Author: Christal Yu

FRAMEWORKS

“Racism that Bridges” by Kim Tran delves into the experience of As-Ams during COVID. Tran describes an experience familiar to me: watching the racism that has accompanied you your whole life suddenly seek to make itself known, like an annoying, rude hitchhiker just there for the ride who begins wailing at the top of their lungs, flinging themselves against the car door to be let out. This reminder that racism was never truly gone and that As-Ams are not fully American is at the core of Tran’s words. I resonated with the story she told, and found myself drawn to the title. Tran’s parting message reminds us, “We remember that racism can either be a bridge or a wall and it is up to us to build and travel across our difference toward liberation.” This metaphor, though unexpected, will certainly be a lasting memory for me.

 

STORIES

“Paritition” by Fatima Asghar spoke to me with its melody of repetition and harsh exclusions. There is always something you are not, Asghar implies, there is always something that can be taken away from you. Whether its your identity, the chai you drink, your family, your religion, your language, your community. I loved Asghar’s use of repetition to drive home their point. I often use it myself when writing pieces of emotion and I have wondered whether it’s a… cop out, so to speak. If using repetition is a shortcut to creating emotion or building tension. I resonated with Asghar’s message, of being a stranger in your own country, home, and culture and found our similar writing styles to be validating.

 

RESOURCES

“Community Care: A Worksheet” and “A Mutual Aid Note to your Neighbor” both stuck out to me from the get go due to the caring nature of the titles. I think its amazing when communities are able to band together and pool resources. The people truly do have the power to help each other and, as they say, it takes a village. Both worksheets are intended to circulate a community and find ways in which people can help each other in the practical sense, or connect to one another for social/morale purposes. If I had had the capacity, I would have loved to have done something similar for my own community or to help out with a similar effort.

 

Phi discusses Asian Americans as they are caught in the confused crossfire of aligning with or against the police state. He compares the case of Peter Liang to that of Duy Ngo, an officer who experienced police brutality himself in 2003. In Ngo’s case, Phi points out that despite having followed all regulations, Ngo was still subject to life altering racist violence. By bringing this point to the forefront, Phi disposes the myth that Asian-Americans must follow white America’s rules and by doing so will be able to fully assimilate. He draws a connection from communities of color, pointing out that Asian-Americans are treated closer to Black people than white people and in order to find true justice, our communities must stand together for true “meaningful change for all people” 

Zen discusses “Chinese conservatism” as a side effect of misinformation, anti-Black racism, rebellion against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and traditional Confucian values which align somewhat with meritocracy and capitalism. The pro-NYPD protests come about from the idea that without the NYPD Asian-American communities would be prey to violence by Black people, an idea supported by right wing racism as well as misinformation via common sources of knowledge like WeChat. These All Lives Matter/Blue Lives Matter protests stem from the real estate/business community of Flushing. However, other Chinese community members like the Asian American Feminist Collective, Chinese for Black Lives, and Red Canary Song showed up shortly after with a counter organizing protest in support of BLM. This piece echos Phi’s sentiment that Asian-Americans seem to view themselves as extremely detached, and perhaps even juxtaposed, to Black Americans. There are also themes of seeking to find/retain law, order, and justice. However, what is brought into question in both readings is: should Asian-Americans be content with the “justice” we have seen so far and can we do better by ourselves and by other communities of color? 

The purpose of the letter is to explain to Asian-American family members what is on the line for Black Americans, what their experience has been, and how we play a role in that experience. It seeks to humanize the Black experience and to offer a new perspective in which our communities are actually aligned, not against each other. I feel that the letter meets this goal successfully, as it focuses on what we have on common, while offering some explanation to dissuade racist stereotypes, and also providing a way in which we can take action. This call to action is necessary, direct, and timely.

