Hanling Zhu ASA2 A02 Week2

Hanling Zhu

ASA2 A02
Week2

After reading the part of the book assigned this week “Taking Action: Asian American Faculty against Injustices in the Academy,” I feel the discrimination and how hard Asian Americans are in America. By reading the article, I find that the issue that the discrimination of Asian Americans has existed for a long time. Besides the discrimination, Americans have strong stereotypes about Asian Americas. Like mentioned in Fight The Tower written by Caroline Valverde, “Asian Americans are stereotyped as hard workers, high achievers, and economically successful (Valverde, 2013).” Because of this kind of stereotype, the government or other people denied helping many Asian Americans who really need help, which is especially true in the academic aspect.

I have a friend whose name is Fiona is Asian American. Last quarter I met her in Segundo dining common. When I say hi to her, I saw that she was very upset. I asked her why she is so upset. She told me that she just attended a statistic discussion. During the class, the TA separate them into groups to discuss problem sets. When her groupmates ask her opinion about the problem sets, but she did not have ideas about that question. Then, one of her groupmates said, “don’t you Asian? How could you don’t know the answer?” She told me that this is not the first time that Americans think that Asian people are really good at math and think that they can calculate faster than calculators. She was really distressed about this. After listening to her story, I feel that the stereotype of Asian Americans hurts them a lot.

My question is how can Asian Americans do as a group in the face of the stereotype to get help from institutions and individuals. 

Reference:

Valverde, K. L. C. (2013). Fight the Tower. Rutgers University Press.

Photo retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/18/harvard-affirmative-action-trial-asian-american-students