Asian American History

Asian American History

Wayman Li

07/07/2019

As a multicultural society, America has all sorts of human races (You followed instructions, but the content of your report reveals major problems. One of the big one is incorrect content, and not explaining the concepts and reading you employ correctly. As a result, the attempt at analysis fails, because it is confusing, does not make sense...and illogical. You use of this phrase suggest you did not understand the racial formation article that was assigned in this course during the beginning of the semester.) that have formed part of current contemporary America. The early activities such as colonization and slave trade led to an increase in the number of races in America apart from the original inhabitants of the American land. History is formed by the activities that are undertaken today and well-remembered tomorrow. The Asian American community in the United States of America is one of the communities that have a rich history on the American land (Lee et al., 2008). Their history can be dated back from the time the first Asian arrived in America until the current situation of the Asians in the United States of America. History is usually what happened in the past and is remembered today. The history of any given community is described inform of their social, political and cultural ways of life. The Asian Americans have their history preserved so as people who are interested in their past ways of life after they migrated to the United States of America can get to learn. To learn and understand further about Asian Americans history, I visited the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum. Within the museum, various aspects of the Asian Americans were evident from the stored objects that formed part of the Asian American history in the United States of America. After the museum visitation, it was apparent that Asian Americans have a tale to be remembered in the American soil. Therefore, this paper focuses on the critical reflection of the experience that I had during my visitation to the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum.

From history, Asian Americans were highly unwelcomed in the United States of America. Their migration to the United States of America begun again after the end of world war two. Most of the Chinese migrated to America to seek better job opportunity due to overpopulation in China that led to few job opportunities hence high levels of poverty. The Americans, on the other side, started feeling the pressure that was caused by the Chinese immigrants who offered cheap labour to the American firms and industries. Since the Asian are different from the Americans in terms of the race, racial issues developed between the Asian Americans and the Americans who worked in the firms and industries.

（Your need to be specific… it was “white Anglo-Americans,” not just American. Why distinguish Asian American from ‘American’? That does not make sense.）Reflecting on the history of Asian Americans in the United States of America, race is one prominent factor. In the United States of America, Asian Americans are people who belong to the minority groups and hence have experienced racial discrimination. In the article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" Peggy McIntosh likens the white privilege to the fact that males are privileged in the society than the females. Through that fact, Peggy McIntosh tries to mean that, the whites in the American society are more privileged than the Asian Americans and other groups in American society. Accordingly, what Peggy brings into the limelight is one of the factors that have affected the Asian Americans for quite a long time and up today. Racial discrimination is a factor that is evident in the American multicultural society. The Asian Americans experienced high racial abuses when it came to their political, economic and social rights. The Asian Americans which were made up of many Chinese citizens formed a political party back in 1960 so that it could help to fight for their democratic, social and economic rights. Through the political party, the Asian Americans wanted to liberate themselves from the political, social and economic oppression that they were placed under by the Americans. (Omi & Winant, 2012) (This last sentence does not make any sense.)

One of the pictures obtained from the museum talks about the exclusion/inclusion plan that was being reprimanded by the Americans on Chinese immigrants. Back in the year 1880, America and China were excellent friends who traded with each other. When the immigration of the Chinese people to America increased, the Americans enacted the exclusion laws which were aimed at preventing the Chinese from entering America. The exclusion laws were immigration laws that were aimed at preventing more Chinese people from entering America. This was due to the high competition that was brought about by the American Chinese in the industries and also in the businesses ventures where the Chinese traders offered cheap products in the American Markets.

