Reading Reflection #3
Melissa Elizalde
Section A01
April 10th, 2014
A Response to "Situating Asian Americans in the Political Discourse on Affirmative Action"
by: Michael Omi and Dana Y. Takagi
I found Michael Omi and Dana Takagi's article on the political discourse regarding Asian Americans and affirmative action to be insightful and relevant to the field of research in which I participate. As a Sociology student, I find the discussion of the framing of social issues and the study of social and cultural constructions, such as the black-white paradigm, to be fascinating and informative. In addition, I also thoroughly enjoyed how the authors challenged the black-white paradigm and discussed how different political parties used different rhetoric to frame the issue of affirmative action as being either beneficial or detrimental to their Asian American constituents.
Omi and Tagaki first discuss the black-white paradigm and how Asian Americans are often situated in the middle of this cultural conflict having been seen at times as almost black or "outwhiting the whites" (Omi and Takagi, 2007). The authors then discuss how both right and left politicians use the issue of affirmative action to gather support from their Asian American constituents. According to the authors' research, Republican politicians tend to situate Asians on the side of Whites by focusing on the large numbers of Asians in higher education, and how affirmative action laws may negatively affect those numbers. Democrat politicians, on the other hand, tend to focus on the fact that Asian Americans are still considered a minority and that minorities should help other minorities gain access to higher education. Essentially, "One side pits Asian Americans against whites, and the other pits Asians against racial minorities" (Omi and Takagi, 2007).
In this article I really enjoyed reading and learning about how Asian Americans are being unwillingly placed in this political binary in which they are either forgetting their minority past or harming their potential future. I had never thought about this idea or how Asian Americans are being situated in the black-white paradigm that is apart of this nation's history. I would love to further research this idea and get a better sense of how the majority of Asians Americans feel about their placement in this historical paradigm, not just in terms of the issue of affirmative action, but also in terms of different social issues and in everyday life.
Question 1: How does your ethnic group fit into the black-white paradigm? How are you affected?
Question 2: What are your thoughts on affirmative action and how have they formed?
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