Asian boy: So I’m fucked for this class cuz I don’t study.
Asian girl: Why are you taking it?
Asian boy: I need an International Studies course for L&S.
Asian girl: And you’re taking Japanese!? Why don’t you take like, Asian American studies or something?
Asian boy: No, no, that’s stupid. That’s not useful at all. The other options were like…[scoffs derisively] Global Poverty…
- Overheard at Berkeley (by myself)
I really, REALLY hope that I am not the only one thorougly disgusted by this exchange. This is particularly so because Berkeley is the epicenter of ethnic studies, and yet there still exists a pervasive, deleterious notion among APA students that Asian American studies is essentially a bullshit subject. Our shared racialized history is quintessentially what distinguishes us as a community. To deny one’s self this knowledge (let alone dismiss it as being “not useful at all”) virtually affirms the existing hierarchy and outcasts one’s self from the Asian American community’s collective advancement. Even more saddening is the relation between these incidents and my hypothesis that APAs’ ignorance (and as apparently evidenced above, our INTENTIONAL ignorance) of this history contributes directly to such distressing problems as Asian-on-Asian racism, violence, and other self-inflicted detriments that our community faces.
Discussing this earlier today with my friends Mike and Joy, I was faced with the question, “So, did you curse him out? Did you kick his ass?” I fear that my failure to do so cements my complicity with this destructive mentality.
Anyway, buddy, good luck passing Japanese. I’m sure you’ll hella need it, dumbass.