1AC

Poem
So he said to me: "What kind of Asian are you?" And I said back
That's a loaded question.
What kind of Asian do you EXPECT me to be?
Because any way you slice that egg roll,
I'm still pretty much whatever you want to see.
I've played many a Far East stereotype:
awkward math genius,
cold and calculated Kung-Fu expert,
assistant to "Dr. Jones, you crazy!"
You want me to drive? How so?
I can give you
Tokyo Drift,
Jeremy Lin
Mario Kart,
Tiger Woods,
and Blinker left on for about half a mile
I am the foremost expert on
all things Asian.
The Mejii era and the ban of the Samurai?
Done.
Confuciusism versus Daoism? I'll give it to you with no slant!
What's the difference between Asian stereotype
1 and 2?
WELL LET ME TELL YOU.
Let me tell you anything YOU
want to know about my culture
Let me tell you in a Mulan-esque soliloquy
of me staring in the mirror asking
Who IS that girl staring that I see?
Let me tell you about Jackie Chan
and Bruce Lee and how they are related
BY BLOOD to me
Let me tell you about being so marginalized
it's to the point of "I really CAN'T believe
that's Asian!"
Let me tell you about derogatory terms
and origins of words such as chink gook and Jap
Let me tell you about the struggle
of Asian parents not knowing the language
so we ate pet food because it was cheaper
Let me tell you about the job of interpreter
when you're still playing with LEGO blocks but
you're English is already that much better
than your guardians
Let me tell you about honor and dignity
Let me tell you about a society that
projects us as nothing but the secondary role
and never the leading man.
Let me tell you all the things you don't want
to know.
Like how chink comes from
the clanking of metal to railroads
as the slaves built train tracks for
this country to be connected.
Like how the zipperhead down the street
is called that because of the way our heads
split open when struck with assault weapons
or how the Jeeps ran over and left marks
across corpses and someone clever thought
that we were only good to unzip.
Like how every time you lump an Asian person
into one culture is systematically making us
assimilate into an America we thought was
better than our war torn home and every time you confuse me
with some other nationality that I might share similar
features to is stripping away my individuality
And I still feel the shame of being Asian
the heat and pious dedication
of June 11th 1963
the envy of blonde hair
and blue eyes
And I still remember thinking where all the
boys that looked like me on TV were
the broken words
of my mother and father stage diving
off my tongue
the anger I felt when those
kids thought I'd get them sick
And I still feel the ash of the incense burn
my hands
when I prayed for my family
And I still remember thinking my skin
was what I was worth
And I still feel the ironwork of my bones
grow stronger with every train of thought
that
passes by
And I still feel pride
And I still feel heritage
And I still feel Japanese
And I still feel American
And I still feel
Original poem text: What kind of Asian are you? Alex Dang, some edits
made by KA

Anonymous white female on Yahoo Answers Asks: Why

are Asian guys so boring and sappy?
Source: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?
qid=20111010001534AAGp4oq
One of my good guy friends Colin is Asian. The only reason I'm
friends with him is cause he defies every single Asian stereotypes.
Most of the other Asian guys only hang out with Asians, go to all
Asian parties, and act really creepy around me and my friends.
Anyway Colin doesn't hang out with any Asian people. He works out
24/7 (GTL is always his status on facebook haha), got his ears pierced, has a
mohawk, and is very decked out with his true religion jeans, chains,
Ed Hardy/G-Star shirt, and go to the beach with us all the time . He's
dating this Russian girl. Anyway he told me Asian guys do really
lame stuff and try to act like they're "nice guys" when they actually
have really twisted minds. He said he hates Asian culture cause it's a
culture of repression, sexism, racism (mainly against black people, Indian,
and southeast Asian), and suppression of authenticity, individuality, and
creativity to maintain a sense of collectivity. He's also estranged
from his dad because of his style and behavior (he got into a lot of fights
and is very confrontational with teachers who hate on him I guess). I also notice
that Asian guys are rarely "leaders" in group projects, student
council, grad committee, or stuff like that. A lot of them chicken out
when they see a white girl or just act really asexual but at the same
time they hate on guys like Colin or Asian girls who hang out with us
just because they made it and I think they hate each other . Why?

