Asian American Experience Through Art

Enstad mentions words such as “invisible” (57, 58), “unanticipated” (61), and “threaten” (60). These words indicate the unknown which stirs a sense of terror among her readers. The unknown remains a mystery, and there is no way to predict its movements. By doing so, she underscores the direness of the spread of this toxicity by pushing against this fear. Enstad even blatantly acknowledges the emotions she’s evoking by jeering that after reading her essay, readers might want to “sanitize one’s own environment” (63). As an author, she empathizes with her audience’s thoughts on her essay which allows her to relate to her audience thus, igniting a need to take charge and further analyze this toxicity that plagues Americans. It is common for a community of people to begin scrambling for solutions to an issue when the danger is imminent compared to a future problem. On the other hand, Kim’s article not only brings together a community for a common cause like Enstad’s but, she appeals to a different emotion through her use of a history strand. Kim’s history strand consists of phrases such as “imperialism” (3), “political turmoil” (4), and “immigrant” (4). She motivates her Asian American audience to unite due to the shared histories of the community. The cultural roots of Asian Americans are not often portrayed in American media and is not commonly discussed. Kim

The intersection of dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender are important in shaping my social location and experiences. By exercising my sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), I will argue how my social location as an Asian American woman with a working class background has worked separately and together to influence how I behave, how others treat and view me, and how I understand the world. The sociological imagination has allowed me to understand my own “biography”, or life experiences by understanding the “history”, or larger social structures in which I grew up in (Mills, 1959). First, I will describe my family’s demographic characteristics in relation to California and the United States to put my analysis into context. I

To be young and Asian in America is a special brand of torture. There is an unspoken dictum of silence that grips Asian youth, a denial of our place in popular culture. Asian youth walk in America not quite sure where we fit in-black children have a particular brotherhood, Hispanic children have a particular brotherhood, white children own everything else. We cannot lay claim to jazz or salsa or swing; we cannot say our ancestors fought for equality against an oppressive government or roamed the great hallways of power across the globe. We do not have a music, a common hero, a lexicon of slang. Asian youth experience personal diasporas every day.

America has always been labeled the “melting pot” and the “land of the free,” but when one is analyzing the history and social norms of the country, these statements are far from true. America has thrived through the oppression of minority groups and social pressure towards these groups to conform to the majority culture. In any historical sense, from the near extermination of Native Americans to the racial profiling of Muslim individuals after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, minority groups have always been the victims and have always been viewed as different if they do not assimilate into the “typical” American culture. Numerous works of literature have successfully displayed the struggles that minorities face when attempting to conform. Two works in particular, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Alexie Sherman and When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, tell stories of two different minority groups: Native Americans living in the 21st century and Japanese-Americans during World War II. While these stories are separated by several decades, it is clear that American culture has not changed, as each story exemplifies how difficult it truly is to leave old cultural norms behind in order to be accepted by the majority.

The pain and the suffering, the oppression, and the exclusion all describe the history of Asia America. When they arrived to the United States, they become labeled as Asians. These Asians come from Japan, China, Korea, Laos, Thailand, and many other diverse countries in the Eastern hemisphere. These people wanted to escape from their impoverished lives as the West continued to infiltrate their motherland. They saw America as the promise land filled with opportunity to succeed in life. Yet due to the discrimination placed from society and continual unfair

In the early 19th century, many of the waves of Asian immigrants who came to America found jobs as day laborers. They frequently worked on cross-country railways, a transportation system by rail, and in the mining industry. According to the data gathered by the Census Bureau in “Total Asian alone ...” the estimated number of U.S. residents on July 2013 who were Vietnamese was approximately more than 1.6 million. America is a nation established by immigrants. Therefore, the immigrants’ culture has made a great contribution to the United States culture. After a few months lived in the United States, I experienced more culture shocks. There were so many cultural differences in America, “the ways of thinking, the ways

Art among the Asian-American community was a prized possession. Eastern art was dominated from themes of religion, customs, and expression. There was a diversity in how art was made, as the genres were dimensional, pop-out, and a wide variety of stilled art. Art, of course differed among the sub-types, with each having a different discipline towards eastern art. They include the following: ​

