Matthew Ko ASA 2 A01 week 2

In the article, Taking Action: Asian American Faculty against Injustices in the Academy, written by Shirley Hune, it talks about the racism in academics that Asian Americans often face. This racism is fueled by the stereotypical perspectives society has on Asian Americans. According to Hune, she stated that Asian Americans are "stereotyped as hard workers, high achievers, and economically successful"(Hune 2019). Because they are viewed as model minorities, Hune further states that this can be a negative thing because American society can "deny the realities of poor, underserved, and educationally disadvantaged Asian Americans, who may as a result experience disruptions to their civil rights and their access to opportunities, services, and resources"(Hune 2019). The fact that it is very common for society too disregard the existence of low income Asian Americans frustrates me because growing up, I have seen some of my low income Asian American peers get questioned by school authority if they were qualified school resources meant for low income students. For example in middle school, whenever I got school lunches with one go my friend, I remember seeing how the cashier would often take a second look at my friend's ID card to check if the photo on the ID card would match with his face. Normally students would swipe their card without ever being asked to hand over the card for a further evaluation. I remember being confused as to why cashiers thought he would steal or borrow someone else's card to get a discounted meal. It then occurred to me later on that the cashier most likely viewed my friend's Asian ethnicity and "discounted lunch" on the screen as being mutually exclusive.

One thing I ask myself after reading this article is that although Asians are at a disadvantage in academics in which they have higher expectations and thus have to work harder than non-asians to go to the same universities simply because they are over represented,  why doesn't this same rule apply in other aspects of life? For instance, look at the NBA or the Hollywood industry. In both the sports and movie industry, Asian Americans are way underrepresented. They are far underrepresented in sports than how African Americans are in Ivy-league schools. Nevertheless, I don't see any special advantages for Asian Americans where they have lower expectations and consequently don't have to be as skillful in order to make it big in the NBA or Hollywood.


Graph that shows the diversity of athletes in the NBA

References:

Image: Chalabi, M. (2014, April 28). Three Leagues, 92 Teams And One Black Principal Owner. In FiveThirtyEight.com. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/diversity-in-the-nba-the-nfl-and-mlb/

Shirley Hune. “Fight the Tower: Women of Color in Academia Manifesto ix Prologue: Taking Action: Asian American Faculty against Injustices in the Academy.” (2019, October 11).