To answer that Im going to have to go wayyyy back The

history of American and Asian Interaction reveals that
sappiness and boring-ness are rooted in American
diplomatic and economic engagement with China
Liu and Iwamoto 6 (William M. and Derek K, Ph.D. in Counseling
Psychology, University of Maryland, Assistant Professor, and Department of
Psychology Affiliate Faculty, Center for Addiction, Personality, and Emotion
Research (CAPER) Affiliate Faculty, Asian American Studies Program, June
2006, Asian American Mens Gender Role Conflict: The Role of Asian Values,
Self-Esteem, and Psychological Distress, Psychology of Men & Masculinity
2006, Vol. 7, No. 3, 153164,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232509982_Asian_Americ
an_men's_gender_role_conflict_The_role_of_Asian_values_self-
esteem_and_psychological_distress, KA)

To begin understanding the cultural and racial is- sues Asian

American men negotiate, it is important to grasp their history and
current situation. Asian Americans, in general, represent a broad
group of ethnic backgrounds that have been racialized into a
homogenous racial group in the United States (J. W. Chan, 1998; Omi &
Winant, 1994). From Orientals, to Yellow and Brown people, to Asian
Americans, to Asian Pacific Americans, and, finally, to Asian American and
Pacific Islanders (Federal Register, 1997; Uba, 1994), racial malleability
has been part of the struggle for self-definition. However, along with
racial and ethnic self-determinism, Asian American men have also
struggled to break stereotypes and redefine themselves as men in
the United States (J. W. Chan, 1998; Mok, 1998).

