Unification through Panethnicity

Andrew Nguyen

ASA 002 A03

Week 1

Asian Pacific Americans' Social Movements and Interest Groups by Kim Geron, Enrique de la Cruz, Leland T. Saito, and Jaideep Singh discusses how Asian Americans found unity through panethnicity. Cooperation formed between these people due to the conflicts in their homeland, oppression in America, their shared interests, and their Asian background which lead to their rise as a prominent political voice. This impresses me because, although Asian Americans are a minority in the United States and even seemingly more so when they are divided and grouped into their respective ethnic categories, they can rise up as a large portion of the country’s population when grouped together through the similarity of a common panethnicity. The article also mentions Asian immigrants forming or joining “enclaves” in the United States. I approve how these small communities are referred to as “enclaves” because it appropriately represents how those mostly-Asian communities are surrounded by mostly-non-Asian communities. It is in these enclaves where Asian Americans find solace and people with whom to relate. Is it possible that, maybe in the far future, everyone in the United States may unite on the basis that we are American or even that we are Earthlings?

Little Saigon in Westminster, CA – a Vietnamese “enclave”

Source: http://a.scpr.org/i/cdff0e581a2ebb8fe6a2140bf6aeb62d/51764-full.jpg

Qiao Zheng

Boggs Dialectic’s article is really interesting. Especially the idea of “We must also never forget what reality is constantly changing and that what may have been progressive at one stage is not necessarily progressive as time marches on.”

It makes me think a lot. As a student major in economic. I learned something about college expense. From the data collection, it shows that in the past 20 years, the salary of new graduate students have not raised. However, the expense of high level education is 5 times of the cost 20 years ago.

I realized that changing is real. In the past, people thought that graduate from a 4 year university means they can easily get a high salary job. However, the reality tells them no. Even you graduated; you might not get a good job like what you expect.

Blog 1 "Nothing is more important than thinking dialectically"

Wen Gao

Section A03

9/30/15

In “Nothing is more important than thinking dialectically”, Grace Lee Boggs states that people should always be progressive to social movements as time goes by. The history that how Asian American fought for equality should be remembered. And nowadays, Asian American have made great developments in several fields such as politics, media, and economy. These lead to challenges to Americans. How do we deal with this situation? Boggs claims that it is important to thinking dialectically because what we had done in the past may not be suitable for present or future. Boggs also gives several examples of movements or revolutions, such as Zapatista, which is describes as a “war of position” by Zamora. I agree with her ideas. Asian Americans should make changes to their strategies about communities or policies to go through the tests of updated social problems and global movements. Few of us can imagine what will happen in the future and people need to be prepared and eliminate obsolete thoughts.

Question: Previous experience can also give us suggestions about what should do. Should we think dialectically and make changes all the time?

Blog 1 | Four Prisons

Angela Tran

ASA 2 - Section 3

30 September 2015

In the article "The 'Four Prisons' and the Movements of Liberation", Iranian philosopher Ali Shariati discusses the four prisons surrounding ourselves and how it correlates to the movements that molded the generation of Asian Americans. These four prisons include the prisons of history and geography, history, society's social class and structure, and the self. I find it interesting that the movements that Asian American's faced in the 1960's were struggles to find liberation from these prisons and to find an identity true to themselves. Despite the great challenges they faced, Asian Americans confronted their struggles, and in result, found liberation through activists, educating students about the Asian American struggle, spreading the public word in organizations, and through the formation of tight communities. Shariati also discusses the importance of Malcolm X, and the ideas of the Civil Rights campaign, spreading through the 1980's, but was it a coincidence that the Asian American movements shared goals with these other political campaigns that were occurring at the same time? And are the past goals of the Asian American movements still present or even relevant today, or have those goals been reached? Have we found liberation from our four prisons since then?

