Analyzing Wallace´s UCLA Girl´s Asian Rant

1548 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Cultural stereotypes in media

The internet explodes as Alexander Wallace, a UCLA Caucasian female student, goes on rant about Asians at UCLA. She first notes that on weekends, “…everybody that they know that they've brought along from Asia with them - comes here on the weekends to do their laundry, buy their groceries and cook their food for the week. It's seriously, without fail. You will always see old Asian people running around this apartment. That's what they do. They don't teach their kids to fend for themselves. You know what they don't also teach them, is their manners” (UCLA Girl’s Asian Rant). Here’s the bait that reels in all the fish. Ironically, by expressing her opinion about manners she has become a paradox. When she says “old Asian people” she is referring to the student’s grandparents. By using indirect phrases she is trying to attack upon the specific customs of Asians. Asian families, traditionally, are strict on their child's future and will give unconditional support to ensure their success. Here, Wallace is saying how Asian students are being spoiled. Her wording is aggressive, which may stem from a rooted jealously for others’ success. Furthermore, by stating “They can’t fend for themselves” she is somewhat claiming that she can fend for herself unlike them. It seems that subconsciously, she has realized the aggressiveness of her statement, so she is justifying her position by using elitism. She then continues with “I'll be in like deep into my studying, into my political science theories and arguments and all that stuff, getting it all down, like typing away furiously, blah, blah, and then all of a sudden when I'm about to like reach an epiphany. Over here from somewhere, ‘Ooooh Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong, Ooohhhhh.’ ” (UCLA Gir... ... middle of paper ... ... have a lot of work to do. I believe my views are mostly based on the current trends of viral videos. Often times, people jump on the bandwagon of opinion to conform. I have grown to learn to be skeptical and explore issues to justify my opinions. I am an Asian-American, but I'm not moved because racism is prevalent no matter if we see to it or not. A lot of the things we find offensive are not really that offensive. Our rage at the moment may be burning, but the fire only lasts for five seconds. We tend to exaggerate our feelings, especially with the increase of stereotypes and racial slurs. So, please, let careful thinking and responsible actions stray you away from idiocy. However, Wallace does have a point about Asians talking too loud. I'm considering not picking up my calls in library. My friend called to tell me that my house is on fire. No big deal.

Show More
Related

  • Racism In Ellen Foster

    1712 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Children are not blind to race. Instead, like all of us, they notice differences” and the character of Ellen Foster is no exception to the rule (Olson). Ellen Foster is the story of a strong willed and highly opinionated and pragmatic child named Ellen, growing up in the midst of poverty and abuse in the rural south. Her life is filled with tragedy from the death and possible suicide of her mother to the abuse she endures at the hands of her alcoholic father and his friends. Despite her hardships as such an early age, she never gives up hope for a better life. In addition to her struggles with poverty she is surrounded by a culture of racism in a society that is post Jim Crow

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Amy Chua And David Brooks

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amy Chua utilizes evidence to verify that Western parenting practice is wrong and not as effective as Chinese parenting practice. In her article, Chua comments, “Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable-even legally actionable-to Westerners, “Hey fatty-lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue” (Chua 54). She also gives her observation as evidence to convince Westerners treat their kid wrongly. She adds her observation in her article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” “I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage” (Chua 54). Brooks, in opposite, does not fight against to prove Chinese parenting techniques are completely wrong. However, he just want to give evidence so that Chua and Chinese, in common, understand Western parenting practices are good in some ways. In Brooks’ article, he clears, “So I’m not against the way Chua pushes her daughters” (Brooks 59). Furthermore, David Brooks writes in his article “I wish she recognized that in some important ways the school cafeteria is more intellectually demanding than the library” (Brooks

    Read More

  • Notes For A Poem On Being Asian American Summary

    446 Words  | 1 Pages

    Her principal was described as "maniacal" (Wong 1). Wong identified speaking Chinese as an "embarrassment" (Wong 2). The words she chose

    Read More

  • ' Dear Privileged, And Meritocracy Is A Book, By Briana Payton

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    In May 2014, Time.com published an article that would soon become the source of no small amount of social contention (1). In the article, “Dear Privileged-at-Princeton: You. Are. Privileged. And Meritocracy Is a Myth,” author Briana Payton lashes out at classmate Tal Fortgang for an article he wrote a month prior (1). Payton, a freshman studying sociology at Princeton University and the political antithesis of Fortgang, takes issue with her classmates’ definition of the word “privilege” (1). She argues that, because Fortgang is white, society inherently affords him “privilege” (Payton 1). Payton’s main flaw is her tone — her condescending, demeaning, and arrogant rhetoric distracts from her content and diminishes her credibility. Conversely,

    Read More

  • Gender And Racism In The Talk By Dana Canedy

    1387 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender and racism are two of the main topics of “The Talk” by Dana Canedy and “What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism” by Nicole Chung. Throughout their essays, Canedy and Chung prove whether it is an African-American boy or an Asian American woman, minorities face racism. Also, all types of racism such as casual racism or intended racism all are extremely hurtful, degrading to any minority. Gender has a lot to do with the severity of racism experienced. Police brutality on an African American woman happens, but is not as frequently and sever as it does to an African American man. Nicole Chung, who is Asian American believes that she has control over her own identity. When placed in an uncomfortable racist situation