 

An archive of 1960’s era Hong Kong and how Yang’s theory of Asian immigration is present in the journey of Yolanda Yu-Chan, my aunt.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V42Oe2WPJDalasQXxBqdSFesgVTViyWoXkj51SIi70E/edit?usp=sharing

According to the Claire Jean Kim reading, the model minority myth holds its roots in a politically charged time of American history, around the 60’s to the 80s. The forever foreigner trope seems to have lent a hand in the crafting of today’s model minority. As Asian-Americans are viewed as more Asian than American, this distinct quality means that As-Am’s hold tight to Asian values of family, work ethic, and apolitical opinions. The implication of the model minority myth is that what makes Asian-Americans distinct is their ability to prosper using their “ethnic differences” or what a New York Times article of the era called “Tokugawa values” of diligence, frugality, and achievement orientation. The creation of the model minority myth buckles Asian Americans down to serve as a foil for Black-Americans of the era. With the ability to point a finger at Asian-Americans and boost their achievements as “successful immigrants”, conservative society is able to distinguish Black-Americans as unable to succeed for ingrained reasons and due to their outspoken activism. The article “Success Story: Outwhiting the Whites” is particularly interesting and revolting in this case. “The author…contends that the internment experience motivated Japanese Americans to become better Americans. In other words, no amount of externally imposed hardship can keep a good minority down” (Kim, 120). For starters, it is purely outrageous and borderline blasphemous to claim that one of the most traumatizing and inhumane political actions of the century served a greater good in that POC learned some sort of lesson from it. To make matters worse, this statement of a “good minority” implies that there are other minorities which are bad and that minority groups exist as a cohesive monolith sharing inherent traits that determine their societal value.

We see the minority myth pop up in the affirmative action lawsuit. The AAAA seems convinced that Asian-American students are somehow more deserving than other communities of color. While there are certainly bright As-Ams, it is simply a false conviction and, as stated by Hasan Minhaj, perhaps not the hill we should choose to die on. Asian-Americans against affirmative action now seem to forget that it was originally implemented to benefit all communities of color and that we may not have been able to ascend in academic ranks if not for this allowance. This assumption on the behalf of Asian-Americans also makes me wonder at how our views of our own communities may have been shaped by outside sources and biases. If society has been fed false flattery about us for years, why would we ever have questioned it? What incentive was there for us to say, “actually, thanks, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true.” It’s this propping up of Asian-Americans as successful regardless of circumstance that has led to this entitled view toward college admissions. The referencing of “legacy kids” as another form of affirmative action is also particularly interesting to me. When we examine the percent of students admitted to Ivy Leagues based on legacy status, it causes us to re-evaluted why this has been an accepted norm for so long. Perhaps, this is the hill we should be dying on if fairness is what we’re after.

In the reading, the case of Ozawa reveals that societal concepts of race stand above all over ideas of a “true” American when looking at citizenship. Depsite presenting as a “paragon” of the naturalized American citizen, Ozawa was still denied status as a White man and as a citizen. Ozawa declared that he had married a woman who attended American (as opposed to Japanese) schools, spoke only English at home so that his children would not learn the language, and that he wanted only to repay “Uncle Sam” and the grace that America had shown him. Despite these penultimate displays of patriotism and Ozawa’s argument that Japanese people were physically as “white” as “White” people, the court still ruled that Japanese people were not White and could not become citizens. Ozawa revealed to the world that the court now classified Caucasians only as true white people and possibly citizens. In Thind’s case, only a few months later, being Caucasian did NOT allow him to be a white man and a citizen. As a “high caste Hindu” man, despite being technically classified as Caucasian, and by the logic of Ozawa, therefore white, Thind was denied citizenship. This made it clear that citizenship was linked to a sociological concept of whiteness, rooted not in science but in sheer belief and the fabricated history of race.

 

Belonging and being a citizen are fairly different things in the public eye. Today, I think that citizenship is defined as someone who does not present as being TOO “ethnic” and who can conform to American norms of being a good, upstanding citizen: speaking English without an accent, working in a “respectable” more white collar job, with children/family who are also integrated into American systems of schooling, work, etc. Citizens look and act the part of an American. I think this is true because many people’s perceptions of who deserves citizenship isn’t necessarily true to the reality. With retorts like “speak English” milling about and ideas of “illegal aliens” lumbering over border walls and things. People do seem to believe that being a law abiding citizen who pays taxes, contributes to the American way, and says the pledge of allegiance, hand on heart defines what a citizen is. However, I disagree, since the law is not necessarily always correct. Laws overlook concepts of race, class, gender, mental and physical disabilities, etc.

