Dilemmas of Over-achievers

By Dyske    March 3rd, 2002

After a while, listening to racial politics becomes very tiring. I attended an Asian American conference organized by the Asian American students at the Harvard Law School. I was invited to speak because of this site. I mentioned in my speech that, technically speaking, I don’t belong there because I am not a native-born American. Once I got there, I realized that this was truer than I had expected.

The most pressing issue, among many, that unites them is the American public’s perception of Asian Americans being foreign. Since I grew up in Japan until I was 17, I am a foreigner in many ways, and therefore I don’t expect people to perceive me as an authentic American. Even I don’t see myself that way. However, I can see native-born Asian Americans’ frustration of being perceived a foreigner. Unfortunately there is a good reason why this perception exists, and I am actually part of that reason. One of the speakers mentioned the statistics that 60% of Asians (Pacific Asians, to be more exact) are foreign-born. When this speaker said “we”, he meant the 40% who were born here. So there is a schism of foreign-born and native-born within the Asian American community. Within the 40% group, there is an unavoidable feeling of resentment towards the 60% group who perpetuates the perception of being foreign. I don’t blame them. It must be frustrating. Ideally speaking, even if you were the only native-born Asian American in this country, it would be unfair for anyone to see you as being foreign, but that’s just an ideal. Unfortunately many aspects of human nature aren’t ideal. It’s like your loved ones getting killed in a volcano eruption; what are you going to do? Human perception was not designed to be fair.

If you really want to solve this problem, I do have a suggestion, even though I can’t be bothered to pursue it myself. What you do is to take advantage of its unfairness: consciouslymanipulate it. Part of what makes human perception unfair is that it can be manipulated, and it, therefore, does not reflect the true state of matters. As I said in my speech, it’s just like advertising. Run TV commercials if you have to. It may sound ridiculous, but depending on the execution, it could do a lot. I’m not advocating this idea, but silly problems are usually solved by silly solutions.

At the conference, I felt like I was in an Asian cult group. I could understand the bitterness of some senior members since they had to go through some serious discriminations. And I could even thank some of them for doing certain things to make our lives easier, but if what they wanted was for Asian Americans to be able to live freely just like any other Americans, then they’ve done a fine job of it, and let’s just enjoy the fruits of their labor. Does it have to be an end in itself?

One of the younger speakers complained about kids throwing rocks at her as she was growing up. It’s not like white social-outcasts don’t get the same treatment. I know a plenty of white people who grew up getting picked on. Does it always have to be about race?

We all have problems with perceptions. Race is only one of many. Should bald men unite to fight the perception of being unattractive? Should geeks unite to fight the perception of being socially inept? Should blonde bombshells unite to fight the perception of being stupid? There is no end to fighting perceptions if you start. Besides, some perceptions associated with Asians are beneficial. Even if you are a mediocre computer programmer, people will still think you are a good one. Even if you are bad at math, people will still assume that you are a genius. If you are a fashion designer, because of the precedence and the perception of Asians being exotic, you have a better chance of succeeding at it than most people. The same goes for architects, engineers, news anchors, and even graphic designers.

Certainly there are fields where Asians may face some difficulties, especially if there is no precedence, but that is where you have the opportunity to do something truly unique and revolutionary. In the field where Asians are well-established, it would be easier for the rest of us to follow, but it is harder to achieve something that is truly great since you are always in the shadows of the great achievers of the past. If there are merits, of course, there are demerits. You can’t have everything in life. For those who are extremely success-driven in life, perhaps they need it all. They see some white people getting even more, and they feel that it’s unfair. It seems that the stereotype of Asians being over-achievers seems to be true here.

One of the speakers at the conference expressed her opinion that any successful Asian Americans owe it to the Asian American community, that they are accountable, and that they have responsibility to the Asian American community. If this is not a racist statement, I’m not sure what is. If this is true, any Asian criminals would owe it to the Asian community too, and we should be responsible for them. Guilt by association, or accountability by association, is the very problem of racism. I could not believe that the whole crowd was nodding their heads up and down and cheering on to this politician. It appeared to me that these people were truly sorry for being Asian. They kept emphasizing their pride of being Asian. That just sounds to me as silly as being proud of being bald or full-haired.

Some people don’t seem to know when to stop complaining and start living. Uniting to fight the perceptions of Asian Americans sounds anal-retentive to me, and it is no accident, I found out this weekend, that anal-retentiveness is another stereotype of Asians. (Well, this bit is just a joke, so take it easy.)

Here is my speech.

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