From the early 1800s as the United States ventured into Asia
seeking trade and territory, Asia and its inhabitants have been
gendered as feminine to facili- tate American and European
colonialism (Takaki, 1990). Asia and its people became quintessential
feminine beings to the Wests masculinity. / Asian men were
emasculated, feminized, and marginalized (J. W. Chan, 1998;
Leupp, 1995; Mok, 1998). Early Asian male settlers in the United States,
many of whom were seeking work, were con- sidered to be cheap,
nonmasculine labor that was exploited by American industry.
Working on the rail- roads, sugar cane plantations of Hawaii, ore
mining, factories, and on farms, many Chinese, Asian Indian, Japanese,
Filipinos, and Korean migrants found themselves subjected to racism,
lynching, job exclu- sion, denial of citizenship and land ownership,
anti- miscegenation laws (laws against racial intermixing), and
eventually, immigration exclusion (S. Chan, 1991; Takaki, 1990). These
hostilities did not end in the early 1900s, but continued as Vietnamese and
South Asians (e.g., Cambodians and Laotians) were also targeted as the
United States participated in vari- ous conflicts from the 1950s through the
1970s. To this day, Asian Americans are still singled out for racism
and experience marginalization
The Topic This year is Engagement with china but the
resolution asks the wrong question to the wrong people.
All policy relations with China in the status quo are
inscribed by colonialism, sexism, and racism. In debate, a
space dominated by white bodies, oppression becomes
one with the resolution. Every round that plays along
within the game of policy debate, replicates the same
international relations on an inter-personal scale. Instead
a higher interrogation of the resolution is a pre-requisite.
We are not emotionless calculators. I will not do your
math homework for you. I speak another language but
its German. I reclaim the resolution to break the culture
of silence which has enabled hierchial oppression.
Keith, Osajima 1979 (Professor, Race & Ethnic Studies Race & Ethnic
Studies at Redlands, Our Asian Inheritance, Internalized Oppression and the
Culture of Silence: Rethinking the Stereotype of the Quiet Asian-American
Student http://nypolisci.org/files/PDF%20FILES/Chapter%20IV_%209_
%20internalized%20oppression%20and%20the%20culture%20of%20silence
%20FEC2.pdf)
For those of us who are familiar with or have been involved in progressive
social and political movements, we have become familiar with the forms and
mechanisms of oppression in society. We recognize the sexism in media
images of women; we know that Gay oppression takes many forms; we are
aware that racial oppression accounts for the high dropout rates of black and
Hispanic students, the high unemployment rates in minority communities,
and recent violence against ethnic minorities. What is not well-known or
examined is the impact that these oppressions have on people in the
oppressed groups. How do the conditions of inequality and exploitation affect
the subjective development of oppressed people? Paulo Freire, the Brazilian
educator famous for his literacy work with peasants, says that one of the
most devastating effects of oppression is that it dehumanizes the
oppressed people; that under the objective conditions of oppression people
lose their ability to see themselves as individual human beings.
Frantz Fanon, a psychologist who wrote extensively on the effects of
colonialism on the colonized people of Algeria, elaborates on the
dehumanizing effect of oppression when he says: Because it is a systematic
negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other
person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it
dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: In reality, who am
I? And how do the oppressed people generally answer this question?
According to Albert Memmi, Tunisian author of The Colonizer and the
Colonized, the oppressed internalize an identity that mirrors or echoes
the images put forth by the dominant group. People come to accept
the myths and stereotypes about their group as part of who they
naturally are. This is the phenomenon of internalized oppression. Memmi
writes: Constantly confronted with this image of himself, set forth and
imposed in all institutions and in every human contact, how could the
colonized help reacting to his portrait? It cannot leave him indifferent and
remain a veneer which, like an insult, blows with the wind. He ends up
recognizing it as one would a detested nickname which has become a familiar
description. The accusation disturbs him and worries him even more because
he admires and fears his powerful accuser. Is he not partially right? they
mutter. Are we not a little guilty after all? Lazy because we have so many
idlers? Timid because we let ourselves be oppressed? Willfully created and
spread by the colonizer, this mythical and degrading portrait ends up by
being accepted and lived with to a certain extent by the colonized. The
impact of internalized oppression on the attitudes, feelings, and actions
of the oppressed is profound. First, it hinders ones ability to think and
reflect. People have difficulty objectifying and perceiving the structural
conditions that shape and reshape their lives. Second, oppressed people
come to believe that the source of their problems lies, not in the relations
within society, but in themselves, in their own inadequacies and inabilities . At
the same time that they feel themselves to be inferior, they see those in the
dominant group to be superior. Third, the feelings of inferiority, of uncertainty
about ones identity, lead oppressed people to believe that the solution to
their problem is to become like or be accepted by those in the dominant
group. As Freire says, At a certain point in their existential experience the
oppressed feel an irresistible attraction toward the oppressor and his way of
life. Sharing this way of life becomes an overpowering aspiration. In their
alienation, the oppressed want at any cost to resemble the
oppressor, to imitate him, to follow him. On the flip side of this
desire to be like the oppressor is a degree of selfhatred, a belief that
who they are is not good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough,
strong enough. The overall impact of internalized oppression is that
the oppressed become resigned to their situation and do not look
critically at it. They feel powerless to change it, and fearful of taking
the risks to make change. In this way, the status quo is not
questioned nor challenged. Freire writes: As long as the oppressed
remain unaware of the causes of their conditions, they fatalistically
accept their exploitation. Further, they are apt to react in a passive
and alienated manner when confronted with the necessity to
struggle for their freedom and self-affirmation. They live in what Freire
calls a culture of silence, where the oppressed believe and feel
