Asian American Differences / Assimilation

Melissa Chow
ASA 004 – A04
11^th May, 2017

              In “Heterogeneity, Hybridity:  Marking Asian American Differences” one of the main points being made is that sexism and racism are not mutually exclusive, and are often related to each other. There’s this expectation of a race, and often times, this expectation is specifically targeted towards women. This relates back to the last readings we did regarding orientalism. Another thing Lowe brings up is that often Asian Americans are homogenized. Asia is an extremely large continent and spans from Afghanistan to East Asia and the Pacific. It’s impossible to label all Asians under the same umbrella, but at the same time, there is some influence between countries due to cultural influence. Again, this relates back to the past reading with the henna. Often as the case with Asian Americans, is that every generation grows up differently. Often times this is seen as becoming more westernized or white-washed, but Lowe would argue that it really does have to do with upbringing and your environment. For example, in the Japanese poem, the 3^rd generation daughter is much different from her mother, who is different from her parents. It doesn’t make her less Japanese to not act like the stereotypical Japanese. A lot of the stereotypical Japanese customs are a result of living in Japan, not of being Japanese. To expect all people to be the same is wrong, because we know that there are both loud Asian Americans and quiet Asian Americans. I have to admit, I don’t entirely understand all the themes of the mini-scenes in “Assimilation”. The first one, I understood (probably) to be about a sense of lack of belonging. It’s really hard to move to an entirely different country, but then to also not be accepted there? I think it’s incredibly tough. I think as a whole, the scenes are about the difficulties Asian Americans face having to immigrate to America. They are like everyday issues that they have to face.