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Blog #7 Being Asian American & Queer

Growing up heterosexual norms were consistently pressed onto me. Whether it was something about an arranged marriage in the Philippines or joking about having a crush on a boy at school, being queer was never a part of the conversation. I knew I had an interest in girls, I just didn’t know how to define it. I remember watching cartoons and just being so intrigued by the dark villain types; my first cartoon crush was Raven from Teen Titans…. and chances are if you also had a crush on her you’re gay now too! 

It wasn’t until my cousin came out to our family that everyone even considered the term gay in a more critical sense. At this time I was probably 7 years old and  barely grasping an understanding of what it means to be queer and it didn’t help that my family barely understood it themselves. How could my main teachers in life not be able to figure out what I was thinking for once? Now I know better. To this day their open mindedness and knowledge about the LGBTQ+ remains the same as 12 years ago. 

Because I was never given a space where it was safe to be vulnerable I have yet to express my sexuality to them. Because they are so comfortable in their close-mindedness I don't imagine our relationship reaching that point. It’s unfortunate that this is common within Asian American households. 

-Sabrina :)

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Blog #6 POP

Where do I begin?? This final like most others made for some late nights and lots of crying but was different in the way that I actually felt proud of myself when it was done.

When I learned what POP is and what it stands for I was thrilled to be able to be a part of it, so thrilled that I really wanted to make use of what it means to produce our power. When we split into groups my mouth fought hard to not blurt out fashion and add to the list of creative mediums for fear of being too forward. Luckily it was mentioned, and the group was created. 

In hearing about this year’s theme (TWLF 50th anniversary/struggle/resistance) and about fashion groups of the past I REALLY really wanted to get it right and do this creative medium for POP justice. 

As I was painting the leather jackets and piecing 9 feet of denim together I felt so empowered creating again, but this time it was creating something that really mattered to me. Our group drew a heavy inspiration from the Third World Liberation Front not only with the leather jackets but with the themes of resistance and solidarity, seeing that the energy of the time doesn’t seem to different from right now. 

The day of POP finally came with a lot of stress which was alleviated once we got to see the work of other classes. It was amazing seeing so much creation about our experiences. The stress returned before it was our time to get on stage but nothing was more liberating than getting on that stage with my group and eventually the entire class. Thank you AAS 218 <3

-Sabrina <3

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Blog #5 Appropriating other cultures won't help you escape the ‘Model Minority’

I am sick, tired, and straight up embarrassed. I will address that I am aware that the cultures of our Asian roots have been appropriated for prom dresses and what not, but Asian Americans are just as guilty in this culture appropriation uproar. 

WE GET IT. You think the model minority is the worst thing America has pinned on you, but it is absolutely no excuse to take another ethnic community’s identity to escape the model minority myth! Although this sentence more closely applies to Asian Americans during the diaspora of the 1980s, the essence of escaping these myths rolls over to the more current generation of young Asian Americans. It makes sense that taking on another culture’s mannerisms has served as a safety cushion or even defense mechanism from the model minority and forever foreigner stereotype, but I feel we are past that by now. People have begun to see our people as more than the forever foreigner, so it doesn’t apply to our generation. 

It’s time we start cultivating our own culture that isn’t stolen from other communities, especially knowing we don’t like it when it’s done to us. 

-Sabrina :~)

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Blog #4: APAture

The only APAture event I could make time for was the film event, which was all to perfect for the (at the time) uninspired cinema major. Coming into the event I was expecting a bigger audience along with more professionally produced films, but of course it was nothing that I had expected in the best way possible. It was a small-ish crowd full of students and the films were seemingly student/amateur produced (a part from a few films). 

Looking at this years theme of APAture, which was place, made for an interesting lens to watch the films through or at least retrospectively think of them. 

Since the films were produced by Asian Americans they were suddenly more interesting and relatable in comparison to films created by people who aren’t POC in general. The short films had themes dealing with the Asian American experience, but the ones that stuck out the most were the ones about gender identity and sexuality. Of course in 2018 there are tons of films dealing with LGBTQ+ themes but they never have it on the nose with my experience where I really say “holy sh*t same! that’s me!” But films made by people who look like me and understand the mechanisms of Asian American households similar to mine made me feel validated for once. It was also comforting knowing that there is amazing content about these things that finally exist. 

