Sunday, April 6, 2014

Ethnic Boundaries - A Struggle to Connect

Sophia Lam
ASA2 Sec 1
Reflection 1


        In response to UC Davis Facts, seeing the statistics of the different ethnicities within the UC Davis undergrad population surprised me because I hardly ever see Asians and whites within the same friend group even though whites and Asians make up the majority of students on campus. When it comes to sitting in lectures or eating at the dining commons, most of the time Asians would sit with other Asians and whites would sit with other whites. I’m not saying that Asians and whites never interact with each other; because I’m sure that they do, but I find it interesting that they don’t interact with each other as comfortably as they would interact with themselves. Sure they both have different ethnic cultures, but second generation Asians still have commonalities with whites as the two have supposedly grown up in the melting pot of America. However, at a workshop about interracial dating that I attended, it seems that nonwhites still feel somewhat intimidated by whites. In a discussion that I was involved in, someone mentioned that it feels as if whites have to prove that they are not racist or superior to other races in order to effectively approach a nonwhite, and it makes relationships among different races difficult. How can different cultures overcome the boundaries caused by hierarchy? Does this trend happen in hierarchy of subcultures as well?

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