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The struggles of being Asian American
The struggles of being Asian American
Growing up asian in america essay
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The Asian American movement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s on the West Coast. In 1968, Asian American student activists were inspired by the movement of Chinatown’s terrible poverty and social conditions on youth and the militant Black Power movement and started the Third World strikes at San Francisco State College and the University of California, Berkeley. The Third World Liberation Front is a multiracial alliance of African American, Asian American, Latino, and American Indian students who called for ethnic studies. The TWLF promoted three main demands: advocating the right of all Third World students to an education, challenging the fundamental purpose of education by demanding Ethnic Studies program, demanding the right to have …show more content…
It was organized to work with youth from low-income family to get higher educations. The reason they participated in TWLF mainly to ensure the proposed of Ethnic Studies program that would teach Filipino American culture and history to achieve their goal on youth education. ICSA was the second group joined TWLF, that was a student organization formed at San Francisco States College to work for Chinatown social service agencies on youth educational problem. The joining process was uneasy for ICSA because the organization was worried that joining TWLF might jeopardize their programs and the militancy of the Black Student Union. Delaying until the late spring of 1968, ICSA officially joined the TWLF. AAPA joined in summer 1968, which was the latest group. It was formed by mainly Japanese American women at San Francisco State College and University of California-Berkeley. And they hosted meeting constantly to organize students to share political concerns to effect social and political changes. Unlike other two groups, members in this group were more diverse, that emphasis on pan-Asianism to serve the entire Asian American …show more content…
This organization was viable because of the regardless of ethnicity that they thought of bringing together diverse Asian Americans instead of only Japanese Americans. The founders had a hard time to bring people’s attention because members were wary of working with young people. Under the pressure of disbanding, they held their fist meeting with eighteen participants on April 6th, 1969. Besides naming the organization, they set their purpose to establish a political voice for the Asian American community and serve as a means for collective
An individual who was developed from the black power movements, was Richard Aoki, a third generation Japanese American. He had spent time living in the internment camps as a child during the second world war. When he grew up, he became one of the founding members of the Black Panther Party, and the only Asian American to have held a formal leadership position as "Field Marshall". He worked in the Black Panther party by arming them with weapons and training them in firearm usage. He continued his work by helping lead the Third World Liberation Front strike at Berkeley in 1969. This demonstration was to draw together the experiences of the oppression that third world minorities had experienced throughout their colonization period, from the United States. Experiences such as genocide of native Americans, enslavement of Africans, colonization of Chicanos, and the Asian immigration exclusion acts. The movements were created in order to achieve independence and demanded political power for those third world minorities who were had been, and were still being oppressed. They employed tactics such as, "informational picketing, blocking of campus entrances, mass rallies and teach-ins. Popular support was often met with repression in the form of police arrests, teargas and campus disciplinary actions." This impactful demonstration led to a large number of Asian American students, to become involved in community based organizing efforts, to increase awareness and strength for the Asian American movements. These students worked to produce vital means in which they were able to attain more information on their roots and the struggles that their ancestors had gone through. By fighting to create college curriculums that represented their histori...
After the Vietnam War, in 1975, thousands of Hmong refugees immigrated to the United States, granted asylum for their participation in the war and in hope for a better future. Today, the children of those refugees and the first generations born on American soil face a variety of challenges, particularly in our public school system. In order to succeed in the Public School system and beyond to higher education, the complications of their educational situation needs to be addressed and changed.(Vang, 2004) . Little research has been done on the needs of Hmong and Hmong- American students, despite the amount that has been preformed on other bilingual students from a number of different backgrounds like Hispanics. Staggeringly, most Hmong students are classified as Limited English Proficient or LEP students. The academic challenges they face require increased attention as the number of Hmong American students continues to expand exponentially in the US public schools.
In Living for the City, Donna Murch details the origins and the rise to prominence the Black Panther Party experienced during the 1960s and into the 1970s. The Civil Rights Movement and eventually the Black Panther Movement of Oakland, California emerged from the growing population of migrating Southern African Americans who carried with them the traditional strength and resolve of the church community and family values. Though the area was heavily driven by the massive movement of industrialization during World War II, the end of the war left a period of economic collapse and social chaos in its wake. The Black Panther Party was formed in this wake; driven by continuing violence against the African American youth by the local police forces, the Black Panther Party’s roots consisted mostly of educational meetings of local African American college students.
