Asian Americans and Panethnicity

Ryan Ke

Section 1

Week 1

            The article “Asian Pacific Americans’ Social Movements and Interest Groups,” talks about how the increasing Asian American population has been fighting injustices throughout the last couple of centuries. The section about panethnicity was the most interesting and engaging to me. While the article acknowledges the immense variety in the religions, languages, and political ideology of differing Asian American groups, it also highlights the similarity in their struggle for rights. This is especially enlightening for me because in the past I believed the label of Asian American to be an exclusively political term. I saw how different the Asian American experience was between different Asian American groups and thought it was ridiculous that all these groups were lumped together as one. After reading this article, I am beginning to see how panethnicity may be valuable when fighting for a common good. While not fully convinced, I feel the need to become more informed about Asian Americans and panethnicity. 

The fact that guides like this (though perhaps more of a joke) exist show how often the culture and people of different Asian American groups are seen as a single group. This leads me to ask, what are the advantages and disadvantages of the existence of the label, "Asian Americans?"