Author: Sundas Ejaz

After the reading about Lee and watching the documentary, it became apparent how the Europeans viewed Asia as its polar opposite. They viewed Asia as a land full of exotic spices and herbs, silks, and other good which the Europeans had desired. The people, the culture, and civilizations were all different from those of the Europeans. Europe viewed itself as the masculine and Asia as the feminine, which has to be conquered. This desire for Asia’s wealth is what lead to the eventual colonization and imperialism of Asia by Europe. Of course this all benefited the Europeans as they had wrongfully profited from the riches of Asia to fuel their own greed. During this, they had also mistreated the Asian crew members on cargo ships who were working for them, and only paid them half for what they paid the Spanish workers, despite them being very skilled. It was surprising to see how they were so underpaid compared to the Spanish workers, despite them being so skilled, but I guess that could also be due to racism towards Asians. The Europeans had mistreated the people of Asia, disrespected their cultures, and wiped them from their wealth, due to them being greedy for wealth and power. This reading proved how much people are willing to do in the name of acquiring power and wealth, even if means to destroy the others land.

Los Chinos were the first Asian immigrants who migrated to the Americas around the late 1500’s. They had then migrated from the west coast down to the south and settled in Mexico City. They had taken jobs such as merchants and laborers and etc in order to support their families and build their wealth. However due to violence and discrimination towards Asian communities, those communities had eventually lost their opportunities and had to look elsewhere.

Afong Moy was the first recognized Chinese female immigrant. Americans viewed her as an object, and not an actual human. She was seen as a circus freak, and people would buy tickets to watch her. This lead to awful stereotypes of Asians, and lead to them being treated as lower class people, and were very degraded by the White Americans.

In conclusion what can be learned from this reading and documentary is that the Europeans greed for money, power, and riches from Asia eventually lead to the the imperialism of Asia, the looting of the land from its riches, the degradation of its people and their cultures, which all still have terrible impacts on the Asian community to this day. Even today, they are often seen as inferior to the white man, and are often victims of racism and hate crimes.

After reading about Bahadur’s process of researching her great grandmother’s ancestry, it became apparent to me how history can very easily be manipulated, and changed to benefit someone who is in power. While Bahadur was searching the archives, she found out that the struggles and experiences that the woman faced were biased, and did not consist of the personal experiences and struggles the women faced, but rather consisted of records described by the white men who had power over those women. This shows that throughout history, history has been altered to fit a narrative that benefits someone who is wealthy, and has power, to make them look good. This way, those men in power were unfortunately able to silence these women, silence their struggles and experiences, and changed their history, in an effort to maintain their own power. Many of the women were also illiterate and those men used that to their advantage, hence leaving little to no information about what the actual experiences those women faced. The information that Bahadur was able to find from those archives however mostly consisted of statistical reports and such. This led to her to turn to a more traditional way of uncovering research through old photographs and postcards, folk songs, and even looking at tattoos on the elderly women. If I were to construct an archive of my own family history I would definitely start off by looking at old photographs as we have several photo albums that consist of old pictures of my family members. We also have old letters that my dad had collected from his grandparents, which also can give an insight on our family history.

The oral history interview that I had chosen was about Owais Jafery, under the South Asian Oral History project. I chose this one specifically, because Mr. Jafery’s experiences had reminded me of my own family’s experiences when they had migrated from India to Pakistan when India was partitioned. He discussed how before the partition, many Indians of different religions easily got along with one another, and afterwards there became this internalized hatred for anyone who wasn’t following a specific religion. People upheld prejudices against people who were once their own friends and families. Due to this newfound hatred towards Muslim Indians especially, they were forced to migrate to Pakistan. He also mentioned when he had to flee to do not being able to find a job, he was also poor, didn’t have any close family in Pakistan. He had eventually learned to adapt to this new country, and had assimilated well into the Punjabi-Pakistani culture. Later on, he mentioned how he had eventually migrated to the US and had brought his family there too. His story reminded me about the stories my dad told about when our own family had gone through a similar situation when they too had to flee to Pakistan. It was difficult for them to adapt to this new environment, and the discriminations they faced due to them being Muslim was unimaginable. Although Mr. Jafery included alot  of information on the partition, I wish there were more first hand experiences written about the horrors Muslim Pakistanis faced when they had to flee. Also what history fails to teach us about this partition is that this hatred among different religious groups in India was sparked but the British who occupied the land at the time. Once again, people were turned against one another so that those in power could benefit from their struggles. This is often left out during discussions about the partition, and it makes it seem as if this all happened to due a civil conflict, but rather it was a matter of those in power wanting more power. Overall, I enjoyed hearing this interview and discovering how many Pakistanis have faced similar experiences as well.