5/16 tues

The patterns of ethnic identification mentioned in the article describes that it is flawed to view the perception of “ethnic” culture as the “original” culture. However, I know that many Asian Americans and other non-Asians do try to regain their “ethnic” identity by doing that whatever their ethnic cultures are comprised of (holidays, ceremonies, food, fashion, you name it). In my own experience in regaining my Identity as a Chinese/Vietnamese person in college, I tried to hangout with International students from China more or just anyone from Asia, thinking that these interactions will somehow transform me into an authentic Vietnamese or Chinese person.

After learning about the concept of cultural identity, I realized that it is impossible to go back to my pure root because I am bi-ethnic and these two cultures have been deeply integrated throughout history (basically, very long time ago). So, there is no root for me to go back to and this explains why my approach to be in touch with my roots does not make any sense and yields no significant results. If I want to be more Vietnamese, then why do I want to be friends with Filipino and Chinese students? It is because they fall into the homogenous “Asian” category? Why did I not hangout with bi-ethnic students since I am too? These questions really reflect my mentality, which is influenced by the Western perspective of Orientalism. How is this possible you might ask? It is because America is a hegemonic power, therefore, it influences people to accept the common sense that Asians are one big homogenous group. This does make me upset. However, I have been living in the state of ignorance and I can unwind my thinking by taking a college cultural course. So it is possible for change J However, not a lot of ethnic groups have this privilege to be informed about this topic since they do not finish high school and make it into college. A little off topic, but I think these marginalized communities accept the common sense that their “ethnic” groups are ignorant, violent, etc. (all the negative stereotypes in our medias).

Video: Orientalism

From watching the interview, I just unwrapped a common sense that I have not questioned it before. The idea goes along the line that the more exposure you get to something foreign, the more familiar you will be with that thing. I would expect the reason why America had these negative views of Middle eastern people originally was due to the fact that they did not get that much exposure to know these “foreign” people on an individual level. So, the “obvious solution” is for the U.S to interact with Middle Eastern countries more frequently and build some sort of economic or political ties; and there would be peace, happy ending, love, happiness, etc. However, Said disproves this common sense and reveals that this common solution had the opposite effect, unfortunately.

Does this orientalist view have to do with power? Indeed yes, because America had and still has economic power throughout history, which promotes this “colonizer mentally” that view others as inferior to them. Then this would make me question--would this orientalist view changed if the U.S did not have much economic power back then? Would Middle Eastern countries adopt this view if they had more power than the U.S? What would happen if the Middle Eastern countries and U.S have balanced power in general? These questions just made me go in circles with no answer, but this shows the reality of today’s issues, which is extremely complex!