Week 9 Katrina Asuncion

Katrina Asuncion
Week 9
Section 1

In "Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans," Soya Jung explores the reasons why Asian Americans should care about Black Lives Matter. Jung believes that Asian Americans, like black Americans, should hold their rage close to their hearts, and turn that anger into action. Additionally, Jung argues that the normalization of black death and violence against black people in term harms Asian Americans as well. I believe this plays into the concept of racial triangulation. Asian Americans are perceived to be the model minority, placed in between white and black people, while black Americans face the worst treatment in American society. Although this at first appears to benefit Asian Americans, it instead places them into the extremely detrimental racial hierarchy and confines them into the box of behaving as the "model minority." When Asian Americans deviate from this myth, they receive zero visibility for the issues that they face, such as violence. Enforcing "black criminality" and the Asian "model minority myth" harms both groups, and society as a whole. We cannot uplift and support one minority group without helping another too.

Question: Why do Asian Americans seem less engaged with Black Lives Matter? Do they believe that these acts of violence will never affect them?


Works Cited:

1. Jung, S. (2014, August 20). Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans. Race Files.
2. Racial Triangulation [Graph]. 2013. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265737680_The_Marginalized_Model_Minority_An_Empirical_Examination_of_the_Racial_Triangulation_of_Asian_Americans