    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

  • Analysis: Life As An Undocumented Immigrant

    1532 Words  | 4 Pages

    My mom, with her camera in her hand, was so excited that she lined up at the front of the church one hour earlier to get a good seat at one of the church pews. Dressed in a shepherd costume, I sang the opening to the musical piece “Will You Be Ready for the Light” by Mark Patterson. On my way back to my seat, I experienced linguistic discrimination, the judgment about a person’s intelligence, social status, or character based on his or her use of language, for the first time in my life. My fourth grade classmate at the time probably did not even know that what she said was a form of discrimination and microaggression. To be honest, I also had no clue about what F.O.B. meant until I researched it in google and found that it meant “Fresh Off the Boat”, a phrase to describe the new immigrants who were not yet accustomed to the American

    Read More

  • The First-generation Immigrant in America

    2126 Words  | 5 Pages

    The scene is always the same: the three of us sitting in a room together, talking. I see her from the corner of my eye, glancing for only a second or two, but always long enough to notice the look on her face, the expression I’ve become so painfully familiar with over the years. I am forced to turn away; the conversation resumes. She is a few feet from us. She hears everything, and understands nothing except what she can gather from the expressions on our faces, the tone of our voices. She pretends not to be bothered, smiling at us and interjecting random questions or comments in Chinese—a language I was raised to speak, a language I’ve slowly forgotten over the years, a language that is now mine only by blood. It is an earnest but usually futile attempt to break through the invisible barrier that separates her from us, and in spite of all her efforts to hide it, that sad, contem...

    Read More

  • Christmas Dinner In Fish Cheeks, By Amy Tan

    509 Words  | 2 Pages

    “It’s polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied,” explained my father to our astonished guests.”” This quote demonstrates proper Chinese culture that is considered rude and disruptive in American culture. What her parents seek to teach her here is to live life as she is and not what others expect her to be.Despite being Chinese in America, she should still respect her culture along with its beliefs and values. A shift in tone is demonstrated from the beginning to the end. At the start, the tone is very condescending and changes to a more respectful tone at the very end of the

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis: Campus Racism 101 By Nikki Giovanni

    922 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1994 Renown College Professor Nikki Giovanni published a breath taking book that contains guidance to black college students on how to academically apply their selves in College, and she teaches them how to deal with the ignorance of white people from sharp tonged comebacks to gaining a Professors respect. Along the way The Article “Campus Racism 101” states Giovanni has acquired a tenure, she has a teaching position for life at the predominately white student body Virginia Tech. (Writing on the River 11) Nikki Giovanni’s “Campus Racism 101” gives advice to black students on how to succeed in College, appeals to Giovanni’s credibility, and appeals to the emotions of racism all in order to educate how black College students need to deal with ignorance on a College campus.

    Read More

  • A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...Also an important quote is when she says, "But today I realize I've never really known what it means to be Chinese. I am thirty-six years old" (857). Even though she was in her 30's and still had that identity crisis, it was uplifting knowing that all it took for her to resolve that conflict was one meeting with her sisters.

    Read More

  • An Asian Growing Up in America

    1896 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Asian American Literature

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Merle Woo's 'Letter To Ma'

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her letter, Woo references the time she saw her father humiliated by two white cops. At the time of writing the letter she feels anger towards the racist police officers, but at the time of the event she was a victim of learned behavior and also becomes a part of her father’s abuse. Learning to be ashamed of your father when he is not able to fit the “masculine” schema you have made for him is a socially taught and reinforced belief, which in this case manifests as a behavior when Woo says “I was so ashamed after that experience when I was only six years old that I never held his hand again” (Woo, 164). In this flashback to her childhood Woo and her father are not the only ones expressing learned behaviors. The two white cops who mock the Asian immigrant do so because in some way, whether from prompting by society, teachings from their upbringing, or any other way, these officers were taught to be racist. Her father’s learned helplessness is what gave him a chance to survive in America, the cop’s learned racism helped them get ahead in a society that values “whiteness”. Just like with racism the ignorance of sexism is also taught and is not coded into our genes. Woo is disheartened that some of her Asian brother’s do not support her fight for the Third World women and against sexism. She points out that they are trading vices when “these men of color, with clear vision, fight the racism in white society, but have bought the white male definition of ‘masculinity’” (Woo,

    Read More

  • How Does Language Shape The Way We Think

    1474 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his book, The Accidental Asian, there is a chapter called Notes of a Native Speaker: Growing Up Across Racial and Cultural Divides, where Eric Liu describes his assimilation. His parents “didn’t tell [him] to do anything except to be a good boy,” (C.R. p.62) so there he was, at a fork in the road between being the typical Asian and the atypical Asian. As he comments later on, “neither was as much a creature of free will as a human being ought to be,” (C.R. p. 69) but the promise of fitting in, wooing girls, and ...

    Read More

More about Analyzing Wallace´s UCLA Girl´s Asian Rant

Open Document