 

 

Gary Kamiya examines the role of racism in schooling, discussing San Francisco’s discriminatory history. Black, Indian, and Asian children all faced this discrimination, however, in 1870 the law shifted to state that only Black and Indian children needed to be educated in segregated schools. There was no mandate for Chinese students, and this law resulted in the closing of the one, already historically unsteady school for Chinese children. A San Francisco Board of Supervisors report stated that “For however hard and stern such a doctrine may sound, it is but the enforcement of the law of self-preservation, the inculcation of the doctrine of true humanity, and an integral part of the enforcement of the iron rule of right by which we hope presently to prove that we can justly and practically defend ourselves from this invasion of Mongol barbarianism.” This argument stems from the racist belief in Yellow Peril, which grew out of resentment for cheap immigrant labor undercutting white Americans’ jobs. 

“The First Mexican Border Wall was Actually to Keep Out Chinese Citizens” makes it clear that the end of the railroad construction and the gold rush resulted in scapegoating of Chinese “coolies” Political cartoons commonly hawked the image of the sneaky, uncivilized, and dirty Chinese immigrant. This is visible in Leon’s article, but I’m also familiar with it from my own research. A simple google search turns up many images of ponytailed, buck toothed caricatures, complete with upturned, evil eyes, long sharpened finger nails, and a deviously crazed expression, a la Cruella de Ville. The New York Tribune’s editor Horace Greeley called Chinese people “uncivilized, unclean, filthy…lustful…every female [a] prostitute of the basest order.” The claim is that of a people unlike the white norm, who cannot be civil nor understand “higher domestic or social relations” and who pose a threat to white American safety in terms of cleanliness, societal cohesion, and as an outside sexual threat. 

___________

Chinese communities responded to the border wall by working with “Chinese catchers”, border patrol guards, working with bribes for smuggling. Realizing that Mexican immigrants were welcomed, some Chinese immigrants sought to disguise themselves for entry. In the case of San Francisco’s education disparity, the Chinese community worked significantly with petitions and collective action. In 1859, Chinese parents petitioned the San Francisco Board of Education, resulting in the opening of a primary school for Chinese children. A larger group of the Chinese community later petitioned the Legislature after many failed attempts to run one school, outraged that they had to pay taxes, but that their children were not permitted to attend public schools. 

__________

Anti-immigrant sentiment is not new in America, a fact that literally everyone and their mom is aware of. With Trump’s presidency, hatred toward immigrants of many nationalities has risen. His treatment of “China”, pronounced Trump-ishly, urges his followers toward deeper anti-immigrant feelings. The rise of Neo-nazis and proud white supremacists speak to the dangers of racism being given a sense of validation and position of power. 

We see the concept of Yellow Peril in fears of “China” overtaking the U.S. economically, as a rising labor and technology powerhouse. Yellow Peril also echoes true in resentment about “America jobs being stolen by China”, similar to the outrage around cheap Chinese labor for the railroads and gold rush. In the wake of COVID-19, xenophobia is glaringly, screamingly obvious. Before COVID hit the rest of the world, Americans haughtily joked of the virus, claiming it due to dirty wet markets, poor hygiene, and implying it was the next zombie apocalypse. This detached view of Chinese people as “outsiders” rings of xenophobia. Anyways, not going to say I told you so in my discussion board post for a class, but… where are the racists with their jokes now that everyone has to wear a mask? 

___________

From my above response I think its clear that things have struck a nerve. COVID and the blatant xenophobia, harassment, and rise in assaults have been startling and abhorrent for the Asian American community. Family WeChat’s everywhere flooded with warnings, articles linked back and forth, murmurs of what happened to a friend of a friend or someone’s neighbor. I called my grandparents every other day, urging their stubborn spirits to heed our warnings and stay home, or only to travel in broad daylight with each other. 

Beyond recent events, it’s pretty horrible to read such disgusting, blatantly racist statements, even if they are from the 1800’s. The view of Chinese women and the stigma around prostitution also strikes a nerve as it relates to the stereotypes and the specific brand of sexual harassment that Asian women everywhere face. It is uncomfortable and beyond unpleasant to read about. I actually have still not made it through the reading regarding sex work. While these statements are horrible, it shocks me still to think about the fact that the only reason I am reading these statements is due to a specific Asian American history class. I feel deeply for Black Americans who have been forced to study their people’s struggles and the injustices committed against them since grade school. Not to mention the obvious flooding in current events and how Black Lives still don’t seem to matter. Truly horrible to witness and I am sad at how desensitizing and traumatizing it must be to have to study these inhumane histories for many years in an academic setting (often taught by white teachings to boot, most likely) let alone to face this matter daily. I am grateful that this fear of harassment and assault has not been… daily and that its widespread nature is relatively “new” to COVID times. I cannot imagine this type of fear for my own life and my loved ones daily nor the burden of such knowledge.