During intermission the theme of APAture creeped back into my mind… how could these films be about place? Surely they are great stories getting the light they deserve, but place? How? Then I remembered how inspired I felt seeing this kind of content being created and realized that kind of power is place. They all fit under the theme of place by creating a platform to reclaim space and their truths. 

Even though I wasn’t all too excited about going at first, I am extremely glad that I did end up going to this event. 

Picture with featured artist: Jody Stillwater

-Sabrina :~)

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Blog #5- POP/Class Reflection

I realize that this is hella late. I’m posting it anyway in hopes that y’all will see it- I’m not too pressed on the grade, but I thought I would take the time to relfect on my time in the class.

I really do feel like I took this class for granted. I have a lot of regrets, but nonetheless, I am incredibly grateful for this class.

I have had an incredibly rough semester.

I was dealing with personal issues and stresses, working a lot and barely having the time to sleep or eat a proper meal.

Through and through though, I would look forward to Thursdays. To be able to get the chance to sit and work with about 50 other talented and driven individuals was such an honor. Each class I walked away making a new friend and hearing a new story.

I wish I had done a better job of connecting and reaching out to other people. I wish I had worked harder for Iron Chef, the midterm, and for POP. I wish I had kept up with my blogs and actually let my voice be heard. Despite all this, I still really enjoyed this class.

I would walk in and be greeted with excited faces, waves, and hugs. I walk around campus now and have a million people to greet as I go from class to class. I want to thank each and everyone of you including the TA’s and Irene for giving me support. People always asked to make sure I was okay, and that I ate. Thank you all for working so hard and producing our power. You have all made this class so enjoyable for me- truly one less thing to worry about. I now have a huge classroom full of people to turn up with. My instagram has never gotten more compliments. I now have 50 new hearts to share stories with and learn from and share culture with. Thank you for giving me new friends, a new support system, a new community, and a new family.

I’m always gonna be around if anyone needs a person to turn to. I hope y’all don’t ghost me after this LOL. I live right next to the school so if you need anything, holla at ya gurl. I hope we continue to get turnt on the occasion and cry in the library when we’ve procrastinated too much. I would love to TA in the future but after doing the amount of blogs I’ve done I hope I still have a chance lmaoooo

Thank you all for seeing me.

Thank you all for everything.

Thursdays will never be the same. 218 FOREVER

<3,

-Lynnae

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Blog #4- Representation in Media

I was outside when a lady approached me at work. Her wrinkled and fake tanned face approached me with an abruptness. “I like your necklace, it’s beautiful,” she commented.

I had a string necklace on with a wooden pendant inscribed with old Filipino script, Baybayin, that read, “mahal” which is Tagalog for “love.”

“Thank you,” I replied, “It’s old Filipino script.” Before I could explain any further, she interrupted me.

“Oh I LOVE that, I’m a huge fan of Bruce Lee.”

Hold up. What did she just say? This woman did not just say what I think she said. Something so far from the topic that we were on, I was taken aback.

“Oh,” I hesitated, trying to make the connections in my brain on how she got to Bruce Lee, a Chinese-American actor when I was talking about ancient Filipino writing. “Uh... no, Bruce Lee is not Fili-” and before I could finish she interrupted again. This time, she went on and on talking about how she saw a bunch of Asian people performing in a movie or something. She had completely lost my attention. I was still stuck on the fact that she had to mention Bruce Lee, as if he was the only Asian person she had ever known or heard of.

While yes, it’s true, Bruce Lee is a great actor, he shouldn’t be the first thing people think of when I mention anything remotely Asian. Granted, this woman was a lot older and in the past, faces like mine have not been featured in films and media. This lead me to wonder if there were others who have shared a similar experience. Why haven’t there been as many Asians in media and why does it make a difference to me?

I have always been a huge lover of the arts and movies in particular. The older I got, I noticed that a lot of people on the silver screen just didn’t look like me. As a little girl, I didn’t have very many big Asian female role models to look up to. I really do begin to notice when an Asian person is the face of a commercial or the lead of a movie.

