Jowi Deguzman - Week 8 - A03

Jowi Deguzman
Section A03
Week 8

The reading What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice, by Mark Tseng Putterman, relates to this week’s theme, “Student Activism,” by explaining how there is not a high amount of turnout from Asian American student activists in college protests or political events, despite them being the majority in some of these politically active college campuses. He wrote about how Asian American students are not actually being represented in campus issues or even being accurately represented in their campus’ Asian American studies courses. Putterman also wrote about an account of how an Asian American man was not able to interview people of the Black Lives Matter community simply because he identifies as Asian. This exemplifies how there is still a sense of racial or ethnic discrimination within different minority groups that hinder the potential success that the minority group, as a whole, could have in activist events on campus. Before reading this piece, I did not realize the lack of Asian Americans participating in the activist scene. Having been a part of multiple communities at UC Davis, I have experienced this first hand and agree with most, if not all, of Putterman’s points. Though the Asian American community I am a part of has had workshops about activism and our rights, I personally see more political action in the Muslim, Black and Hispanic communities on campus than the Asian American ones. I feel like this lack of action comes from the Asian culture and that some Asian Americans might be hesitant to participate in activism due to their cultural upbringing and the reputation, or honor, of their family. I believe that despite our backgrounds, we all share the same goal to be represented in the United States and be treated equally.

Question:
How could we get more Asian Americans to come out to protests or any other events held by other minorities?

Media:
I chose to include this image because I’ve observed that the most Asian American turn out I’ve seen at a protest was for LGBTQIA related reasons. This reading reminded me of that.

References:

Mark Tseng Putterman. “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial

Justice”

Media. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2017, from http://www.marshaaizumi.com/media1.html