Week 1 - Charles Miin

Charles Miin

ASA 114

November 22, 2015

Week 1 – Asian or Other?

When I was younger, and really to this day in a sense, it has been difficult for me to say what I am when others ask me. Am I an American? Yes I was born here, and I've lived here my entire life. Am I Chinese? Well yes, my mother was born in China, as was my father, and any relative I have besides them speaks only Mandarin Chinese. I grew up in a community that was predominantly Mexican-American with smaller sub sections of other groups ranging from Armenian-Americans to African-Americans. But many weekends of my life were spent in Monterey Park and the larger San Gabriel Valley which bears the distinction of being one of the largest communities of Chinese/Asian-Americans in the country. I often went there to eat Chinese foods and buy Chinese items with Chinese grandparents who barely spoke English. There is truly a separation between what it means to be simply "Asian" to being an "Asian-American". Unique cases arise with individuals, some of whom I know quite well, who are termed as "Parachute Kids" or Chinese kids who are sent to the United States to study at universities and simply often travel back to their place of birth. They are neither truly immigrants nor or as foreigners but something of a gray area in between. Should they be considered Asian-Americans despite not sharing the same kind of life as I had? Perhaps the ethnicity and origin matter less in this regard, and the true distinction lies in understanding what the idea of America is and living up to simply being "American" in that respect. Is it possible or rather necessary to draw a distinction between Asian-Americans like myself who were born and raised in the U.S. and those who have spent a large, influential part of their life here but do not share the same documentation?