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Negative and positive racial stereotypes in the usa
Racial Stereotypes and their Effects
Negative and positive racial stereotypes in the usa
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Silence as Beauty, Silence as Self: The Asian American Identity
The label “American” encompasses many different cultures and races. However,
American society is often guilty of assuming there is only one true, certainly white, “American”
face, voice, and behavior. Associate Professor of Sociology, Minako Maykovich, states that “the
criteria for physical characteristics are generally determined by the dominant group in society,”
thus “racial difference is the greatest obstacle to the process of assimilation” (68). In Traise
Yamamoto’s nonfiction narrative, “Different Silences,” and Janice Mirikitani’s poem, “Breaking
Silence,” the authors explore their Asian American identities as defined by American culture.
The quest to eliminate stereotypes and expectations through visible behavior coincides with an
Asian custom that “value[s] silence more highly then North Americans” (Donahue 265).
Mirikitani’s poem, “Breaking Silence,” focuses on her mother’s experience testifying to the
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Japanese American Civilians in 1981.
Yamamoto, who is also a poet, takes a more assertive and personal stance in her
autobiographical narrative, “Different Silences.” These Japanese American authors seek to reclaim
their heritage by aggressively confronting their white American audience, while retaining
an empowered, wise attitude that uplifts the seemingly invisible and silent Asian American
community.
Yamamoto’s “Different Silences” and Mirikitani’s “Breaking Silence” both recognize
how Asian Americans in the past and present have used, or use, silence for protection. As
Japanese Americans of the third generation, or Sanseis, Yamamoto and Mirikitani both reflect on
their ethnic herita...
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...icans;
some are shameful silences that need to be “broken,” as Mirikitani observes, but the healthy
silences are inherently part of the Asian American identity.
Works Cited
Donahue, Ray T. Japanese Culture and Communication: Critical Cultural Analysis. New York:
University Press of American, Inc., 1998.
Espiritu, Yen Le. Asian American Women and Men: Labor, Laws, and Love. London: Sage
Publications, 1997.
Leitner-Rudolph, Miryam. Janice Mirikitani and Her Work. Austria: Braumueller, 2001.
Maykovich, Minako K. Japanese American Identity Dilemma. Tokyo: Wayside University Press:
1972.
Mirikitani, Janice. “Breaking Silence.” Shedding Silence. Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1987. 33-36.
Yamamoto, Traise. “Different Silences.” Asian American Literature: A Brief Introduction and
Anthology. Ed. Shawn Wong. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1996. 45-50.
Despite their being of the same culture, Asian American, the authors of the two texts have contrasting viewpoints. Elizabeth Wong, author of "The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl", looks upon Asian culture with eyes full of contempt and sees America culture as far superior. However, The author of "Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American", Dwight Okita, recognizes how the two cultures blend together, going hand-in-hand with one another. Wong's perception of her Asian culture as shameful is evident throughout the text. She wrote that her mother "forcibly" sent her and her brother to Chinese school (Wong 1).
In Munoz’s essay language is used as original assimilation for non-dominant people to fit in with a dominant group where minorities have grown accustom to assimilate by speaking Spanish at home and English in school (308). Munoz observes that “the English-only way of life partly explains the quiet erasure of cultural difference that assimilation has attempted to accomplish” (308). By creating certain levels of acceptance in society such as English-only in public, cultural differences such as language has slowly depleted where many groups are being held back. Whereas in Savan’s essay this concept is twisted, “Today the language of an excluded people is repeated by the non-excluded in order to make themselves sound more included” (436). This means that when a dominant group attempts to assimilate with a non-dominant group, reverse assimilation is evident. White people pull in language by repeating language of blacks who are in someway excluded in order to be included (436). Munoz and Savan are interconnected by demonstrating the difference between demonizing a minorities language in Munoz’s case and idolizing black talk in Savan’s instance. Both cultures represent erasure of cultural difference created by assimilating one culture over
Under the inability to fit in, he describes how many people in executive positions examine black differently than whites. In their minds, blacks do not have the same criteria to meet as whites do. He goes on to say that whites are more likely to fit in than blacks. They have to hire based on who can blend into `the great white mass.'
...d not assimilate to accepted American culture. However, by the time society learned which ethnicities were ‘unassimilable’, the cultures had already begun to take root in America. At first America had a knee-jerk reaction to this realization and began passing more resolutions preventing ‘non-whites’ from entering the United States. However, as America experienced the increase in cultural communities in reaction to prejudice formed by immigration laws, the government learned that only through a loosening of immigration law and lessening of prejudice would America become a true melting pot. The mid-1900s saw this manifestation in America, as immigration laws allowed more people from around the world to immigrate. As prejudice lessened, the cultural communities sprinkled throughout America that created a mosaic became less prevalent and have begun to form a melting pot.