that they do not have a voice in determining the conditions of their
world. The important outcome is that internalized oppression makes
it difficult for the oppressed to take action to transform their world .
It serves to perpetuate oppression, without necessarily resorting to
overt forms of violence and force. The oppressed become unwitting
participants in their own oppression. How can the general discussion on
internalized oppression be applied to the experiences of AsianAmerican
students? I think it is useful to view the behavior of AsianAmerican students
as manifestations of two ways that they have experienced and internalized
oppression as students and as members of a racial minority group. First, as
students in this society, Asian-Americans participate in an
educational system that is often structured in an oppressive
manner; a system that does not consistently encourage the
development of peoples natural intelligence, and joy for learning,
but instead forces students to comply to a form of instruction that is
severely limiting and disempowering. Again, Freire provides a useful
analytical framework. He argues that much of formal schooling follows the
banking system of instruction. In this mode, teachers are seen as the
legitimate holders of knowledge. It is their role and their power to
disseminate that knowledge, mainly through lectures, and deposit it into
the empty receptaclethe student. Students are primarily passive recipients.
Their role is to listen, and to replay the information in the form that
it was given. In this mode, students are rarely encouraged to think,
question, analyze, or synthesize. One of the ways that the structures of
this banking system are held in place is through clearly-defined images of
what it means to be a good student. A good student is quiet, obedient,
unquestioning, prompt, and attentive. They do well on tests
designed by the teacher. They can give the right answer. In return
for this behavior, good students are rewarded with good grades,
praise from teachers, honor rolls, and college entrance. A bad
student, who is loud, rebellious, defies and questions authority, skips class
or comes in late, and doesnt do the homework, is stigmatized and isolated
from the rest. For many of us, these messages are so strong that they
become a natural, internalized indicator of our self-worth. We come to
believe that our abilities and our intelligence are best measured by our
grades, or by the opinions and praise we receive from our teachers. This
creates a tremendous pull to adhere to the image of a good student. At the
same time those rewards become a means to control students, for in the
process we lose sight of the fact that we are smart enough to think and figure
many things out ourselves, and we also lose sight of our critical, reflective
abilities that allow us to question the ways that schooling may be oppressive.
I think for Asian students, the pull to be good students becomes
even stronger when we place that student oppression in the context
of the way Asians have responded to racial oppression in this
country. For many Asian-Americans, silence and education lies at the
heart of how we have dealt with racial oppression. As Colin Watanabe
and Ben Tong argued in the early 1970s, Asian-Americans often adopted
a passive, quiet, conforming behavior as a means to survive racial
hostilities. It was deemed safer not to rock the boat than to call
attention to oneself and risk oppression. Many of us learned these
lessons from our parents as we were growing up, internalized them, and
came to believe that we too might be in danger if we speak out, or call
attention to ourselves. Thus, even when the situation may not be threat
ening, the internalized oppression often makes us feel that we need
to be quiet in order to be safe. On another front, AsianAmericans have
long identified education as a strategy to deal with racial
discrimination. Education has been seen as a way to gain social and
economic mobility and to fend off racism. The result has been a
tremendous pressure on Asian students to do well in school, which
in many respects has been realized. This success, in turn, has been
institutionalized as another stereotype in the medias portrayal of
Asians as the model minority. It is here that student and racial
oppression merge and reinforce each other. On the one hand, Asian
students believe that education is the key to overcoming racial
oppression. Many of us are also told that being quiet, conforming,
and invisible is a good way to avoid being the target of racism. We
take these internalized messages to school where they meld neatly into the
way that students have been oppressed. Recall that being quiet and
conforming is encouraged and rewarded in schools, for it is a central facet of
the banking system of education. Thus, we have a situation where the
oppressive features of the educational system work to reinforce the
ways that Asians have dealt with racial oppression. Young
AsianAmericans often internalize these images and come to believe
that their identity and self-image hinge upon being the successful
quiet student. It is understandable, then, why they often carry these
feelings, perspectives, and actions into every classroom situation, and have
difficulty breaking with familiar patterns and feelings to answer questions in
our classes. CONCLUSION As teachers of Asian students, how can
understanding the nature of internalized oppression help us in practice? I
think the value of the perspective is that it locates an important impetus of
individual behavior in the oppressive structures and practices in society. It is
not the unchanging nature or static culture of AsianAmerican
students that accounts for their quiet behavior. Rather, it is the
internalizing of student and racial oppression that makes Asian
students feel that the best way to get through is to be quiet or
makes them believe that they can be nothing other than the quiet
student. The key implication here is that Asian students should not be
blamed nor chastised if they exhibit this behavior. It is not their fault that
societal structures and oppression conveyed messages that this is the way to
behave. As teachers, the notion of internalized oppression should help us to
see how the pressures of being an Asian-American student can often be
limiting and constraining. Our job is to create a learning environment that
contradicts those pressures and constraints; that encourages and makes it
safe for Asian students to take some risks and to critically examine their lives
in relation to societal oppressions.
The Resolution excludes the Asian body from the political
space by assuming it is passive and something to be
acted upon. The resolution and the debate practices
assumed by the resolution force Asians to exist silently in
the margins or assimilate into whiteness by either taking
the role of passive China or asking them to roleplay as
white supremacist US.

