Trying to follow what our Professor Chico has been passionately conveying to me and my fellow students the past two quarters, I really tried to make connections from the readings. The connections I noticed were in regards to common themes seen throughout the assigned readings of Ronald Takaki’s book “Strangers From a Different Shore” and even links I noticed from the book in regards to my own life.

The most common reoccurring theme I noticed in this book was the constant oppression people place upon their fellow man. As Asian Americans came to this country to fill the White mans need for laborers in the fields of agriculture, the building of railroads, factories, and other labor industry jobs, it was impossible not to notice the owners and those in a position of power always seemed to utilize there position to keep these “strangers from a different shore” from being able to advance themselves economically in society. Also they constantly used the tactic of separating the different nationality groups from uniting. From this I theorize that yes, appearance and ignorance and hate of any race that is not white caused the hostile feelings whites have exemplified in our countries history toward the Asian community, I also feel a bigger factor is greed. Businessmen utilize the cheap labor of new immigrants, however whenever these new ethnicities start to improve their economic situation in this country they see them as a threat and become even more hostile towards the Asian American population. One example of this that surprised me was in the realm of education. As Takaki shows on page 479, “…Asian American “success has been accompanied by the rise of a new wave of anti-Asian sentiment. On college campuses, racial slurs have surfaced in conversation on the quad: ‘Look out for the Asian Invasion.’” Other comments depicted on the page are even more offensive such as, ” M.I.T. means Made in Taiwan.” All of this is derived from the fact that Asian American are working hard to obtain an education and are seen as excelling and thus are believed to have taken enrollment spots from white college bound young adults. I had previously knew of the hate created by competition in the work force, but it is even more disheartening for me to hear that it is occurring in schools.

Also I noticed that many of the Asian American communities that have a longer history of immigration to the United States such as the Chinese, Japanese, Asian-Indian, Filipino and Korean immigrants had similar experiences after the second big wave of Asian immigration following the 1965 Immigration Act. This second wave of immigrants were made up of many highly educated professionals who due to their race, lack of language skills, and the ignorance of a still young and ignorant American society had been forced to downgrade there positions as professionals in their homelands, to jobs such as, shopkeepers, janitors, and other non-professional jobs in America. Furthermore even the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of these Asian American immigrants found that even though they were American citizens and highly educated in Universities in the United States, had a “glass ceiling (476)” placed above them where they were unable to advance to managerial and decision making postitions due to their ethnicity. However with that being said it is good to know that in the past few decades Asian Americans are beginning to speak out against such awful discrimination and are beginning to find their voice.

I have also made some connections with some of my own life experiences and the experiences of my relatives. Though I am white, I come from a lower middle class background and some of my relatives, such as my Grandfather could be considered having been raised as downright poor. One example of a connection I have with the readings is the sacrifice and hard work of the first generation in the hopes to better the futures of their children. I myself grew up without a silver spoon in my mouth, but my parents worked hard in the hopes to give me an education and a life that they were not able to achieve for themselves have managed to put both my sister and I through college and made every possible effort to improve our odds of success in life. Their sacrifices have not gone unnoticed in my eyes and I am even more aware of the sacrifices they made due to reading of Takaki’s book.

Another connection I noticed involved my Grandmother. Many Asian immigrant women, especially the Chinese American immigrants who worked in the garment industry were responsible for contributing to the families income along with raising children and performing household duties. My own grandmother was in the same boat, and oddly enough her job was as a worker in a sewing factory. She too had to come home after work, cook, clean, and take care of three daughters. Her decision to work was out of necessity and shows that people from all races and ethnicities whether European American, Asian American, or African American have had to put in long hours and dealt with an exhausting workload in order to provide for those they love.

Overall this weeks reading has been both eye opening as well as improved my knowledge of the struggles that Asian Americans have faced and still face in the United States today.

