Shuyu Chen-Week 4-SS1

This week, I firstly read Wang Ping’s poem She Shall Not Be Removed. I like Wang Ping’s style,even though she is not a native speaker and writer, but she knows how to illustrate her thoughts with strong but painful sentences. Everytime I read her poem, I could feel how intensive her emotion was when writing down these words. In this poem, she mentions she returned to university and became a professor, but still she was discriminated and treated badly. In her poem, she uses yellow chaos and alabaster tower, with comparison of color used as a metaphor to illustrate her unfair situations are ascribed to her ethic, race and skin color. Besides, I could feel a sarchasm from the word chaos and tower. As we know, the tower is a place with peace, isolated chaos.She uses these two words to state how people in her university, especially those “superiors”  consider her and the difference between yellow group and alabaster group. After reading this poem, I feel sad, unworthy and unfair for Wang Ping. She deserves better regarding her talent and ability. I think she could be better if she change her job. However, at the same time, I feel lucky that in academia, there is a warrior that fights for her group and people who have similar situations. 

    Another article Care Work written by Yoo reveals the fact that Asian American women in academia are required to do care work to others due to their stereotypes as caregivers, in such cases, they should even withhold their own emotions for the sake of others. Speaking of stereotypes, it is somewhat true that an ethic group has its own stereotyped impressions from others. Asians have stereotype of docile, submissive, conserved, reserved, thoughtful and etc. However, these kinds of traits were deeply influenced by cultures and historical conditions in Asia. Now, with the global development, Asia is more open and Asians may still have some stereotyped traits but not as serious as others think. In the past, the first or second generations of Asians had their “Asian style”, “Asian characteristics” , but the youngest generation of Asian Americans already has those “Asian style” and  “Asian characteristics” eliminated. They are like other Americans, outgoing, voluble, confident and etc.. So I have a question: It is 21 century now, why do some people still think Asians or Asian Americans have those stereotyped characteristics.

Reference: 

W.P. She Shall Not Be Moved. 

Dariotis, W.M. and Yoo, G.J. . Care Work.