45 Comments
Mikayla Kricfalusi
2/10/2015 12:13:26 pm
Reading this reminded me of "East of Eden." In this book, one of the main characters is a Chinese man named Lee. He is a brilliant, philosophical man intrigued my literature, yet he is the servant of a white man. This in itself is not the issue, but Lee speaks in broken English despite the fact that he can speak perfectly fine. He acts mentally challenged because that is how he keeps his job and stays safe in California at the beginning of the 20th century. This reading explained the social and political occurrences that forced Lee to hide his true goals and abilities.
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Chloe Rice
2/10/2015 12:23:00 pm
How did you feel about the fact that the movie today called them concentration camps?
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Lucas LeVieux
2/10/2015 02:47:11 pm
Remember what the words concentration camp means. It simply means that a race is concentrated inside a single area for the supposed safety of all those outside the camp. The case of the Japanese was certainly one of a concentration camp, although it is painful to use that word. The terrible conditions of the Nazi death camps were, as far as I know, pretty much incomparably worse than the Japanese internment. These are both examples of racial concentration, but the term might be a little sensitive because of the terrible things committed by the Nazis
Emily Hayashida
2/10/2015 12:27:43 pm
I like your point about Lee from "East of Eden". I immediatly thought of him too!
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Chloe Rice
2/10/2015 12:22:18 pm
People are often blind to a suffering they are not personally experiencing. I was speaking to my brother today and I realized he had never made a decision taking his race and gender into account. (For example, I don't go running at San Marcos High School track while football is practicing because they harass me.) Or the fact that every business book you see that is written by a woman is called, "'Girls Boss' or 'How To Be a Strong Female Leader'," while business books written by men are just called "Business," books. Connors had never realized any of things things until I brought them up, because he had never had to deal with them personally. When I explained how much it bugged me however he was quite caring. I believe all people are caring when they have context for who to care about and a personal connection with that person. (or even just a personal context with the problem.) No one is innately mean or terrible, just lacking context for the issue at hand. This is similar to how you always say no one is dumb just lacking exposure.
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Jenna Welsh
2/10/2015 03:11:07 pm
I agree! I feel like one of the privileges that whites/men have is that they can be perfectly ignorant to the suffering of others but not deemed "ignorant".
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Emily Hayashida
2/10/2015 12:26:25 pm
While we are taught about Asian-american history in school, I ound it surprising that I had never heard of the Vincent Chin case before. That out of the many struggles stated was one that I have never heard about yet it affected me the most. We hear cases still nowdays where people accuse immigrants of taking jobs, yet they are the jobs that it seems no one else wants to take. Jobs that require little to no education. Personally it amazes me to see how after things like the excusion acts and the internment camps my family has blossomed and become successful. Another important component of the article/pamphlet was when it explained the "model minority" and it struck me becasue I feel that I live through that daily.
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Sarah Lockhart
2/10/2015 01:02:50 pm
I think part of the reason that it is called an "unnoticed struggle" because there wasn't a prominent leader like MLK or Cesar Chavez for Asian Americans like the reading suggested, so people don't have a face to put to the issue, if that makes sense. For example, there are many monuments, national holidays, and places named after Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez so their struggle is more prominent in our society. I also think that another part of the reason is that the struggles of Asian Americans throughout American history isn't covered much in most schools so many people are simply unaware that we had concentration camps in America within the last seventy years or so. This reading reminded me of the short documentary about Angel Island from earlier this year because it was a life-changing for some people, but it was mostly forgotten about until it was brought back into people's minds.
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Jenna Welsh
2/10/2015 03:13:15 pm
I thought the same thing! I feel like there WAS at least one really transformative Asian-American leader; we just don't talk about him/her, and I can't figure out why.
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Jackson Sjogren
2/10/2015 01:22:15 pm
I think the main reason it was so unnoticed was because of Americas skill of deception. They were able to make men and women hate Japanese people and were able to make it look like all men of women of Japanese decent were pleased to help their country in any way. It was also very difficult for japanese men and women to protest in any way because anyone of asian decent were some what of a new population in America, making it difficult for asian to have any powerful leaders.