Representation is quite a point of contention in the media today. Harsh stereotypes are offensive and hurt everyone. Take for example, the new and recent wave of people of color in media today. Just a few months ago Crazy Rich Asians hit the box office and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before streamed on Netflix. Upon watching Crazy Rich Asians, I cried. Nothing about the storyline was particularly sad (although, the ending was incredibly sweet). For whatever reason, it had meant a lot to me to see so many Asians on the screen.

According to a Huffington Post article titled, Why On-Screen Representation Actually Matters, by Sarah Boboltz and Kimberly Yam, there’s a term for exactly what I’m talking about. There’s a reason why I shed so many tears watching that movie, and why it’s difficult for me to find confidence within myself as an Asian-American woman. The article includes a quote by Nicole Martins of Indiana University on the term for this feeling. “Symbolic annihilation” is a term for “the idea that if you don’t see people like you in the media you consume, you must somehow be unimportant” (Boboltz). The article claims that media sets the standard for what it means to be “normal,” and that it feeds us information that causes us to form our world view and opinions. Moreover, seeing Asians (or people who look like you) playing characters that are limited to act a certain way puts us into boxes of how we should behave. According to the article, we take what we see from films and wonder if that is all we have to offer. We become accustomed to how people like ourselves act on screen that we punish ourselves if we don’t fit into those boxes.

There’s a very popular tweet that went out around the time Crazy Rich Asians began playing in theatres. This tweet is by Kimberly Yam, an editor for the Huffington Post and co-writer of the article aforementioned. With over 355,000 likes and over 125,000 retweets, the thread starts off with a simple line: “You’re 8 years old.” With each tweet in the thread, she describes a scenario in which she feels inferior or defeated because she’s Asian, each tweet ending with “You don’t want to be Chinese anymore.” In 140 characters or less, she jumps from different ages in her lifetime sharing her story of how she has felt insecure about her identity up until the age of 25 and watches the film. She finds herself crying just as I had when I first watched the film. The story closes of with the last tweet saying, “...you’re crying and you can’t stop. You’ve never seen a cast like this in Hollywood. Everyone is beautiful. You’re so happy you’re Chinese.” Yam uses the hashtag “#RepresentationMatters” to top it off. The entire thread has hundreds of replies of people’s stories of how they are feeling proud of their cultures. Yam opened up the conversation for dozens to share their experiences as well.

This brings me to the topic of storytelling. An NPR article written by Eric Deggans summarizes a University of Southern California study done on diversity in Hollywood. He goes into detail to on how media has an “epidemic of invisibility” with very low percentages of people of color featured. They find that only Disney and the CW reaches the quota of diversity with 70% diverse crew. The bottom line, according to the article and quote from Stacy L. Smith, who wrote the USC study, is that it makes it okay for only non-people of color to share their stories. It gives the world a narrow view and again visiting the first article, doesn’t give marginalized groups their voice and makes them feel unimportant. Storytelling is crucial in this sense and as we have seen with my situation and the people of Twitter, it allows us to be ourselves unapologetically and claim our identities with pride. When we let others tell our stories for us, we give them total and utter control and lose that side of our history.

The study also found that productions that have POC behind the scenes have higher diversity numbers. The power lies with the roles of the directors, producers, and writers. When POC have the power, they are able to share their stories, thus casting other POC and getting them screen time.

From what has been discussed so far, people (those belonging to marginalized groups especially) have a hard time identifying with what is being presented in the media today. This causes people to have lower levels of self esteem where they feel limited and shoved into a box. With all that said and done, I was left to wonder about another question. How can change the narrative to a POC perspective?

