Week 3 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Week 3 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Nancy Chung Allred's Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again and OiYan Poon and Ajani Byrd's Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices" depict the world as an Asian-American in education as a trifling battle. It's surprising with the considered history of stigmatization and exclusive of Asian-Americans. Since the beginning of the United States' development, the majority is deemed the superior figures. The more colors and diversity that came years afterwards proves to be a consistent issue that I believe education can be a blessing and a curse. As an Asian-American, I see us on both ends of a spectrum. There's the Asian and the American; both brought together by a mere dash or hyphen. But it's this distance that makes all the difference in the struggle to balance what it means to be Asian and American.

Allred (2007) points out that the U.S., in particular, has a repeated history in excluding Asian-Americans for not being "American" enough. And because of this exclusion, Asian-Americans try to keep themselves out of world affairs to avoid being grouped with their "Asian" or "foreign" side. I know what it's like to feel at war with myself. I've dealt with it since I was kid. I saw myself as Asian-American, but as time went by and the more I saw white people, the more I wished I was them. I wished my hair was lighter, my eyes were blue or green, and my skin was lighter. Not for the perks but for the reassurance that I was "beautiful" because the body and features I had then seemed too dark and too far from what I wanted. Since then I've been trying to atone for the sin of enjoying my culture and who I am, and even as I get older, I still feel the sense of 'foreignness' now.

I'm not a Biology major or an aspiring doctor. I'm an English major still kind of lost at what I want to do exactly. That alone sets me apart from my peers, and even coming here reminds me of how displaced I truly am. To be honest, I don't think I belong in this school. To use the excuse that it's because this is a predominantly STEM school is almost inexcusable but it's one of the reasons. The second is because I don't think I worked hard enough to be here. I think I'm undeserving of this position to be here (kind of like what Professor Valverde was saying in the first lecture). Another reason is much like Poon (2013)'s excerpt, "Specifically, Filipino Americans and Southeast Asian American students were found to be more influenced by their relatives’ views and the proximity of colleges to home in the final stage of college choice (Teranishi et al. 2004)." I was also influenced to stick close to home. Plus, the title. I mean University of California, Davis is a highly praised school, and it seemed too good to pass up.

Then again, none of this is to say too much about my life's story but many of these things correlate to what the readings talk about. Many of them emphasize the struggles Asian-Americans face in day to day life. Akana (2016) does away with talking about this idea of being "enough" and it brings humanitarian perspective on this whole matter. We're faced with high expectations from our peers and society merely based on our ethnicity. This sort of expectation is indeed "rude" because we are only humans. We have our personalities and lifestyles. There's no way anyone should be able to categorize you into their perception of you lest you allow them and conform. We do it often, and it's important to not only acknowledge but ask yourselves if it's right for you.

Sources:

Allred, N. C., Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again, 14 Asian Am. L.J. 57 (2007).

Poon, O and A Byrd. "Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices." Journal of College Admission, 2013.

[Anna Akana]. (21 January 2016). Am I White Washed?. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/UTPbrWsLUcg.

Questions:
What constitutes being an American? If being American means being born in one of the fifty States, speaking English, working hard, and being a part of the general society then why is it that Asian-Americans are often displaced whether they're born in or out of the country?