February 11, 1999
Last week, two speakers came from University Health Services to talk about programs offered at the Tang Center and also about Asian American issues. Richard Low and Edna Esnil are both career counselors at the Tang Center and they both can relate to Asian American Issues because they are both Asian American themselves. They started the discussion by talking about what makes up you as a person. Some of the topics brought up from the students were personality, sexuality, culture, economic status, religion, and gender. But the most important topic that we discussed was about race/ethnicity.
I think that the first thing that a person notices about another person is their skin color. Even before you say a word, you are meticulously analyzed and you are given a stereotypical label before anything else. For Asians, we are considered as passive people who are smart. In a way, I feel great to be labeled as a smart person even though I didn’t do anything. However, the other side to that is that in America, they also treat Asian Americans as a foreigner. In my personal experience I might feel like a person in the “in” crowd since I am in a setting with a lot of Asian American, but when I do go to the corporate world, I did notice the lack of Asian Americans. I don’t know how well I would fit in that kind of environment.
Also, we talked about how when we go back to our native countries, they feel like we are more native than the native people are. I feel that it is quite the opposite. I feel like I’m not Japanese enough when I went to Japan. That is why I was in a dilemma because I didn’t fit into either country. But I have learned to accept that and use my disadvantage as an advantage. Now, I am glad that I am both because I can exploit the advantages of both cultures.