Sunday, November 12, 2017

Week 8 - Brian Jahja

Brian Jahja
ASA 002 Section A01
Week 8

This week's reading: What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice stood out to me because of how different it is in my culture. The articles discussions of how Asian Americans would stand up for race causes like 'Black Lives Matter', but never anything strictly related to Asian American oppression. Historically, I have yet to see a case where a case against Asian Americans was blown up to international headlines, with the most profound one recently being the '#STARRINGJOHNCHO' campaign. Even then, that was more towards an issue with media portrayal and nothing deeply rooted. One thing that I think contributes to this lack of a voice has to do with the fact that many Asian cultures practice 'Shame cultures', where a lot of people are unwilling to open up about feeling oppressed or victimized as a result of the culture seeing these things as a sign of weakness and dishonor. Therefore, in order to make student activism of Asian American topics more pronounced, I feel like a cultural revolution is in order as it is deeply rooted in the values that Asian people hold dearly. Due to the increasing westernization of the East, eventually this may come to being as a lot is being done to empower Asians in America, with #STARRINGJOHNCHO being a breakthrough for these kinds of conversations.

Therefore, this week my question is: "Are there other methods of empowerment besides a cultural revolution that can incite activism of Asian topics?"



References:
Putterman, Mark Tseng. “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice.” Race Files, 27 Dec. 2016, www.racefiles.com/2016/02/01/what-asian-americans-are-bringing-to-campus-movements-for-racial-justice/.

[Image] Exclusive Interview: #StarringJohnCho creator William Yu. (2016, May 13). Retrieved November 12, 2017, from http://colorwebmag.com/2016/05/13/exclusive-interview-starringjohncho/

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