B+Block+response+to+Chinese+stereotypes

=Welcome to the B Block response page!= Wiki assignment rubric: /5 Completed on time /5 Edited carefully /5 Thoughtful, original answer that addresses all parts of the assignment

Below, write your name (first name and initial of last name only, please!) and your response. Remember the rules of the wiki: Be respectful of others and their ideas, edit your own writing carefully, and really be thoughtful in your responses. Remember, this is public material!

Names: Gabe O-S: What I think about stereotypes is that most of the time there is some truth behind them. The reason I think this is because some of them have to be true in order to make the steretype so powerful. I do not think that stereotypes are fair in any way but it is a product of racism and racism is all over the world. I dont think that you can stop racism because it is human nature so you cant do anything about stereotypes. What has to be done, is people have to learn to get over it instead of trying to get people recognize the problem and learn from there mistakes. Stereotypes are used to seperate groups of people. I have used stereotypes to make fun of someone and I have also heard stereotypes used against me. When i was younger I was unable to understand them but now that I am older I have learned to ignore them. Over time I have seen that your race does not have to do with your personality but if someone uses your ethnicity against you then you should understand that there is nothing wrong with you or the other person, racism is human nature and you can not change someones point of view. The only thing that you can do is get over the fact that you are being seperated from a group of people that is no different than you and live your life the way you want to live it and not the way other people want you to live it.

 Will : I don't really think about Asian American stereotypes very often at all, I think this is mostly because they are not the most prominent people in my life. But even without thinking about it you can plainly how prominent they are in our society, and how they could easily be hurtful to the people these jokes and insults pertain to. I think that many of the most simple stereotypes can extend from obvious physical differences among people, but that a good portion of it comes from a part of a peoples culture that clashes with another. It is a fact that in China binding a young girls feet to reach a desired size was a fairly common practice for hundreds of years, and a thing like that could easily scare a modern American, and since fear is a prominent emotion a thing like foot binding would stick with an average American and quite possibly lead them to associate them to modern Chinese people. I believe it is things like that over time can develop into a prejudice towards any group of people we don't relate to. It definitely can hurt a young Asian American to hear these things said about them for no obvious reason, and the only solution I see would be to educate young children about these issues without trying to force your beliefs onto them, which could either result in a brainwashing pattern or them rejecting what you teach because of your ridiculous views. I don't think that taking these stereotypes off of television and other mediums by force is a good solution for any situation, and censorship like that will not teach people anything and would just elevate the stereotypes into hate for other people because of their insistent holding back of the 1st amendment.

Mike L: I want to start this explanation off by thanking the author of the article for writing it. He really puts a view on a subject that not many people think about. I think that this article was very good and descriptive. It is definitely an eye-opener. I have to admit that I have had some of these thoughts about Asians. When me and my friends were younger, we would go "Chinese, Japanese, Siamese." While doing this, we would change out facial expressions (tilting the ends of our eyes up and down) to look like each racial stereotype. It must not feel to good for Asians. I feel bad for the Asians who really get offended by this, especially teenagers. In __American Born Chinese__ by Jene Yang, both Jin and Wei-Chen have to deal with this. I don't think that there could be a way to make people have no stereotypical ideas about Asians (or other races for that matter) because people will be people and if they are racist and mean, then they will be racist and mean. Unfortunately, nobody can change that. But I do believe that there can be ways to diminish these thoughts. One way that this could be achieved is students of the "popular" race stand up for an Asian (or other race) that is getting picked on because of it. Other ways can be thought up! This article really opened my eyes to what is going on.

Matt F. Growing up as an American, I have had many of stereotypical feelings about Asians. In our society, stereotypes are brought up as a subject very often. I see them in __The Simpsons__, where they show Apu (a native Indian and character) as a store clerk. In sports, blacks are stereotyped as athletes who can jump really high and mainly play basketball. Because of there common use, I sometimes start believing those stereotypes. I’m not saying I believe every stereotype, but I sometimes start to think of them as that, though I know in my heart that they are not exactly what people think of them to be. For instance, whenever I see a group of highly intellectual students, I assume there are Asians in the group. After I have that thought, I will often get mad at myself for making such a cruel judgment. I often wonder where the stereotypes come from. I mean, there must be a reason Asians are thought of being smart and eating cats and dogs. Before we started reading __American Chinese__ I never thought that stereotypes had an incredible effect on teenage Asians. I always thought it was the Asian adults who were treated unfairly the most. There are many ways we can help stop people from thinking of Asians stereotypically, but the one action that will affect people the most is to learn about the Asian culture. I’m not talking about their history; I’m talking about their lifestyle and present day culture. When people learn more about them, they will realize that many of the stereotypes that are thought of them are not all true. For example, a man might be against Asians because he thinks they eat cats. But when he learns the truth that most of them don’t eat cats, he will respect the Asians more. We will no longer need to stereotype them because we already know the truth about them.

Eli B:In reading this article I had a few different thoughts come to mind. One of them was that I agree with Gabe and agree that a lot of stereotypes are based on truth. I am not to say this is always the case, or to say that they are completely factual but there is often some truth behind them. For example the article talks about how a common stereotype is Asian kids are very smart and always do well in school. Now my experience is that Asian kids are very smart. Before reading this I assumed that a stereotype as that wouldn’t necessarily be that bad, but after reading we hear about the emotional stress put on a student with that type of stereotype. Another thought that came to my head while reading is that I don’t know a lot of these stereotypes. I thought of why this may be. I came to the conclusion that it’s because the Asian stereotypes are not as publicized as being wrong and bad of course we all know it is but we don’t seem to frown upon it as much. This could be because the Asian immigration was more recent then a lot of others or maybe it’s because there is less of an Asian population. This article made me think of things that I may not of otherwise, I enjoyed reading it and writing the response.

Emma F-- I read the article, and i had many things to say about it. Then, i read everyone else responses, and i was shocked to find that all the things i wanted to say had pretty much already been said! However, i'm going to restate them anyways. I believe that yes, stereotypes, especially ones about Asian Americans do come from truths, like Eli and Gabe said, but i believe that it is taking those truths for SOME people to the extreme. Yes, i believe that a lot of Asian American children are smart. To say that they are all super smart, and every single child is smart is pushing it a little bit. Same goes for a lot of the other stereotypes. While they may be true for some people, they are most definitely not true for everyone. I think one way that everyone (not just Americans) can stop the stereotypes set against Asian Americans is, like Matt said, learn more about their culture. I think that if Americans got more insight into the Asian American way of life, they would actually see that not everyone fits into all the stereotypes. I enjoyed this article.

Eli H: After reading this article, I was surprised at the stereotypes that I grew up with and didn't even question. Some of them, I learned as a result of the popular media, which I now realize is a major contributor to some forms of racism. I agree with the above people as stereotypes do hold a bit of truth in them, but then puts it to the extreme. As well, there is a vicious cycle going on, because stereotypes force people to act like them, which influences more people to make assumptions, and so on. The only possible way to end it would be to clear everyone's personality and start over, which is impossible. Even so, that wouldn't be a good thing either, because everyone would be the same, and no diversity would ever occur (which is also a reference to the herbalist's "famous" quote from ABC: You can be anything you want, as long as you forfeit your soul.) Thus, stereotypes will never fully disappear. Still, they have definitely lessened over time, and maybe society will not pass judgments any longer in the future. ==