Panethnic Identification Within the Asian-American Community

Vincent (Tuong Le)

ASA002-A02

Week 1 Response

This week's readings and classes presented many interesting ideas, one of which being the diversity within the Asian-American community. The article “Asian Pacific Americans' Social Movements and Interest Groups” mentions that the label of “Asian American” includes many ethnically diverse groups which would not naturally associate themselves with other Asians. This was supported in class when we polled the class as to how they identified themselves, as it seemed that most would answer with “I'm Vietnamese (or whichever other ethnicity)” rather than with the pan-ethnic phrases “Asian” or “Asian-American.” This, along with our discussion of an intraracial hierarchy within the Asian-American community reveals that many Asian-Americans do not automatically associate themselves with all other Asians, yet American society has historically grouped all Asians together. An important example of that is the case of Vincent Chin, whom I first learned about in a sociology class I've taken before. Because of the two workers considered all Asians the same, their hatred of the Japanese led to the murder of the Chinese-American Vincent Chin. This act drove Asian-Americans to realize that they viewed as all the same, despite the drastic differences in their cultures.

Question: So, while these acts drove many Asians to take on a pan-Asian identity at the time, many of the youth still naturally separate themselves by ethnicity. Why does this occur naturally? (I believe it is because there ARE major differences between different types of Asians that do exist and it is hard to ignore for those aware of them. However, is this correct or should Asian-Americans adopt the pan-ethnic identity in order to stand together more cohesively?) Also, with how the differences between Asians are more noticed in contemporary times by other races, how important is a pan-ethnic identity in the modern day?

Attached is a youtube link to the trailer for the documentary about Vincent Chin titled “Vincent Who?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_rwnyM1vtE