ipl-logo

Asian Pacific American Essay

1212 Words5 Pages

What Does It Mean to be an Asian Pacific American? The Asian American community has proven itself resilient, and has continued to bloom up until today – just a few years ago, Asian Americans had overtaken Latin Americans as the fastest growing minority in U.S. Society. In today’s time, one can hardly imagine how much Asian cultures influence in our day-to-day lives, but prior to that, the APA community had been subjected to suspicion and bigotry that was hardly justified, and its echoes still resound until now. In just a single lifetime, most of the scars of the past are hardly felt today, with Asians forming one of the integral threads of American society today. But in order to understand how our rights and privileges came to be, we first …show more content…

Chinamen migrating in the 19th century were by most accounts suffering from constant war and famine in China. The same sentiments can be seen among other ethnic groups who moved out for the same reason: to have a means to find their fortunes and make a living, as well as to pursue higher education within the States. These motivations hardly changed over the years. Metrics that show U.S. demographic data consistently rank APAs above other ethnicities in terms of educational attainment and achievement, as well as forming a sizable chunk of the American middle class. Moreover, Asians are more likely to be a part of the professional and technical workforce, while Pacific Islanders are concentrated on service and operator jobs (Ancheta 133). This was also one of the reasons why suspicions were raised against them in the first place: that these immigrants worked diligently for wages lower than Americans would accept comfortably. Venture capitalists in the late 1800’s exploited this sudden manpower boon, and eventually fuelled the economic expansion of the west coast. Regardless of the Anti-Asian sentiments of the U.S. public, the Asian Americans still built a stereotype of diligence and contentious action leading them to obtain the title of “model minority” of the U.S. public (Oyserman & Sakamoto

Show More
Related
700 Words | 3 Pages

Born in Oahu, Hawaii, Ronald Takaki addressed stereotypes of Asian Americans in the perspective of an American academic, historian, ethnographer, and an author. Nonetheless, his awareness of identity as a descendant of Japanese immigrants is clearly portrayed throughout “Double Victory.” Takaki initially studied at Wooster University, and work there led to his questioning of ethnic identity. His personal experiences, such as his wife’s family’s refusal to accept him because he is a ‘Jap’, inspired him to dedicate his life for equality for Asian Americans. He was involved in developing UC Berkeley's multicultural requirement for graduation as a professor: the American Cultures Requirement.

Read More
677 Words | 3 Pages

Is there a “model minority”? Takaki ’s essay “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority” . In this essay Takaki writes against the claim that has been made that Asian Americans are viewed as being the “model minority”.

Read More
687 Words | 3 Pages

In the memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Nguyen, the main character, Nguyen and her family flee the political unrest of their home country, Vietnam. Seeking a safer community and a more economically-sound life, Nguyen’s family moves to the United States. At this time, the United States was experiencing a large migration of people with Asian descent because of the political unrest in their countries. This sudden increase of Asian immigrants, often referred to as the Third Wave of American Immigration, caused a great amount of resentment towards the Asian. Moving to the United States at such a difficult time, young Nguyen dealt with these issues first-hand.

Read More
651 Words | 3 Pages

The Japanese immigrants never quite fit in, for they were “of the yellow race” (Takaki 179). And yet, they risked it all and left their home country, their families, and headed to America, like many immigrants before them. Not many found the riches and the opportunities that they were seeking, but there was no going back. They were in America and they had to make the best of what they could; their pride stood in the way of their surrender. America proved to be a much more cruel land than they had ever expected, but Japanese immigrants insisted on coming to America and often bringing their families with them, but why?

Read More
1989 Words | 8 Pages

In1924animmigrationactwasimplementedto totally restrict the Asians from entering the United States of America. During the Second World War over 120000 Asian Americans were imprisoned on grounds that they were enemy aliens. 65% of the imprisoned victims were American born citizens. This book therefore talks about the Asian American experiences and difficulties they faced living in a society that was driven by racial prejudice. The fact that the American government was able to cover up the crime against the Chinese miners despite their efforts to

Read More
1320 Words | 6 Pages

The formation of grassroots organizations in the mid twentieth century proved to be an essential driving force of the Asian American movement, mainly due to their ambitions and ability to attack racial problems in communities. At the height of the 1960’s civil rights movement, the Asian American Political Alliance, and the I Wor Kuen were notable grassroot organizations. The AAPA, for short, was birthed on the campus of UC Berkeley in California, while the I Wor Kuen was formed in New York City’s Chinatown. Their core goal is notably identical; their desire to create a utopian society separate from “white America”. Ultimately, the AAPA and the I Wor Kuen coincide with their ambitions to create their own absolute society, but differ in their

Read More
402 Words | 2 Pages

This paragraph from Kesaya Noda’s autobiographical essay “Growing Up Asian in America” represents the conflict that the author feels between her Japanese ethnicity, and her American nationality. The tension she describes in the opening pages of her essay is between what she looks like and is judged to be (a Japanese woman who faces racial stereotypes) versus what she feels like and understands (life as a United States citizen). This passage signals her connection to Japan; and highlights her American upbringing. At this point in the essay, Noda is unable to envision her identity as unified and she describes her identity as split by race.

