Writings:

These are some essays that I wrote during my high school experience for either newspapers, english classes, political classes. Enjoy them.

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Raising Awareness of the Model Minority Myth

Since the Immigration Act of 1965, when massive numbers Asian immigrants entered the United States as professionals, the way society views Asian Americans have altered greatly from the low, working class to the middle and high classes of economic stability. Thus, Asians Americans have often been pinned with the stereotype of a model minority, and are automatically viewed a certain way because of this myth. Several websites on the internet were made about this stereotype. By raising awareness of the Model Minority Myth, these websites try to present the truth about Asian Americans in that not ALL Asian Americans are the model minority and that the myth, in actuality, hurts Asian Americans, and thus strive to defy this myth.

The website, Chinese Americans – the Model Minority, seems to be influenced by a Newsweek On Campus front cover story about the prevailing stereotype of Asian Americans as the symbol of “educational achievement and economic success” while showing four Asian students on the front cover, one wearing a Stanford sweatshirt, indicating the stereotype for Asian American students in prestigious colleges. This website was made by four students from UC Berkeley and seems to be intended for the general American society to inform the public about the existence and perpetuation of the myth in the American society, and to defy it. The site provides a history of the model minority myth, as well as many statistics and other articles about it. Although this site gives both support and argument for the model minority myth, it presents a disproportionate view of the subject, favoring arguments and statistics against the myth, giving vastly more information on why the Model Minority Myth is detrimental to the Asian American image, mentioning affirmative action in American universities. The sources this homepage uses, especially for support of the Model Minority Myth, are slightly outdated, as the history section contains information gathered from sources written in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. The statistics page is also very outdated, because the page of statistics on the annual income of Chinese Americans contains information from the 1970’s census and is about thirty years old. It does not into account the changes in society since that time. Additionally, we must keep in mind that at the time, the Immigration Act of 1965 had only recently come into effect, and the salaries of newly immigrated Asians would be different from salaries Asians make today. The actual homepage was made in 1996 and does not seem to be updated on a regular basis, even though some pages are supposed to be under construction. The page that contains the argument against the Model Minority Myth is “under construction”, but the other links do touch on how the myth affects Chinese American Women and the image of Asian Americans.

Modelminority.com, A Guide to Asian American Empowerment, conglomerates articles by many different authors that touch on subjects such as affirmative action, stereotypes, and racism. The intended audience is the general American society, since it does not indicate that it is intended for a specific type of audience. Most of the articles on the website are informative as opposed to political, which would be catering toward a certain group. Some articles address the polarized division of Asian Americans – some Asians are the model minority, socially and economically stable, well educated, and living in the suburbs, while others are urban working class immigrants living in the ghettos. Other articles examine the pros and cons of being a model minority, which, in some cases, evoke racism in American society. The articles are organized into sections in the archives by titles such as politics, academia, society, and music. This website strives to inform the public about the model minority and how it affects the American society through articles about affirmative action, history, racism, and relates the stereotype to current events. In addition to a massive amount of articles, the website also provides links to other Asian American entertainment, society, and culture websites and is useful in getting a wide array of viewpoints on both the Model Minority Myth and the Asian American community in general. This website, unlike the first one, is updated on a daily basis and has articles ranging from several years ago to this week. The articles were mostly written as part of a journal or newspaper and were recently posted on the website. Thus, these sources seem to be very reliable and useful for finding the information on this subject. This website is not so much made for defying the Model Minority Myth as it is for informing society about the issues surrounding the myth and stereotypes.

The Model Minority Myth homepage is maintained made by a professor of law at the University of Dayton. This particular page, containing nine links to articles and other pages, is a branch off the main page, which talks about race, racism, and law, and is linked to the University of Dayton. Most of the articles presented on this page give a negative few on the model minority myth. One article examines how the myth is detrimental to Asian Americans and critiques the fact that it makes no differentiation between the different Asian races. Another states, “Many Asian-American students feel that the classic stereotype of the smart and over-achieving Asian-American often introduces widespread generalizations that perpetuate the myth of a ‘model minority.’” Yet another maintains that the term “model minority” is used to pit different minorities against each other. Many articles address the fact that there is another end of the scale and that not all Asian Americans are socially and economically stable. Some links on this website are blocked or do not exist, but most of the links work, and it is also linked to the first website discussed in this paper, Chinese Americans – The Model Minority. This site is updated less than A Guide to Asian American Empowerment but more recent that Chinese Americans – The Model Minority.

On the page containing the article Asian Suffer Under Model Minority Myth, Matt Grace examines how Asian Americans must live up to certain expectations laid out by the Model Minority Myth. This page is linked to the UCLA Daily Bruin school newspaper and is thus intended for college students of all races, informing about the existence of the myth and how it affects Asian American today. It also addresses the fact that, because of the prevalence of the myth, Asian Americans in the inner cities are underrepresented and tries to raise awareness of these underprivileged groups to the American society. One focus of the homepage is how affirmative action plays against the interests of Asian Americans because the admissions office has to save room for Latinos, African and Native Americans. The author also talks about the history of Asian Americans in the middle of the article and suggests how the myth came about and reasons why Asian Americans suffer under the myth, such as the emphasis of education. He tries to justify this through examination of Asian cultural values and the belief that success could be obtained through education. Though this page is not interactive, each section could technically be put into a homepage of its own, since the different sections in the article have their own title, and each section talks independently about a certain factor in the Model Minority. This page would be easier to navigate if links were used instead of putting the entire text on one page. This article was written in 1997, so it is not recent, but relatively more recent than the Chinese American website in terms of the information being presented.

