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The impact of cultural assimilation
Marginalized minorities in the media
The impact of cultural assimilation
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Growing up with immigrant parents was unique; I had expectations set for me from a young age. My family reminded me often that the lack of opportunity for them was why they worked labor jobs and had a hard life. Up until high school I took it all as a positive reminder that anything is possible if you work hard. Then I get to college where my perception of reality and the “American dream” changed. I learned about systemic racism, mass incarceration and gentrification. I saw it first hand when I worked as an advocate for lower income students and their families. I started piece together why certain communities weren't thriving while others did. I realized how problematic the comments about how ungrateful certain impoverished communities are. That if they worked harder and didn't take advantage of the welfare they'd be better off. It saddens me to say this was all coming from people of color that I knew or related to.
I realized that it wasn’t all their fault. Most immigrants don’t get to live in the rich white neighborhoods when they first come to America. Instead they live in low income neighborhoods and
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Many immigrants are aware of the history of the Civil Rights movement, slavery and the history of race in the US. Yet, they believe those times of discrimination is over. Immigrant optimism is why immigrants push their children to excel. The openness of the educational system and pay off to higher education is too good to ignore. Many groups strive when they come; Asian immigrants are the minority model. Their consistent success is an example of overcoming all odds to succeed. Unfortunately it overshadows the reality for many native born people of color. It overshadows systemic racism and its many forms. It ignores the cycle of poverty and set up for failure by the education system. It ignores laws and Acts that have passed that impacts people of
Throughout the course of my life, I have always encountered individuals wanting to better their economic situation especially those within my community. Those who come from impoverished communities in other countries risk their lives and lifetime savings to come to the United States hoping that one day they will regain everything that they lost. Their only motivation to come to this country is to be able to provide their family with basic necessities and in order to do this, they must work two or more jobs that pay at minimum wage and are taken for granted. However, many individuals do not see this side of the story and categorize immigrants as unambitious people. In order to be completely aware of what immigrants truly go through and how they succeed in life, one must be willing to place themselves in their shoes and hear his/her story. We must acknowledge that the hands of these people work in back breaking jobs in order to sustain their families. While some Americans may be against immigrants arriving to the United States in search of a better life and the American Dream, in The Madonnas of Echo Park, Brando Skyhorse further reveals that immigrants are exploited as cheap labor, and although they contribute greatly to the everyday function of American industry, they are quite invisible.
For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and discrimination by other racial groups, they have succeeded socially, economically, and educationally without resorting to political or violent disagreements with the majority race. The “success” of the minority is offered as proof that the American dream of equal opportunity is capable to those who conform and who are willing to work hard. Therefore, the term ...
...silenced in this country, in order to have voice and be visible in society, one must strive to be a white American. They feel the need to embody and assimilate to whiteness because the white race has a voice and is seen, rather than silenced and unseen, in society. They are privileged with the freedom of not having to cope with the notion of being marked, silent, and unseen in society. This creates pressures for Asian Americans and immigrants to suppress their own cultural identities and assimilate to whiteness in an attempt to potentially be able to prosper and make a life for them in America. Asian Americans feel as though being who they truly are and express their unique cultural identities will alienate themselves even more than they already are.
Many minorities like Mukherjee and Divakaruni have expressed that although many traditional obstacles of prejudice have been made obsolete, discrimination still exists, especially in the negative responses of other Americans to their success. The peaking of Anti-Asian sentiment and violence on America’s streets and office buildings has reinforced this theme ten fold. Asians must seek to dissolve the racist love behind the distortions of the model minority paradigm.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” That statement holds strong for immigrants in America. Equal access to opportunities allows immigrants to achieve the American dream. Their success correlates with America’s success because of the contributions immigrants provide to America. Unfortunately, the current immigration policy in America denies many immigrants the American dream. It is crucial to understand the historical context of immigration in America. Initially, most immigrants were from Europe and were not restricted by any immigration laws. Now, most immigrants come from Latin America but are restricted to severe immigration laws. The Latino/a community is one of the most severely affected groups because the current immigration system disproportionally affects Latino/as. Recognizing how the experience of Latino/a immigrants have been both similar and different in the past from other immigrant groups and dispelling common misconceptions about Latino/as today bring an awareness how Latino/as are affected.