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Morgan King
2/10/2015 01:22:51 pm
I found this reading to be very interesting. I had never known the full extent of the hatred and racial discrimination that these people had to go through, even the ones who were born and lived in America all their lives. I think that one reason as to why this isn't widely known, is because there wasn't a leader, that was favored by the media. I was shocked to read about the Vincent Chin murder, and that the mother had every right to move to China. Justice was being served to the wrong people. One of my big questions, is where did the idea of a "model minority" come from?
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Kaeli Leoni
2/10/2015 01:27:33 pm
I think the struggle is often unnoticed because to many the issue is unknown. Honestly before watching the documentary and reading this article I had hardly any knowledge of Asian American hardship. I knew that it occurred, but before this year I never was really taught about it. Whenever I think of discrimination, I don't think of Asian Americans necessarily. The main reason behind this is that I think other struggles were a lot more publicized than the ones of Asian Americans. If it had received more media attention then I think that the American population would become a lot more aware of the issue quicker.
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christian Klosterman
2/10/2015 01:45:49 pm
It goes unnoticed because schools don't normally teach about it and isn't as well known as the Spanish and African American problems. It wasn't publicized like the other two were, and the media didn't get the same attention. I'm not totally sure why either, because there is still anti Asian violence going on. For some reason people would rather report about other races and act like Asians no longer face racial discrimination.
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Shea Saulino
2/10/2015 02:01:01 pm
I believe it does go unnoticed (the struggle). The Asian American struggle went unnoticed to me before this lesson, and with it shone a light on another corner of this world's vast social injustice. I believe we should care! Racism is racism and it knows no bounds, nor lacks incompetence, so why should we ignore it? The answer is we shouldn't. The quote that spoke volumes to me was as follows:
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Eli Murguia
2/10/2015 02:19:33 pm
I think that one of the reasons that might contribute to the fact that their struggle went unnoticed was because of how they entered into America. I might be wrong, and this is all mainly opinion so I would understand if people would argue against me, but take a look at African Americans. They were taken out of their own country and forced into manual labor and slavery in America. They were subjected to racism and hatred for centuries, and once they got a firm grip of freedom and independence they held onto it. But one of the root causes for these problems was because they were forced into America and treated inhumanely once they got there. Mexicans were forced out of their homes -places like California that were taken from them- and people believe it a crime to enter back into where their heritage came from without permission. However, they still continue to struggle to achieve that sense of home and of independence of white influence today. But as I read more and more about how Asian Americans came to be and how/why they came to America, I began to notice that it was a lot more subtle than with other minority groups despite the hardships that they endured.
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nicole Matteson
2/10/2015 02:20:51 pm
i think part of why this topics goes unnoticed is because when racism in America is brought up, many think of African American discrimination. Many don't believe the the Asian movements were as serious as the African American movements were because slavery was directed towards the blacks and in the south there was undeniable racism still thriving for many decades after. Also, there were well known leaders of the black movements which made a name for themselves in all the history books because of their speeches and the media coverage of their actions.
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Lucas LeVieux
2/10/2015 03:02:50 pm
I'm not exactly sure he was really promoting Asian-American interests. From the movie, it seemed to me that he wanted more to get more rights for the blacks that were all around him in Oakland. He seems to have wanted to help his friends more than help himself. This is very interesting in relation to the second question, because he was able to care so much for people who didn't share his same ethnic background. Or maybe not...
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Michelle Clark
2/14/2015 09:45:37 am
You post was supposed to be in response the reading "An Unnoticed Struggle", though this was also great commentary. :)
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Benjamin Rose
2/10/2015 03:03:25 pm
I find the injustices that were committed towards Asians to be almost surprising, but then I remember all of the other things that our government is done, and I'm not surprised at all. The USA loves to do things that are "in our favor", even if they do go against the Constitution. I think that the Asian-American struggle often goes ignored because it's not a polemic issue anymore today - many Asian-Americans have assimilated quite well and people don't bat an eye at their past. This is in contrast to the still widely-publicized racial issues regarding blacks and latinos. It's important to care about the struggles of others not only because we're all human, but because other's struggles often have a way of affecting us too, be it consciously or subconsciously.