Week 1 Blog: The Model Majority

James Park

ASA2 Section A01

9/30/15

Week #1 

Throughout all the readings this week, all served to give an introduction of what to expect throughout the course and a brief insight into certain Asian American social movements and the philosophy behind them. The Asian American education stereotype is heightened when comparing population percentages as the majority of undergraduates are Asian/Pacific Islander as seen in the “UC Davis Profile,” misrepresenting Asians as the Model Minority. Grace Lee Boggs briefly mentions Asians as model minorities in her “Nothing Is More Important than Thinking Dialectically” but takes a spin on the future of social movements and how to prepare for “community-based, socially responsible education” that will enable us to focus on the bigger picture of the community. Reading countless texts in high school about social movements, especially those of inner-city students, many reflected on the experiences of African Americans and their struggles of education as affirmative action has ended. However, today Asian Americans never had that positive discrimination and people continue to label us as the Model Minority. Instead of enrolling students solely based on academics and extracurricular, race and ethnicity play a major factor for universities in order to reach a diversity quota.

My question for this week is whether or not things would have been different had we not been the Model Minority and how the struggles of our cultural values and backgrounds would have influenced our education today? 

I Got that Third World Militant, Still Thinks it's Relevant

Brian Trat

ASA 2, Sec A02

Blog #1

30 September 2015

Some of my friends think that because Asian-Americans appear to have made great strides in the United States that these social movements aren't necessary and are redundant. What I try my best to make them understand are the factors that led to these successes and how they were even possible in a country with a white majority controlling the political landscape. In "The 'Four Prisons' and the Movements of Liberation", Glenn Omatsu outlines a history of Asian-American activism and the evolution of the Asian-American identity form 1960 to 1990.  When the lens of History are shifted from the actions of the powerful to the struggles of the people, we see Asian-America come alive in ways that our public schooling never allowed. The '60s were a period of militant action that drew inspiration from radical revolutionaries like Marx, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, and the Black Panthers among many others. The activists of the '60s were responding to a wide range of issues like the struggles of the working class and rampant racism. Although the new conservatism of the '70s and '80s allowed cooperations to launch an attack against the poor, a generation of professionals and immigrants from the 1965 Immigration Act allowed some Asian-Americans to succeed during this time. Even so, there are large sectors of the Asian-American populace that are struggling with poverty. There are people like me who grew up in these conditions, that would hear words like"model minority" and be confused. It was only when I understood how it was useful to the powers that be, that I knew what place I occupied in the political landscape. We as students have a civic responsibility to not only continue this fight our predecessors started, but also to let it grow and evolve so that we can give back and contribute to our communities. They in turn help us grow. 

Tien Hao Lee, section 03, ASA, Week 2

In the article from UC Berkeley Free Speech, it mentions the Free Speech Movement’s victory fostered a new spirit of activism among student. I remember when my brother graduated from UC Berkeley last year, I attended their commencement ceremony. The CEO of ORACLE was their guest speaker for the ceremony. I remember he gave a speech over several controversial topics, such as guns law and gay rights. I was extremely surprise to realize how liberal UC Berkeley is. I believe the FSM’s success demonstrate to student across the nation that effective protest movement could be built on campus. The FSM made UC Berkeley into a liberal university, where students and faculty are able to voice up their opinions. According to DailyCal.org, UC berkeley has been voted the most liberal city in California. The Free Speech Movement has planted the root of activism into UC Berkeley. 

I have always asked my self, what would it be like if all UC are as liberal as UC Berkeley? I definitely believe that there would be no pepper spray incident happening in UC Davis. The activist environment in Davis has not reach to the same level as Berkeley. One day, I hope all the UC would become like UC Berkeley, where everyone are allow to speak up their voice and defend their rights.

Tien Hao Lee, section 3, Week 1

In this week’s reading, I found the reading from Boggs Dialectic to be really interesting. In the article, he stated “We must also never forget what reality is constantly changing and that what may have been progressive at one stage is not necessarily progressive as time marches on.”

This quote deeply touches me. I want to compare it to college degree from now to before. Is college degree really worth the price? and does it guarantee a job security? College degree is something everyone desires, but not necessary. The society now we live in now is changing rapidly. Back in the day, a college degree can guarantee graduates job security, but it no longer serves the same purpose today. It is so easy to obtain a college degree now that even upon graduate, lots of people still cannot find a job/career.

