The Asian American Dream

718 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Japanese american internment poems

Did you know that the Asian American race has the highest minority rate worldwide? Asian Americans take up only 5.8 percent of the United States population. They have had a hard time here in the United States trying to achieve and live the “American Dream” but they have had many things get in the way of that. Things that get in their way are factors like Worldwide discrimination. No matter where they go, they get discriminated from things just because they are Asian American. Another thing is their education getting in the way of it. Asian Americans try and apply to a college they want to get into to get into their career but they get turned down just because they are Asian American. This is a huge problem for them because it will keep them from living the so called “American Dream”.
Important events happened in the past to try and help this problem get solved. An act called the “Japanese American Internship Act” happened in 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. What this act done was it made all of the Japanese Americans be moved away from the United States into concentration camps because the United States could not trust them and they felt like they were a threat to them. They felt threatened by them because the United States were going to war with the Empire of Japan ever since they attacked Pearl Harbor and then we joined the war. Many people felt like it was a racial decision to send all the Japanese Americans to the concentration camps just because they are Japanese and were attacked by Japanese soldiers. After all this was over, on December 18th, 1944, the United States Supreme Court ended the Japanese American Internship Act and the people were allowed to come back to the United States and go back to their hom...

... middle of paper ...

...s been an ongoing struggle everscine they arrived in America they have struggled to reach their vision of the American Dream the Asians have been faced with gigantic obstacles that were standing in their way of their American Dream and for the most part the obstacles have came from the people and government of America itself the people and government have passed acts and accused the Asians of being spies during world war two they have also tried to stop Asians Americans from getting jobs for the most part America’s people have been the biggest obstacle for the Asians Americans reaching their American Dream they have done everything in their power to stop the Asians Americans heck they have even tried to stop the asians from getting education yet through all it all the Asians have achieved their American Dream because they had two things patience and never gave up.

Show More
Related

  • Compare And Contrast Salem Witch Trials And Japanese Internment Camps

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    The conditions the Japanese Americans were put through were horrible and everyone deserves to be treated equally. The worst part was the persecution of numerous innocent people because they did nothing wrong. The outbreak of hysteria was a big part of them being thrown into camps because the government thought they were working with Japan. In the Internment Camps and Salem Witch Trials people had no evidence and were treated unfairly, making them similar even though it was two different time

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Issei And Nisei

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    Forced to relocate into internment camps, Japanese-Americans were feared and considered the enemy. With anti-Japanese prejudice existing for years (prior to WWII), the military actions of Japan, erupted the hostility

    Read More

  • Themes of Language and Racial Identity in Native Speaker, By Chang-Rae Lee

    2640 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The Necessity Of Japanese Internment

    1429 Words  | 3 Pages

    Much controversy has been sparked due to the internment of the Japanese people. Many ask whether it was justified to internment them. It is a very delicate issue that has two sides, those who are against the internment of the Japanese-Americans and those who are for it. With World War II raging in the East, America was still, for the most part, very inactive in the war. When America took a stand against Japan by not shipping them supplies, Japan became very upset. Japan, being a big island that is very overpopulated with little natural resources, depended on America to provide them with an assortment of supplies including scrap metal and oil, vital items that are needed in a time of war. Japan retaliated by declaring war on America and attacking Pearl Harbor. This surprise act led to many soldiers deaths and millions of dollars of damaged army equipment, including air craft carriers and planes. As a result to Japan declaring war, the Japanese-Americans were asked to and eventually forced to do their duty to the country and report to internment camps until the war conflict was over. Many opposed this act for a couple of reasons. One reason was that people felt that it was a huge hypocrisy that the Japanese were being interned while the Italians and Germans, also our enemies, were still walking around free in America. Another reason why many were against the internment was because many of the Japanese had already been in America for some time now. The Issei, the first generation of Japanese people that immigrated from Japan, had immigrated many years ago. A whole another generation of Japanese children had already began growing up in America called the Nissei. They were automatically U.S. citizens for they were born in America and for the most part were like other American children. Anti-Internment activists also said that the Japanese were being robbed of their rights as U.S. citizens. However, there are two sides to everything.

    Read More

  • Asian American History Essay

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Asian American history is the history of the ethnic and racial groups in the United States who are of Asian descent. Spickard (2007) shows that the "'Asian American' was an idea created in the 1960s to bring together the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans for a strategic and political purposes.

    Read More

  • Past and Present Struggles of Asian Americans

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    One theme that I found to be very interesting is the struggles that Asian Americans have faced in the past and the present. I never knew about the struggles that have been happening in places like China and Laos. I never realized how many families come from poverty and violence. I have only learned very little about historical events such as Vietnam. I am only now becoming more aware about the human rights problem in China. I am so used to seeing places like Tokyo, Japan in movies and television. Everything seems so clean and the city is lit up with bright lights and amazing buildings at night. Before this course, I thought that most Asians live this kind of life. I never knew that these events had even occurred and I was amazed at some of the things Asians have had to go through over the years.