Chapter 10: The Watershed of WWII

World War II: A very large turning point in the battle against racial exclusion.  In the short-term however, did one race lose while another gained?  Most certainly.  The Japanese lost while the Filipinos gained; interment camps vs. “brotherhood” forged in war.  Because of this, in the short-term, can the events of World War II really be considered an improvement?  Not really.
The fact that many Filipino soldiers were refused service while they were dressed in US Army uniform shows that many Americans did not feel near as much of an impact from the attack on Bataan, and thus could not have easily sympathized with the Filipino-American soldiers.  This is why they still faced discrimination even while in uniform.  I theorize that it is because there was little connection between White Americans and Filipino Americans that the age-old issue of racial rejection was still prevalent in the face of what the Filipino-American soldiers had done for the U.S.
Segregation in the types of service performed by Filipino soldiers. Takaki mentions how they “operated behind enemy lines, engaging in sabotage.”  Could this have been exploitation on the part of some officers of their eagerness and willingness to serve, getting them to do perhaps more dangerous work?  Did their facial similarity to the Japanese simply offer up certain advantages in performing covert operations?  Is there really any facial similarity?
Korean enthusiasm was of course bittersweet:  even with their newfound excitement at the U.S.’s declaration of war against Japan, there were still the instances where they would be confused as Japanese.  I can imagine that it probably made some of them very upset.  Especially after the 1940 Alien Registration Act.

Chapter 11: “Strangers” At The Gates Again

World War II resulted in more diversity in American society and a lessening in the attitude of white superiority. After the war, more Japanese registered to vote and they became the largest ethnic voting block in Hawaii. Workers gained the right to collective bargaining.On the mainland, discriminating laws were struck. In 1952, the McCarran-Watter Act was passed. This did away with the racial restrictions of the 1790 law and made the Japanese equal to all other immigrants.The Chinese communists took control of mainland China in 1949 and the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. This caused a splintering of the Chinese in the Untied States. The Chinese Six Companies supported the Kuomintang. There were confrontations between the two groups. Thousands of Chinese were investigated for subversive activities.The 1948 Displaced Persons Act and the 1953 Refugee Relief Act allowed for greater immigration.

Filipinos are the largest group of Asian immigrants. They did not concentrate in any one area. Most of the second wave came from urban areas and many were women and professional or technical workers. Many immigrated because of the corruption and repression of the Marcos regime. In spite of their professional status or education, they worked for low wages. Many did not practice their professions because of licensing requirements. There was a great deal of underemployment, and many became self-employed because of this and discrimination.Many Koreans immigrated to the United States after 1965. Most settled in big cities and established Koreatown and many operated their own small business. Approximately seventy percent have college degrees when they immigrate and they bring their families with them.Even though Korea had experienced rapid industrialization, many people immigrated for better job opportunities.

Chapter 12: Breaking Silences

Interethnic cooperation was spurred by the realization of similarity of the circumstances, pidgin english, and an eventual common interest in increased wages.
Comparing the incomes of ethnic groups demands the consideration of many factors, including what the statistic actually indicates, geographical distribution, and other inconsistencies across the two groups that would impact the statistic.
Takaki seems to contradict himself, stating that many Asian-Americans are concentrated in areas which have higher wages, and then goes on to say that they tend to be located in the “secondary sector.”
I wish Takaki provided more context with a lot of this information.  While very interesting, it’s hard to realize it without knowing whether or not mentioned issue is a very current problem or a not so current problem.
Takaki doesn’t appear to take a specific side in the “over-representation of Asian Americans in schools” debate, preferring to simply highlight the issue.
All ethnic representations problems ultimately boil down to how cultural groups should be organized in the global society.  Conflicting ideas on what “America” SHOULD be result in questions regarding the place of different ethnicities, such as Asian-American immigrants.  Ultimately, one party will have to assimilate, but which party should that be?  The nation, or the immigrant?  If both should, to what extent should each?  It is the attempt to find the proper “balance” of assimilation from little more than subjective guidelines that stands as a critical issue with managing immigration.

Chapter 13: One-Tenth Of The Nation

The 1990s demonstrates what I’ve pointed out in earlier journals that the root source of racial discrimination has not actually been addressed.  It is especially prevalent when people join together under a common issue, such as the Rodney King incident.
“‘This riot happened because of the gap between rich and poor.’”  The U.S. is currently experiencing a similar situation, in which middle to lower class citizens have been participating in the “Occupy” protests, focusing specifically on the gap between the rich and the poor.  Could it be a hotbed for racial tension?  As the issue of “jobs” continues to be on the minds of many, what some would call “racial tensions” have elevated against “undocumented immigrants,” of which a majority are Mexican.  Could we see a repeat of the racial tension experienced between White and Asian Americans in the early to mid 1900s in the 21st century, only between predominately White Americans and Mexican / Latin American immigrants?
Affirmative Action:  empirically, it contributes to attaining the goal of diverse community involvement.  However, it does raise some ethical questions, such as denying candidates admission to a university on the account of “overrepresentation.”  A prominent question: should representation in universities and colleges of ethnic groups mirror that in the community?  This is often cited as the justification for affirmative action, as seen at UC Berkley in the 1990s.
It seems that in the rush and panic to find the “silver bullet” to the issue of race and racial representation, the end result of “boxing in” certain ethnicities to a set of standards hastily deemed appropriate has its own serious consequence:  the “ceiling” and the “floor” of the box are based on generalizations and do not accommodate the needs and desires of many members of said racial group.