GOVT exclusion of the Asian is historically proven. the

conjuction of false valoraization, racial and gender
subjugation is a UQ form of oppression. It justifies the LA
Lynchings and the Killing of Vincent chang.
Tran & Chang 2013 (Minh C. & Mitchell J., Ph.D Director of Curriculum and
Academic Enrichment at UCLA, Professor of Education (and of Asian American
Studies) Ph.D., Education, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996 Ed.M.,
Education, Harvard University, 1990 B.A., Psychology, University of California,
Santa Barbara, 1987, July, To Be Mice or Men: Gender Identity and the
Development of Masculinity Through Participation in Asian American Interest
Fraternities From The Misrepresented Minority: New Insights on Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders and Their Implications for Higher Education
chapter 3,
https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/resrcs/chapters/1579224695_excerpt.
pdf)
According to the late historian Ronald Takaki (1989), the first significant
wave of Asian immigrants were brought to the U.S. as cheap labor to
fill the void after African Americans were freed from slavery. Since
their arrival, at various times in history, exclusionary immigration policies
and anti-miscegenation laws have prohibited Asian men from
gaining citizenship, marrying, or even bringing their wives to the
United States an injustice to which even Black slaves had not been
subjected (Cheng, 1999). According to Takaki (1989), a sense of
masculinity was stripped from these men because they could no
longer reproduce or form nuclear families. Scholars have also argued
that the media further emasculated Asian American men on a
broader normative scale through recurrent portrayals of them as
being cheap, misogynistic, effeminate, or asexual (Shek, 2006; Mok,
1998). Films as early as the 1920s began promoting the stereotype of
the Yellow Peril, which portrayed Asian men as devious and
sinister (Mok, 1998). Widely viewed images, such as the bucked toothed
Asian man from the movie Breakfast at Tiffanys, tend to characterize
Asian men as nerds, who are both physically and socially inferior to
their White counterparts. According to Cheng (1999), such portrayals of
Asian men through American cinema, fashion, and advertising are
essentially powerful and sophisticated forms of modern-day racism.
Over time, American film and television roles for Asian men have become
more varied, but Mok (1998) claims that, far too often, they are still
portrayed onedimensionally in paradoxical ways as being either
sexless or sexually deviant creatures. The negative stereotypes of Asian
American men yield harmful effects. In one study, for example, Cheng
(1996) found that, in spite of having higher qualifications than their college
classmates, Asian American men were the least likely to be chosen for
leadership positions across all racial and gender groups. Asian American men
also report a significantly higher awareness of racism than their female
counterparts, and some attribute this to a form of racism toward Asian
Americans that has historically targeted men (Kohatsu, 1992 in Shek, 2006).
While stereotypes of Asian women as exotic and hypersexual, for
example, are contemptible, Mok (1998) maintains that those images
have not increased social distance between Asian American women
and other groups nor obstructed their opportunities to rise to
prominent or desirable positions in the public eye. In contrast, some
studies have found that the pervasive negative stereotypes of Asian
American men contribute to a preference for White male partners even
among some Asian American women (Chua & Fujino, 1999; Mok, 1998).
These pervasive and negative stereotypes, in part, shape the context within
which members of Asian American fraternities develop a collective sense of
masculinity. Liu (2002) maintains that Asian American men may
reluctantly adopt aggressive behavior as a strategy to negotiate and
endure racism in order to gain patriarchal privilege, while Jones (2004)
claims that marginalized men seek out alternative means to prove their
manhood because they have been denied political and social means for
achieving masculinity. Indeed, drawing from the findings of his 1998
quantitative study, Chan concluded that Asian American men tend to
have an extremely conflicted sense of their masculinity because they
must simultaneously accept and reject the dominant White
masculine norm in search of alternative definitions of masculinity. To
guide our study, we draw from theories of gender social representation,
which illuminate how power and privilege can affect the ways that
Asian American men choose to negotiate and construct their own
sense of masculinity. In this framework, gender is believed to be
socially constructed through stereotypes or characteristics widely
agreed upon by society as typical of either men or women (Courtenay,
2000). Although men are often privileged in society, according to
Kumashiro (1999), the intersection between racial and gender
identities can supersede any one representation. These intersected
racial and gender stereotypes can lead to new and unique forms of
oppression, as in the case for Asian American men. At the same time,
Gerson and Peiss (1985) state that gender is a set of socially
constructed relationships and it can be produced and reproduced
through peoples actions (p. 327). Thus, gender is better
understood as a verb than as a noun (Courtenay, 2000, p. 1387)
because, unlike biological sex differences, gender is not intrinsic
within oneself, but instead demonstrated or achieved through social
interactions and relationships (Bohan, 1993), and can function to
create and uphold unequal power relations. The basic premise of social
representation theory implies that, despite emasculating racial
stereotypes, Asian American men can actively shape their own sense
of masculinity. Chua and Fujino (1999) claim that Asian American men
possess some agency in negotiating and reproducing dominant masculine
norms, which refers not only to the power men have over women, but also
the way some men have power over other men (p. 393). This agency,
however, may be somewhat limited. In his study, Kumashiro (1999) found
that feminine stereotypes of Asian American men often forced
them to reject their Asian racial identity in order to conform to
dominant male norms. Alternatively, Chua and Fujino (1999) suggest that
some Asian American men in college have been able to negotiate new and
expanded notions of non-dominant masculinity, which is not viewed in
opposition to femininity or racial identity. They also found that masculinity
was considered a more important component of male self-concept
for White men than for Asian American men, as White men had much
more negative perceptions of reverse gender roles such as doing
domestic work. Guided by this social representation framework, we
examined the unique challenges faced by heterosexual Asian
American male undergraduates as they develop their sense of
masculinity.

