Suffering through countless educational inequalities, the Asian American community aims to change the way education works.
The reasons why Asian Americans are activists in education is because they want to be treated more equally in the field of education. As mentioned in lecture, students are demanding a change in the curriculum from the change of the Eurocentric history as they demand ethnic studies. They would usually demand this right through peaceful protesting met with violent responses as a possible reason for this is the civil right and power movements taking place near that time. As looking at Zia’s chapter, “From Nothing, A Consciousness” the reason she decided to protest for ethnic studies is that she wanted to protest racism at
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Overall, all agree civic engagement with the community overall increases the things learned about the community and the impact it holds on the students. Looking at Espiritu’s, “Homes, Borders, and Possibilities” it becomes clear that America does not want to have Asian immigrants because they are, “Morally, culturally, and economically deficient” (Espiritu 604). As this is the same as Wu’s finding of her class’s’ initial opinion on the Chinatown community being dirty, lazy, mean, and poor. This shows that the first thing to take note of is the public generally has a negative view of the ethnic community. With education through public service being an effective form of educating people on ethnic studies, Omatsu agrees with this point but it raises a new point. As he brings up the Filipino men that returned to the Philippines to learn the structure of education and, the Filipino women called, the Babaes who fought for social justice by learning more about ethnic studies and then using it to fight on behalf of their people in America and the Philippines. However, when both groups returned to the Philippines, they found a new sense of cultural sense of identity within themselves. Which then correlates to Omatsu’s idea of freedom schooling as, in a literal sense, both were trying to fight the cultural power that were acting against their communities. While also supporting the idea of wanting to educate others …show more content…
According to Omi and Takagi’s, “Political Discourse on Affirmative Action” the two parties arguing over race in admissions used Asian Americans differently but aimed for the same end result. The right winged group wanted to use the community to support white admissions. While the other group held fears the community will not support them as it acts against them (Omi, Takagi). Looking further into this chapter, allowing race as a standard will put Asian Americans against Whites while not allowing race puts them against other minority groups (Omi, Takagi). Mentioned in lecture, affirmative action favors admission to groups who faced hardship and as Omi and Takagi mentioned with the removal of affirmative decision (Omi, Takagi). The Asian American community would greatly benefit at the expense of the other minorities while keeping it will only help other minority groups as it places looser standards on the favoring group (Lecture ; Omi, Takagi). Which comes back to the model minority myth as Lee’s, “The Cold War Origins of the Model Minority Myth” states the Asian American community were performing better than other minorities (Lee). To conclude, removing affirmative action will raise Asian American enrollment because they perform better than other groups while keeping it imposes a higher standard and thus limits enrollment. Which ties
...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.
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
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.
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.
Many people believe that “having an economy that places a greater value on skills and education is a good thing” and that is the thing that is needed to improve people’s lives and futures (Baicker, Lazear). If what our economy is trying to do a good thing they why are so many students still suffering? The main issues are the low-income education that many students have. Many schools are getting money from the government but that is not enough to pay for everything students need. Educational standards have continued to increase throughout the years but that does not help the students who are unable to pay for the better education. These students who cannot pay for the better education are stuck barely getting by with a low education. A low-education can affect many areas of regular schooling. The students who are at low-income schools do not know what type of disadvantage they have compared to other students across the country. These students believe that they are getting the best education, but there are many students who are getting a better education at a school that has the funds to pay for everything their students need. Low-income students are suffering due to the environment they are in at school and they continue to suffer throughout their life due to it. These students will continue to suffer unless something is done about the low-income schools and improve them for the future. Improvement has to come from all areas, not just one aspect of schooling but from all aspects. Although education has improved along with technology many low-income students still suffer from the vast inequalities. These inequalities will take many years to find a way to fix and even more years to actually fix, until this happens the students will...