In the article "Introduction to Lies My Teacher Told Me" James W. Loewen claims that history is one of the worst subjects to be ever undertaken by the American students. In the article, he further claims that the students of colour in the American schools perform poor than the white students in the history subject. This can be ascertained to the fact that the students of colour who are not original Americans are forced to undertake and learn something that is not of their own.(This does not make any sense at all. What do you mean “original Americans”? Native Americans are people of color and they are the original inhabitants of America...) James notes that "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it." -- James Baldwin. The claim gives a sneak pick (???) of how American history is. The American history is beautiful, but why so much hatred in it? Why are the coloured students failing in the subject more than the white students? Racial injustices that are part of the American history form one of the main reasons for the big hatred of the subject among the coloured students, especially Asian Americans. (No, this is incorrect and reveals you do not understand the argument of the Loewen article.)The fact that America has had an adverse history on racial issues makes it had for the Asian American students to accept American history the way it may be portrayed in American history books. Is widely known that the students of colour in America perform poor in the English subject but on history, they perform weaker than in the English disciplines. Such performance raises eyebrows as to why the Asian American students hate the so-called American history subject. It tends to reflect and remind them of the past and the present racial discrimination that they continue to receive as a result of their colour. (Loewen, 1996) As outlined in the article "ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES" by MARY YU DANICO AND FRANKLIN NG, the introduction of the Asian American studies in the American school curriculum has brought about something to celebrate and cherish among the Asian American students in the United States of America. The introduction of the Asian American studies was a result of the civil movement that was very active in the years between 1960 and 1970. The movement which was then referred to as the ethnic studies movement, not only fought for the introduction of ethnic studies in the American curriculum but also for the equality in the American society. The campaign was very instrumental in the push towards the introduction of the African American studies, Asian American studies and also the Women studies in America. (NG & Su, 2015)

The emergence of the movement gave rise to the question of whether the schools in America should provide a clear reflection of the multicultural American society. This was not only aimed at introducing the Asian American studies in the American education curriculum but also to do away with the racial status that was seen in the American schools. Most of the American schools were reserved for specific races, which was a factor that caused the cases of racial discrimination to increase. Most of the schools that could admit students of the Asian American origin were very few and the available ones were happened to be far away from where the Asian Americans resided. The intention of introducing Asian American education was to develop a platform where the Asian American students would understand their history better and not be forced into the history of another social group. This was also meant to create a platform that would be used to fight the racial discrimination by showing both the white students and the Asian American students that they were all equal. Since American society is multicultural, the ethnic studies movement opted to push for an institutional mechanism that would be able to inform the learners about their real history. This was intended to ensure the students are taught on issues such as racism, colonialism and sexism. It was not easy for Asian America to be given the right of Asain American education that they were demanding. As stated by MARY YU DANICO AND FRANKLIN NG "The students' demands were not received, however; in fact, students were forced to resort to acts of civil disobedience, Stitch as protests, hunger strikes, and rallies. In response to this, "The authorities [in San Francisco] deplored up to ten thousand armed men almost every day for more than two months to crush the Third World strike, but the students prevailed". The Asian Americans had to whatever they could to ensure that they were given equal rights in the United States of America. (NG & Su, 2015)

To wrap it all, as a multicultural society, America has been on the negative side when it comes to racial discrimination with its minority social groups. Asian Americans have always been discriminated for their colour since the time they started to arrive in America. To counter the racial discrimination, the Asian American fought for their rights through political movements and social movements such as ethnic education movement. The campaigns have won the Asian Americans some of the rights that were essential for their survival in the American soil. The history of the Asian Americans has been well stored and reserved at the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum through pictures that provide a guide of how the situation was for the Asians after they migrated to America.

References

Lee, S., Mountain, J., Koenig, B., Altman, R., Brown, M., Camarillo, A., … Underhill, P. (2008). The ethics of characterizing difference: guiding principles on using racial categories in human genetics. Genome Biology, 9(7), 404. doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-7-404

Loewen, J. W. (1996). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. The History Teacher, 29(2), 249. doi:10.2307/494748

McIntosh, P. (2015). Unpacking the invisible knapsack: The invention of white privilege pedagogy. Cogent Social Sciences, 1(1). doi:10.1080/23311886.2015.1053183

NG, F., & Su, P. H. (2015). Asia and Asian America. Contemporary American Ethnic Issues, 52-58. doi:10.4324/9781315634227-5

Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2012). Racial Formation Rules. Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century, 302-332. doi:10.1525/california/9780520273436.003.0014