 

The studying of racist history against Asian Americans makes me more frustrated with some of the Asian American community than ever. It was not so long ago and it is not so foreign of a concept that we were once treated somewhat as horribly. I am angered and concerned that my people have forgotten or somehow think that things are different. Anti-Blackness in the Asian community can’t be denied, nor can the huge Model Minority myth, and this widespread want to ascend to whiteness within Asian Americans. Often, I feel like Asian Americans are content to sit at the side of white america, acting as lapdogs for a master: barking when told, choosing enemies as the master does, accepting treats when tossed, and most importantly, sitting when told. Asian Americans question our difficulties breaking past middle management and forget that it is because a dog is the most beloved pet of the master, but will never be truly human. The evolution of this relationship is disgusting and must be dismantled.

Many Asian Americans fail to realize that we share many struggles with the Black community and likely have more in common with them than white america would seek to have us believe. Every time I read about Asian American history, it strengthens my feelings on this topic: we were once (more heavily) criminalized, excluded, sexualized, spat upon, called “ghetto” It seems so easy for Asian Americans to forget about these political cartoons, about how close we are to the image of dirty cat and dog eaters, for the mind to blank on the Japanese Internment camps and how horrifyingly similar this is to Trump’s border treatment of the Latinx community now. I wonder if xenophobia during COVID and the attention to BLM will change any minds within the As-Am community and if conversations can be started to remember our roots and our loyalties.

Asian-Americans must remember where we come from. We need solidarity more than ever amongst POC. 

I think this class has exceeded my expectations thus far. It is definitely much more comprehensive, inclusive, and intensive than I originally anticipated, none of which are bad things. I really appreciate Professor Munshi’s level of organization and communication. Her openness toward collective growth and constructive criticism sets a great standard for students and other teachers. I’ve had some difficulty with OpenLab (the discussion boards were a little funky for me at first) and originally preferred BlackBoard over it. However, it’s about the same platform and I think I’m adjusted now. This mostly makes curious as to why OpenLab was chosen, since the two platforms seem somewhat the same on the surface level (maybe the community aspect?) except for the fact that BlackBoard allows for grading and submissions with deadlines as well. Either way, I’m enjoying the class and think the depth of organization and materials make for a really eye opening experience! 

I am not sure I have a change in mind! Some songs that may be applicable to Asian-American history are some songs by the Blue Scholars. While they don’t speak constantly on Asian-American history and issues, their lead voice is a Filipino man, speaking about common issues facing POC and the Filipino community. A rap duo native to Seattle, popular in the 2000’s, the Blue Scholars were more of an underground group, not aiming for widespread popularity but rather to spread a message. The duo is composed of an Iranian musician who creates beats and a Filipino rapper who works on their lyrics. Their song “50 Thousand Deep” recounts the events of the 1999 Seattle Protests, a huge gathering which turned violent against police when protesting a trade agreement. It is a song echoing the protests, speaking of police brutality, globalization, wealth inequality, and racial inequality. 

Verses such as:

“But the body rock stopped, probably got caught by the cops

Nearby, somebody got shot

But parties don’t stop in the south

So take your shoes off when you come into my house

[Verse 2]

I had to duck out cause I knew I stuck out in the crowd

After many years growin’ up brown in this town”

And 

“The body rock stopped, probably got caught by the cops
Nearby, somebody got shot

But parties don’t stop and the parties don’t care

It’s a stick-up, it’s why we got our hands in the air

Still demanding a share, refrigerators bare
Cause they wanna see trade get free and not fair”

Another of their songs, titled “Back Home” focuses on the injustices of war, wealth inequality, and race. Examples of these themes include:

“Had a lot of good brothers either my age or younger

Who copped the 1st album when it dropped now gone under

And they say progress but the fact is

Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy is lookin’ like the street we named after him”

“So next time you see recruiters in your school or your crib

Tell ’em thank you for the offer but you’d rather you lived

We got more than just our bodies to offer

So fuck a coffin wrapped in red, white, and blue, withdraw passed due

We disgusted with the fact we pay taxes to build tanks

Still dropping one twomp and a half to fill tanks

Got a china-mans chance to fill banks like Phil Banks”

This protest against the violence of war and it’s predatory tactics upon lower income communities is applicable to Asian American history as Geo, Blue Scholars’ lyricist, raps about Filipino people pushed into American issues of war. Asian Americans are also overlooked when addressing inequality due to the model minority status. 

