From: judyy@ocf.berkeley.edu (Judy Y. Tseng)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Hoyt Sze's "Parting Shot"
Date: 19 Aug 1992 03:29:11 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: tempest.berkeley.edu




Equal assimilation is a lie for people of color in this country. The path of
attempted assimilation is the path of ethnic submission and white superiority.

	...
	
	Aside from our collective battles, individuals of color have been
struggling against personal foes - waging quieter, less dramatic wars inside
our hearts and minds.

	I, for one, had to purge myself of the feverish hallucination called 
the American Dream. I had to uproot the weeds of white colonialism tangled
within myself. I had to search beyond the lies to find that the promise of 
equality and acceptance would always be
blocked by white hatred and institutional indifference.

	Surrounded by self-deceit, I didn't channel my negative energy into
self-hate or nihilistic materialism. Instead, I shook off the shackles of self-
hate and began searching for identity, strength and my own place in this 
society.

	...

	Accomodation is a synonym for murder; as Asian Americans, we must 
reject it completely. We must not kowtow in front of the white establishment,
sacrificing our precious identity and culture in exchange for worthless
material crumbs.

	Like lemmings, we've been eagerly leaping into the melting pot. 
Following the lead of the first Japanese and Chinese Americans in this country,
we have slavishly deluded ourselves into thinking we can become typical
Americans - not realizing that Americanness predicates whiteness. Simple logic
would tell us that any effort to be the essential Asian or American inevitably
ends in delusion or disappointment.

	For any Asian American who is the least bit interested in pride or
dignity, we must concentrate on the task of building an unhyphenated Asian
America. Social experimentation requires innovation; political and cultural
unification of such a diverse community will be a challenge. Only a handful
of immigrant peoples - like European Jews and African Americans - have success-
fully resisted the siren call of unequal assimilation.

	Some Asian Americans, however, neither seek nor desire cultural
integrity, and that honestly baffles me. Who wouldn't want to defend and
propagate their cultural values? Who wouldn't want strength and identity for
their people? Who wouldn't want to replace an oppressive race hierarchy with a
system in which whites and people of color are truly equal?

	This is not extremist or irresponsible rhetoric. In my opinion, this is
truth, conveyed in the simplest and harshest sense. If we turn our back now on
the search for individual and collective identity, we resolve ourselves to the
eternal shame of cultural defeat.


	Understand that moderation and accomodation is unacceptable; you're
either with me or against me. In this fight against white rule, compromise is
collaboration. In this struggle, middle ground does not exist.

	Alliance requires sacrifice and commitment. If you marry white, you're
on the wrong side. If your actual work or psychological thought perpetuates
white rule, you're helping the wrong people. If you let your Asian American
brothers and sisters suffer - while you reap the rewards of betrayal - you
have willfully and wrongly perpetuated the oppression of your people.

	Even if all the rest of the Asian American community bows to white
rule, we must steel ourselves to rooting out the self-haters and the racists.
Sometimes the prospects may seem dark, but I promise you that truth and
ideological purity are rewards which stand by themselves.

	My self-education in Berkeley hasn't exactly been a joyride. I've
lost friends along the way, and I've exorcised a part of myself forever.

	But if I've made one person of color stop and reconsider, if I've
planted the seed of doubt in an assimilation-mad Asian American's mind, if I've
convinced one Asian American to speak out against the system, then I'm 
satisfied - because that's one more brick in the foundation of an Asian 
America.

	And if that sort of collective strength rudely wakes you from your
white-washed exotic-erotic dreams of Charlie Chans and Suzy Wongs, let me just
leave you with this: Your dream has ended.

				   	***

	Sze will be attending Cornell U's law school in the fall. His 
	column will periodically continue in _Asian Week_, which can be
	obtained by calling (415) 397-0221.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american