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Jenna Welsh
2/10/2015 03:08:25 pm
I feel that the Asian-American struggle is unfairly belittled or ignored mainly because the groups fighting for awareness and change did not hold massive protests or have outspoken leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. When I think of ‘civil rights,’ my mind instantly goes to the marches in Selma or Cesar Chavez’s hunger strike because they were so haunting to me when I learned about them. As the pamphlet stated, civils rights for Asian-Americans were acquired through sporadic, community based organizations rather than a few large groups and memorable protests. As a result, I do not immediately connect Asian-Americans with discrimination.
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Abby Elliott
2/10/2015 03:40:19 pm
I believe that the Asian American struggle goes unnoticed because they are proud people that do not want to bring shame or negative attention to their families. They are also people that have a very strong work ethic-to the point that many of them suffer greatly under the cultural pressure. We, as humans, should care about the struggles of others because of the following strong reasons: I always want people to be kind to me and I never know when I might truly “need” the kindness of others. So…the flip of this is that I need to be kind to people and help people who are truly in “need.” None of know when the shoe might be on the other foot.
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Rena
2/11/2015 08:31:53 am
Wow. I was surprised to discover information about this, even some of this is pretty recent, the 1960's was 55 years ago (unless I'm mistaken and I wouldn't be surprised if I am) but to think majority of our grandparents or Maybe even parents lived through that is really interesting to think about. The Asian struggle often goes unnoticed and I'm not really sure, maybe the main reason it happens is because of institutionalized racism is still common today and the government doesn't really like to admit to their faults. I think it is important to care about the struggles of others because of the tables turn and all of a sudden people start to be racist to you, what would you want them to do? You'd want them to care wouldn't you?
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Emily Dingman
2/11/2015 09:25:26 am
The fallowing rant is more about stereo-types but as I was reading it was the only thing I could think about. The stereo-type that Asian's are smarter then another race makes more sense for me. I do not agree with it because every person of any race or ethnicity is not going to be the same as every other person that has the same race as them. How ever, the school system in the Asian counties (mostly China) is unbelievably strict, and I think that those immigration of people coming from those countries where already use to the work load. Coming to America and enrolling in the system, they needed to be better then that white boy, they needed to have all A's. I think they needed these because of the situation they where in. Their fathers and mothers were one of the lowest class at this time, they looked and spoke completely different to a white community. They understood they were lower then others in that time period (due to racists men) and because they where aware they knew what they needed to do. Get good grades, work your ass off until 1 in the morning, be respectful be quite, get through life and get paid. I think they knew how to work long hours, and face paces and the white race in America didn't really know that. We had it easy, we where not pushed to get all As because we knew we would get a job no matter what (Unless you were a women in some ways) They knew they had to work harder then the white man to get were they wanted to be in life. This is were I think that stereo-type was made, this is my own personal opinion and if you think I am wrong by all means tel me I would love to hear what others had to say. But this is all I could think about during the read
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Kayla Feather
2/11/2015 11:01:25 am
Wow it is amazing what can go unchecked or unnoticed. I thing this went unnoticed because there were all these larger minority groups: African American and Hispanic American. Who may have better way of voicing what was happening to them, but they were also the third, fourth, or so on generation that was in the US. Whereas Asian Americans were the first, second, or sometimes third generation. Also it seemed as though-from the video and article-they didn't have anyone being out spoken or defending them as well as other minority groups were for themselves.
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Alexis Habib
2/11/2015 11:26:03 am
One of the reasons that I believe the Asian American struggle went/goes unnoticed is that this country does not like to look back on it's faults and wrongdoings. In fact not many countries do, for the need to look powerful, even to it's own people, is all consuming if they ever want to struggle stay afloat among all the other countries and their facades. It is best for a country's citizens to be 'drunk' in a way on all the glory and righteousness that it exudes so that they do not feel the need to look for faults and push for change, referring to the first of Newton's laws ' an object in motion tends to stay in motion '. However, without change the policies and laws and customs of the country start to become more of a binding, becoming tighter over time until it reduces it's captive into a state of degradation.
