Mark Tseng Putterman’s “What Asian Americans are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice,” discusses the lack of representation for Asian Americans, which is a terrible, but not new problem. Even so, the lack of representation in higher education administration for Asian Americans within well-known schools such as the University of Missouri, is astounding and shows how hypocritical the Model Minority Myth really is. If Asians are so smart and have everything handed to them much like white people, as the myth indicates, then where are they in institutions where the supposedly smartest people in the world reside? Higher education presumably houses the “cream of the crop” yet the Asians are nowhere to be found. K.
On the bright side, this has fostered a sense of solidarity among minorities on such campuses, particularly between Black, Latino, Native Americans and Asian Americans. Thankfully, these students understand that strength comes in numbers and everyone improves from better conditions. Maybe they even understand that the barriers that seek to divide us were put up with the intention of keeping power. Whether that was their realization or not, the end outcome, meaning the act banding together, is a small win. Sadly, even so there are tensions within minority groups, such as between Asian Americans and Asians.
Question:
What stops people from seeing the benefits of joining together and practicing solidarity with other minorities, or even others in our own minority group?
References:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2016). What is a minority? [digital image]. Retrieved from https://slideplayer.com/slide/9317297/
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