As a young child, I had a feeling of resentment towards my parents as I naively believed that they were not working hard enough to obtain a career that would result in them being able to fulfill the necessities of the family. I thought that my parents were incapable of providing my siblings and I with a stable place to live and with a reliable source of transportation. That was my assumption until I saw a documentary on what undocumented immigrant families left behind in their countries for the better of their family in addition to the setbacks they must undergo to make a living in the land of opportunity.
...disparities between the two ethnic communities that can be traced back to the legacy of slavery and other forms of oppression that blacks have suffered.” Supporters of this view felt that educational achievement correlates more strongly with economic status than with any other single variable. Since the majority of the black community lags behind whites in income and wealth, the educational inequalities are caused by the economic inequalities. They believe that once the inequalities disappear, the educational disparities will as well. Many argue that this is not a viable argument. They point to other minority groups such as Asians, some of whom are financially worse off than blacks, and they excel in school . They felt that because the civil rights legislation removed all roadblocks back in the 60’s and 70’s something else must be contributing to the large gap.
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.
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
are taught by their parents that determination and persistency are the keys to academic achievements. In addition, many Asian parents are extremely involved and invested in their children’s education. For many first-generation immigrant and refugee parents, they believe the way to realize the American dream is through higher education and professional status. They encourage t...
According to Mae Ngai, Author of “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of America,” The United States as a nation is currently in the process of perpetuating one of the worst examples of institutionalized racism under the guise of anti-immigration policies that seek to deny individuals of specific races the chance to thrive in the United States. The victims of this according to the author are individuals who are of South American and Asian descent. In her discourse presented through the book, the line between race and a person’s status as an illegal immigrant is non-existent. Her publication demonstrates the different ways in which race and illegal immigrant status are closely related. The thing with racism is that it is manifested through a scenario of some races being more superior to others whether this is mentioned expressly or not. American society today is without a doubt defined by the immigration laws it has put in place (Ngai, 72).
Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants, with the first and most important law passed being the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, the discrimination the Chinese immigrants so harshly received was not rightly justified or deserved. With all of their contributions and accomplishments in opening up the West, they were not so much harming our country but rather helping it.
At a young age, my teachers and parents taught me to believe that I could do and accomplish anything that I set my mind to. I grew up thinking that I was unstoppable and that the only limit to my achievements was the sky. However, during my second year in high school, I began to realize that I was not as unstoppable as I had thought. I began to experience the consequences of my parent’s decision of bringing me to the United States illegally. Among those consequences were, not being able to apply for a job, obtain a driver’s license or take advantage of the dual enrollment program at my high school, simply because I did not possess a social security number. I remember thinking that all of my hard work was in vain and that I was not going to
During the early 1850s to late 1990s, the United States experienced an enormous rush of Asian immigration from various countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. For most of these immigrants, they traveled far and wide on dangerous journeys out at sea and away from their homeland of origin in order to escape the horrors of tyranny, discover wealth during the California gold rush, and create new opportunities of a better life for their families and future descendants. Countless bodies were lost at sea and many more of these immigrants died from starvation and disease. Although these Asian immigrants were overjoyed when they reached the main lands of the United States, their struggles were only beginning as many of them were not met with open arms of acceptance. Instead, most of these Asian immigrants were met with harsh racism, various amounts of mistreatment, and unpleasant living conditions from many Americans. In spite of all these hindrances, most Asian immigrants were able to adapt to their new environment, find occupations despite the undercut wages, and build homes for their families. (something here) . After a while, these Asian immigrants were able to learn English and understand the protocols of the United States judicial system in order to change certain laws which discriminated them. Even though some may group Asians into one large category, the fact of the matter is that there are many distinct ethnic backgrounds with different histories and methodology of persevering through hardships in order to reach the blissful freedom of the United States.
Ellen Sirleaf once said, “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them.” As an immigrant that came to America five years ago, I find great wisdom and possibilities in these words. I was born and raised in Malaysia for the past 14 years, and moved to the Philippines for a year while waiting for my petition visa to America. My dad is a Malaysian-Chinese, while mom is a Filipina. Growing up in Malaysia, I was given the access to education without any barriers. I went to a Chinese elementary school for six years, Malay high school for two years and sat in a year at De La Salle Canlubang in the Philippines to learn the culture of my country.