Jiajun Li

Section A02

Reading Reflection #7

In response to: Day in the Life by Mike Ngo

    This is an article of Mike Ngo's daily experience of an incarcerated gangster whose family fled to Vietnam during the wars. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for him defending for one of his fellow gangster and was suspected to killing one of his peer gang. However, his consciousness narration implied that he was innocent. When I read his narration I was propelled to believe that he was a good person and his imprisonment was just a product of his political climate.

    Ngo's personal experience implied that nowadays Southeast Asians are still suffering different kinds of injustice. The stereotypical perception about Asian American, "model minority", is still impacting people's recognition towards Asians. As a matter of fact, pan-ethnicity of Asian American group consists of different people from different countries, some of whom migrated to American as a result of their successful career or their close family relationship to some American citizens, but others migrated just to escape political issues or warfare. For the latter they are not "models", they came to America to save their lives. Ironically, the so-called "most democratic" country shows little democracy to these people. Because of the "model minority" perception, Southeast Asian Americans are now still generally suffering different kinds of injustice. What makes things worse is they are so inactive and silent to urge for change.

               

Questions: Is Asian American Studies, compared to Latino American Studies and African American Studies, not so important in academia? How can we change this situation?