I was fortunate enough to have a ton of resources readily available for me here at SF State to help me answer this question. A peer suggested that I conduct an interview with Dr. Lorraine Dong, an Asian American Studies professor who specializes in language, literature, and film. I sat down with her for about 45 minutes as I asked her about her opinions on the situation. She claims that we don’t have diversity in Hollywood because we lack diversity in the whole production process. She kept going back to the idea of a “power structure” and just as we had talked about in the last essay, if we give the white man the power, the end result (the film) will be reflective of that. She says not to blame the actors for this problem, because they are simply just doing their job- acting. The real problem, she claims, lies not with racism (although it is tied to it) but to employment. White people are getting away with hiring only white people because as Dr. Dong brought up some history on film and briefly explained, in the beginning, there weren’t that many Asian actors, so they had no choice but to cast white people to put on “yellow” makeup on and “act Asian.” The reason that there aren’t that many Asians in media (or Hollywood, at least) is that there hasn’t been a very successful POC actor/actress who has pushed for better diversity that has actually been able to continuously get casted. She put this into perspective for me when she said that there was nothing really special about the movie Crazy Rich Asians. The plot was nothing ground-breaking or original, she would say. And this is the part where I began to feel bad, to her, the solution was that people need to know their history. If we all knew our history we’d already see faces like ours in movies. To help solve the issues discussed above, we need to immerse ourselves into our cultures and support films and media that have had diversity and representation for a long time. A great way to do so is by supporting independent films, especially ones made by Asians that actually cast Asians in them. It was sort of a slap to the face- a little wake up call for me. Rather than pointing fingers, I needed to reflect and do my work in really finding and supporting films that tell the POC story.

To conclude, yes, media has a major diversity issue, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t diversity out there. I can find that confidence in my identity by doing more research and finding productions that are authentic to me. To that lady who thought of Bruce Lee when I showed her my Filipino necklace, it wasn’t her fault that that was the first thing she thought of. Plus, what she had to say really didn’t concern me. I will take it as a teachable moment. Should that happen again, hopefully I’ll know enough history to spread some knowledge and help her out. It’s really on me to seek those films out for myself and hope that one day there will be other household Asian actor names other than just Bruce Lee.

<3 -Lynnae

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Blog #3: APAture

“APAture is Kearny Street Workshop’s annual multidisciplinary arts festival that presents and promotes art by local up-and-coming artists of Asian and/or Pacific Islander descent.”

I had the absolute pleasure of attending APAture’s Music Showcase, Friday November 2nd at Hotel Utah.

This show really hit close to home. Whenever I get the chance to, I attend house shows with my friends back home in San Diego. Living in Point Loma, we have a lot of kids who are interested in the music scene. I have quite a lot of friends who have their own bands perform at venues on the weekends. As nerdy as it is, I’ve always wanted to sing and be a better performer. I’ve always been too insecure and not disciplined enough to work for it.

I think APAture’s message is incredibly important because it gives a voice to people like me who feel like they’ve never had a chance- especially POC.

At the show and pictured above is Yiann Chou, an Asian-American artist who writes music to express both her faith and her queer identity. She shared her story that although she grew up with a very religious background, she takes pride in her queer identity despite whatever backlash she had felt from it within and from those around her. It’s important for showcases like these to take place because it really shines a light on people who are willing and vulnerable enough to share their story through music like Yiann. 

The following act was Gala the Band who area multifaceted, all girl group. They sang a song about border politics and the poor children who are being taken away from their families at the border. They encouraged the audience to have these conversations and they felt the need to write this song in the hopes of opening up that conversation for people.

I really enjoyed going to the show and I look forward to going to more in the future. The concept of APAture Music Showcases is so great to me. What better way to bring together POC and their stories than through music?

You can follow Yiann on Instagram @yiannc & Gala Band @gala_theband & support their music and message!!

If you’d like to go to another show w/ me, HMU!!

<3 -Lynnae

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Blog #14 Asian Baby Girl

Asian Baby Girl = ABG

enough said.

BAHAHA JK

Asian Baby Girl a term given to an asian girl who has dyed hair, enjoys going to raves, and loves boba. For an asian girl not to be considered an ABG is scene to be more of a compliment because in today’s society first impressions are very important. An Asian babygirl is seen to be one of the more ratchet or ghetto ones who do not stand for the typical asian culture norms to fufill the medical career but one who would rather spend their days and waste it away instead of doing something that would benefit them to the best of their abilities. To me i understand and have had my fair share of ABG’s to understand that their personalities and mine do not match up and it would be tough to understand that only people like them would be able to be friends. To me i see it as your typical mean girls setting where there’s only a certain amount of people who would be able to become welcome into their setting and if you do not look like them or have the body shape as they do you’re not welcome to even conversate with them. They would say things that would try to change up the expectations of ABG’s and change the way that they are viewed but no there is a staple of ABG’s to show the ways that they act is the only way that they should act which is not welcoming to anyone. Also with the culture that they would be raised if may have a depending factor on what would be able to be accomplished pertaining to their personalities but for those who are exposed to a culture that is not favored by asians of course a group setting would be be of favor.

