Essays on Asian American

“I have a thing for Asians.” Everyone has heard this phrase at least once in their lives, either told to them or told to someone else. Although this is commonly heard or said, it is not commonly questioned. What does a “thing for Asians” actually...

Even in a globalized community that consists of a blending of many different cultures and races, stereotypes still thrive in the modern day. Two persistent and contrasting stereotypes of Asian American men exist: the first is that they are sexually deficient and weak, physically and...

Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart meditates on the place of Filipino writers within American literature. In America Is in the Heart, there are two “types” of writers that are presented: “American writers” and “Filipino writers.” Carlos Bulosan characterizes “American writers” as ones who...

Time and time again, we see Asian-American students quietly but surely rise above their peers with their quiet, studious, and high tests scores. What is it about these students that separates them from their peers? Keith Osajima, a professor of race ethnic studies at the...

America is in the Heart begins with Bulosan’s childhood and traces a difficult immigrant experience defined by poverty, rootlessness and illness and culminates in a remaking of his self through writing. As Rajini Srikanth notes, the novel is “curiously marked by a faith and idealism...

With the increasing emphasis on cultural exchange in recent literature, writers have attempted to point out how difficult it was for the people to maintain their ethnic identity besides their national identity. Assimilation into the mainstream American culture seems to be a primordial way of...

Minority groups have suffered and endured much discrimination, oppression, racism, and social injustices in America. Asian and Asian American women are inclusive of this group. In addition to the above, they have experienced sexism, mistreatment, and objectification due to the added fact of being of...

Many people assume that when it comes to applying to top universities, Asians have it the best of all races. Not only are they ‘naturally intelligent,’ they are also a minority indicating they can reap the benefits of affirmative action; therefore they must be able...

In the 1800s many minorities came into existence in the United States. At the beginning of the 1850s a mass migration to the U.S. began, which lead to the development of new minorities. Minorities arrived to the U.S. searching for a better future, while others...

Asian Americans living in the United States face a number of very important issues. They were not properly treated in the United States and were even experiencing racism, such as legislation and gender discrimination, directly or indirectly. Historically, I would like to refer to such...

Discrimination has occurred many times in human history across the globe. From religious intolerance to ethnic annihilation, some may be more subtle while some are extreme. Although most of the 1800’s to modern day discrimination aren’t as extremist, they are however, memorable events and were...

The US Asian population grew 72% between 2000 and 2015 (from 11.9 million to 20.4 million), the fastest growth rate of any major racial or ethnic group (Pew Research Center, 2017). Despite this, Asian Americans have been degraded in the realm of popular media and...

From the Boston Tea Party to current movements like Black Lives Matter, activism and protest has cultivated American society. The American people expressed their dissent and forced change, causing the country to evolve. Asian Americans have been at the forefront of some of these pressing...

The play I chose to read for my independent study on diversity in theater between 1975 and 2000 was the short play, Trying to Find Chinatown (1996) by David Henry Hwang. Surprisingly, I have never read anything by David Henry Hwang in its entirety. I’ve...

Growing up as an Indian, I always had a weird relationship with the term “Asian-American.” I was technically of Asian descent, but it always felt like that word wasn’t meant for me, and that Asian-American was referring to some other group of people. When people...

The treatment of Asian Americans in the United States has been brought to attention through literature and popular culture, as well as through the self-representation technique by which Asian Americans discuss their own treatment. Frank Wu, author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and...