Week 8- Helen Jian

Helen Jian
Section A02
Week 8

               This week’s article titled, “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice” by Mark Tseng Putterman, basically talked about how there are very little Asian Americans participating in campus movements regarding racial justice and how Asian Americans do not necessarily fit right into the white or black community. As stated in the article, “…Asian American has struggled alongside the U.S. mainstream to make sense of the place of “yellow” and “brown” amidst black and white” (Putterman, 2016). With all the campus movements happening lately, I had not noticed the lack of Asian Americans in them until I read this article. This article opened a new perspective for me as to why there are so little Asian Americans fighting for racial justice. I began to think about this question and realized that even though I do sincerely care and want racial fairness and justice for all, I simply am too afraid to join a movement because I am just not the type of person to go out and speak freely about what I believe in. I think it takes a lot of confidence and power (which I admire) to perform a movement like that and at this point in my life; I have not reached that confidence yet because it is hard for me to break through barriers. I believe this fear is due to past experiences, which lead me stay in the shadows and not speak my mind. Even though I do not participate in these movements myself, I do support them and am thankful for those who are fighting in order to have a change that we can all benefit from.

Question: What are some alternative ways that someone can be a part of a campus movement without physically participating in it?

References:

Putterman, M. (2016). What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice.

Chen, M. (2016). Making and Unmaking the Asian American Movement. Asian American Writers' Workshop. Retrieved 20 May 2017, from http://aaww.org/asian-american-movement/