Asian-American Stereotypes

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“What is this chink doing here? Does he even know anything about football? Go back to studying!” After hearing that, I thought, “First off, I am not Chinese, and why yes, I do know a little something something about football.” These remarks were some of the things that I had to deal with when playing football during my first year of high school. These discriminatory statements towards the few Asians and me on the team were things we heard daily from other teammates and students. While these stereotypes of Asians only being good for studying and playing badminton or volleyball was prevalent in my school, that didn’t stop me from trying to be the best football player on the team and disproving the typical Asian student at my high school. As with the up and coming star Jeremy Lin, he too had to face these generalizations before actually being noticed in the widely Caucasian and African American dominant sport that is basketball. With his impressive game starts, he surprised the nation by carrying the New York Knicks to a couple of victories. The discrimination and stereotypes that Asians have to face in sports and in the real world are not something that spurred out of nowhere, but rather it is something that has been rampant since the first Asians immigrated to the United States. Some of the prejudices that Asians face in the present may not be as bad as the prejudices Asians had to deal with in the past, but they still have to deal with bigots on a daily basis. By Jeremy Lin stunning the basketball league with his performance, he is able to combat the bigotry towards Asians. Until I proved myself to be a worthy asset to the football team, I was regarded as the fat, nerdy-looking Asian kid that should just go back to doing homewo... ... middle of paper ... ...uch bigotry of Asians, it has substantially declined to the point where Asians are now able to participate in activities they were never prevalent in. With Jeremy Lin and many other successful Asians disproving bigots, Asians have started to gain the respect needed to enhance their living situation in America. As the years go on, people of color will be able to easily pass those “psychological barriers” and become just as dominant, if not more, than those of non-colored people. Works Cited King, Jamilah. "The Subtle Bigotry That Made Jeremy Lin the NBA’s Most Surprising Star." COLORLINES. N.p., 8 Feb. 2012. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. Takaki, Ronald T... Strangers from a different shore a history of Asian Americans. Updated and rev. ed. Boston: Little Brown, 1998. Print.

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