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Blog #15 POP

POP

For being an incoming freshman taking AAS 218 i did not realize what i was getting myself into i was thinking that it was going to be your typical academic class learning about the Asian American Culture. But now going to though this semester not only learning from the teaching team from my fellow peers but also from myself has allowed me to learn in a way i had never learned before. Also with attending and taking part in POP has given me such an amazing experience. For the event to show the different aspects of Asian American culture like the fashion show showing support to resistance and that the model minority should not be held against to those of color to the dance team showing the incorporation of the Asian American culture in the world in the song “This is me”. How not only AAS 218 the class it self but the process of this class not being your typical academic class has allowed us to learn in a more creative way to teach us from experience also opening our minds to different points of view for not only my Korean culture but other cultures like Samoa, filipino, Japanese etc. This semester has taught me a lot about the culture of Asia and that there is so much more to the culture and traditions other than coming together for a family get together and just to eat food. It has taught me to take pride in my own ethnicity and that there is such an amazing and interesting background of my culture and how my family has come to be her in the United States. The culture not only my family but others of the Asian ethnicity has experienced some type of either hardship or struggle when it comes to either legal or family conflict. POP has made it extremely apparent to enjoy your culture and what your family, your name, YOU can accomplish and why you are here and who you can do as an Asian American.

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Blog #13 Yappie

The term yappie originated from the term yuppie

yuppie = young urban professional

yappie = young asian professional

The thought of yappie in context is what all asian parents would want their children to achieve in life. An Asian who peruses a medical or political career and who continues to live a comfortable lifestyle. In context the term yappie is seemed to be used more as an insult rather than a compliment in today’s society. Now there are people who want to persue something that is not of cultural norms and something that would go against what was always expected as we were growing up. Especially being bless with what you have definitely is made apparent if you are a yappie or not because of what you’re able to afford and if you’re able to continue the life style that you had created for yourself. I enjoy watching Wong Fu Productions because not only do the films that they crest inform me of the information of the model minority’s that is at hand but also the films that are created are well scripted and the context and emotional value it has an effect on most viewers. The topic of yappie to me personally has not been made too apparent because it is seen from those who are way older than I am because of the typical expectations that were held upon those in my generation.

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Blog 14: POP & Semester Recap

And here we go… The last blog of the semester, and my beloved class of 218. Lets begin with POP.

First and foremost I loved how much my group of skit came through from late schedules to last minute changes. We had some ups and downs, but it all came through at the end. I’m not much of an actor, but I was one for skit. It was nerve-racking, but worth it when we finished performing. The way we planned and practice for POP was stressful, not gonna lie, but was fun to work with one another to produce our own power of skit to show other what Asian Americans go through, which in our case was assimilation, to fully take in and understand what is going around you. Practicing everyday wasn’t possible with the schedules most of us had, but when we had the time to meet-up, we made sure we met up to plan everything, as flawlessly as we could for our skit. Everyone was nervous before going on-stage, in fact, I was jumping up and down in the back to get rid of my nerves. But the moment when we huddled as a group, calmed all of us down, knowing that we would rise to the occastcation to save one another in case we forgot our lines or messed up.