The Model Minority Myth plays an important, but often inaccurate, role of how Asian Americans are viewed in the American society today. A stereotype that, more often than not, hurts Asian Americans stems from this myth. Asian Americans often have to live up to a high standard academically and economically because of this stereotype. In addition, affirmative action hinders Asian Americans from getting into prestigious universities since the university must save space for other “non-model” minorities like African or Native Americans. Fortunately, many websites like the ones discussed in the paper have been made in recent years that raise awareness of this unfair stereotype of Asian Americans to the general American society. They strive to represent Asian Americans on both ends of the socio-economic scale by defying the Model Minority Myth and thus diminishing, to a certain degree, the racism in society today.

Websites

Chang, Robert & Kong, Hayward & Shih, Susan & Wu, Nelson. Chinese Americans – The Model Minority. 1996 (http://www.itp.berkeley.edu/~asam121/model_minority/model_minority.html)

Grace, Matt. Asians suffer under model-minority myth. 22 Sept. 1997 (http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/issues/97/09.22/news.asians.html)

ModelMinority – The Guide to Asian American Empowerment. (http://www.modelminority.com/)

Randall, Vernellia R. The Model Minority Myth. 2000 (http://www.udayton.edu/~race/01race/model.htm)

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Asian Men at Fault for Lack of Identity

The misconception today that Asian American men are sexless seems to have started from the moment Asian men touched American soil. Stereotypes are made when a society cannot understand the culture from which these outsiders are from. Thus, Asian immigrant men were viewed always as “working monkeys” without human feelings and needs from the start. Much of this can be attributed to the lack of Asian women in America and the sharply contrasting physical features Asian men have from Americans and Europeans. However, there is evidence that Asian men turned to each other for support and care or used other methods to cope. Already coming from cultures where the topic of sex is extremely taboo, the practices of these Asian men through this difficult period of life in America have been kept out of documentation and consequently affected the stereotypes of today’s Asian American men. Yet Asian American books today show evidence of the sexual needs of Asian men had and the ways they coped in order to survive their ordeals. China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston shows how Chinese men came together as a necessity to survive while Jose Garcia Villa strongly hints at his homosexuality through him poems in The Anchored Angel. Yet all these experiences contribute to the hatred and stereotyping by the white men.

Much of the evidence of sexual frustration and need for human contact of men fall is within texts about Chinese immigrant men because they were the first to come to mainland America in large numbers. Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men describes the desolate conditions the men in her family went through in America working with other Asian men just as lonely as them. The experiences of Ah Goong in California, “Gold Mountain”, working as a railroad builder show sexual frustration and a need for companionship. Inside a basket over a mountain, he has this urge to ejaculate into the world and does so. “`I am fucking the world,’ he said. The world’s vagina was big, big as the sky, big as a valley.” (133). This habit of his shows his need to be with someone. Ah Goong is a family man in China, he even goes through a phase in which he tries to trade his baby son for a daughter, and to be out alone with only men is difficult. His sexual needs spill over as he sees the whole world around him, a world that he probably feels does not know him. Through this act, he is able to release both his sexual frustration and a need to show the world that he is not just a China Man. Also, these rather amusing antics of Ah Goong brings him closer to men he works with for years on end. After awhile, these men are gods to themselves and each other. “The artists sketched them as perfect young gods reclining against rocks, wise expressions on their handsome noble-nosed faces, long torsos with lean stomachs, a strong arm extended over a bent knee, long fingers holding a pipe, a rope of hair over a wide shoulder” (141-142). This description of them shows how these men look for beauty in each other and gives the possibility of homosexual activity. Men often acknowledge strengths in other men through a gesture for they rarely feel comfortable enough to speak out, as women do. Ironically, these men play both roles to receive some compliment in some way. Also, they spent day and night with each other and put their lives on the line for each other in the process. In a sense, these men are closer to each other than they are to their wives. All this alienates them from everything that is not Asian in America and reinforces to white men that these people are different and impossible to understand.

Kingston’s other grandfather, Bak Goong, on the other hand, went to Hawaii, “ Fragrant Sandalwood Hills”, and shows more of a need of companionship of any kind. “He gave advice to the boys who were away from their mothers for the first time” (94) and did some “careful gambling (more for the companionship than the money)” (106). The advice giving and friendly gambling shows a semblance of family, at least in a father-son manner, which reinforces the need for closeness. All this helps Bak Goong and the other Chinese men band together in their hatred of the white men who drive them to work harder in horrifying conditions. This form of brotherhood is most significant for its all-encompassing desire to be together. These “pacts” override the need for money and competition. These men came from all over China and instead of the usual bickering over where is better, these men pooled their resources to fight the white men in the own way such as cussing at them underneath their breath. The experiences of these men are only captured because of a “documentary” by Kingston on the specific day-to-day lives of her grandfathers as Chinese men who tried to stay out of stereotypes made by the white men yet fell into another one.

