A03
Reading Mark Tseng Putterman’s “What Asian Americans Are Bringing
to Campus Movements for Racial Justice” made me analyze something I have never
considered before. I have never really associated political movements with
Asian American students before. Most often the issues in this country are
portrayed as black against white, which does not leave much room for Asians to
voice their opinions. It is interesting to see how our role in society affects
how our support for African Americans is received. It was interesting to see
Putterman’s analysis of how the position of Asian Americans as an in-between
because of the model minority view. Asians are seen to have similar privilege to
white people in the eyes of other ethnicities, but are still discriminated against
and are disadvantaged because they are minorities. Asian issues are almost
swept under the rug because we are not perceived as capable of standing up for
ourselves or being aggressive. I agree with the idea in his article that we
should be uniting together in solidarity instead of putting one race above the
other. I also agree that it is important to have classes that teach Asian
American history because I have personally found it more inspiring to know the
efforts of Asians in America beyond Chinese people building the railroad. People
need to know that it can be done and Asians can fight for change as well as
other races in order to be confident that they can do the same. I was fortunate
to have a US teacher in high school who went over different strikes that occurred
in the United States as part of the civil rights movement, however even then we
did not spend nearly as much time on the topic as we did on the rest of the
civil rights movement.
Question: Since there are prejudices within Asian
communities toward other races, what steps should be taken to promote
solidarity instead of competition?
References:
[Jinja Brew]. (2014, December 15). Asian-Americans rally in solidarity for #blacklivesmatter in Queens, NY. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPiQD3V0b6Y.
Putterman, M. T. (2015, February 1). “What Asian Americans
Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice.” Race Files.
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