Race Relations

The world is full of distinct races, ethnic groups, and cultures, some closely intertwined, others uniquely different. All of these unique cultures come with their own flair, their own unique backstory, but unfortunately many come with their own dark side. With race relations being brought to the forefront of the world, I wanted to look at race relations and racism across different communities across the world. From the complex racism in Europe to the mixed ancestry in Latin America, to the colorism of South Asia I wanted to take a look at it all with some words from our own classmates.

To begin, I wanted to take a look at my own experiences. For some background, my family comes from India but half of my family have been in the country since 1945. Before that, they were natives to what is today Pakistan. Ethnically, I am Punjabi and have become quite well versed in the culture of racism in the Indian world. One thing that is important to understand across all cultures and communities is the effect of colonialism. Colonialism brought with it colorism. Colorism is the discrimination between a race and ethnic group against those with darker skin. Colorism is the most prevalent form of discrimination not only in India, but in South Asia as a whole. Coming from north India, where people tend to have lighter skin tones, I have seen firsthand how casually derogatory remarks are thrown around. Skin lightening creams are widespread and common all across SouthAsia in every supermarket. I know this firsthand as growing up these whitening creams were regularly applied onto my skin. This is especially prevalent in South-India where people are predominantly Dravidian and have darker skin. Colorism towards them is not only widespread but common and unfortunately accepted in many parts of the community. A politician was even caught telling two sisters that, “You look like a south Indian but your sister looks Indian.”

South Indians are treated as second class citizens in their own country. This divide is only further deepened when the language barrier is taken into account. North Indians are seen as “superior” while south Indians are looked down upon. The same colorism is prevalent across the Muslim world. Muslims are extremely diverse due to the widespread of Islam. From the south Asians of Indonesia, to the Arabs of the Middle East, and the Africans of Somalia, Islam is extremely diverse. This diversity is something to be celebrated and the large majority of Muslims are proud of the diversity within their religion. Many organizations, such as the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, say that the Quran unites them all. While on paper, Islam sees all Muslims as equal unfortunately the culture sees otherwise.

In speaking to people in our class the issue of colorism comes up yet again. This like anything is a byproduct of colonialism and the pushing of the European beauty standard. The same person also said that the culture has a long way to go when it comes to moving forward in regards to race and race-relations, but things are at least progressing and the new generation, especially children of immigrants, are beginning to become more open.

One of the more complicated regions when it comes to race is Latin America. Latin America includes countries in the Americas which speak latin-based languages, most notably Spanish and Portugese. The most prevalent countries include Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc. In speaking to some people whose families come from Latin America many say that they identify themselves as Latino or, racially, mestizo. The terms Mestizo and Latino encompass a large group of people. Like always, colonialism played a huge part in shaping and forming the society of Latin America.

The people of Latin America are a mix of many races. Most commonly, they are a mixture between Native Amarindian and Spaniards with often some African ancestry. People I have spoken to have said that many people don’t know their race. “They assume being Mexican is their race which is why they’re confused when someone tells them they’re racially black but ethically Mexican, or when someone tells them they’re white and they refuse to believe it.” Discrimination against those who are black and have darker skin is common. “...Growing up in an interacial family... her mom was called derogatory slurs and her father was treated unfairly at work.” Discrimination against native populations is also common, but according to a source, “Its ironic since most Mexicans are part indigenous.” This indigenous racism is unfortunately directed towards Central America which is majority indigenous. This racial mindset is a carryover of the colonial mindset which has ingrained into peoples minds. This mindset can also affect how people look at other countries. Latin America as a whole is extremely diverse racially. Many countries in the south, such as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and South Brazil, tend to be more European compared to their counterparts. This can cause the mindset to form that these people are more “normal” and “superior” compared to other countries. This mindset culminated in many horrific incidents none more prevalent than in Argentina.

Argentina, like other South American countries, was once a colony of Spain and thus had a large number of Black Africans land upon its shores. By the late 1700’s early 1800’s the country’s population was close to 50 percent black. This number may seem like Argentina today is racially diverse, but it could not be farther from the truth. Today Argentina is the “whitest” country in South America. European descendants account for close to 97 percent of the population, close to half being descendants of Italian immigrants. Unlike other Latin America countries Argentina did not undergo the process of mixing and intermarriage. Instead many Argentinian today believe that their ancestors never took part in the Atlantic Slave trade. The President of Argentina Carlos Menem once said, “ In Argentina Blacks do not exist…”

As a whole, racism is still alive and well, but in talking to my sources one thing is very clear, it is not here to stay. People are becoming more aware, more alert, and more vigilant to their own biases. Younger generations especially are having the tough conversations with their traditional families about this racism. These are the first steps to properly moving forward to a more equal society.

As a whole, racism is still alive and well, but in talking to my sources one thing is very clear, it is not here to stay. People are becoming more aware, more alert, and more vigilant to their own biases. Younger generations especially are having the tough conversations with their traditional families about this racism. These are the first steps to properly moving forward to a more equal society.

