Many Asians and people of colour try to distance themselves from their background because they view their background as regressive and white culture as progressive, but the truth of the matter is, is that both can be progressive. Wouldn’t it be boring (and regressive) if there were only colours in the background and whiteness in the foreground. The media is a major driving force here. It is very biased and white-centred. How many coloured actors and actresses will you see on screen?-How many will you see in non-stereotypical roles? The problem with casting and writing is that it is still very much white dominated and it makes it hard for persons of colour to get in these positions. Why? Because of racism. Because people won't think they are American because they are of colour, when in reality, they are as American as the next white person or the next non-white person! I realized this more and more with time and age and reculturize myself. I remember not minding very much when teachers would white-wash my last name, although now I do. At the time, even to some of my relatives with Indi-
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wasn’t cool and people had stereotypes about them. I would pretend sometimes to be Brazilian or some form of Latino because I thought that that was cooler and I would get mistaken for this often. Also, I think kids at that time thought the same as well. Probably because how the media portrays Latino people and the sheer fact that there’s a larger population of them in the United States and also much larger comparably to Asians in the u.s.