I feel like the world is changing. The society is also changing. College no longer can guarantee students job security. College student now come out of college with more debt than ever. The interest from these debts compounds while students aimlessly seeking for job/career. It would take probably more than 2 or 3 years for a college graduate to repaid the debt fully, that is if they can find a job.

Although the technology is improving, but finding a job is never the same as before. This has become a serious issue for people to start considering “if college is really the right route?” Higher education is no longer necessary to obtain a good career. College sold to the student the idea/dream that "Higher education means better JOB." This JOB may not be the same job we use to know, but rather defined it as Journey Of Broke.

[Week 1] Omatsu Visits the Bureaucratic Prison

Leslie Do
ASA 2, Professor Valverde
TA: Josh Watkins, Section: A01
9/29/2015

Week 1: Omatsu Visits the Bureaucratic Prison 

Asian American Activism in 2015 and Beyond

Although Omatsu lists useful tools for liberating ourselves from the four prisons, Omatsu's essay The 'Four Prisons' lacks an explicit label for one more very prevalent, psychological and institutional prison relevant to today's social issues (Omatsu, 19.) As subjects within the core of the US neoliberal, neoimperialist empire, and as consumers of professionalist ideology at UC Davis, we are also contained within a fifth prison -- the bureaucratic prison (also known as Dr. Valverde's conveyor belt parable.)  The bureaucratic prison is designed to emotionally pacify, delay our counterinsurgency, and subversively subdue us by socially engineering us to resolve crises when it's too late. (This late intervention begins when the fires grow large enough to trap and consume us.) The bureaucratic prison (as a conveyor belt school of thought) was distributed by elites to socially control students and deter us from protesting and resisting against the corporate elites. The bureaucratic prison is designed to interrupt the evolution of our resistant's adaptability and strength to new designs and developments in systemic oppression. Therefore, due to oppression's evolution through its reengineering, we must be critical of who is paying us for our social justice-related labor; we must evolve our resistance against intellectual suppression and systemic, technocractic oppression. 

                                                                   Question 
1. What specific actions and schools of thought liberate us from the bureaucratic prison?

Citation

Omatsu, Glenn. "The Four Prisons and the Liberation Movement: Asian American Activism to the 1960s to 1990s." ASA 2 Reader.

Long Vang

ASA 2

9/30/15

Blog Week 1

People don’t really care much for numbers when you put them out.  There is a certain uncertainty to them, but once in a while the numbers can surprise to and make you want to find out more about them.  After reading the census I realized how weird some of the data are.  What surprise me the most was the graduation rate in BA, MA and PHD.  Asians are smart and passing high school is easy enough, but somewhere along the line the percentage decreases and college graduation rate takes a drive.  This got me thinking, “Is it the school or the students?, or Maybe Asian Americans lack something that college requires to graduate?”  I know it sounds very crazy to say that something is wrong with the system and not the student itself, but when you see the statistics showing a lot of people able to graduate high school and not college, there is something affecting this.  This got me thinking, how are we the model minority if we are not able to move up and stay cluster somewhere in the lower half of society?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opBfHXePM2Y

Asian Pacific Americans’ Social Movements and Interest Groups

Nicole Uychiat

Blog 1

ASA 2 - Section A03

September 30, 2015

“Asian Pacific Americans' Social Movements and Interest Groups” caught my attention because the author wrote about “The Opposition Movement in the Filipino-American Community” and I identify as Filipino-American. My parents, moving to the States in their adulthood years, have talked to me about the anti-Marcos movement before. The thing that stood out to me was that Filipinos united to stand for what they believed in, such as human rights abuse.

I am a part of a FilAm organization on campus and one of the pillars we emphasize is politics. Every year our FilAm club, as well as FilAm clubs across the entire state of California, gathers for an event known as Friendship Games. Although the event consists of friendly competitions against other schools, not many people know that the event is a large political movement as well. Although we are a minority as Filipino-Americans, we come together in solidarity to make it known that this is how far we have come in the United States. Our parents and ancestors sacrificed and faced oppression to get us where we are today.