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Chandler Gaines
2/11/2015 11:53:57 am
The reading really made me question today. I think that the whole deceiving of america is what happened to where we were tricked into hating the japanese by society. I wonder what were being deiceived as of now. This reading was full of nice knowledge and it had my mind racing with questinos the whole time.
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Hunter Birk
2/11/2015 12:56:28 pm
After reading the text I think its incredible that a social injustice like this could go unnoticed. You hear a lot about the struggle in the south and how it really affected them there but its not very often you read something as relevant and close to this. I think that the media played a huge role in the coverage a situation got, for instance a picture of a little African American girl might cause more outrage and a better story than a gown Latino man getting denied certain rights. However, it could also have to do with the size of the minority groups. African American living in the south made up a large percent of the population where as other minority groups like Latinos or Asians ma have not made up that much of the population.
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Piper Tompkins
2/11/2015 12:58:35 pm
After reading “An Unnoticed Struggle” many thoughts flew through my mind. It never occurred to me how little I knew about the Asian American struggle that started in the 1800s and still remains today. Coming to this conclusion just solidified the main idea that Asian Americans really did face this object of “Unnoticed struggle”. Up until now I knew nothing about Asian American hardships, just now in 11th grade am I finally learning about the suppression of a whole race. I remember learning about Martin Luther King jr. in 3rd grade, then in 4th grade I was taught about the holocaust, and the slaughter of Native Americans. Not once has an educator even brought up as a reference the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or the Japanese internment camps. I find a leading factor in the cause of the unnoticed struggle is the lack of education and resources surrounding this subject.
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Ian
2/11/2015 01:06:11 pm
Learning from the article was crazy, About how america made a law that split families apart from each other for many many years. I have a personal connection to having my family spit. When I was moving across the the country. My dad and sisters moved first, While me and my mom stayed in North Carolina for a whole year. It sucked but its nothing compared to what happened to the “chinks”. When I was reading this article I shocked and really surprised that japs were hanged on light poles and dragged by cars during the massacre in chinatown.
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Grant
2/11/2015 01:16:31 pm
One of the main reasons why I think the Asian Americans struggle was unnoticed compared to the struggle and hardships that the African Americans went through was a lack of a powerful leader. If you look through history and what we learn in school you will notice that every struggle that is taught seems to always of had some kind of resistance group or leader. The reading suggested and I also have to agree that this was definitely one of the main reasons. It also amazes me that the general population in the United States doesn't really know about the Asian Americans struggle and hardships. It seems like there is only one way for things like this to be prevented and stopped. This would be educating the general public about horrific events like this and just speaking/taking action against any injustice.
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When I think of 'Unnoticed struggles" it makes me think about a lot of the troubles in the world that are not being addressed often. There are some that have a big major issues such as starvation in many countries we know about this, but people don'y really want to take so much action about. Although a lot of people are doing something for the cause I feel that some people kind of brush it off because it's an everyday thing that people hear about. I can say that goes same for the Asians as well, but it's more unnoticed in today's society. If I were to rank the highest talk of racial discrimination Asians would be one of the last races to be talked about. As I was reading the text most of the same laws or discrimination laws were the same as they did to Mexican and Africans Americans. The laws that were said was that of "immigration, not owning land, and segregation. I feel that people should care about those who go unnoticed, and not just a one time lesson but it should really emphasize those that are not told that often such as the Asians. If people don't care than nothing will be done and those people who have less of a stand will be powerless without the support of others.
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Eddie Herrera
2/11/2015 01:53:24 pm
The reason that Asian discrimination is not heard of and often left untouched is due to the lack of information. Like other students stated, school don't talk about discrimination that Asians face in the United States. This can go back to the book that we read about the Indian book (forgot the name), I didn't know about the hardship and discrimination that Indians faced. We are often taught the beginning and the end of a historical even for example how Indians were driven out of their land. But we never learn about the aftershock of that, we are left to believe that they are doing good in a sense but that's far from the truth. People may also argue that Asian are the majority or have privileges that put them at a higher level in our society but in many cases that isn't true and we saw that in the documentary. Aoki grew in a black neighborhood and that gave him exposure to reality of things and that everything isn't dandy as other say. Due to that exposure it made him want to make change that benefit his people as well as the black, and exposure is something that we all need so that we can realize that we are not all the same and there are forces which makes it harder for us to accomplish our dreams. This also made me realize that we will truly understand one another if we share the same pain and hope.