    Read More

  • Model Minority

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the beginning when Asians came to America, they had started out with nothing, no foundation, and no help. All they could do was work hard to create a better life with their own hands, someday, in the hope that they will succeed. Back in the 1800’s, during the gold rush days, Americans were displeased with the amount of Asian immigrants who came and took their jobs. Since then, Asians have been able to survive and achieve a great amount of success in the US. In order to catch up with the rest of the world, the government created an example for their own people, known as the model minority.

    Read More

  • Asian Americans: Exclusion and Segregation

    1610 Words  | 4 Pages

    The United States of America is the place of opportunity and fortune. “Many immigrants hoped to achieve this in the United States and similar to other immigrants many people from the Asian Pacific region hoped to make their fortune. They planned to either return to their homelands or build a home in their new country (Spring, 2013).” For this reason, life became very complicated for these people. They faced many challenges in this new country, such as: classifying them in terms of race and ethnicity, denying them the right to become naturalized citizens, and rejecting them the right of equal educational opportunities within the school systems. “This combination of racism and economic exploitation resulted in the educational policies to deny Asians schooling or provide them with segregated schooling (Spring, 2013).”This was not the country of opportunity and fortune as many believed. It was the country of struggle and hardship. Similarly, like many other immigrants, Asian Americans had the determination to overcome these obstacles that they faced to prove that the United States was indeed their home too.

    Read More

  • My Asian-American Experience

    1636 Words  | 4 Pages

    In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.

    Read More

  • Portrayal of Asian Americans in the Media

    3279 Words  | 7 Pages

    I also researched instances of counter actions taken by Asian Americans to protest against these negative images. My research also has examples of Asians that have succeeded in breaking through the racial barriers in the media. The results show that even though racial stereotyping still exists in various forms of mass media, there are signs that show noticeable improvement in allowing a more balanced image of Asian Americans. Statement of the Problem There are close to 12 million Asian Americans living in the United States (U.S. Asian, 2000). Asian Americans are considered one of the fastest growing minorities (Pimentel, 2001).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Betrayed By America By Kristin Lewis

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is not a well known fact that around the time the Holocaust took place in Europe, another internment (less extreme) was taking place in the United States. “Betrayed by America” by Kristin Lewis gives readers an insight on what happened to Japanese-Americans in America. The article tells us about Hiroshi Shishima, Japanese-Americans internment, and what was going on during the regime. During WW2, America went into a frenzy after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Many Americans believed what was being said about Japanese-Americans even though it was proven to be false. Since the whole fiasco with Japan took place, many Japanese-Americans were forced into internment in certain parts of the United States. The reason for the internment of Japanese-Americans was due to fear & hysteria, racial

    Read More

  • Asian Americans as Model Minorities

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and discrimination by other racial groups, they have succeeded socially, economically, and educationally without resorting to political or violent disagreements with the majority race. The “success” of the minority is offered as proof that the American dream of equal opportunity is capable to those who conform and who are willing to work hard. Therefore, the term ...

    Read More

  • Japanese Internment Camps

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    World War II was a time of deliberate hate among groups of innocent people who were used as scapegoats. Japanese-Americans were persecuted due to the fact that they looked like citizens of Japan, who had attacked the United States on December 7th, 1941 at the naval base, Pearl Harbor. This hatred toward the group was due to newspapers creating a scare for the American people, as well as the government restricting the rights of Japanese-Americans. The Japanese-Americans were mistreated during World War II for no other reason than being different. These men, women, and children were loathed by the American public for looking like the people of the Japanese army that had attacked the United States. These people were only hated by association, even though many had come to the United States to create a better life for their family.

    Read More

  • The Undeserved Discrimination and Exclusion of the Chinese Immigrants

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...xperienced harsh discrimination and even legal exclusion from our country. They were blamed for the lack of job opportunities and low pay of jobs and received extremely unfair treatment that labeled them as an inferior race. However, the inter-ethnic tension blinded us from seeing how the immigrants were contributing to our country in positive ways. They not only created economic and social gains for us, but also opened our minds to a whole new way of life and prepared us for the multicultural years to come. With all of the help and modernization that they contributed to our country, the racism and discrimination that the Chinese immigrants received day-in and day-out was not rightly justified or deserved.

    Read More

  • An Asian Growing Up in America

    1896 Words  | 4 Pages

    The air would always be humid and stuffy while riding the bus to school, and the slightest bump in the road would result in tossing up the kids like salad. The backseat would provide carriage for all the popular and tough kids shouting out at pedestrians on the street or flipping off a middle finger to the bus driver that would shout for them to calm down. I despised those kids in the back. They were the same people that made my life a living hell, while growing up and attending an American school.

    Read More

More about The Asian American Dream

Open Document