Being Asian American Essay - 1602 Words

Would You Like Some Rice With That? 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. I went through a long period of time not knowing†¦show more content†¦I never felt like it worked, though. I felt like a bad character actor, some horrible caricature of what an Asian boy was supposed to be. I felt like I was appealing to some great, unseen audience. Truly, Orwell knew what he was talking about in Shooting an Elephant. He speaks of the way that the native peoples exerted control over the way he acted, says that he became a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib (461). Substitute Asian for sahib, though, and I could just as easily have said that same thing during the unclear years of high school. To co-opt Orwells imagery, I wore a white mans sort of Asian mask, and could feel my face grow to fit it (461). *** My grandmother has an umbrella that shes owned since the mid-forties. Stories are told about this umbrella in my family, about how my grandmother received it from my grandfather during their courtship, about how she would carry it with her even when the skies were clear and lucid, about how she laid it across the back of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in a moment of characteristic ire during an argument with the dictator. In my familys lore, the umbrella is inextricable from the wielder; my grandmother and her umbrella share a definitional relationship, each one speaking to the other in terms that characterize them both. Three years ago, I went back home, to that little archipelago of heat and humidity. I wanted to see this umbrella,Show MoreRelatedThe Culture Of Asian American And Being Labeled As An Ethnic1496 Words   |  6 PagesPreface In this essay, I attempted to lay bare the issues of being an Asian-American and being labeled as an ethnic â€Å"other† in modern America. This label of â€Å"other† causes them to become marginalized and lose their sense of identity, belonging neither to Western culture nor Eastern culture. In order help stop this loss of identity in Asian-Americans, we must tear down the social construct of the â€Å"other† and integrate the different cultures into the melting pot of popular culture. Once we have stoppedRead MoreEssay about Personal Narrative: Being Asian American511 Words   |  3 PagesI am a girl with two heads. At home, I wear my Chinese head, in school I wear my English head. Being an Asian, or Chinese, as it is commonly referred to, my culture plays a key role in the development of who I am and what I do, my personal identity. An identity is the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Parents are often one of the key factors of this c ulturally developed personal identity. â€Å"Fortunately, children do not need â€Å"perfect† parents. They do need mothers and fathersRead MoreHollywoods Asians Essay1016 Words   |  5 PagesHollywood’s Asians Asian Americans have been part of America for almost as long as its existence. 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