Week 8 - Christopher Hiura

Christopher Hiura
ASA002 A01
Week 8

In the article "What Asian Americans are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice," by Mark Tseng Putterman, he describes how the model minority myth hurts Asian American civil rights movements in the US. Basically, he claims that since Asian Americans have been "elevated" from being a minority to the model minority, Asian Americans lose any platform to protest discrimination against both themselves and other minority groups. They are "privileged" in the sense their is no blatant racism directed towards Asian Americans, and thus their is nothing to protest about. It then becomes an issue for Asian Americans to support groups like Black Lives Matter, where many say they can't join the cause since they aren't facing the same issues. Asian Americans are stuck in some kind of civil rights limbo, where they don't belong on either side of any kind of movement. Mark says this comes from a lack of unity within Asian Americans, stemming from the diverse cultures Asian Americans come from. In my opinion I agree with the idea that the perpetuation of the model minority myth has indeed made it harder for Asian Americans to stand decisively together with movements like Black Lives Matter. Whether it be because of the myth itself, or Asian culture of "not looking for trouble", there does seem to be a lack of any major Asian American movements. Off the top of my head, I honestly can't think of one single major Asian American civil rights movement--not even a protest after the Japanese internment camps. It's strange to think of how little Asian Americans actually don't protest.

What are some major Asian American civil rights movements? Why aren't Asian American issues as big as other minorities? Why isn't there any Asian American movements like Black Lives Matters?

References:

1. Putterman, M. T. (2016). What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice. Race Files. Retrieved November 12, 2017.