Matthew Ko ASA 2 AO1, week 9

For this week, I decided to read the article “Pain + Love = Growth: the labor of pinayist pedagogical praxis” written by Melissa-Ann Nievera-Lozano. This article was very interesting because it talks about the common culture of how many Asian Americans are afraid of being shameful or bringing shame to their loved ones. I can greatly relate to this because throughout the majority of my early life, I have been filled with academic pressure to do well in school in order to "not bring shame" to my identity. In fact, I was really afraid of getting bad grades because I was scared of how other people will perceive me. However, I noticed that I was not the only one that was under this pressure to not bring shame. A lot of my Asian American classmates were also subjected to this pressure. Another great example in my life that resonates with the article is how I was taught to always be quiet and never confront someone of a higher authority than I am if I was being falsely accused of doing something wrong because that was a way to show respect and not get into anymore trouble. For instance, there was a time where my boss from an internship I did a few years back accused me of not completing part of a project even though I did, and to my stupidity I ended up apologizing for it. Fortunately, I grew out of this fear of being shame and I have learned to speak up for myself after realizing that many people will particularly give Asian Americans a hard time because they understand the common culture among Asian Americans where they are expected to be silent and obedient to their bosses no matter what. It saddens me how some Asian Americans, especially the adults, still follow the custom to not be shameful and do not understand how society uses their culture to oppress them. It is very important that Asian Americans learn from a young age that it is essential to have the courage to make mistakes and risk getting one's reputation mocked in order to reach success and to make a big impact in our world. One question I have is: Are there any other ethnicities besides Asian Americans where they are culturally afraid of being shameful? If not, why is it that the Asian culture is the only one that is obsessed with not being shameful?

Reference:

Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars' Resistance and Renewal in the Academy, by Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde and Wei Ming Dariotis, Rutgers University Press, 2020, pp. 325-349.

Ibanez, Lauren. (2019) “Afraid to speak up” [photograph] Retrieved from: https://thedailytexan.com/2019/12/05/afraid-to-speak-up-culture-of-silence-surrounded-ut-music-professor’s-conduct-for-years