I wonder if there is also a song documenting the 1992 LA Riots as it was a huge event in recent Asian-American history, speaking prominently about a lot of racial tensions between Asian-Americans and Black Americans and the influence of the larger white society and police for further worsening it. Rodney King, Latasha Harlins, and many other people suffered immensely as a result of police brutality and heightened racial tensions. I think this event is extremely historically important to Asian American history because of the racial dynamics presented, which can lead to a lot of conversation about why relationships between Black Americans and Asian Americans are often so strained. It was truly a tragedy with much unnecessary suffering on both sides.

The concept of the “American Dream” is definitely a huge explanation for migration to the US. Immigrating for opportunity, educational and monetary, are huge motivators. I’ve heard this widespread in media, taught in classes, and from family. I know that religious freedom, fleeing from unsafe activity in a home country (gangs, war, political instability, etc.) are also common. These explanations I haven’t experienced first hand but have heard about from classmates and through media.  

My aunt referred to a large reason for our family’s immigration to America being educationally motivated. I was extremely surprised to learn that Hong Kong in the 60s and 70s had only THREE colleges. HK has a large, bustling city population, but it appears that due to limited educational opportunities, it is very difficult to test into one of the few colleges, who can afford to be extremely selective. This relates directly to Yang’s “Intercountry Disparities” section, where he states this this selectivity in Asian countries for a college seat remained until the 90s, with the gap still large today. 

Yang also touches on political conditions/uprisings as a key aspect of inter country disparities as a cause for immigration. I have heard from friends and through media about war/political unrest being a huge motivator. I also see how the explanations I mentioned are push and pull factors all in one. “Humans always want to have a better life. It is this yen for a better life that underlies the decision of individuals and families to migrate from one country to another.” [Yang, 18] This is precisely what my aunt said to me when explaining her immigration story. The disparities of educational opportunity were a huge factor for my family. 

World system theory indicates that the more involved the U.S. is in an Asian country, the higher that level of immigration to the U.S. Hong Kong had long been a British colony, and thus was greatly influenced by “Western” society. Though I don’t take this as a direct relation to the U.S., English being taught to students as a second language likely encouraged this transition. 

The system of network-dependent sponsorship also speaks to my families experiences. Personally, my family migrated through sponsorship by my grand uncle. It is noted that social networks help migration by maximizing pros and minimizing cons through social and financial assistance for the post migration period. In my family, my grandfather was able to work as a waiter at a restaurant partially owned by my grand uncle. Additionally, my grandmother worked as a seamstress at a factory owned by a “cousin”, a person she knew from her home village. 

* What do you learn from Bahadur’s process of researching her great-grandmother’s history? What were the limits of the archive and how did she address these limits? If you were to construct an archive of your own family history, what types of data might you review or search for?

Bahadur’s search for her great grandmother’s history spoke to the silencing of WOC in history and the hidden horrors of white supremacy, colonization, and the quest for capitalism. She noticed that all mentions of Indian women enslaved to Guyana were by another party, as viewed through the racist eyes of the white man. Only altercations or highly factual instances were recorded. Official sources barely spoke of these women, so Bahadur worked to uncover more traditional methods: oral records like folk songs, stories as told by people, photographs and tattoos on the arms of elderly women.

In searching for records of my own family history, I have looked at family photo albums and questioned family members to no end for stories of immigration, hardship, and family. There have always been detailed stories from my more talkative family members, but often time specifics are confused or half forgotten. Photographs are plentiful in my family, they seemed very fond of recording things, for which I am grateful now. Upon thinking more, I might look at more official sources like immigration records, perhaps housing records, work records?

* What did you learn from the oral history that you studied? Tell us a little bit about the person who was interviewed. How does this oral history challenge or confirm ideas and information you already have about Asian Americans? What surprises you? What is missing in this history- what else would you want to know?

