Raylph Evangelista
913184220
When I was ten years old in 2008, I knew nothing about politics but what I did know was that Barack Obama being elected as president of the United States was a big deal. The first president of color in the United States in all the years that we have been a nation. What I didn't know was how much controversy this caused. After reading Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai'i, I finally found out about how big of a deal this actually was. I had no idea that Barack Obama was considered to be an Asian American/Pacific Islander. In fact, when I read that he said the he considers himself "to be an honorary AAPI member" I was shook. The reason being, that I had no idea that he knew so much about our culture and how he could relate to some of our upbringings. What made me question the validity of this was that some people probably think that he only said this to garner the votes of other Asian Americans. Regardless though, I definitely would consider him a member of the AAPI community. As I continued reading the article, I came across a part which stood out to me. That part being that the Asian American community actually thought that Obama's election would be the "end of racism." It is crazy to me that people actually considered it to be the end since racism has a history that is so deep rooted that the act of electing someone of color doesn't do much. However, it was a start and in all I still think it is cool that Obama considers himself to be a part of the Asian American community.
References
Okamura, Jonathan Y. Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai'i. Routledge. 2016.
chel1395. The Obamas greet the crowd on November 4th in Chicago.
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