Analysis on Jame’s Scott’s From the Weapon of the Weak and Robin D.G. Kelley Race Rebels

Both articles (“From the Weapons of the Weak” and “Race Rebels”) describe the ways how resistance plays a major influence and contribution towards culture and norms. In “Weapons of the Weak”, James C. Scott analyzes the subtle ways in which the peasants resist against the upper class and how it impacts the views of society. A quote that intrigued me was when Scott explains, “Multiplied many thousandfold, such petty acts of resistance by peasants may in the end make an utter shambles of the policies framed up by their would-be superiors in the capital” (Scott 95).  This quote is significant in understanding the Asian American contemporary experience and how modern Asian American culture develops because in the course of history, Asian Americans have used many subtle approaches in an effort to survive and challenge the stereotypes that are placed upon them. In the past, the United States government have erected “Asian Towns” in an attempt to segregate and isolate Asians from society. Many of the earliest immigrants experienced oppression and belittlement from the government and the media through the forms of exclusion acts, creation of towns, concentration camps, lynchings, police brutality, and racist policies. The belittlement of Asians and the rejection of integration by the U.S. society has made the Asian American narrative silent and often overlooked. This was evident as Scott observes, “By virtue of their institutional invisibility, activities on anything less than a massive scale are, if they are noticed at all, rarely accorded any social significance” (Scott 95). This notion as well as the barriers and stereotypes placed on Asian American have forced them to a position of misunderstanding and silence. When I was taking high school Advanced Placement United States History, the only times where Asian Americans were mentioned was during the Chinese American worker union to build the railroads and the Japanese American Internment Camp experiences. My American Literature class also overlooks the Asian American experience and only focuses and emphasizes on the White and the African American Narrative. As much as it irritates me to know that some students are ignorant to understand the cultural significance behind Asian towns and the obstacles that Asian Americans face, there is also a part of me that understands and accepts the narrative, as history is taught by the victors and language is ruled by the dominance. It also made me realize the lack of representation and understanding of Asian American culture and its significance in the United States due to the fact that the education system doesn’t incorporate these narratives into academic curriculum. Despite the lack of acknowledgement in U.S. history and academic curriculum, some Asian Americans have challenged the system by ignoring the insults and stereotypes placed on them and being able to focus on their own passions to achieve their own goals. This is not to say that Asian Americans do not have struggles today, as they are unable to tell their own narrative due to cultural appropriation and are still bounded and stereotyped by other ethnicities as "Studious" and "non-athletic".