Asian Am. Dreams

Beyond our shadows:
“What Mom and Dad couldn't tell us was what it meant to be Chinese in America. They didn't know--they were just learning about America themselves. We found little help in the world around us. Asians were referred to most often as Orientals, Mongols, Asiatics, heathens, the yellow hordes, and an assortment of even less endearing terms. Whatever the terminology, the message was clear: we were definitely not Americans.”
This passage I feel is how most people feel about there race in America. It’s a hard place to fit in when you want to keep your culture. Sometimes I feel most people find it hard to juggle the two. This takes me back to history class when back in the day they had classes for immigrants to take that made them more “American”. But what is American anyway? Is it blue jeans, baseball, and apple pie? Mabye it was back in the day….But now the term American means so many things. Theres Asian American, Native American, African, etc. Theres not just American. Its better this way so people don’t feel left out. America has this motto that “we are united”, but its easy for people to get lost along the way with racism, stereotypes, etc.
I myself have seen family members struggle with their native American background. I have witnessed the hard life on the reservation when I would visit my aunt during the summer. They struggle to fit in with contemporary American society when they ancestors struggled with so much hate and pain. Especially the idea sterotypes and the effect it has on young native youth and what it does to their self esteem. Its easy to see the effect the idea of “True American” has on people.


*******hEATHER******