Asian American culture is the culture practiced by Americans whose ancestry is derived from the Asian ethnicity. These group of individual’s possess ethnic backgrounds of the Chinese, Philippians, Indians, Korean and Japanese people. This means that there lineage can be dated back to the Asian continent although their ancestors due to one factor or another, they moved to America. They comprise a small percentage of the American population of not more than 5% in the United States. Although it is among the smallest groups in the US, it has the highest population growth rate among all the ethnic groups found in US.
There are several stereotypes that are associated with people from this culture. One of them is that all of them are alike. It is claimed that it is hard to differentiate them. For example it is claimed that it is hard to differentiate a Korean American from an Indonesian American. The second stereotype is that all Asians are outsiders. All though many of them were not born in America but the few who were born in America are also categorized as foreigners. This generalization has led to the important differences among this ethnic group to be ignored.
Factors shaping Asian American culture
Asian American culture is shaped by a number of factors. Among these factors, a major one is their continuation of their native dialect. Despite that their surroundings consists of many other cultures but over time the Asian Americans have managed to maintain the way they talk and pronounce words. They also practice their pure ancestral marriage among their fellows. These two has helped in keeping their culture and shaping the young generation into adapting the same methods of livelihood. Assimilation to other cultures has brain washed these culture and it is the major threat up to date.
The media also plays a great role in shaping the Asian American culture. Throughout the history of media there has been stereotypes related to men and women. Asian American women there’s a reigning stereotype related to virgin and whore dialectic. These has become a Lotus blossom.(Historical and mainstream media representation chapter 4 page 66)
The Asian Americans currently use the new media in their advantage to form identities and representations that were not always seen in the dominant media.(Asian American New Media Practices chapter 9 page 1)
Gender differences have also been used to shape the Asian American culture. Asian women were always seen as passive objects while men always viewed as villains. These has shaped their culture in that men are viewed as superior while women see themselves as inferior. This has been clearly brought out in the class of Problematic representation of Asian American gender and sexuality chapter page 1.
Impacts of my class performance in my life and identity
The lessons that I learnt in class clearly reflected my daily experiences. I was able to know why I heard people making fun of the Asians that they are all alike. I also learnt something new concerning their culture, they have kept their dialect and this is what has made many to say that they don’t know English. This has been clearly illustrated in the song where is the love by Black Eyed Peas in the second stanza which says “Asians livin’ like they ain’t know English grammar”. The song air planes (Asians) touched me to accept the Asians and advocate for them in order for them to receive equal treatment as others. I also realized how my gender has a great influence on my identity and the stereotypes that are associated with gender and how they shape a culture of a community.( Song Lyrics)
Themes addressed by my performance
My themes addressed a number of factors in the American society. What I gave the first priority in my themes was culture conservation. I saw it fit for the Americans to strive and conserve their culture and to try and not to be easily assimilated. By doing this, the young upcoming generation will be able to find a culture that is less contaminated. The second one was Stereotyping, this is a major problem with the Americans. Among the many types of stereotypes, hasty generalization is what I addressed and pointed out its effects. It involves a large number of people but does not consider the minority. The last theme was equality to all citizens. Every individual in America has a right to fair treatment despite the race or ethnic background. It is not proper to subject a group of people to humiliation the sole reason being that we fill they are foreigners. This is not true since there are several methods through which individuals are able to acquire citizenship like through birth or naturalization.
The themes reflection on the Asian American Culture
In a number of ways these themes are related to the Asian American culture since they touch on the major problems faced by this culture in America. Secondly it points out the positive side of this culture such as how they are good conservatives of their culture. It talks about the importance of fare treatment to everyone which the Asian Americans are counted.
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