How would the world we live in be different today if Filipinos did not unite to create the anti-Marcos movement?

Chelbert Dai Section 1 Blog 1

In Bogg's "Nothing is more important than thinking Dialectically", she highlights the idea that the idea of what is progressive changes over time. I agree with this idea but I also think that progressive ideas in fact progress to the point where as time moves forward, the world becomes more and more liberal. I find this concept interesting because historically, this idea seems to hold true. The idea that one day a black man would become president of the United States would seem impossible in the 1800's. Yet in 2008, it became a reality. The question that I would pose is whether or not there is a point where liberalism and progressive ideas will reach a plateau and in essence become obsolete?

Here is a video regarding liberalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7rHGydPFjY

"Nothing Is More Important than Thinking Dialectically"

Kevin Matsui

9/30/15

Blog: Week 1

Grace Lee Boggs’s article, “Nothing Is More Important than Thinking Dialectically,” informs the reader of minority movement struggles, Asian Americans in particular. These struggles result in a need for development and a movement of change.  In the article, Boggs mentions how public education has become outdated and how there is need for community-based, socially responsible education.  But how can we make this change? And how realistic is the alternative this plan for change requires? The article really does not go into depth into the actions required to solve this reoccurring problem in the education system. It also does not clearly explain how these actions will build a sustainable community and global citizenship that is desired. The article mentioned strategies “war of movement” vs “war of position” and their differences in tactics to construct power necessary to start a movement.  While throughout her article, Boggs seemed to be emphasizing the need for community-based relationships and construction of power from below, all ideas seemed very unrealistic, leaving me as an Asian American reader unaffected and unchanged. It is not that I do not agree with the points that were made, but that it was presented in an ineffective manner.

Dialectical Thinking

Nick Gagliani
ASA 02
September 30, 2015

In the Boggs paper on thinking more dialectically, the main point to take away is the fact that there is progress in society and many different individuals can contribute to this societal progress. She poses questions on countercultural ideologies, which pick at the topic of cultural tensions taking place in our society today. One question that Boggs asks that got personally got me thinking into these social misconceptions and differences is: "How do we live more simply, so that others can simply live?" I believe this is the question that must be answered in order for humanity to progress. Our social and cultural differences, for example, differences between people of the United states and people of an Asian country, must be put aside in order to truly understand each other and live in order to truly improve relations amongst people with different cultural and ideological differences. We all bring forth different cultural norms and ideologies that help shape our society, and none of these ideologies are necessarily superior to the other.  It is very apparent that many people from Asian countries have immigrated to the United States over many decades, bringing along their cultural ideologies.

In terms of the Zapatista movement mentioned in the paper, is there any noteworthy or significant changes being made in the global south by this movement to balance the Global Norths consumption and depletion of resources?

API Social Movements and Interest Groups

Jeff Cha

ASA 2 A02

Blog 1

            The reading, “Asian Pacific Americans' Social Movements and Interest Groups,” dedicates a section to explain the “Evolution and Integration of South Asians.”  Within the section, it discusses how first generation South Asian-American immigrants are primarily focused on being financially stable rather than on social movements or politics.  As a first generation Hmong-American, I find this description to be accurate amongst a majority of the Hmong immigrants.  The Hmong people immigrated to the United States, earliest being in the late 1970s, in order to attain a better way of life.  Many Hmong immigrants were farmers back in the hills of Laos and Thailand so they lacked formal education and were very poor.  They came to the US as adults so a lot of the opportunities have passed which leads to them being content with their new living conditions.  As a result, Hmong parents and grandparents emphasize to their children the importance of getting jobs to provide for their families and without much thought towards the social problems or politics of the US. 

Is it reasonable for anyone or any group of people to focus on establishing themselves first before focusing on other issues?

