Invisible Americans

http://www.aalead.org/content/Report%20-%20Invisible%20Americans.pdf

If you have a little time, I invite you to take a look at this report.

This article discusses the problems and discrimination that millions of Asian Americans have to face that are masked by labels such as the "model minority" and skewed statistics. These misconceptions do no service to those Asians living in poverty and facing racial discrimination because they make their problems invisible. For those who are educated and well off economically, these misconceptions draw attention away from that fact that Asian Americans still face discrimination in the work field today in the form of glass ceilings, are paid less than their Caucasian counterpart who may be less educated than themselves, and may be held to a higher standard in the college admission process of selective schools.

Viewing the conditions of Asian Americans in a pan-racialized way will bury the fact that while Japanese Americans have an 88% graduation rate, other sub groups such as the Hmongs only have a 31% graduation rate. Per capita income for Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian Americans is about half that of whites and Asians are increasingly becoming targets for hate crimes.

Another problem that arise from these Asian stereotypes and labels is the pressure that are put on Asian American students to do well in school. These stereotypes that Asians are naturally intelligent and hard-working make it so that teachers tend to overlook the struggles that Asian American students have in school. Asian parents often latch on these stereotypes and feel that if their child doesn't do well in school, it is considered an embarrassment and a failure on their part as parents. I know of Asian American students who commit suicide because they couldn't fulfill the expectation put on them. There's even a bizarre story about a girl who sneaked into Stanford and posed as a student for a semester because she couldn't tell her parents that she was rejected by the school.

At the end of the day, Asian Americans' problems concerning poverty, discrimination, and unrealistic expectation are very complex because, while relatively few people pretend that African or Latino Americans are well off in America, many people tend to overlook the problems found in the Asian American community because of the labels, myths, and stereotypes.