Asians in debate have been forced to assimilate into white

practices to be successful, but this year its acceptable for
us to speak up w/o being immediately being written off.
The resolution is a springboard for our advocacy.
I advocate for the end of silence of the Asian body I am
no longer being I am becoming. My advocacy is the best
way to disrupt the culture of silence around Asian
American identity specifically in the debate space.
This Topic, Debate, and 1AC is K because any instance of
silence being justified or assimilation into normality just
perpetuates it. The conversation the resolution creates is
ripe for the voice of the Asian body we respond with the
start of a counter- conversation.
Beeman 15 (Angie, Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Connecticut and
Assistant Professor of Sociology Baruch College, February 2015, Teaching to
Convince, Teaching to Empower: Reflections on Student Resistance and Self-
Defeat at Predominantly White vs. Racially Diverse Campuses
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angie_Beeman/publication/273120621_T
eaching_to_Convince_Teaching_to_Em
power_Reflections_on_Student_Resistance_and_Self-
Defeat_at_Predominantly_White_vs._Racially_Diverse_Campuses/links/54f72f0
c0cf28d6dec9e1865.pdf)
What is astonishing about this resistance and disrespect is that it comes from
European Americans even when they are the numerical minority in the
classroom. What is even more troubling is that when I see this happen, all of
the students of Color turn and listen to whatever the European American
male objector is saying and few challenge him. They show him more respect
than they show other students of Color. This is incredibly revealing about the
way racism and power dynamics work in the classroom. Resistance, then,
functions to maintain White privilege in at least two ways. The first
has to do with the situation I just described. The resistance often comes
from a European American man, who dominates the conversation
while students of Color defer to his feigned expertise on the subject. His voice
is the dominant one and has the power to shut down conversations on
racism and marginalize alternative perspectives, usually held by people
of Color. Second, faculty constantly faced with this resistance may
come to feel disempowered and choose not to openly address racism in
their courses. When they do, they are faced with all of the challenges I have
already laid out, which European American faculty do not face to the same
degree and frequency. In the example of my problem student, while I was
supposedly of higher status as the professor in the class, he constantly
questioned my authority and that reproduced his privileged position as
White and male. I have not yet disrupted this privilege in the classroom by
calling attention to the oppression in the room. Rodriguez-Silva (2012) argues
that people of Color avoid calling out racist situations as a means of
emotional survival. Likewise, I fear that to do so would make me even more
vulnerable in the classroom, especially with belligerent problem students,
such as the one described above. I have, however, made mention of how
European Americans and men tend to dominate discussions, even when the
room is mostly full of women and people of Color. I have yet to point this out
explicitly during the moments it happens in my classroom. I used to try to
manage resistant students by listening respectfully to them and trying to
reason with them. This only resulted in circular conversations between the
two of us and excluded students who genuinely wanted to learn about
racism. To encourage students of Color, I had to show them that they could
disagree with these resistant European American students. Therefore, I now
directly disagree with false comments made by resistant students
and point to weaknesses in their arguments. When my students see me
doing this, they feel more confident in challenging their European
American classmates. It is as if I have granted them permission to
disrupt the power arrangement. Another kind of resistance I have
noticed, especially at City Community College, involves a denial of racism
directed towards Asian Americans. When I saw this happening in my
Ethnic Groups class, I shared with students a scenario from their textbook. In
it a professor of Ethnic Studies discussed how upset her students became
when they learned that Asian Americans were angry about the racism they
faced. She pointed out that they did not have a problem reading about
African American or Latino/a anger all semester. To this, a student stated that
they expected African Americans and Latino/as to be angry. However, of
Asian Americans, she said, Their anger made me angry, because I didnt
even know the Asian Americans felt oppressed. I didnt expect their anger
(Feagin & Booher Feagin, 2011, p. 301). I have not yet seen the same level of
objection to learning about racism and Asian Americans at State College.
However, I overhear students commenting on how there are too many Asians,
and some students have told me that their friends tried to discourage them
from coming to State College for this reason. State College is often compared
to Berkeley due to its Asian American population as well as students
expressing an uncertainty of attending State College because they hear its
full of Asians. For the record, 38 percent of students at State College are
classified as Asian or Pacific Islander and 36 percent are European American.
They are no more taking over the college than are White students. There
are several tools I use to handle resistance to learning about racism
faced by Asians in the United States. I tell the story of Yuri
Kochiyama and her friendship with Malcolm X. Students read about
Yuris experiences in internment camps and how that radicalized her,
leading her to become active with the Black Power movement
(Fujino, 2005). I also share poetry slams from Yellow Rage and a
reading by Sandra Oh about Yuri Kochiyama that brings some of my
Asian American students to tears. There is a history of silence about
racism in the Asian American community, which stems in part from
the internment experience. When we do not address the racism
Asian Americans experience today in the United States, we continue
to perpetuate that silence. Internalizing the model minority image
may be a survival strategy for Asian Americans, but we must
remember that that image is in fact a myth. Rather than just
teaching students the definition of the model minority myth, I give
them a history of why it developed and how it continues to divide
Asian Americans from other people of Color.