Profile America Fact for Features Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Lisa Yee
ASA 002
Blog #1
30 September 2015

In the “Profile America Fact for Features Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” it contains information from the 2010 Census regarding recent data findings about people from the different ethnicities: Pacific Islanders and Asians. It was interesting to see it include percentages showing how eighty-five percent of Asians in their mid-twenties have gained high school diplomas, half of the population of Asians achieved their bachelor’s degree, and twenty percent of Asians got their professional or master’s degree. The article then compared it to the percentages of Americans who achieved their master’s degree, which was ten percent. This could lead to the assumption of model minority, when in fact it is not true that Asians are destined to be more academically successful. During high school, I experienced expectations from my peers to be smart because of the stereotypes Asians were categorized under, to be academically successful. However, it was not model minority, it was my parents who taught me the importance behind education in order to make it easier for me to gain a job, which inspired me to work hard in school.    

Question: What are some ways in which we can persuade people that model minority is a myth?

Tao Manacmul

ASA 2

Blog #1

30 September 2015

            Glenn Omatsu mentions the “decisive moment” for Asian Americans within his writing; the “decisive moment” is “a time for reclaiming the past and changing the future.” Asian Americans did not agree with the hierarchal system within organizations, and sought to “serv[e] the people.” These opinions contradict the stereotype that Asian Americans are self-serving and always “for profit,” a stereotype which is also mentioned.  These values are absent from all of the stories within the textbooks that I was taught within the public school system. Asian Americans are almost completely absent from the social movements, except for maybe a sentence if we are lucky. We have been present in these but not as visible/verbal as other groups, which might be a cause for the amnesia that the Asian American community seems to have post-movements. We forget to reclaim the past, so we cannot change the future until we do just that.

Question: Isn’t it good that the Asian American community is involved and focused on the movement, but does not ask to be recognized for their work within their communities?

Then and Now

Mary Moua
ASA 002
Section A01
September 30, 2015

Then and Now

 

The API Census 2010 listed all the statistics and information of Asian Americans and outlined their successes and achievements in different categories, such as education and businesses. After reading the census, it makes me realize just how far Asian Americans have come in terms of adjusting to life in the United States, especially since Asian Americans and other People of Color have gone through and endured many struggles while trying to make a living in the United States. There have been policies and exclusion laws aimed at excluding Asian Americans, but despite these obstacles, the census shows that Asian Americans have strived to overcome those obstacles, demonstrating their determination and success to conquer all.

 

Question: Has the numbers decreased or increased within the following years and if they have, why?

 

 





Jess Galicia
ASA 2 Fall 15
Section A01
Week 1

         One main argument of Grace Lee Boggs's article is that social movements must be dynamic and contextualized into the present moment, recognizing that current circumstances affect our approach to dismantling the powers that be. Specifically, Boggs cites Reuben Zamora's argument that there must be a shift from trying to gain access to already existing institutions of power to instead re-imagining social dynamics that deconstruct hierarchies of power. For this, horizontal alliance building between marginalized groups becomes the tool which will help overcome the divide-and-conquer tactics perpetuate oppressive systems. 

        I connected this article to our class discussion about "cross-ethnic coalition building" (what I will call solidarity in struggle) because it speaks to the fact that oppressive powers must be tackled from different angles and must be inclusive of different lived experiences with those oppressions. In other words, we must recognize that systems of oppression affect us all differently because we stand at different intersections of identity while at the same time recognizing that these systems do have similar effects across identities in terms of invisibilizing and dehumanizing the oppressed/marginalized. Ethnic "minorities," such as Asian Americans and Chicanxs/Latinxs, have much more to gain when we join forces in solidarity against the powers that be; to do otherwise results in divisions among the oppressed that end up constructing ideas like the Model Minority Myth which uphold white supremacy/racism.

Why thinking Dialectically is so important

Xinlei Wang
ASA 002
Sec A02
9/30/2015

Blog 1

It is beyong dispute that our society is changing and developing all the time and something that we consider previously may not still sustain in our current lives. In the article "Nonthing is important than think Dialectically", author use the example of the Asian American struggle in 1960s to tell us that in nowdays society the treatment to Asian American people have been changed a lot, some of them  even  become very popular in some fields. Therefore, peoples' thought should follow the change of the times and they should not always consider things with their old ideals. Also, author mentioned that to adapt for the social development people should learn  how to thinking dialectically, otherwise people may lost themselves in these great changes. As far as I am concerned, I highly agree with that thinking dialectically is very important and it can help us a lot not only in the filed of social movemnets but also let us understande the difference between history and reality.

