Asians And Other Cultures example essay topic

"Therefore those people who are as different from others as body is from soul or beast from human, and people whose task, that is to say, the best thing to come from them, is to use their bodies are in this condition? those people are natural slaves. And it is better for the other things we mentioned. For he who can belong to someone else, and he who shares in reason to the extent of understanding it, but does not have it himself, is a natural slave.? Said Aristotle (1254 b, 15, Ch 5). There is no slave existing in today's society, every person is treated equally nowadays.

But what is existing in our society now is racism. There are many different cultures background people come to United States to live. Under one roof, all these different groups have to coexist for this country to function properly. As a result of interaction between groups of different background, race, tension develops.

Soon, it becomes a personal dislike from one member of one group for members of another group. While these feeling are unavoidable and sometimes understandable, it is unacceptable to institutionalize these feelings and make it an acceptable part of society. Surprisingly, Asian Americans have been in America for over 150 years. They are as diverse as the immigrants from Europe, ranging from China, Japan, Cambodia, Korea, Philippines, India, Vietnam and Laos are.

When many people think of American immigrants, Asians are on the last of their lists. From all of these countries, China is well known front-runner of American immigrants. China is one of the world's oldest civilizations. It influence have reverberated throughout Asia. Its presence is felt in may of the surrounding cultures. The Chinese people have tried to keep their society pure from outside sources.

When foreigners entered their homeland and poisoned the population with drugs, the culture could not stop the imminent alteration of their ways. Chinese came to America for a myriad of reasons. The main reason was because of the myth of the Gam San (golden mountain). Other reasons were due to overpopulation, poverty, hunger, flooding, high taxes, bad economy, collapsing government, and crop failure. When gold was found in California and short on hand of workers, many Chinese travel into America to get rich quick. A young man in Canton wrote to his brother in Boston saying? god many Americans speak of California, oh!

Very rich country! O hear good many Americans and Europeans go there very much. I think I shall go to California next summer.? Stories like these built up this dream of the? golden mountain? The plan for most Chinese was to make their fortune and return home to their family. The dream of getting rich quick has been around for ages.

Due to this, a trickle of immigrants turned into a deluge. Toward the end of the 19th century, many whites felt that there were too many Chinese in the United States. Congress acted by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which banned the immigration of Chinese into America. As the number of Chinese immigrants increased, the anti Chinese forces began to arise. The Chinese provided a cheap form of labor.

Racism built up due to cultural and economic fears. The Chinese did not try to amalgamate with the dominant culture. The Chinese were discriminated in many ways, from forming laws that specifically targeted them, to disallowing citizenship of the Chinese. In late 1860, violence started to arise from the hate. Whites rioted and killed many Chinese in towns all over California. In May 1876 some whites burned a Chinese house in Truckee and then shot the Chinese as they tried to escape.

Although the town claimed to be outraged, those arrested were useless. They found not guilty. Examples like this show the inequalities of legal system at that time period. It is a struggle to be an Asian in America due to the fact that Asians have been denied political, economic and social equality in America. Stereotype is not only seen among Asians, they are also seen in many other cultures and genders.

For instance, women for years were battling for women's equality to be able to vote, and today women are still battling for equality in political and economic areas. In addition, African American's are still trying to be accepted into certain political roles throughout our society. Asians are depicted as being inferior. If you have ever seen a movie or a television show that had an Asian character, nine times out of ten the Asian character is depicted as being mathematicians, na " ive, and speaks with broken English. I have also noticed that there are very few Asian politicians, as well as very few women politicians, within our culture. However, Asians do not receive the same types of opportunities as others because they have been stereotyped for so long as being inferior.

In addition, perhaps the reason why Asians may be seen as inferior individuals is because they were one of the last cultures to start a movement for equality that was inspired by other ethnic cultures. Because of this somewhat late movement, our culture has not been able to adapt to this change, like our culture has not adapted to women being paid the same as men. Racism has plagued the public education system. Segregation has led to under funded school that has no tools to teach children in black dominated area.

State and local government use property tax to determine the amount of fund a school gets. However, properties in black dominated area are either run down, or have low value. As a result, under funded schools lead to under funded education that gives black students no skill to make a living. Very few of them will be able to get out of the poverty cycle that has plagued their parents. Mandatory busing has tried to bring black students to white dominated neighborhood school, and also bring white students to urban school.

This policy has given black students access to school that has better facilities and equipment. It has forced states and locals government to give more funds to urban school. Many white parents have refused to send their children to urban school for countless reason. They have a valid claim that busing violates their personal freedom. The court has to decide between two conflicting interests, whether to give equal access to one group at the expense of one individual's personal freedom. After deciding in favor of equal opportunity, the court has tried to enforce the decision by mandatory busing, and it has even used the National Guard escort black students to white school.

However, it did not require states to change their school overnight. While voting is considered by many as a personal choice, special interest groups working to ensure representation for minorities have dominated the election process. Sometimes, this helps minorities but can also hurt them. The common method for ensuring minority representation is racial districting. White Americans had used racial districting method such as? cracking? or? stacking? to eliminate black votes at first.

These methods give minorities no representation or hope of electing a candidate that is friendly toward minorities. Since court has ruled against "stacking? or "cracking? racial districting has appeared of the form "packing? in recent years. Even though packing surely gives minorities representation, it has diminished the voting power of minorities These examples just goes to show you that stereotypes do dehumanize people and turns them into something they are not. In retrospect, Asians and other cultures are being denied political, economic and social equality, which is not equitable to these people. This has just further proof that stereotyping has no boundaries, because it is occurring in many different cultures and it is affecting many different people.