On the other hand, Jose Garcia Villa did not have other Filipinos with which to find friendships with and gives strong impressions of his homosexuality through his poems in The Anchored Angel. In “Untitled Story” Villa shows how “When [he] arrived in America, [he] was lonely” (106). Then his relationship with two people, David and Georgia, shows his sexuality. “[David] was poor and he wore slovenly clothes but his eyes were soft. He was like a young flower” (108). This description is almost a dictionary description of an ingénue with whom a man falls in love with. This poem goes on to show the heartbreak Villa feels when David must leave. “I died in myself. After David had gone I walked the streets feeling I had lost a great great something. When I thought of him it hurt very much” (108). His grand sorrow in losing David coupled with the “sappy” writings of his time with David shows this was a much more meaningful relationship to Villa then just a buddy. The only unfortunate issue, which coincides with Asian culture, is not stating that he is gay. Once again, this secretiveness contributes to the sexless description of Asian men. The difference in relationship is much more obvious through Villa’s relationship with Georgia. “Georgia had golden hair and I became enamored of it” (109). Villa had no more attachment to Georgia as a person then her physical beauty. This relationship was doomed from the moment she was made masculine. “When I called Georgie I smiled because it was like a boy’s name” (109). Although admitting homosexuality only recently became more accepted, Villa is unfortunate in his continual denial of his homosexuality even though he documents his true feelings. Yet this is a braver thing done by any known Asian man during this time period. Unfortunately, the unhappiness in Villa’s life is proof that no matter what Asian men try, they will not be accepted as “men” in America. Villa must turn to people he is not even interested to be with in order to find any measure of happiness. Solitude is a reoccurring theme throughout Villa’s poems because of his homosexuality and foreign nature. This is still reinforced today in Asian American men.

Unfortunately, everything from culture to necessity kept Asian men from being recognized as people of equal standing. The necessities to band again white people and for any kind of comfort lead Ah Goong and Bak Goong to only find companionship in who they could relate to. For Villa, his sexuality caused him so much pain that he could only hint at his true feelings and fake happiness behind the wall of women. All this contributes to the lack of voice Asian and Asian American men have today. Coming from cultures where sex is difficult to discuss, anything that doesn’t give a flattering description of it only hurts the Asian men. Thus, the blame cannot be placed in one single idea but a combination of almost everything that works against Asian American men.

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THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONSHIPS

The Definition/Summary

The six characteristics of relationships is a concept that seemed so obvious to me, yet at the same time seemed so foreign. I always instinctively knew these characteristics existed whenever I interacted with other people, but to have them written down on paper made me realize how easy it is to communicate. One could even go farther and say that communication is inescapable. The six characteristics state that (1) relationships begin with acknowledging the other person, whether it be through an eye glance or an actual greeting, (2) interpersonal relationships needed interaction that is reciprocated, whether it is nonverbal or verbal, (3) relationships must be analyzed and discovered in order for the relationship to grow, (4) relationships are influenced by the relationships’ environments whether it be social or literally physical, (5) relationships are often the extra member of an relationship due to the fact that they take on their own nature, and finally, (6) relationships need communication in order to continue being a relationship (Lecture 4/3/02).
The Application/Example

The Evaluation
The six characteristics of relationships really grabbed my attention because I realized how true it was. It was so much different realizing these concepts on paper rather than instinctively knowing that these six characteristics are definite characteristics in the formation and continuation of relationships/friendships. I agree with all of the concepts but one of them that I would like to discuss is step 4, the fact that relationships are determined by influenced by one’s environment and by one’s external forces. I believe that Fate determines a great deal of who you meet and when. I believe that you becomes friends with the people that were destined to meet you in a classroom, destined to be in the same dance troupe as you, destined to accidentally bump into each other on the sidewalk, and etc. The world has a lot of potential best friends for each individual but the ones that the individual meets is left up to the chance of Fate because it is Fate that determines who you meet and when.
Another step that I would like to discuss is step 3, which describes that one must develop a relationship by studying it and evaluating it. I believe that this is one of the most important steps in maintaining a healthy friendship. It is often important to stand back and look at the friendship as a whole, determining the strengths and weaknesses of the friendship and what one can do to make the relationship deeper and more meaningful. I know I’ve done this with several friends and it’s always brought us closer.
The six characteristics of relationships are a useful guide to determine how close your relationship is and whether you would like the relationship to grow or remain at the desired level. That is one of the biggest strengths of these characteristics. Another strength is the fact that these characteristics basically cover most of the points of friendships without getting too specific. In addition, if one reads these characteristics like I did, it might serve as a wake-up call to reevaluate the different relationships that people have with one another.
The limitations these models have is that they are in fact an evaluation guide for friendships and if people live by them, instead of letting friendship develop on its own, friends could develop an unhealthy, almost limited friendship. I believe that another, better version of these characteristics could be developed but it is not necessary at these points because these six characteristics basically tackle the concept of general and specific relationships quite well.