Your Name Isn’t Asian Enough

Fighting the Asian Image

In my post titled “Under-Represented” I talked about how Asians lack representation in certain career fields, one of which is being the media. Because of the representation deficit, there is a lack of proper education of Asian culture in the U.S.. Students don’t learn much about the Asian culture in the school curriculum. In addition, areas with little to no Asian individuals lack exposure to possible primary sources for Asian culture. This creates a vacuum of information about Asians within the general community. Many individuals become unaware of the various cultures within Asia, or in extreme cases the various ethnic groups that are under the broad category of Asians. An example of unawareness formulates into a common question Asians receive when entering rural areas: “Are you Asian or are you Chinese?”. Unfortunately, the information that fills the vacuum is information that is fed to the public through popular media. This includes Asian portrayals in movies, and TV shows as well as news from various press sources. It would be difficult to analyze the various ways the Asian community is portrayed in media but its effects can be outlined. The Asian community becomes labeled with various aspects of our culture and our identity in the community becomes dependent on how the media portrays us. To the outside world, we are no longer who we are but rather we are the “Asians”. Our daily lives are “publicized” and those uninformed attempt to understand us from what they learned through media. Our cultures become blended as one group creating more of grey spectrum rather than highlighting the individual colors of every culture. In summary, we lose our identity to the community that attempts to define us.

A Call for Teachers

Teachers, what you teach in the classroom is just as important as what you choose not to teach. Time and time again, I’ve seen history classes throughout K-12 focus on the Black, White, and Latino communities. Never have I ever seen specialized curriculum for Asian countries besides China. So I urge the teachers, for the sake of an educated community as well as to assist in the identity formation of your minority groups, include content that focuses on who they are and the descendants who came before them. When your curriculum becomes inclusive of all groups, students can better understand each other and less likely to make shallow and baseless discriminatory remarks. Create the change in your community through what you teach. Do not opt out any group for that sends out the message that who they are is not valuable and up for reinterpretation.

Resources

https://www.thoughtco.com/asian-american-stereotypes-in-t-film-2834652