school

At least that's my theory.

[Anonymous]

gsolis - In response to your interest with conflicts with the Asian American community....yes, they definitely exist. I myself am Filipino American, and I have felt that the stereotype with filipinos are we are the "mexicans or blacks of the east". This resulting from Spanish cololnialism for hundreds of years of course. Filipinos tend to be labeled as having a little more "soul" - many are known for break dancing, spoken word, or being in the hip-hop scene.

I've also from Korean and Chinese friends that their parents taught them that Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and Filipinos are "dirty asians" and that they are poor. Both of the their parents of course, taught them that THEIR race is the superior Asian Race.

The reality is, asians, regardless of ethnicity share one thing in common: mainstream Americans and the American media treat us ALL the same.

Asians really need to unite for their voices to be heard, but the reality is, there are so few of us....and also, ethnic pride definitely gets in the way.

[Anonymous]

Racism is alive and well. If anything, I feel that everyone knows when people are being racist towards african americans, but no one is aware when someone is being racist towards an Asian.

My father stands at about 5'3". He is a professor at the University of Redlands, and was a school board member of the corona-norco unified school district. Yet despite his accomplishments, he has told me plenty of stories where he has been treated as a foreigner and subjected to racism.

1. Galleria Incident - I was in high school at the time, and was at the movies when this event occured. He was looking for parking at the mall in Riverside, and was pulling into a spot. I guess it seemed like he "stole" the spot of a truck of young white kids who were also planning to park there, so when my dad got out of the truck they started yelling racial slurs and saying stuff like "go back to China" etc. My dad grabbed his "club" (the red thing you use to put your steering wheel) and started yelling back. My 6 year old sister was in the car crying as it all went down. My father came home extremely angry, and my sister of course was very emotionally upset.

The white kids in the car were young he said, probably high school kids. That really pissed me off because that means that my friends and peers in my school are being fed racial balony from their racist parents. What a great country right?

As I've stated in previous posts, asians are all treated the same by "Mainstream America" - as foreign, as second class citizens, as "chinese" (my parents are filipino", as slanty eyed midgets. And i hate it.

The funny thing is, a few years later a white girl in my dorm room floor at UCLA asked me why I had a picture of Malcom X on my wall. I said "because racism is still around us". She was like "yeah right". Wow. If a UCLA kid can be that ignorant, then that proves my point = most Americans are extremely ignorant when it comes to racial issues concerning Asian Americans.

Maybe it will take another 25 years for things to get better

[Author]

Posts