Racial Affirmative Action

Week 3
Richard Nguyen
Section 001
April 8, 2015

            After reading Situating Asian Americans in the Political Discourse on Affirmative Action, I felt I was more informed about the discrimination Asian Americans had back in the 1990's. I did not know that race was directly used as a criterion to get jobs and into a university. What's more surprising to me is that all of this occurred only a few years ago. Growing up I did not learn a lot about discrimination towards Asian American because I never really experienced it growing up. Even though I grew up in the 1990's and the youngest of all of my brothers, I did not notice any of my family being treated differently than anyone else. I guess it could be that my family and I were raised and went to schools that were areas of predominantly African Americans, Mexicans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders. There were hardly any Caucasian families were around. The article suggests that Asian Americans a subjected to a different kind of racism compared to African Americans, which is the resentment of other groups for being "too good." As a child, I did learn this early on because stereotypes were discussed among children that Asians are born smart. What was frustrating was that my intelligence falsely based innateness and not hard work. I believe that race should never be considered in acquiring a job or getting admission into a university.

Question: Do you think race plays a major factor in getting into a university or getting a good job?