Read More
1446 Words | 6 Pages

Derrick Bell’s The Space Traders is a science fiction short story that illustrates Wilderson ’s claim that, “stability is a state of emergency for Black people. Although it is a realistic depiction of how society has sacrificed Blacks in return for stability, it does not draw attention to how Asian Americans affect and contribute to this ideal. In my revision I include the attitudes various Asian American groups have towards Blacks and how they would react to Bell’s proposed scenario.

Read More
302 Words | 2 Pages

Author Jason Newman writes on the history of Asian Americans in the United States in his essay, appropriately titled, “Asian American in U.S. History”. The essay describes the treatment of Asian Americans in the United States, along with the legislation passed against them. To open his essay, Newman writes, “Many Asian Americans have struggled against recurrent stereotypes that cast them as permanent outsiders despite their long history in the United States.” Afterward, Newman describes the early immigration of Asian Americans to the U.S. Specifically, he uses Chinese Americans to illustrate the negative reaction Americans had towards Asian immigration, listing the many laws passed to bar Chinese immigration into America.

Read More
386 Words | 2 Pages

Often Asian Americans are called the “model minority” because they seem to be successful economically, socially, and educationally without significant confrontations with the white majority (Johnson & Rhodes, 2015). Kim-Ly’s parents immigrated to the United States 27 years ago from Vietnam. Over time the family has progressed socioeconomically and now owns a small grocery store but still experiences stress over paying bills. Many cultural values of Vietnamese are derived from Confucianism, promoting filial piety and other strong family-centered values (Johnson & Rhodes, 2015). It is a central tenant in Asian culture to bring honor to the family and not shame it.

Read More
609 Words | 3 Pages

A History of Asian Americans, Strangers From a Different Shore, written by Ronald Takaki, displays an extensive history of Asian Americans as he combines a narrative story, personal recollection and spoken assertions. As long as we can remember, many races such as the Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese and Japanese have dealt with some type of discrimination upon arriving to the United States. A particular part in the book, Chapter 11, mainly focuses on Asian immigrants and Southeast Asian refugees from the 1960s to the 1980s that were treated as the “strangers at the gate again.” Ronald Takaki refers to them as “strangers at the gate again” as a figure of speech for the people who are from Asian background who have struggled to settle in the United States, only to find out that old

Read More
648 Words | 3 Pages

The horrific murder of Vincent Chin suggests that people are ignorant to the fact that numerous ethnic groups exist within the same “race.” They view all Asian Americans as the same race despite there being different ethnic groups, such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. As a result, anti-Japanese sentiment meant discrimination towards all Asian Americans in general because to Whites, they all “looked the same.” Chin was in a club celebrating his upcoming wedding before he was savagely attacked by two white men who accused him of “stealing” their jobs. At this time, due the influx of Japanese immigrants as a result of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, many Whites lost their jobs, especially in the automobile industry.

Read More
506 Words | 3 Pages

As the situation currently stands, there is no problem with the presentation of Asian American as a unified experience. This unification of all Asian Americans in America’s eyes – especially those of white Americans – can be seen through two lenses: the treatment of past immigrants and the beliefs about current Asian Americans. In his article The Centrality of Racism in Asian American History, Ronald Takaki states, regardless of Asian Americans’ contribution to the development of the American West, when “one hears Americans tell of the immigrants who built this nation…one is often led to believe that all our forebearers came from Europe.” America does not want the Asian American portion of its population to be recognized because the fact that the ‘Orient’ assisted with the building of the United States is contrary to all standing American and emphasizes the indebtedness of America to the Asians to crossed the ocean to supplement their economy. Primarily, Americans viewed Asian immigrants as “clannish, rigidly attached to their old country and old culture” or in other words as a group which cannot possibly be assimilated

Read More
669 Words | 3 Pages

If we can understand the current issues Asian Americans face, we can help support them better. The neglect of teaching Asian history in the United States has had many evident

Read More
370 Words | 2 Pages

This was a really interesting and informative chapter to read because I had no idea how big of a role the Chinese played in American History. I wasn’t surprised when I was reading about how “white” laborers demanded that certain companies to not hire any Chinese people. I though to myself “here we go again”, but I was happily surprised when I read about what the President of the Central Pacific Railroad had to say about these demands. The President of the company Leland Stanford had nothing but positive things to say about his Chinese workers. He often referred to them as quiet, peaceful, reliable, and willing to learn all the different kinds of work.

Read More

More about Asian Pacific American Essay

Related Topics

Open Document