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Anggia Daiva

Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

10/25/18

The Awakening of Asian Americans in Society

Our identities are shaped by people in society who surrounds us, also by the

culture/environment that pressures us to conform. There are plenty of specific groups in society

that has their identities misinterpreted. For example, Asian Americans, Women, Muslims,

LGBTQ society and Hispanic Americans. I will be focusing on Asian Americans and how their

identity is shaped by society today. The population of Asian American has been dehumanized by

society in their educational institutions, lifestyle and socio-economic background. People believe

in the stereotypical image of Asian Americans being over-excelling at academic technologies;

this is known as orientalism, a general climate of intolerance for differences which can also be

categorized as model minority. Along with that, there is a severe lack of representations of Asian

Americans in the media, this being, cultural expectation that all Asian Americans are

wealthy/hard-working/obedient and the preconceived beliefs that they are all the same, whether

it’s based on looks, personality or their whole image and how they present themselves. In

addition, they also struggle in unraveling their identity as an Asian American, which falls under

the category of Asian American immigrant groups in America. We need to recognize Asian

Americans for their true colors in a non-stereotypical way and eliminate the lack of their

representation because they are growing numbers of diversity and visibility in California cities

such as Monterey Park, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Garden Grove. Also out of California,
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for instance, Queens (New York), Florida and New Jersey; also all over America. This clash

happened simply because society brainwashes people, giving them the wrong mindset that makes

them own different types of beliefs.

Stereotype is prejudice, prejudice leads to discrimination, which then ends in racism.

Racism is a growing issue in our country that people within societies need to fix. Have you ever

heard of the saying “there’s only one race, which is the human race.” I definitely agree with this

quote because if we were all the same, there’d be nothing interesting to get to know about each

other, because we won’t have that unique quality in us; we’d basically be robots with different

faces. Diversity is such a beautiful thing and our society needs to learn and embrace that. In “The

Genesis Of Racism” by Max Rotter, Rotter describes how each space is clearly made for a

specific group and type of people with certain ideas. People had the same beliefs, “space is

invaded by other mindsets… stereotypes are created and racism occurs due to prolonged

exposure to this diversity because of a fear of change or displacement.” (Rotter p.2) Racism is

learned by the way each individual was raised and stereotypes does exist, especially in the Asian

American society. The awakening of these Asian Americans stereotype existed back in the

60’s-90’s; several movements and wars in the past have triggered these stereotypes to strike.

These movements were about the struggle for equality, dignity and self respect for racial

minorities in the areas of education; which exposes “institutional racism.”

Today’s society portrays all Asian Americans the same, people assume they are either

within the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino background. However, that’s not the case,

there are hundreds of other known Asian American groups; such as Hawaiian, Cambodian,

Vietnamese, Indian, Indonesian, Mongolian, Thai, etc. Plenty of Asian American immigrants are
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commuting to America for a better, successful life. Some have immigrated at a young age,

therefore, they were raised here and have adapted to the American lifestyle. However, when they

travel back to their home country, people consider them as ‘American’ but when they’re in the

U.S. people view them as ‘Asian’, even with no accent. Nevertheless, Asian Americans are in a

position where they’re not sure of who they are or whether they can call themselves Asian

American or not because of society’s judgements. This shouldn’t be a conflict, I strongly agree

that you can and will be considered an Asian American even if you weren’t born here, but have

adapted to the American lifestyle and broadened your choices; varieties of food, clothing style,

genre of music, etc. Furthermore, people have this preconceived belief that all Asian Americans

are born wealthy, a ‘nerd’, intelligent and enlightened. In reality, multiple of Asian Americans

face hardships, challenges and struggles just like everybody else and they shouldn’t be viewed

any more or less.

I’ve also stated that Asian Americans find it challenging to uncover their identity as an Asian

American because society doesn’t allow them to do so. For instance, this girl above is Korean

American, if she goes back to Korea, people will label her as an ‘American’ because she
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immigrated at a young age and she has no accent. When she’s in America, people will label her

as ‘Asian’ just because she’s from Korea. If this is the case, how do one identify themselves as

an Asian American?