Special thanks to Lizabeth Gaona, Dahyana Arroyo, and Jena Tufail for their contributions to this article.

Hello everyone! This will be my last article in Deadline and I wanted to thank everyone for reading and coming this far! This was my first year in Deadline and I’m sad it’s going to be my last. I want to thank everyone for kind words and helping me along the way. Please consider joining Deadline, let your creativity flow!

THE MODEL MINORITY myth

[A #StopAsianHate Seattle Protest Pictured Above] Even with the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, it seems like the Asian American community cannot escape the tropes of the model minority myth, a flawed idea that claims Asians have been able to overcome racial obstacles by simply “working hard.” Coined in 1966 by sociologist William Peterson in a generalizing New York Times Magazine article, the term continues to not only weaponize the Asian community against other minorities but serves to erase the issues AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) citizens are continuously facing.

Many figures in today’s political sphere are guilty of perpetuating this false narrative. A 2017 essay published in the New York Magazine, for example, sprailed from an analysis behind the Democrats’s sympathy towards Hillary Clinton to an examination of Trump’s policies before ending on this troubling and flawed conclusion: “Today, Asian-Americans are among the most prosperous, well-educated, and successful ethnic groups in America. What gives? It couldn’t possibly be that they maintained solid two-parent family structures, had social networks that looked after one another, placed enormous emphasis on education and hard work, and thereby turned false, negative stereotypes into true, positive ones, could it? It couldn’t be that all whites are not racists or that the American dream still lives?” the entire Asian American demographic into one general monolith without taking into account existing diversity and disparities among them. For example, “Burmese Americans experience poverty at a rate nearly triple the national average, while Japanese Americans have a poverty rate less than half the average.”

Different ethnic groups within the Asian community have different immigration histories and experiences. Perpetual use of the model minority myth has disregarded how selective U.S. immigrant laws were prior to the 1970s, commonly giving preference to Asian immigrants, especially East Asian immigrants, who were highly educated and wealthy. It wasn’t until immigration reforms in the U.S. and political, economic, and social upheavals in Southeast Asia that “large numbers of unskilled immigrants and refugees [came] to the United

States.”

Fleeing political instability, war, and genocide, this Asian demographic experienced a life quite different from their more privileged counterparts, often struggling through poverty and discrimination in an unfamiliar land. Unfortunately, the stereotypes derived from the model minority myth caused others to dismiss the difficulties Asian refugees were facing, and these immigrants endured hardships with little resources or aid to support them.

The results of unequal resources can still be seen today. According to a Seattle report, 1 in 3 Asian Americans are hindered by their limited English proficiency (LEP).

[Vietnamese Refugees Approaching a Rescue Ship Pic-

Some of the highest rates were found among Southeast Asian ethnic groups. 52 percent of Vietnamese Americans , for example, were found to be LEP.

The lack of resources has disadvantaged the majority of the Asian American community. Language barriers affect almost all aspects of a person’s life, from academic achievement to employment. People frequently cite and celebrate the repeated statistic where “47 percent of Asian American adults have bachelor’s degree or higher,” but when scientists expand beyond surveying only Japanese and Chinese Americans and gather a more inclusive demographic of Asian ethnicities, they often find numbers such as this: “ . . . by ethnicity, only 11 percent of Laotian, 16 percent of Cambodian, and 26 percent of Vietnamese Americans have bachelor’s degrees or higher—rates lower than other communities of color.”

This is likely due to the poverty rates that wreck Southeast Asian groups who came to the U.S. as refugees. As stated by an NBC article, “Southeast Asian groups, such as Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong suffer much higher rates of poverty than other groups, such as Indian or Japanese populations, which can impact college achievement rates.” In fact, recent data in Arizona has found that the “unemployment growth rate among Asian Americans is second only to African Americans . . . nearly 40 percent greater than the total population.”

And that is only the tip of the systemic issues plaguing the Asian American community.

The model minority myth’s only purpose is to invalidate other POC’s—especially black citizens’—racial experiences. It’s a method that permits people to ignore black people’s struggles by utilizing Asian stereotypes to deny the influence that slavery, segregation, and other historical injustices had on social and economic opportunities. Talking about how the majority of Asians live paycheck to paycheck, talking about how the lack of resources hindered many Asians from attaining academic success, talking about how Southeast Asians are often disproportionately swept into gang culture due to war-induced trauma and economic difficulties, talking about how Southeast Asian refugees “are at least three times more likely to be deported on the basis of an old criminal conviction, compared to other immigrants” —would tear down the basic no tions of the model minority narrative. Acknowledging the diversity of the Asian experience would show that unequal circumstances lead to unequal outcomes.

It would force the mainstream media and policymakers to recognize the ramifications U.S. atrocities have had on minorities today, and that is an action that seems to be often too frightening for racists to take.