In light of the flexibility of this week’s seminar assignment, I’ve chosen to present some of my favorite quotes and analysis from chapters 10-13.

Chapter 10 – The Watershed of World War II

“The war abroad required reform at home” (376)

During World War II, the United States was forced to confront many of its discriminatory laws and practices. They couldn’t fight Nazism overseas while maintaing racist immigration and naturalization policies back at home. Consequently, although Japanese Americans suffered in internment camps, many other Asian Americans made headway in gaining acceptance and legal rights.

World War II brought sweeping changes for all Asian Americans. For Filipino Americans it brought the invasion of their homeland and the opportunity to prove themselves to white Americans by joining the military. Filipinos were allowed to obtain citizenship after serving in the armed forces, and they profited from Japanese internment by taking over interned Japanese homes and farms. The war was welcome news to Korean Americans as Korea was under Japanese occupation. While most Koreans were technically classified as enemy aliens because of the Japanese occupation, they still gained greater acceptance during the war and helped free their homeland. Asian Indian Americans gained an immigration quota and naturalization rights. China and the U.S. were allies in WWII, opening up new employment for Chinese Americas and signaling an end to the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Chapter 11 – “Strangers” at the Gates Again

“These workers belong to a colonized labor force” (426).
“They did not come here voluntarily, seeking Gam Saan or fortunes in American. In fact they are not immigrants” (470). 

The 1965 immigration law brought a second wave of Asian immigrants to the United States. New immigrants from China, the Philippines, and India arrived in the United States under very different circumstances than there predecessors of the first wave. Unlike previous Asian immigrants, many were college educated and from urban areas. They came to the U.S. seeking professional employment opportunities that weren’t available back in their home countries. Unfortunately, many of these new immigrants faced barriers in working in their fields of study due to workplace discrimination, licensing requirements, and challenges as ESL speakers. Within the new Chinese immigrant community, there is an emerging “colonized labor force” (426) of Chinese Americans who lack the English skills necessary to work outside of the ethnic ghettos of Chinatown.

Among the second wave are a significant number of people from Southeast-Asia. The Hmong, Mien, Vietnamese, and Cambodians do not come to the United States as immigrants — they arrive here as refugees. Unlike many immigrants, they do not come here seeking there fortune in a new land, they are here out of necessity, fleeing violence and political turmoil. They have a very different experience than other Asian immigrants, often having trouble adjusting the American culture and facing dire poverty. Unlike Chinese, Japanese and other Asian immigrants, they cannot return home.

Chapter 12 — Breaking Silences

“Asian Americans know they must remember the past and break its silence” (484). 

Young Asian/Americans are seeking out their roots, and finding power in the stories of their ancestors. They are interrogating questions of authenticity and identity. Instead of being ashamed of their parents “otherness”, they are embracing and questioning the limits of what is means to be American.

Chapter 13 – One-Tenth of the Nation

“There are no Asians in Asia” (502).

The identity of Asian, and Asian/American were forged from a shared struggle and necessity among many different ethnic groups. This identity did not evolve in a vacuum, it is bound by its historical and social context. It is not static, rather it is always “being” and “becoming”. Asian/American identity is panethnic, reaching across various national identities to create a new community and a new history of shared liberation. “As Asian Americans, we celebrate being not one or the other but both” (505). Perhaps we are entering a time when an individual may hold many different identities, when multiplicity is valued and pieces of ourselves are not seen as inherently “contradictory” or at odds with each other. These are the contact zones: Asian/American, hapa, both/neither.

- Chapters 10&11 -

Although World War II was tragic event for Japanese American, it was also good opportunities for another Asian American such as Filipino American, Chinese American, Korean American, and so on to show their loyalty toward the US and get better economic power.

“Filipinos wanted to get back to the Philippines to fight for the liberation of their homeland.” (Takaki, p360)

“But many Filipino-American soldiers were also fighting for their freedom on the home front.” (Takaki, p360)

According to these quotations, Filipino-American soldiers not only wanted to offer allegiance toward the US but also protect their homeland, Philippines. The latter reason is different from Japanese American soldiers.

