Essay On Asian American Heterogeneity

Despite Asian Americans’ major strides in ascending the racial hierarchy and even being labelled as the “model minority,” the inherent nature of “race” in America prevented them from assimilating into society as they were still subjected to discrimination, which is illustrated by personal accounts in Karen Ishizuka’s Serve the People and Amy Uyematsu’s UCLA news article “The Emergence of Yellow Power in America.”

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

Although Asian Americans comprise only about 5% of the U.S. population, this group is the fastest growing segment of American society. Despite such rapid expansion, Asian Americans are widely underrepresented throughout media, whether in television, cinema, or literature. Moreover, there are different stereotypes associated with Asian Americans. One of the most pervasive stereotypes details how Asian Americans are a “model minority”. In essence, this myth describes how anyone who is Asian American will become a successful individual able to achieve the “American dream”.

Asians are one of fastest growing minority groups in America today. During this century, various factors at home and abroad have caused people from Asia to immigrate to the United States for better or for worse. Due to these factors, Americans and American teachers, in particular, need to educate themselves and become aware of the Asian American students’ needs in terms of success and happiness. Before beginning my research, I felt I had an easy subject: studying Asian Americans in relation to their education in public schools. How simple! Everyone knows they are smart, hard working, driven to succeed in spite of their nerdish, geeky, non-athletic, broken-English stereotype. Of course they are

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 52.4% of Asian Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to only 29.9% of the total population and 30.3% of non-Hispanic White Americans, signifying higher overall educational attainment for this group (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). However, this high number failed to consider the differences within the Asian population with some subgroups having educational levels that are significantly below the national average. The 2010 U.S. Census also reported that Asian Americans have a significantly higher annual family income than any other racial groups in the country, though it failed to mention that Asian American families tend to be larger with more family members that are contributing to that high annual income number (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012).

From Chinatown to Monterey Park, Asian Americans across the boundaries of Los Angeles are flourishing from bustling inner cities to middle class suburbia. The suburban life style was originally created by white Americans for white Americans however in today’s suburban cities and towns there seems to be a substantial group of Asians and Asian Americans thriving in these once predominately white areas(Li 1993, 318). The development of Asians and Asian Americans in the suburbs occurred through the following three ways, first is the development of Chinatown and how it became the Mecca for immigrants and the second is Asian American assimilation into American society. The last reason is the gentrification of towns such as Chinatown, and Little Tokyo.

To be young and Asian in America is a special brand of torture. There is an unspoken dictum of silence that grips Asian youth, a denial of our place in popular culture. Asian youth walk in America not quite sure where we fit in-black children have a particular brotherhood, Hispanic children have a particular brotherhood, white children own everything else. We cannot lay claim to jazz or salsa or swing; we cannot say our ancestors fought for equality against an oppressive government or roamed the great hallways of power across the globe. We do not have a music, a common hero, a lexicon of slang. Asian youth experience personal diasporas every day.

The formation of pan-ethnic and pan-minority boundaries, as well as intermarriage, also has important implications for changing racial landscapes and race relations of the United States. On one hand, newly emerging racial order along the axes of socioeconomic status and interracial attitudes and relations suggests that Asian American pan-ethnic boundaries may be shifting or being redefined altogether. On the other hand, interracial marriage patterns and the ways in which intermarried individuals discuss their mixed unions reveal that black exceptionalism in the (inter)marriage market is likely to continue.

In history, there are many recurring themes, one of the biggest is the “American Dream”. Many people resonate the words dream, freedom, equality, and the opportunity to achieve their utmost desired and achievable dreams. This definition of a perfect land that helps you achieve your dream has been termed the “American Dream.” The “American Dream”, which is supposedly available for all Americans, has unfortunately become untrue for those who are minorities or immigrants. The “American Dream” is dictated by the American society that is controlled by a racial hierarchy that does not give access to the American dream for those who are not part of the preferred race and who don’t fit into its structured box of singularity. Overall, The American

foreign-born outsiders, who can never fully realize a “permanency of equal status as citizens” (Ng 9), and as model citizens: the complexity and mobility of Asian American racialization goes beyond a simple hierarchy with Whites on the highest level, Black people on the lowest, and other groups in between (Kim 109).

The average income of families is different among different group of populations in the United State. The income of Asians is not only significantly higher than other ethnic groups, but also higher than the white group. As for the education level, the education of Asian immigrants are much higher compared with the same age group in their country of origin. For example, about 27% of Korean and 25% of Japanese have at least a bachelor’s degree. However, nearly 70% of the new immigrants of same age have at least a bachelor’s degree. Asian Americans have a clear advantage in whether the education love or the income of

I enjoyed reading your post. I agree with you when you said that the different Asian Americans groups have similarities while also having differences. I did not know that some Vietnamese speak French! When comparing the two Asian American groups that I researched- Chinese and Filipinos, their languages were different, but they both had many different dialects. Their religion also varied a little from each other. Chinese culture has five main religions which include Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, and Taoism (“Demographics of Asian Americans,” 2013). Another classmate said Christianity, but I have yet to see this on a website. The Filipino culture’s religions include Roman Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, and other

Historically, interracial families’ were a taboo in the United States and many other countries. In the 1960’s, the civil rights movement caused the country to move

In 2012, Pew Research Center characterized Asian Americans as the “highest-income, best-educated, and fastest-growing racial group in the United States.” However, Asians in the United States weren’t always considered the “model minority.” Early Asian immigrants—who were mostly from Japan, China, India, and a smaller number coming from Korea—in the United States were mostly low-skilled male laborers, concentrated in ethnic ghettos, and were provided no paths to naturalized citizenship (J.Lee and Bean 2010). Scholars point to the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 as the keystone moment in Asian immigration that contributed to the current demographic characteristics and assimilation experiences of Asian Americans (J.Lee 2015;

Our country forgot about Asian Americans in their policy during the recent political debates. In the recent election, there were few mentions of Asian-American issues in the United States. Does that mean that Asian American lives are great and having a luxurious and leisure life? The answer is no, Asian Americans today are overshadowed by other issues such as illegal immigration issues, growing the economy, or global issues. Asian Americans don’t have a clear way to the political areas because many people view Asian Americans as a foreigner and because we are new immigrants to the country.