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Kane McGrath
2/11/2015 02:08:21 pm
I found this article very interesting and intriguing. America is a country fundamentally based off of immigrants. all of the white population of America were immigrants themselves. And when the Irish and the Germans and Japanese, and other immigrants throughout history were immigrating to America they're constantly rejected, and discriminated. It seems funny is that most of our nation is comprised of immigrants but yet we never found the point to draw the line where we stop accepting immigrants. And despite concentration camps in Germany being such a huge topic learn throughout history Japanese internment camps are not mentioned as an important topic in history. Despite the value it can give to learn from the past so we do not make the same mistake in the future. Which it appears this common trend of discrimination and hatred towards a specific group is beginning again(aimed at religion). Doing some of my own research I found something interesting that has related to some of the things we learned in the past. Like the Salem witch trials and the red scare, there were many documentations of white farmers reporting Japanese farmers to internment camps to drive out competition. So most of what history shows us is that history is repeating self time after time again. Authorities promoting the racial discrimination of minorities, people using the law to convict others for their own economic benefit, and generations of people mostly comprised of immigrants discriminating other immigrants who will probably later discriminate on other immigrants.
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Jack Campbell
2/11/2015 02:08:32 pm
This was said in the article: "During the 1880s, it became increasingly difficult for Chinese Americans in the country to live peace- fully and without incident. Chinese immigrants who had lived on U.S. soil for years or had become perma- nent residents were no longer granted the same path to citizenship that others were. They were required to obtain Section 6 certificates, papers that confirmed their legal status, which they had to carry on them at all times at risk of deportation." I thought that this was a powerful (long) quote that showed the start of the struggle that Asian Americans went through in the United States. Throughout the text it kept referring to things such as the "California Alien Land Law of 1913 prevented “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning property, in which “aliens ineligible for citizenship” served as a euphemism for “Asians.'" and showed that people alienated and excluded asians form the centralized culture, making them seem sprat and it carried on throughout their generations becoming a larger problem. I thought it was strange how Americans continuously excluded this entire culture and now they are a large part of our society and advancement.
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Justin Reyes
2/11/2015 03:04:27 pm
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TJ
2/11/2015 03:16:02 pm
I honestly found this to be a very new angle, all the struggles they endure. We always learn about the major black civil rights movements and the horrible crimes committed against them but we never really learned about the other racial groups. Here in California especially there are more hispanics and Asians than there are blacks which makes for a very interesting social situation. This book opened my eyes and showed me that at the time Blacks weren't the only ones suffering the effects of segregation.
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Hesham Hamed
2/11/2015 03:31:56 pm
America, the land of the free. They forgot to include, "not free for those that are non whites". It is sad but true, America was a place that segregated,hated,exploited, and killed minorities. I cant believe that people were treated like this. The laws not allowing Chinese people to have their own properties even though some had become citizens they were still denied the right to own land, it is crazy and sad to see people get treated this way. The Japanese were rounded up just like the Jews and others in WW2!! How could the United States do such a thing? Didnt they learn that putting people in camps was bad? I guess not. Hopefully things like this wont ever happen in the future, it is good that we now have the knowledge of what happened so we can pass it down generation to generation.
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Dylan L
2/11/2015 10:43:38 pm
After reading "An Unnoticed Struggle," the discrimination that Asians went through is clearer than ever for me. I never realized how absolutely horribly they were treated. For example, I never even knew about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I can barely imagine such a thing. Even after hearing about the nasty ways that African-Americans were treated by the country, it still seems absolutely draw-dropping that an entire law was passed for over 10 years that essentially kicked out and banned all Chinese immigrants.