Throughout every performance of POP, I learned more about Asian Americans and our values we have for our culture. It’s different than what one may perceive it to be. Other moments of POP that stood out was how the teaching team gave speeches before our performances that moved all of us to do and be our best and at the end where all the groups did roll call loud and proud to show their final calls. Sure it was a long event, but every moment with my friends and class made every single minute worth it, with understanding every performance at POP, that POP, itself went too fast! :(

This is my first semester at state, I got to say, hands down, this is the best class I’ve taken. I never thought there would be a class like AAS 218 since every other class is sitting down and listening to the professor and doing your own work. I don’t think there is another class like this anywhere. I was able to make new friendships that will be close to me forever from day one (@Crazysmartasians) and all the new friendships throughout the semester! I would like to give a special thanks to Irene, Mav, Troy and Josh for the incredible support and ideas they have given me throughout the semester and course, and making class one blast of a fun and learning one from all my other ones. I’m pretty sure that beyond our class, we will soon see one another once again and that these long-lasting memories will be cherished forever! I hope to see y’all around campus again and make more memories! :) <3

- Kevin K. - CSA <3 (IG: kkevink7)

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Blog #12 Universities

For the Asian American culture to be seen to excel especially academically was to be seen to be giving ones family a sense of pride to stay they their child was able to accomplish something so great such as that like attending an Ivy League college. For those of the Asian American culture seem to think that the standards are set too high. Growing up many Asians are taught that if you do not attend an Ivy League you’re not a true Asian. Especially for the fact of those who did not attend an Ivy League the facts of obtaining your masters is being pushed upon what you’re supposed to accomplish. Coming from a family who has not had the experience to attend a university and to be the first one is seen to be such an amazing thing. So expectations for me was not set too high so I would to understand the experience others would have but for my sister the expectations on attending a UC or other Universities that are more competitive is set so high for her though what she would like to accomplish in life are different aspirations form what my parents want. Those growing up in society today are now seeing that there are opportunities for you to grow and aspire different goals to not stay within the cultural norms and that it is okay to break away. At this point in my life understanding the conflicts that my family has endured I think that we are forced to be excelled to show that some good actually can happen within a family. Not is is seen to support you child but to be more prideful, not to hurt your own ego, and to gain bragging right to what your family is able to do or to show what you’re capable of accomplishing. Because saying that your granddaughter is going to be attending University of California Berkley yet dropping out and not gaining your degree will do any better than your own daughter attending a community college at the rope of her class and gaining her masters degree is such a big difference. The facts of name colleges is the only thing that is important to those who enjoy bragging about what or where their family memebers attend and which bring so much of a mental burden to the children who do go through the application process of these universities.

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Blog 11 Gook

Gook

APATURE

This film takes place in the year 1992. The film focuses on the Asian model minority, the events of the Los Angeles Riots, is not about a SUBTLE event or time for one of any color. This film had drawn so much attention to the hatred and rough environment that was drawn to those of color. The African American and White race interaction with Asian Americans was shown to be not civil. This movie has shown sentimental scenes throughout the storyline showing that a family owned store within a DANGEROUS neighborhood with a culture that was not as diverse to show the racial slurs being thrown. Family drama was showed to be prevalent within the film with the main characters, Eli and Daniel, who are brothers and other family members, Kamilla and Keith. With conflict between family lies within the drama of parents one family had blamed one another for the actions that had resulted with the death of Eli and Daniels father because of a shooting which now points the finger of who to blame. The culture that was shown through out the movie especially taken during this time frame has showed that the culture differences and the resect we have for one another in todays society has definitely changed. The main focus of this film was the violence and racial disrespect that was for one another that has lead to the MISFORTUNES of other ethnicity or races. With this characters coming from such a low income neighborhood has showed the difference with the expectations of the model minority in todays society. Not only does it show the difference of where the Eli and Daniel grow up but also it shows what different personalities were able to grow for someone who has a different background. Growing up in a low income environment has them come to be more edgy and inherit traits

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Blog # 10 Iron Chef

Fa’ausi doughnuts the American twist with your old fashion doughnut!

Being given the opportunity to learn more about the samoan culture and the cuisine was a great experience. My group and I had taken a simple samoan dish of a bread and creating them into doughnut holes. The americanization of certain cultures traditions or cuisines has allowed us to accept the fact of other cultures and what they can show and allow us to expand our horizon of culture. The Staple fruit that is used in most samoan cuisine is coconut which is why we had tried to make it so prevalent within our dish when we had presented it to the class. Serving the fa’ausi with coconut milk had created such a sweet and rich aroma and I was glad I was able to share that with the class. Learning about the culture of Samoa and that there is not much to the cuisine of the culture other than creating food that is sweet or rich or something that doesn’t incorporate coconuts. I think creating an americanized version of this cultured dish has gone through what normally happens to something that allows the United Stated to be come more culturally diverse is that accepting ones culture and one would be created enough to change the dish but still have the culture of where the dish had originated from still be relevant.