” And so, when it came time to strike in 1946, the workers themselves knew they had to have what they called an ‘all race strike.’” (Takaki, p411)

Such as Japanese, Filipino, and Portuguese knew each other that they were under similar situations and the treatments by American. As that quotation, they realized that they need to cooperate not only with same races but also with different races as the minority groups in the USA.

- Chapters 12&13 -

” Today Asian Americans are celebrated as America’s ‘model minority.’”  (Takaki, p474)

It’s strange for me to hear like that because I learned Japanese immigrants’  many struggles in the US last quarter. And now, Asian Americans are ‘model minority’ in the US… Americans emphasize on only the success of Asian Americans that work so hard.  Asian Americans are stereotyped as passive, shy and so on by Americans. In the films we watched in class, there are many stereotypical words.

The 1992 Los Angels Riot is interethnic conflict between African Americans and Korean Americans. I did not know that those two races had battle in the US and was surprised that Korean American looked African American down. In chapter 11, different ethnic groups cooperated each other to happen strike, but there are also discriminations among them.

“Stereotypes influenced their perceptions of each other. ” (Takaki, p494)

According to the book, they had negative images toward each other. It is dangerous to be stereotyped without knowing.

“A year later, Chinese-Communist intervention in the Korean War set off hysterical anti-Chinese reactions in the United States. The new peril was seen as yellow in race and red in ideology.” p. 415.

When this happened the Chinese Americans once again had to prove to the American government they were not a threat. This time it was because of Communism.  If the Chinese Americans were not careful they could also be thrown into concentration camps, just like how the Japanese Americans were during World War Two. Near the end of the year 1950, the McCarran International Security Act was passed by Congress, which provided for the imprisonment  during a national emergency. The Chinese Americans then began their quest to prove they were anti-Communist. One way they did this was through forming anti-Communist campaigns, such as the Anti-Communist Committee for Free China, and the All- American  Overseas Chinese Anti-Communist League. But then unfortunately in 1955, the American Consul in Hong Kong said that Chinese Communist parties spies “could use fraudulent citizenship papers to secure American passports and enter the United States” (p. 416). As a result, the secret Chinese American paper families were forced to come clean to the American government . Luckily, in return for a confession the government would give the confessor legal status  if they were not involved in subversive activates. 99% of the confessors were allowed to stay in the United States.

I felt this section and quote from Takaki was important because it shows how even up until the 1950′s the Chinese Americans were being discriminated against. The American government would always find a reason to exclude them and some people might even argue that the government does to this day. This passage is also interesting because just a few years earlier during World War Two the American government had declared the Chinese Americans to be loyal and should be considered friends to “white America.”

This film detailed the exploits of Ben and his group of friends while they participated in some questionable activity while in high school. His gang involved all Orientals that put on the ruse of a model minority. They all had good grades, played sports, or participated heavily in the school activities. However outside of this “perfect student” display held notorious activities involving drugs, violence, stealing, cheating and murder.

The movie played on multiple minority tropes openly such as the token Asian on the basketball team, or that all the Asian students are extremely intelligent and are generally good students. While all of these stereotypes were true throughout the movie the extremely unscholarly activity that occurred beyond the school hours made it readily apparent what the students wanted was to break the mold of model minority and just do what they really desired, of course those desires changed throughout the movie as well.

The movie had powerful usage of camera angle, music, and silence. In addition the vocabulary SAT words Ben memorized each night related the the movie each time a new word was mentioned.  ”Punctilious-Marked by or concerned about precise exact accordance with the details of codes or conventions.” Is just one example where it mixes perfectly with the idea of model minority. However it was more than just that, words that described being trapped or extremely complicated situations were mentioned and all had a powerful message in accordance to the film.

Ben had a crush on a fellow classmate named Stephanie, however she was already dating a graduated Asian named Steve.  It was readily apparent Ben didn’t wholeheartedly enjoy his company since Steve’s involvement prevents any further advances onto Steph. In the end Ben and his friends want to teach Steve a lesson and end up killing him somewhat unintentionally.

Ben on his 17th birthday received a handgun from all of his friends which was timed right when Ben wanted to stop all the madness and return to at least some form of normalcy. Things eventually did return to normal until Steve wanted to involve Ben’s gang in one last activity which eventually lead to Steve’s death. The film ends with uncertainty as Stephanie kisses Ben as they drive away, Steph being angry at Steve for not showing up for the New Year’s party. Unfortunately Steve had a date 6 feet under in a local backyard.

The film was overall extremely enjoyable and there was a constant interest in what would happen next. The director knew what they were doing with their message and I am curious in seeing more of their work. Definitely a better movie than 47 Ronin.