Not Just the Big Three: What I Have Learned about Being “Asian” in America

The first of our readings that really explored what it meant to be defined as “Asian” was one all the way back in February: Debbie Hippolite Wright and Paul Spickard's “Pacific Islander Americans and Asian American Identity.” Never before that reading had I given much thought to the idea that Pacific Islanders would want to seek their own label independent from “Asian” since I had always thought of “Asians” as people who live in or have ancestral roots in the continent of Asia. However, I began to realize more and more that many share the view that the “true” Asians are only those who are of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese descent. One of my suitemates, who is Indian, sometimes jokingly refers to herself as a “fake Asian” because she looks different from the so-called traditional appearance of a “true” Asian.

The film from Monday, CAAAV's “Eating Welfare”, as well as today's “Collateral Damage” by Eric Tang also explored other aspects of what people commonly consider Asian. Though Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong women fit the phenotypic stereotypical Asian, their economic status in America excludes them from common consideration. Many believe that since many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese immigrants have achieved success and have become a “model minority”, the rest of the Asian-Americans are well-off as well. However, this prevents recognition of the living situations of many Southeast Asian immigrants who are heavily dependent on welfare programs that are slowly being stripped away. Perhaps due to media attention given to other Asian communities, people believe that welfare given to Asians is unnecessary, but to look at the deplorable conditions in which many Southeast Asians live it is obvious that the stereotype that all Asians have “made it” in America is false.

The reading and film challenged my own perceptions of Asian success in America. Coming from a fairly upper-middle class area that was 57% Asian in 2010, I have mostly seen what can be perceived as the success of Asian immigrants. Many of my high school peers drove BMW's as their first cars; the student parking lot was populated with more luxury vehicles than the faculty lot. However, to read about the horrid conditions that Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong women even in America face made me realize that my Asian community is only a blip on the greater map of the United States. Mind you, I wasn't unaware that not all Asian-Americans are blessed with the living conditions I had but I believe I needed a reminder that no matter how much the media would like to portray Asians as completely successful immigrants, there are groups that still struggle daily to survive.