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Blog #9 Am I Enough?

Asian Parents = High Expectations

Coming from a family who has the bar set really low the expectations for me to exceed in life wasn’t forced strongly upon me like others experience. The first in my family able to come to college and gaining my degree seeing my other asian American friends have their parents force them to do better things, harder courses, more extra curricular activities. I had put the expectations upon myself to do better. Being a first year and just completing my first semester of college I look backhand see what I was able to accomplish. I am very proud of myself but I m also disappointed to see that there were other things that I would have been able to accomplish along with being apart of a co-ed professional business fraternity, Korean student association and also Circle K. The things that come along with what I am able to accomplish I don’t really see it for myself as I’m setting expectations for myself but I am setting goals that I believe I’m able to accomplish. So to me i don’t think that it’s the expectations of my mother that is what is always becoming such a burden onto me but my own mind and understanding what I am capable of accomplishing. Always filling in my mom with what I am doing especially excelling within my professional co-ed business fraternity is she understands what I accomplish and sees that i can do much more which always changes her views on what I can do and pushes the expectations higher and more difficult to fufill. Which leads me to think every single day and ask myself if what I have to offer and what I complete actually means something and is something of worth to prove to my family that I am able to accomplish this thing so called life.

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Blog #8 Extra Curricular Activities

For those who have been apart of doing many extra curricular activies you may have noticed that your time is always filled with many activites. Not only for those who had grown up within an Asian American house hold you seemed to have always been taught to go above and beyond. Which the fact of extra curricular was extremely encouraged upon by Asian parents. Doing more such as Key Club, UNICEF, Model UN, those outside organizations that seemed to put the cherry on top for multiple other colleges to want to look at your resume again or ones that allowed it to seem more intriguing. It seems to be that the more well rounded you are that the more opportunities you are give to succeed. Which seems to be one main reason for especially Asian parents to push upon the fact to go above and beyond is because especially for those who had just come from the motherland of Asia that you had come to America to take advantage of your resources so why don’t you go above and beyond to utilize those resources. Being around my other Asian friends who’s parents were forcing them to do other activities had wanted me to do these activities like key club, join asian ball, and other outside organizations to give back to my local community. Being such a well rounded character was seen to be the only thing to result to and the only thing that seemed to be a social norm within my community. Society today seems to always set these boundaries and which makes it seem that it’s the only thing that can be resulted into fulfilling them is to do these activities. Breaking away from these culture norms is one of the things that is considered to be uncultured is someone we’re to not commit to these actions. Not only was it seen a lot of the times through social interactions but also through Asian parents wanting their children to be well rounded with multiple extra curricular activities.

[crazysmartasians-blog]

Blog #7 Asian Driving

Though the racial jokes of how asians are incapable of the ability to drive is always stated by any race is found to be humorous these should not be stated. The culture of driving is very different from that in Asian and here in America. Especially for those who have drivers license here in the United States we are taught many different things. Yes simple laws that help the driving culture be different in America such as drivers yielding to pedestrians and also that signs are very different. These differences of both laws and culture for the Asian society does not give them a right to be given as a racial stereotype but to be seen as more of an eye opening reasoning to the different cultures that people are exposed too. Especially with something to be shared in common by different social cultures such as driving. This should not be seen as something that would be deteriorating from ones ethnicity or culture but something that is congradulated upon to come from a diffferent country and bringing the culture to America rather than degrading ones experience. I do not like it when someone sees a bad driver and automatically assumes that they’re asian. Growing up in a white race populated community I was always seeing my friends get such high end cars and not even be grateful for what they have the only thing that’s there is the ability to crash the car and be given a brand new one while others are suffering to even be given an opportunity to have their license. Being able to have a drivers license has allowed me to see the different cultures that’s is brought within the United States and how others are so diverse.