Throughout the United States’ history, there have been numerous prominent civil rights groups, in which they have fought for individual rights of minority groups in the United States. Beginning in the 1960’s the Chicano Movement, or El Movimiento, became one of the more interesting civil rights movements, although, it is overshadowed by many of the more prevalent movements. At this time in the formation of the United States “the powers that be rule over a racist society, filled with hatred and ignorance. Our nation continues to be segregated along racial and economic lines,” expressed by Cesar Chavez. The Chicano Movement expanded the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, giving a voice to those who otherwise did not have one. The movement
The Chicano movement in the LA school system improved Mexican-American self determination. After hiring Mexican-American advisors and teachers students were encouraged to go to college and to follow their dreams no matter how huge the dream was. Mexican-American students in east LA were no longer told what they could not do and were no longer held back from their ambitions. The positive changes implemented by the school board opened the doors for students to further their education and become the professionals they wanted to be. No one could tell them no anymore.
The civil rights movement (and the activists involved) gave women a model for success. The method the civil rights movement used demonstrated the power of solving social problems through collective action. By using lunch counter sit-ins, organizing into national networks like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and reaching into college campuses through the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the civil rights movement was able to bring together northerners and southerners, older and younger citizens and men and women to work for a single cause. Women took inspiration from this in the creation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and other feminist groups – NOW even states in its Statement of Purpose that “there is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has been for Negroes and other victims of discrimination” and that NOW must take on that responsibility.
The Asian American history is the history of the ethnic and racial groups in the United States who are of Asian descent. Spickard (2007) shows that the "'Asian American' was an idea created in the 1960s to bring together the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans for a strategic and political purposes.
One theme that I found to be very interesting is the struggles that Asian Americans have faced in the past and the present. I never knew about the struggles that have been happening in places like China and Laos. I never realized how many families come from poverty and violence. I have only learned very little about historical events such as Vietnam. I am only now becoming more aware about the human rights problem in China. I am so used to seeing places like Tokyo, Japan in movies and television. Everything seems so clean and the city is lit up with bright lights and amazing buildings at night. Before this course, I thought that most Asians live this kind of life. I never knew that these events had even occurred and I was amazed at some of the things Asians have had to go through over the years.
On February 12th The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by a multiracial group of activists, who answered "The Call," in the New York City, NY. They initially called themselves the National Negro Committee. Founded in 1909 The NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has been active in its attempts to break legal ground and forge better opportunities for African Americans. At the beginning in 1909, some twenty persons met together in New York City for the purpose of utilizing the public interest in the Lincoln Centennial in behalf of African Americans. The history, function, purpose, and current activities of the organization is important.to work on behalf of the rights of colored people including Native Americans, African Americans and Jews. (Janken 2003)
Take for example, Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA), this is a motorcycle club that advocates helping children in abusive situations. According to BACA’s mission statement “Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) exists with the intent to create a safer environment for abused children. We exist as a body of Bikers to empower children to not feel afraid of the world in which they live. We stand ready to lend support to our wounded friends by involving them with an established, united organization. We work in conjunction with local and state officials who are already in place to protect children.” (2015). BACA was founded in 1995 and is comprised of people from all backgrounds (Sawyer, Judd 2012). This means that it is not the exclusive, white male only, type of club that most people think of when they hear the words motorcycle club. One of the first steps to joining BACA is a federal background
In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.
Erika Lee’s “The ‘Yellow Peril’ and Asian Exclusion in the Americas” goes in depth on the topic of Asian exclusion in the early 1900s. As previously discussed in last week’s presentation, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first antiracial law. What we did not discuss was that it was the law that set the trend for anti-racial laws against Asians in other countries as well.
Japanese American Citizen League was founded in 1929 and is the oldest Asian American civil rights group in U.S. During the redress, JACL fought endlessly
Brown, Tamara L., Gregory Parks, and Clarenda M. Phillips. African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision. Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2005. Print.
In 1969, there was a slight crack in the monolithic hegemony in the PNC and PPP’s organizational dominance on campus when Ratoon, a radical group comprised of academics and students, was established. The birth of this grouping led to a more multi-racial dynamic presence among students and faculty. Professors Clive Thomas, Josh Ramsammy and Omawale, and students Bonita Harris and Zinul Bacchus were prominent in this group.