Normalization in the American Society

Pak See Ip
ASA 2-A02
Blog 6

          While I was reading Puar and Rai’s article, “Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots”, I realized that the American society is constantly reinforcing its social norms and cultural values on its people, while punishing those who deviate from the norms and values. When I first immigrated into the U.S., I was unfamiliar with American customs and values. During the process of learning about the American culture, I found that I was surrounded by messages that promote assimilation and how to become “more American”. Thus, the American culture seems to isolate groups that do not match its norms and seeks to “normalize” everyone to meet its standards.
          In addition, when an individual is unfamiliar with the background and history of a specific object associated with a certain culture or religion, such as the turban described in the article, it is easy to overgeneralize and homogenize different groups together. The use of the umbrella term “Asian Americans” is a way to homogenize and ignore the diversity that exists within the group of Asian Americans. Thus, people make assumptions about the group, which may force members of the group to stray from other members and assimilate into the mainstream culture in order to avoid these assumptions.
What can we do to reduce stigmatization and overgeneralization of certain groups in the society?