This is Bad for Asian Americans because it further

actualizes stereotypes - like Asians are so hardworking
and quiet when Internalized becomes - Imma win my
debates like a white debater and not complain, because
all the other races complain and thats what makes them
bad
But Im done being silent

This empowerment is KEY to political participation.

Fulgado 3 (Carmencita-Mia Q. , graduated from Thomas M. Cooley Law
School in Lansing, Michigan. M.A. and B.A. in English @ St. Johns University,
March 2003 Asian Americans and American Politics: From Discrimination to
Participation, http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~ganterg/sjureview/vol1-1/asian.html,
brackets in original text)
It was and remains a viable means to [politically] empower Asians in
America by redefining them as Asian Americans and organizing them
into an inter-Asian coalition to raise their socio-historical status and
to improve their lives (Wei 271). And at the heart of the Movement was the
city of New York with its Asian American college students and activists
protesting for political empowerment. What is political empowerment? It
is the ability to invest ones strength to gaining power. It is the
capacity in which one exercises his or her fundamental
constitutional rights. Political empowerment for Asian Americans can
only be fostered through awareness and involvement. Whether it
was by political demonstrations, rallies, or finally landmark Supreme
Court cases, Asian Americans empowered themselves by voicing
their concerns. Even after the Movement, Asian Americans are a
dramatically growing population in New York and with numbers
comes power, yet only if those numbers are organized.

Not only is us speaking solvency our historical analysis

is K looking at the past and being intellectuals about our
epistemology gives us offense An Asian just taking
about themselves is not the same as what we do. The AFF
is strategic and reveals the dark side of American history
that nobody wants to talk about. Disrupting academic
silence, social silence and epistemological silence is our
solvency.

THIS WORKS and has real world impacts study prove.

