Sherluna Vien

Section 3

ASA2 

9/30

First Blog

In “Asian Pacific Americans’ Social Movement and Interest Groups,” the authors write about how Asian Pacific Americans have been treated in the United States and how they have organized to respond to threats. I took specific interest the Asian Americans and Panethnicity portion where it talks about how this identity was created in recognition of a “shared history of racialization” throughout our institution. Reading along, although the pan-ethnic identity may be self-created, “AA is in part imposed by external factors, such as census categories, glass ceilings, or racial lumping.”This makes me question whether we would benefit from being grouped together or hurt us even more?  The pan-ethnic identity helps build community throughout the Asian American community, but it also hurts as we may have different incentives and goals. Besides from that, we are seen as one group towards the government in the census which affects other subgroups in negative ways. For example, in the API Census 2010, 50% of “single-race Asians who are 25+ have had a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education.” This grouping of Asians oversees the struggles of Southeast Asians who come from a refugee background. Although it may look like Asians are doing well, other subgroups, like Cambodian or Laos people, struggle with even graduating high school. This proves to hurt our community. I believe we should come together to fight institutional racism, but we should also recognize that we come from different backgrounds and be able to bring each other up.