Under Sue’s theme of “Pathologizing cultural values/communication styles” (76), a form of microaggression develops. Asians are typically taught to listen rather than speak. The school system typically emphasizes participation to speak in class which may be more intimidating for Asians due to their background and important of silence. Participants of Sue’s study “felt forced to conform to Western norms and values (‘talking more’) when such behaviour violated their cultural upbringing” (77). In other words, Asians participants felt uncomfortable trying to fit the White standard of talking and participating in
...silenced in this country, in order to have voice and be visible in society, one must strive to be a white American. They feel the need to embody and assimilate to whiteness because the white race has a voice and is seen, rather than silenced and unseen, in society. They are privileged with the freedom of not having to cope with the notion of being marked, silent, and unseen in society. This creates pressures for Asian Americans and immigrants to suppress their own cultural identities and assimilate to whiteness in an attempt to potentially be able to prosper and make a life for them in America. Asian Americans feel as though being who they truly are and express their unique cultural identities will alienate themselves even more than they already are.
Following the 1890’s, the world began to undergo the first stages of globalization. Countries and peoples, who, until now, were barely connected, now found themselves neighbors in a planet vastly resembling a global village. Despite the idealized image of camaraderie and brotherhood this may seem to suggest, the reality was only discrimination and distrust. Immigration to new lands became a far more difficult affair, as emigrants from different nations came to be viewed as increasingly foreign. In the white-dominated society of the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the only way to truly count oneself as American was to become “white”. For this reason, the idea of race, a socially constructed issue with no real physical basis, has become one of the most defining factors which shape immigration and assimilation in the United States.
...outcast group of that set range attempt to conform themselves. The meaning of who is an American continues to change gradually over time, embracing different cultures and races into that definition, but the task is nowhere near completion as long as the hyphenated racial classifications and double consciousness still exist.
Hanes, in her article ‘Immigration: Assimilation and the Measure of an American’ claims that assimilation can be measured among immigrants and the point at
He mournfully tells his audience he has “moved away from the periphery and toward the center of American life, [he] has become white inside” (Liu 1). As a young chinese boy growing up in America, he was taught the way to assimilation was to abandon the language, culture, and traditions of his ancestors, and his essay is a remorseful reflection on the consequences of his sacrifice. Despite giving away so much, despite doing it all to ‘become white’, he will always be an outsider – race and skin color can never be the uniting factor of a community. Eric Liu goes on to talk about how “the assimilist is a traitor to his kind, to his class, to his own family” (Liu 2). Why does it need to be this way? The ‘a-word’ (assimilist) need not be a negative one, if only assimilation meant adapting to an ideology rather than one race’s culture. If that were the true meaning of assimilation, the idea that to assimilate is to betray would be eradicated. The current method of naturalization to American culture is unacceptable: The only thing that will unite Americans will be a common goal to promote good values and hard work within
...inferior cultures are always able to adapt and learn things from larger groups, in contact zone environments the larger groups are finally able to draw things from the smaller cultures as well, and thus transculturation becomes a two-way street. Only when people are made aware of the marginal diversity that surrounds them in everyday life are they able to gain a wider understanding and deeper knowledge of the world around them. They are then able to apply that knowledge to shape and benefit the way they interact with others and operate as a part of a society that is more open, leaving behind the mistake of imagined communities and applying inaccurate definitions to groups of people.
Knowing that it would be four years of relentless pestering, I knew that someday I would surpass my tormentors; I would keep under cover of my books and study hard to make my brother proud one day. It would be worth the pain to someday walk into a restaurant and see my former bully come to my table wearing an apron and a nametag and wait on me, complete with a lousy tip. To walk the halls of the hospital I work in, sporting a stethoscope and white coat while walking across the floor that was just cleaned not to long ago by the janitor, who was the same boy that tried to pick a fight with me back in middle school. To me, an Asian in an American school is picking up where my brother left off. It’s a promise to my family that I wouldn’t disappoint nor dishonor our name. It’s a battle that’s gains victory without being fought.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine’s sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.
For those Asian Americans who make known their discontent with the injustice and discrimination that they feel, in the white culture, this translates to attacking American superiority and initiating insecurities. For Mura, a writer who dared to question why an Asian American was not allowed to audition for an Asian American role, his punishment was “the ostracism and demonization that ensued. In essence, he was shunned” (Hongo 4) by the white people who could not believe that he would attack their superior American ways. According to writers such as Frank Chin and the rest of the “Aiiieeeee!” group, the Americans have dictated Asian culture and created a perception as “nice and quiet” (Chin 1972, 18), “mama’s boys and crybabies” without “a man in all [the] males.” (Chin 1972, 24). This has become the belief of the proceeding generations of Asian Americans and therefore manifested these stereotypes.
...s are only able to stay in poor accommodation, a kind of ghetto formation would be inevitable, therefore the native people find the foreign nationals as an even greater threat. In addition to this social integration is the cultural imperative. Of course you cannot reach the one without the other. Cultural integration is not the complete assimilation of immigrants but can be defined as accepting of cultural differences while agreeing on a common culture (common language, common education, ...). At the end of my essay I would like to mention that we should all fight against racism. Through the isolation of an ethnic group from the other, we prevent that "fresh blood flows into this”. Therefore a degeneration process is inevitable. We should also battle against it, because racism is definitely against the top human rights and it is also a danger for the whole humanity.