However, that doesn’t mean that Asians aren’t excused from encouraging this trope either. Despite the damage that the model minority myth has wrecked on the Asian American community, many Asians still unfortunately subscribe to this narrative because there is a certain privilege associated with its ideas. After all, the myth allows U.S. naturally born Asian Americans to blend into American society and culture more easily, and it allows us to escape some of the blatant and brutal racism that other POCs face—such as police brutality. But, Asians nevertheless must recognize that for all the assimilation we attempt, we will still be viewed with a perpetual foreigner status. Historically speaking, Asians are often used as tools to divide minorities when convenient and discarded when circumstances enable people to express their racism freely.

Asians being blamed for diseases and illnesses is not a new phenomenon. In the past, Americans have commonly used Asians as scapegoats for malarium, smallpox, leprosy, and other such viruses, often citing the “exotic foods” that Asians eat as “evidence.” Obviously this idea is still prevalent today, even prior to the pandemic, and has played a role in anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic. People have always poked fun at Asians for supposedly “eating dogs.” Now, during

[An illustration published in the May 26, 1882 San

Francisco Illustrated Wasp issue that depicts three ghoulish figures labeled—left to right—malarium, smallpox and leprosy, with one of the ghoulish figures carrying a stash that says “Chinatown.” Here, it’s clear that the art intends to blame Chinese people for the diseases.] the pandemic, the “joke” has evolved to Asians “eating bats.”

The American opinion on Asian Americans is constantly flipping and switching. Historically, Asians were hated in the U.S. The first Asian immigrants lived in fear of being racially massacred, a common hate crime, and during WWII, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated into internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It wasn’t until two decades later that public opinion started to switch when sociologist William Peterson wrote an article comparing the success of Japanese Americans after the internment camps to Black Americans’circumstances, coining the term “model minority.” The effects of this idea lasted until Southeast Asian refugees fled to the U.S. after the Vietnam War, and White Americans, encouraged by the fear and paranoia of communism and the widely accepted racism, openly harassed these immigrants. For example, when Vietnamese people were able to obtain jobs as shrimp fishers, the Ku Klux Klan trained their members in “commando-style attacks” in order to “[patrol] the [fishing] waters in their regalia, and set boats owned by Vietnamese people on fire.”

Violence against Asians was relentless, and white supremacists even went after children. In Stockton, California, a gun shooter targeted and killed five children simply because they were Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. While the violence didn’t slow, sentiments started to shift when America decided to improve their country’s reputation by highlighting the poor conditions that forced Asian refugees to immigrate to this country. Attitudes switched again after the events of 9/11 when South Asians found themselves being branded as “terrorists.” Then, America suddenly decided that they loved Asians again—until COVID-19. Hate crimes against Asians have surged by 169 percent in the first quarter of the pandemic alone, and foreign Chinese students in STEM have even found themselves racially profiled and interrogated for possibly using the knowledge they gained from American universities to “benefit the Chinese military” despite Now, the narrative seems to be shifting again. A few days ago (as of the writing of this article), the Senate has passed a COVID-19 Hate Crime bill in order to demonstrate their stance against anti-Asian sentiments, and while the legislation seems good at first glance, many Asian activists have pointed out how the bill only increases the power of police officers, granting law enforcement more jurisdiction over hate crime charges. The bill is deceptive; it establishes rehabilitation efforts for perpetrators of hate crimes, while not addressing key obstacles that makes it significantly more difficult to charge someone with a hate crime in the first place.

Many have also expressed concerns about its possible effect on the Black community. If police officers have more authority over identifying and investigating hate crimes, then they will have more control over who is charged with that offense. Activists have pointed out that because the bill fails to distinguish between levels of violence in a hate crime and because the bill only increases the legal influence of law enforcement, police officers can easily increase legal sentences against Black people by adding a hate crime charge. “You want to think about solutions that are going to bring peace to both [Asian and Black Americans], and increased policing is not going to . . . support the Black community,” Chinese American student, Nikki Chang, expressed in an Ames Tribune article.

This possibility is further supported by the anti-Black rhetoric that rose up when anti-Asian violence finally garnered national attention. Videos where the hate crime perpetrators are Black were sensationalized on the internet even though recent reports found that the “strongest predictor of xenophobic views of COVID-19” is nationalism, which was significantly greater among white respondents compared to every other racial demographics. Despite multiple studies, however, this narrative allows police officers to unfairly charge Black people with hate crime charges with more ease.

Many Asian activists and Asian organizations have tried to combat this narrative, repeatedly putting out statements that condemned anti-Black rhetoric, but a combination of the model minority myth, the portrayal of Asian issues in mainstream media, and the

already prevalent racism against Black Americans have made these efforts seem naught. And, with the glaring flaws present in the COVID-19 Hate Crime bill, it just feels like Asian issues are being weaponized against the Black community again.

[I’m kind of shocked that this is my last article, but it’s been a wonderful ride. A special thanks to everyone who’ve supported me along the way! And, a huge thanks to Deadline for giving me the opportunity to write freely! To the readers, join the team! You won’t regret it!]

By: Chau Anh Nguyen

MAY 2021

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