Yaxuan Zhang
ASA2 A02
Week3 Blog
The reading material this week gives me a brief historical background of Asian Americans. This chapter breaks my idea that female Asian Americans are oppressed in academia because some administrators become corrupt, and the traditional academia collapse as the system of corporate invade. Instead, I now find that from the establishment of the academic system, Asian Americans are destined to struggle in an oppressed position. During the time when the issue of black slavery was tense, Asians were put in the middle of “white elites” and “black slaves” as a mediate group of “free labors” (Valverde& Dariotis, 50). There was no reason to label Asians to one defined group. Asians came to American at that time had different backgrounds and held different dreams. Some of them were high-educated and able to be as elites as some whites, and some of them had some skills and hoped to be useful workers at this land. However, their personal characteristics were ignored and were generally called “free labors”, which seems just like “legal slaves” at that time.
It was just the beginning of labeling Asian Americans. The people in power keep amplify individual events and then put all people in one box according to their needs. They defined: Japanese Americans are all silent and obedient because they did military service (they had to do so for survival); Vietnamese Americans are all dangerous (Valverde& Dariotis, 59). Asian Americans have been put into “boxes” for a long time. As time goes by, some people have got used to the boxes they are in, but more and more people are trying to lift the lip and get out of boxes now. And from this introduction chapter, I know the authors of this book are the pioneers to lead more of us to break the stereotype on Asian Americans.
My question this week is that some Asian American sometimes unconsciously behave like the ones Americans expect to be due to pressure, do you have any suggestions for them to be themselves bravely or to relieve their stress?
Reference
Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American Women Scholars Resistance And Renewal In The Academy. p50.
Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American Women Scholars Resistance And Renewal In The Academy. p59.
Bittle, A (2013). I Am Asian American. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2013/i-am-asian-american
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