Orientalism has led to a false representation of Asia and the people who come from and live there. Due to these false assumptions of how Asians are portrayed as, many Asian-Americans have struggled with their lives. These struggles ranged from some being persecuted for being a certain race and others for finding it hard to see themselves being represented fairly in media. Asian-Americans have been largely misrepresented and are seen as the “Others”. However, many Asian-American artist, all with different backgrounds, have found ways to bring Orientalist views into questioning and tried to better represent themselves and the Asian-American community. Dumbfounded, Mary Im, and the trio Iijima, Miyamoto, and Chin have all challenged Orientalist

The “Silent and Compliant” Asians in Popular Culture White Americans categorize Asian Americans as the model minority, and this is done to characterize and force them to fit their ideology of an inferior being (Sameer Pandya). The Model minority includes the stereotypes of acting as, “a geek, silent, compliant, and overall a smart child” (Sameer Pandya). Asian Americans are depicted as the “oriental,” also known as the “other” who are in “racial opposition” of a white American (Sameer Pandya, Robert G. Lee 2). The theoretical framework of Robert G. Lee’s “Model Minority” is depicted in the article the, “Spelling Bee” as children from an Asian origin are forced to conform into the Americanized expectation of the Model Minority. The “Model Minority”

Works Cited Knoll, Tricia. Becoming Americans: Asian Sojourners, Immigrants, and Refugees in the Western United States. Portland, Oregon: Coast to Coast Books, 1982. Ng, Fae Myenne.

The idea of mixed race, culture, heritage has been a subject for many discussions and debates regarding its communication through art. How the artist themselves relate to this idea and how or why they use specific art pieces to portray their idea is very interesting. Viewers who do not share the same upbringing or lifestyle may find it harder to understand such pieces if it is only characterized as being artworks of Asian Americans. Questions such as who is Asian American or what is an Asian American start to emerge amongst audience like that. However, two Asian American artists: Roger Shimomura and Kip Fulbeck – both men who are clearly of different generations

Traversing lands unknown to one before has always been a subject of mystery, as these foreign sights and wonders give way to many unexpected discoveries to the naïve mind. In any society, the idea of travelling abroad is still taboo in most circles – the ethnocentric ideals of most traditional cultures, while not outright forbidding, but still do look down on the practice of leaving home with goals of success. Whether it be religious thoughts of demons abroad or wanting to keep handy laborers at home, or any other reason, there is always reason for those wanting to wanting to keep such virile young at home, and they will often attempt to do so. Those leaving will give up their identity, but not in any kind of negative way; as they grow, they will find themselves changed by time, as they embrace the new ideas and rituals of their live-in society. They may go home, but with the inward change and newfound knowledge, they will not be able to see the world with their young eyes, as they once had. Overcoming adversity is a manner of mending the word a bit and learning to adapt to any current situation.

“What is Asian Art?” I repeatedly ask myself that, but still struggle to come up with a definition. Historical Asian arts carved its way into the modern world with its deep history that indicates how their objects or artifacts led to what they have in common. The process of creating an Asian Art can take up to years, but the end product is definitely worth it. Although it was difficult to find the right tools back then, they still found ways to create these types of arts which is why it is deeply appreciated for its beauty. Asian arts based on its modern discovery were created for the same purpose, but illustrated in its own unique form of style.

In today’s, as technology advances, it is getting easier to migrate to different parts of country and the world. Though this happens everyday, cultural shock, cultural adaptation and cultural

Over the past number of decades, international migration has caused a significant shift in the distribution of the world’s population, leading to great concern for many countries around the globe (McKeown, 2004: 159). Migration is often seen as a way to deal with bad political institutions, conflicts or a chance to boost economic opportunities. While a person’s decision to migrate is normally recognised as an entirely individual choice and the possibility for a person to improve their quality of life, in some cases an individual does not always get a choice in migrating (Drabo and Mbaye, 2011: 2).