From: rw@HPLB.HPL.HP.COM (Russil Wvong)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: Hoyt Sze's "Parting Shot"
Date: 19 Aug 92 12:46:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: dawn400a.9208191246.AA07235

Thanks to Judy for posting Hoyt Sze's article.  I strongly disagree with
the ideas expressed in that article, though.  To summarize Hoyt's ideas:

1. Equal assimilation is not possible.  Assimilation requires destruction
   of Asian American culture, and adoption of white culture.
2. Preservation of Asian American culture is important.
3. Material wealth is not important.
4. American society is ruled by white people.
5. We need a unified Asian American community, similar to the African
   American community.
6. There is no middle ground.  It is not possible to
   assimilate into American society (e.g. through marriage) and remain
   within the Asian American community.  

My own ideas, expressed rather briefly:

1. We live in American society, among other Americans.  There is no place in
   America where it is possible to live only among Asian Americans.  Therefore,
   we must participate in American society.  Refusing to do so is impractical.

   Adapting ourselves to American society does not require forgetting who
   we are.  Chinese-American families continue to speak Chinese at home,
   for example.

   The "PARDESH" series, posted regularly to soc.culture.indian, expresses
   this rather well.

2. To me, Asian American culture is primarily an immigrant culture.  It
   is necessarily transitory.  The only way to preserve it would be to
   emigrate somewhere else within a few generations.

3. I'm Chinese.  Of course wealth is important.  What else can I say?  :-)

4. John Kenneth Galbraith, in "The Culture of Contentment", argues that
   power in America rests with the upper middle class:  professionals
   and other people with secure jobs, who live in the suburbs, dislike
   paying taxes, and make up a majority of those who vote.  *All* of us
   here on Usenet fall into this class.  Thus, we *are* part of the ruling
   class.  (As Clare Chu mentioned, we are considered "Ice" people, not
   "Sun" people.)

5. I think that because of the diversity of Asian Americans -- as described
   in Andy Shaw's analysis, for example -- the Asian American community will
   remain broad and diffuse.

6. The Asian American community is, and should be, a *subset* of American
   society as a whole, rather than separate from it.  Each of us should
   participate in both the Asian American community *and* in American society.

>        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?

Some of my cultural values are Canadian, and are propagated by Canadian
society as a whole.  Some aspects of my culture are Chinese; they are
propagated by Chinese people living in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore,
and overseas Chinese communities around the world.

Some of my values are *neither* Chinese nor Canadian:  they originate from
the conflict between Western and Asian cultures, and thus are new.  But
these aspects of culture, which can truly be said to be Asian American,
are caused by immigration, and are necessarily transient.  Once we begin to
feel at home here, these aspects and values will disappear.  For example,
I doubt that my grandchildren, if they grow up here, will have the same
motivation to succeed that I do.

>              Who wouldn't want to replace an oppressive race hierarchy with a
>system in which whites and people of color are truly equal?

I don't see how establishing an Asian American community, unified
politically and culturally, will accomplish this.

I did like Hoyt's multiple-choice quiz, though. :-)
--
Russil Wvong
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
russil@idacom.hp.com
Not an official statement of HP.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american