What you hear next will blow your mind!
Keith Osajima 2007 [Professor, Race & Ethnic Studies Race & Ethnic Studies
at Redlands, Our Asian Inheritance. February, Replenishing the Ranks:
Raising Critical Consciousness Among Asian Americans,
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/213033]
Given the profound change that conscientization had effected in the
lives of respondents, it is not surprising that many of them wanted to be in
posi- tions where they could help to create for others the educational
experiences that were so meaningful to them. They took leadership
positions in student organizations; they helped to organize and put
on educational programs; they worked in community organizations;
they pursued graduate stud- ies; and they took positions in student
affairs to work closely with new cohorts of Asian American students.
Pamela Kim, who wanted to become a professor of Asian American Studies,
best expresses their desire: One of the reasons why I want to be a professor
of Asian American Studies is because I want to help these kids who are going
through the same things that I did. I want to help them figure things out, to
help educate them about these issues because I had no idea about them
while I was growing up. I could see what these kids are all going through in
college, and it helps to be where you can pop those bubbles that they have
around themselves.37
As they go about the task of trying to replenish the ranks by raising
critical consciousness amongst new groups of Asians , a number of
les- sons learned from their collective experiences may provide
helpful guides. From the interviews, we can identify critical elements
that contribute to conscientization. While these elements do not
guarantee that conscien- tization will follow, incorporating them into ones
practice may enhance the possibility that efforts will be successful. First,
respondents described the importance of obtaining information and
conceptual tools that helped them to cognitively understand how
their lives and the lives of others are shaped by larger historical and
social- structural forces. An Asian American Studies course on a college
campus was the most common source of relevant information, but as we
have seen exposure can take place in many venues. People can learn from
reading on their own, from student groups, and from multimedia sources.
Second, breaking through isolation and interrupting the tendency to
explain their life experiences solely in individual terms reflects a
social dimension to conscientization. Contact and conversation with
other Asian Americans was often the most effective way to help respondents
make con- nections between their lives, the experiences of others, and
information on the Asian American experience. Connections to key mentors
and peers provided a safe environment in which to think and question further.
Third, respondents described important affective aspects of consci-
entization. When respondents talked about important moments in
their education or key social support that made a difference,
invariably they referred to how they felt about these experiences.
They were angered by the realization that their schooling had not
taught them about racism or the Asian American experience. They
felt inspired by the experiences of other Asian Americans who
struggled to overcome harsh conditions. They were excited to learn
more.
Fourth, respondents commitment to Asian American issues was
deepened when they transformed understanding into action.
Involve- ment in protests, organizing, programming, teaching, and
research gave respondents a chance to extend their knowledge and
learn from efforts to make change. Finally, the study indicates that
conscientization occurs when the discrete elements work in combination. No
respondent described his or her conscientization in terms of a single element.
It was not a purely intel- lectual or cognitive experience in a classroom,
absent of social or affective elements. Nor was it a purely social or affective
experience without infor- mation and conceptual tools. Instead, respondents
described multifaceted and interrelated experiences that reinforced each
other, inspiring further thinking and commitment to action.
For activists seeking to raise the critical consciousness of Asian Americans,
the studys findings carry implications for practice. For some,
combining elements in a single venue, like an introductory course or a
training program, will be the main focus. In these cases, the study
suggests that the course or program should offer substantive
content and concepts to lay the cognitive foundation needed for
people to see themselves in relation to the world . It also should
include social activities to break iso- lation and opportunities for
people to share stories with each other in a non-judgmental, safe
environment. On a broader level, the study suggests that there is a value
in and need to offer a range of experiences across campus and
community to increase the likelihood that students will combine, on
their own, elements that contribute to conscientization. Pressure to
have one person, course, or program that single-handedly transforms
students lives subsides when we recognize that the interrelated process
of conscientization benefits from contributions across diverse
segments of the community.
The importance of combining influences also casts new light on how
different parts of the campus and community can work
collaboratively to raise critical consciousness. Breaking from binary
constructions that often pit academic programs against student life
activities, or divide academe from community, the study shows how
conscientization arises when people are exposed to and combine
lessons learned from a variety of sources. This process implies that
increased appreciation for the work done across campus and
community, along with greater coordination of influences, is an
important dimension of conscientization.
Le Poem Ya
ame ni mo makezu
kaze ni mo makezu
yuki ni mo natsu no atsusa ni mo makenu
jbu na karada wo mochi
yoku wa naku
kesshite ikarazu
itsu mo shizuka ni waratte iru
ichi nichi ni genmai yon g to
miso to sukoshi no yasai wo tabe
arayuru koto wo
jibun wo kanj ni irezu ni
yoku mikiki shi wakari
soshite wasurezu
nohara no matsu no hayashi no kage no
chiisa na kayabuki no koya ni ite
higashi ni byki no kodomo areba
itte kanby shite yari
nishi ni tsukareta haha areba
itte sono ine no taba wo oi
minami ni shinis na hito areba
itte kowagaranakute mo ii to ii
kita ni kenka ya sosh ga areba
tsumaranai kara yamero to ii
hideri no toki wa namida wo nagashi
samusa no natsu wa oro-oro aruki
minna ni deku-no-b to yobare
homerare mo sezu
ku ni mo sarezu
s iu mono ni
watashi wa naritai