William Sing Mock is spirited man, very engaged in and proud of his history. He speaks a combination of Cantonese and Toisan (Taishanese) dialects of Chinese, as well as some English. I was extremely interested in his depiction of his family’s immigration and first experiences in America. His grandfather worked to build the railroad around 1890, but returned to China to be with family after a short period of time. The story William weaves is an intergenerational one spanning from his grandfather’s work as a laborer, to his flattering depiction of who I believe is Leland Stanford (?), the beginnings of a local rice paddy, and his own difficult immigration decades later to Hawaii.

This oral history retelling was thought provoking on many levels. For one, William spoke a mixture of Cantonese, Toisan/Taishanese, and English throughout the interview. I’m not really fluent in Cantonese and can barely understand simple sentences in Toisan, whereas William’s English is similarly unsure. It was the main reason I picked his interview out of the other fluent English speakers, because the language difficulties made me focus just that much harder. Despite watching several times and even enlisting my mom for help translating, the story was still somewhat difficult to follow, due to our language differences as well as William’s natural story telling style. Every time I hear a “Coming to America” story, I always feel instantly humbled, reminded of my size compared to how large the world and other experiences are. While I experience difficulties, I cannot imagine the frustration of adapting to a new country, forcing yourself to learn a new language, and battling intense racism and poverty all the while. William describes intense xenophobia, with white Americans pushing for the expulsion of Chinese people and that racists even assaulted and brutalized them. He states that “Chinese people weren’t allowed in the courthouses… it was like that. It was really like that” with such intense, slighted fervor in his voice that resonates with you how excluded and angry his ancestors felt.

Upon doing some quick google searches, I’m confused about the dates William provided. The Transcontinental Railroad wrapped up in the late 1860’s, but William cited his grandfather’s immigration to work on the railroad as the 1890’s, with a return to China in 1905. I believe that William said his grandfather, or someone his grandfather knew, knew Leland Stanford. He refers to him only as Stanford, however, the interview is at Stanford University and Leland Stanford had no children. This leads me to believe William may have his decades confused. He says his grandfather/family friend (I am unsure) was either gifted/or gifted a gold watch to Leland Stanford. Stanford died in the late 1880’s, another time line that doesn’t quite match up.

I am surprised to hear William’s view on Leland Stanford. If we are referring to the same Stanford, William said that Stanford was a good person, who defended Chinese people from white Americans who wanted to send them all back to China, and reminded people that Chinese workers built the railroads. Google reveals that Stanford was an outright racist, specifically toward Chinese people as well. He declared that “the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population… [which] exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration.” This is… a pretty huge discrepancy. This confirms ideas I have about Chinese-Americans as I know them today.

William seems to know only part of the story, which is the part where Leland Stanford hired Chinese immigrants, bringing them to America to work grueling jobs that no white man wanted to risk his life doing. However, the other side of the coin is that Leland Stanford had made the above racist statements prior to mass recruiting Chinese immigrants and was later called a hypocrite for bringing in the very people he demonized and spoke of as a dirty horde from which white America must be protected. It saddens me to some extent, that William views Stanford as a savior, a protector, and a “good person” as he repeats. His knowledge seems to be that Stanford paid and brought people to America, but overlooks the facts that Stanford recruited Chinese people for life threatening positions, publicly demonized them for political gain as well as personal belief. This to me, echoes some of the lack of knowledge some Chinese people have regarding politics, questioning authority, and honoring white men. I can’t say that this is true for all Chinese Americans, even in that time period, for William is merely the grandson of one railroad worker. I cannot help but feel the echo of my own grandfather declaring Trump a great businessman, approaching the polls ready, while Trump whines on every major network about “what he’s going to do about THE Chinese”

I am curious about the rice paddies William mentioned his grandfather being involved in. I’m unclear if his grandfather owned the paddy or if a family friend did, but I wonder how they started it and what the family’s background prior to coming to America was, and what it has evolved to today. I’m interested in hearing more about William’s experience in Hawaii, the place where he first was introduced to America, as well as his experience in California. Both places have a huge Asian-American population, so much so that they are a majority. It differs extremely from my own experience in NYC, where Chinese-Americans are plentiful but are still a “”minority””