Question: Although thinking dialectically is very important, should we always do this even face a tiny  issue?

Society's misconception

Jessica Au
Week 1 Blog
ASA 2, Sect A01
9/30/15

According to the 2010 API census, there are about 17 million residents in the US of Asian descent. 5.6/17 is the Asian population in California. Being born and raised in California, I grew up with many other Asian Americans and it brings me to talk about the misconception of how we are a “Model Minority.”

A majority of society sees Asian Americans as intelligent and successful in school. Glancing over the numbers for the UCD profile, the Asian population is about 39%-- that being the highest percentage within the race/ethnicity category. This fact could lead to the generalization of the success and intelligence of these individuals to be "because they're Asian."

Like so, many believe us to be great mathematicians. I'm personally a Mathematics major here at UC Davis, and I will say that I have struggled in math more than any other subject. I chose to pursue a degree in Math out of pure interest and I'm not naturally "good" at it. I just decided to work harder to learn it and reach my goals, which applies to many others pursuing their dreams and aspirations.

We shouldn’t be known as a model minority and have our success be generalized as inherently part of us. What can we do to stop society from seeing us as a “Model Minority?”

Four Prisons

Michael Li

Section A01

09/30/15

Blog 1

“The ‘Four Prisons’ and the Movements of Liberation” written by Glenn Omatsu describes the four prisons for Asian-Americans as the history, history and geography, social/class structure, and oneself. The article focuses on the uprising of Asian-Americans to confront the racism, exploitation and unfair treatment they have been experiencing in the United States. The start of the Asian-American social movements began with young Asian-Americans at the San Francisco State strike which was successful in gaining the first school of ethnic studies. What I found interesting/insightful was that the early Asian Americans movements were more in line with Malcolm X’s demands for rights rather than Martin Luther King Jr.’s more peaceful protests. Even now Asian Americans struggle with the image of the model minority which causes many to feel inferior because they don’t live up to some humanly conceived stereotype. Although many stereotypes existed during the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, it’s nice read about how Asian Americans redefined themselves during this period as there are still many Asian stereotypes today that need to be redefined.

Question: Glenn Osmatu describes a lot of misunderstanding in early Asian-American social movements even though these social movements are very recent. What happened to create such a large misunderstanding in the interpretation of these social movements?

Panethnicity

Tiffany Le
ASA02 A02
Blog #1
30 September 2015

In the article, “Asian Pacific American’s Social Movements and Interest Groups”, the authors discuss how the multitude of Asian ethnic groups have been amassed in an overarching category as Asian Americans. Each ethnic group has variations in language, religion, culture, which can create barriers between the groups. In addition, oppressors apply divide-and-conquer techniques. Without the support of others, people can feel isolated and powerless. However, under this panethnic identity, Asian Americans collectively strive for equality and social justice. Even though differences exist between each ethnic group, they find common ground. For example, the development of ethnic enclaves provided a safe place for people to survive and create relationships with others. Due to racism, white people have destroyed many Chinatowns, Little Tokyos, I-Hotel, and other ethnic enclaves. Asian Americans retaliated together by forming coalitions and organizations in order to preserve their homes and livelihood. The alliance between different has given the people a stronger voice to be heard. Besides grassroots organization and political action, what other methods can help dismantle oppressive systems that have penetrated Asian (American) communities for centuries (imperialism)?