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Eamonn McGuiness
2/11/2015 11:09:14 pm
Why I think the Asian struggle went unnoticed is well is was a lot less obvious then with other segregation or struggles. When African Americans were forced here they were immediately forced to become slaves. People started to buy and sell them, which led to people to see them as property. Which led to people becoming extremely racist. But with the Asians they started to come here later when racism was slightly less worse. But was still against the minority. So one way it went unnoticed was with the camps the government sent them to. Also the propaganda. Which similarly led people to believe it was ok because the government said so. So what I am trying to say is this time the government used a lot of propaganda to make it seem like what they were doing is right which is why I think it went unnoticed.
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Chenoa Levy
2/11/2015 11:24:22 pm
I think the reason why the Asian American struggle has gone so unnoticed, and continues to as well is because it's not brought up often. This is the first time I have ever heard about this topic and the struggles the Asian Americans went through. Even during he the time tis was all happening I don't think anyone was spewing about it either. During the "Chicano!" film it referred constantly to the African American, and Mexican struggles, but the hardships of the Asian Americans was not once brought up. Even during Aoki's documentary they talk about the stereotype that Asian-americans are quite and "submissive". In a way I think the lack of support and little voice they had was a major cause in the unnoticed Struggle of Asian-Americans. I think learning and understanding these struggles is very important because even today there are many hate crimes carried out against Asian-Americans.
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Srdja
2/11/2015 11:29:43 pm
It is the fact that Asian Americans struggled as well as other miniorities in the history of this country. There are many evidence for that (like this article we read). As the matter of fact, concentration camps were created in order to separate this race (Japanese) from the rest of the country. This fact strucked me the most. I would never have said that concentration camps in this free and diverse country really exsisted. And that happened parallel (in the sam time) with the whole world of hollocaust. Why would some ordinary people have been guilty for actions their home country and its government did. They did not need to suffer for that. Observing only this fact you can not forget how yellow race struggled. Maybe one of the reasons people often forget about these struggles is the fact that Asians Americans are one of the only minorities that is in line or maybe above white population regarding to their socio-economic status. But there are a lot of stereotypical comments towards yellow race that we can hear everyday. So it is really important to care about other people's and race's struggles in the past in order to eliminate all these racist judging today. Once we acknowledge all the history humiliation, there will be more respect towards all races and ethnic groups in the United States. Education is the key.
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Ryan Cormack
2/12/2015 12:04:54 am
Personally, this is the first time I had ever learned about Asian Americans extensively, ever. In fact I think the only thing we ever talked about was during the gold rush in middle school. I never knew about the concentration camps they were sent to in the U.S. or anything. This could be for a variety of reasons, I feel like one might be because there was also a lot of other things going on during the same period of time. It's hard to connect certain events that happen at the same time, because when you learn about a huge event you are only focused on that country, and you forget that a lot of other things were going on in other parts of the world at the same time. I've also never learned about any prominent leaders for Asians during this period, nobody to lead or guide a resistance. And without that, maybe there wasn't also a lot to document about a civil rights movement, and that's why it isnt commonly taught.
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Mikey Saunders
2/16/2015 03:06:09 am
I found this reading very interesting. Especially since I personally have never gone through this. I found that the struggles that these races had to go through just because of what they were born into was eye opening to me. I think a cause for this was because of not having a leader that really wanted to stand out like MLK for example. I think the biggest thing I learned from this was Unnoticed Struggle is something that is very common. This is one of the reasons I enjoy attending High Tech because we learn about some of the important little things that shape the world we live in.
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Camila Antonorsi
2/19/2015 03:35:48 am
This is the first time that i have really thought about what happened to the asian americans and how they were truly affected. in school we usually only learn about how badly the African americans and the mexicans were treated. Exempt for the brief discussion of the Japanese. I think that this is one of the reasons that the asian american struggle went so unnoticed. also the propaganda that everything was fine i think also blinded people into thinking that everything was all good.
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Jake Feess
4/4/2015 03:00:18 am
After reading this passage I found that a lot of Chinese workers were not treated very well, even by some of their own people. Because of this, they seeked settlement in other lands and tried to find job opportunities in those other places. unfortunately, the Americans didn't really want Chinese people on their lands. As a result, a lot of them were transferred back to their land. a little while after this happened, many places went on strike and fought back because of unfair rights.
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