Today there is considerable disagreement in the country over Affirmative Action with the American people. MSNBC reported a record low in support for Affirmative Action with 45% in support and 45% opposing (Muller, 2013). The affirmative action programs have afforded all genders and races, exempting white males, a sense of optimism and an avenue to get the opportunities they normally would not be eligible for. This advantage includes admission in colleges or hiring preferences with public and private jobs; although Affirmative Action has never required quotas the government has initiated a benefits program for the schools and companies that elect to be diversified. The advantages that are received by the minorities’ only take into account skin color, gender, disability, etc., are what is recognized as discriminatory factors. What is viewed as racism to the majority is that there ar...
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
America has been thought of as a place represented by fairness, mixed culture, power and the dream of having a better life for everyone, whether a person is white, black, brown, and yellow. However, the truth is that racial groups have been segregated by the white-centric media or government of the American society, and that has widened the psychological and geographical distances between the two groups, Asian and black, and has encouraged ignorance and hatred. On the other hand, there are many conflicts between Asian and Black, due to their different cultures, experiences, and educational backgrounds. From the book Native Speaker, we can see how these different cultures, powers and identities deepen Asian-black mistrust, misunderstanding and ignorance, and sometimes these irreconcilable conflicts develop into hate-crimes.
Equality, America is driven by this one simple word, but how much of America is actually equal
Park, Julie J., and Amy Liu. "Interest Convergence Or Divergence? A Critical Race Analysis Of Asian Americans, Meritocracy, And Critical Mass In The Affirmative Action Debate." Journal Of Higher Education 85.1 (2014): 36-64. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Wong, Paul, Chienping Faith Lai, Richard Nagasawa, and Tieming Lin. 1998. “Asian Americans as a Model Minority: Self-Perceptions and Perceptions by Other Racial Groups.” Sociological Perspectives,41 (1): 95–118.
Asian American movement starts off by addressing the community living concerns that they live in. In California the movement starts in San Francisco’s China town where activist held meetings at Commodore Stockton Auditorium and Portsmouth Square (Wei 13). The meeting held on August 17 in 1968 was held all day long for Bay Area Chinese American students to give them information about Chinatown (Wei 13). The information that was given to the students were poor housing and health, unemployment, “negative” education (Wei 13). After the meeting there was a march down Chinatowns Main Street (Wei 13). Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action (ICSA) created a youth center in Chinatown, where it gave a home to the Free University of Chinatown Kids.
Before taking this Asian American class, I only knew that this class is an academic discipline about history, experience, culture, and policies relevant to Asian American. However, the professor, Stohler used interesting teaching style to talk about how this class relates to Asian American’s history, such as providing the PowerPoint and let every students discussing in the class or online. I found out that students could pay more attentions on this teaching style. Owing to this quarter almost ended, there are some reflections and ideas in my mind. In this paper will talk about that the most important and interesting thing I learned in the course; discuss about how relates to my lives and other courses; at last I will think about that my contribution
Affirmative action policies were created to help level the playing field in American society. Supporters claim that these plans eliminate economic and social disparities to minorities, yet in doing so, they’ve only created more inequalities. Whites and Asians in poverty receive little to none of the opportunities provided to minorities of the same economic background (Messerli). The burden of equity has been placed upon those who were not fortunate enough to meet a certain school’s idea of “diversity” (Andre, Velasquez, and Mazur). The sole reason for a college’s selectivity is to determine whether or not a student has the credentials to attend that school....
Pickhardt’s article “Rebel with a Cause: Rebellion in Adolescence”, where teenage rebellion plays an important part in adolescent growth, states, “Two common types of rebellion are against socially fitting in (rebellion of non-conformity) and against adult authority (rebellion of non-compliance.) In both types, rebellion attracts adult attention by offending it.” Wong attracted her mother’s attention when she kicked and screamed to get herself out of going to Chinese school, but nevertheless her mother had her mind set on having her children become accustomed to their Chinese heritage. The article also states, “The young person proudly asserts individuality from what parents like or independence of what parents want and in each case succeeds in provoking their disapproval.” Well it was obvious that Wong did not agree to be affiliated with what her mother wanted for her, resulting in Wong neglecting her Chinese