Samantha Soleta

Blog 1

ASA 02 03

September 30th, 2015

    We as Asian Americans have gone far too long living as simply the “model minorities” of America. As time goes on, Asian American communities begin to further assimilate into American culture. While that’s okay in the sense of evolving the Asian American community, it’s not okay that many see “absorbing the values of our oppressors” as a way of assimilation. In Bogg’s “Nothing is More Important Than Thinking Dialectically,” she speaks of the roots of Asian American studies and the direction needed for us to move forward as a community as well as alongside other communities of color. While older generations still strive for white beauty standards, younger generations begin to avoid their culture in fear of being a “fob.” By doing so they blindly absorb the values of our oppressors, we are not just ignoring the oppression but also perpetuating it. Boggs speaks of a “war of position” rather than a “war of movement” in which we as society construct power from below like the Zapatistas of Mexico. However to succeed in such a war, we must first realize the the potential change in our hands. 

Where do we start to make the Asian American community realize that to rise up, we must stop adopting the ideologies that cause our oppression in the first place?

Week 1: "Four Prisons' and the Movements of Liberation" Response

Joshua Rivera

Asian American Studies - A01

Blog/Week #1

“Four Prisons’ and the Movements of Liberation” by Glenn Omatsu focuses on the prisons (history and geography, history, society’s social and class structure, oneself) and the difficult journey that Asian-Americans had to go through from their early immigration years in the 1960s to the twenty-first century. Originally, the majority of Asian-Americans fought for the same rights such as housing opportunities and employment equality in order to better their lives. However, as time progressed, the Asian-American population began to fracture as those who originally came during the early years of immigration grew old and those born in the United States began to adopt a more western way of thinking through ideologies such as individualism and capitalism. This fracture poses a very difficult future for Asian-Americans because the number of individuals with the original desire to fight for equality within a common group through grassroots organizations has begun to decrease while the number of individuals (or neo-conservatives as the reading states) has begun to increase due to being born in a different time period, with a separate set of conditions such as western education. This offset compels those with the experience of immigration to raise social awareness for their cause for support.

Question: In what ways can the first generation of immigrants teach their children and newer generations of immigrants how to fight for equality and against exploitation?

Redefining Asian Americans

Rheana Ostrea

Blog 1

ASA 02 A03

September 30, 2015

In “Four Prisons,” Omatsu brought up redefining the image of different ethnic groups through social movements, the different prisons people get trapped in, and how break free. Ethnic groups have redefined themselves throughout the years by using their history bringing community consciousness through social movements. The redefinition of these groups are important because it helps to better understand their history and allow them to find new ways to change current issues. Asian Americans still struggle to define who they are because they are seen as the “model minority” even though different Asian groups have low paying wages and others struggle in school. The stereotyping of model minority is important to understand because it does not clearly represent the whole Asian American community but is the phrase that elites and public see for the whole community. An important thing to note is that Asian Americans as well as other ethnic groups need to see the importance of coming together and using their history to tell the story of who they really are and what they stand for.

Question: Why did the Asian American’s who went into politics in the 1980’s denounce early social movements as destructive but still stand proud?

Week 1 Blog
Anahi Rivera
9/30/2015

The essay, “The Four Prisons and The Movements of Liberation" by Glenn Omatsu serves as an eye opener that describes the obstacles Asian Americans had to over come to be treated equally. The first sentences really captured my attention because Omatsu mentions how “ each of us exist within four prisons” (according to the philosopher Ali Shariati).  These philosophical prisons Omatsu refers to are ideological prisons which history, society, and ourselves impose. The four prisons are; the confinement of history and geography, history and how it affects our society, society’s social and class structure, and finally the self prison where one is responsible for choosing between the good and the evil.  These prisons transformed the lives of Asian Americans as the faced the difficult challenge of breaking through them on a daily basis. The article mentions how during the 1960 Asian Americans struggled to confront the racial discrimination, poverty, and exploitation.  It impresses me how one group of people can transform their thoughts and ideas into actions just to follow “the myth of the American Dream” (Omastu). It was then when they came together and created the San Fransisco Strike which became one of the “longest student strike in U.S history” (Omastu). Although nothing was done students created campaigns which promoted political change. It became a strategy to bring awareness to the community and it encouraged others to speak up against injustice. 

Question :  What could be done to break away from the four ideological prisons?