Subsequently, there are also problems in the media which causes Asian Americans to be

weakly represented. This is mostly generated towards movies, commercials, music, internet and

other forms of creative expression in the American society. In hollywood, non-Asian American

actors are playing the Asian leading roles and following the stereotypes, they are never portrayed

to be sexual nor the hero of the story. Recently, on August 15th, 2018, Warner Bros

Entertainment produced an all Asian American movie called “Crazy Rich Asians” directed by an

Asian American director by the name of Jon Chu. This movie made over $200 million

worldwide and it’s still playing in certain theaters to this day. In “Crazy Rich Asians” by Jon

Chu, Chu describes that ‘Nick’, the Asian American male leading role, is the son of a

spectacularly wealthy family in Singapore whereas ‘Rachel’, the Asian American female leading

role, is a hardscrabble life with her mother and a chinese immigrant. “We’re fighting

Hollywood’s Asian Stereotypes with our film.” (Chu). This movie was created to focus on Asian

American representation and the significance of cultural visibility in film and the media. This

well-done movie brought a huge deal of attention towards everybody in America and Hollywood

because now they’re questioning what they’ve been doing wrong, casting ‘white people’ for all

the roles. Statistics shows that ​a movie with an Asian American role as the main character makes

a large number of money that can be beneficial for Hollywood. ​This movie represented Asian

Americans so vividly and hopefully it provides an awakening for society to cease

underestimating Asian Americans.

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White Supremacy​​ - the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races

and should therefore dominate society.

As I’ve stated prior, Asian American actors in film and media are always the shadow of the

‘Asian’ leading roles played by ‘white people.’ When “Crazy Rich Asians” was released, people

were shocked to see that the movie did outstanding with an all Asian American cast.

Model Minority is a myth, it takes hard-work along with time and effort to be superior at

something, whether it’s sports, being an athlete or in class, being a well-rounded student. There

are no talents that you are born with, only growth through time. People live in a society where

they have been “educated to be familiar and comfortable with what has been called diversity;

diversity of perspective, culture and meaning.. associated with gender, race, sexuality and so on.”

(Sullivan). ​I believe that every music, film, modeling industry will be extraordinarily successful

if all races can work together, include each other, delete racism, prejudice and hate to be

rebellious in starting a new movement and changing the way people perceive Asian Americans

to then end model minority myth and Asian American stereotypes. In order to achieve this,

people must realize that society brainwashes us and sets our mindset in a wrongful way but it’s
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our choice and decision to have our own beliefs on certain subjects. “We must realize that we are

being influenced whether or not we choose to be. Once we notice this influence, we can

consciously make an effort to disregard it.” (Rotter). All in all, space has shaped identities

drastically throughout the years, society forming images to influence one’s beliefs along with the

environment that pressures us to conform. We can’t find a solution to the problem if we can’t

accept change. Asian Americans are the second largest minority group in America yet they are

still weakly and negatively represented by the media and society because of the stereotypes and

model minority. We can continue to represent Asian Americans in a positive manner and let

people in society know that the stereotypical Asian American image can’t be applied to a whole

population and that they deserve to be known for more than the stereotypes our society

composed.

Work Cited

1. Park SY, Bernstein KS. ​“Korean Immigrants in the U.S.”​ Arch Psychiatr Nurs. 2008

Feb: 22(1): 12-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.apnu.2007.06.011

2. Rotter, Max. ​“The Genesis Of Racism”​. Article.

3. Sullivan, Andrew. ​“What Is A Homosexual?”​. 1995 book, Virtually Normal: An

Argument About Homosexuality.

4. Carlsen, Audrey. Hassan, Adeel. ​“How ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Have Led To The Largest

Income Gap In The U.S.​” August 17, 2018. The New York Times.