Week 2_Christine Chau_A04

Being born and raised in San Francisco, reading Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again really hit home when I saw Lowell High School being discussed. It's interesting to hear the history of the school and how they used to base their acceptances. From personal experience, mostly every Asian parent wanted their kid to be accepted into Lowell and attend that school. If you were passing down the street and heard, "Yes my daughter is a sophomore at Lowell High School", all the "Oh wow, she's so smart!" or "Wow you must be very proud" were all the words Asian parents wanted to hear. At one point, my parents were like this too, until they realized it wasn't worth it. Misinformed about the school system, often the Asian parents did not know what attending Lowell entailed. They just believed that if their child attended this school, they were guaranteed an acceptance to any UC because of the name Lowell High School. Especially in the community I grew up in, our elementary and middle schools were not as adequately equipped like other schools in the districts near Lowell High School (e.g. Richmond and Sunset District). Due to this, lots of my friends who applied and got accepted to Lowell made their parents super proud. However, it was very hard for them to keep up with students who already had a better background in Mathematics, English, or basically any class due to the previous schools we went to. They struggled a lot, hearings stories from them; the shock of the work load and the rigorous courses at Lowell was unfit for them. Even though they all did graduate and do fairly well, it taught their parents a lesson that the things you hear on the street that "Lowell will get your kids anywhere" wasn't actually true. The article also talked about how some people believe that Asians aren't much of minorities anymore, and that they are closer to the whites because of the success many Asian Americans have in the recent years. It reminds me of the time where I found that there are people who believe Asians aren't people of color, due to some Asians having pale skin that they belong with white people, and we hold the same privilege that they do.

Brings me back to what we discussed in class, how easy it was for us to rank the categories of the success of each type of Asian. Everyone was so quick to rank unanimously, which shows that not all Asians are the same. Which brings me to the question, how do we voice our struggles without our feelings invalidated? Times were I want to talk about the struggles I have been through as an Asian American with parents from Southeast Asia, I know there are people who invalidate my feelings and struggles because "asians aren't minorities anymore".

• Allred, NC., Asian Americans and Affirmative Action: From Yellow Peril to Model Minority and Back Again, 14 Asian Am. L.J. 57 (2007)
• Hyun, J. (2018, December 01). Saying East Asians Aren't People of Color is Absolute BS. Retrieved from https://nextshark.com/east-asians-people-of-color/