By Charles Pan ’18, Feature Editor

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a month celebrating the culture and history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Initially introduced as Asian-Pacific Heritage Week in 1977 to the U.S. House of Representatives, it was later extended to become Asian-American Heritage Month by President George H.W. Bush. It was decided that May would become Asian-American Heritage Month in order to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843 and the Chinese immigrants who served as the majority of workers in the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. Throughout Asian-Heritage Month, many communities celebrate the contributions of Asian Americans with festivals and activities including film festivals, street celebrations, and street fests.

In such a time of such political and racial turmoil, Asian-American Heritage Month is now more important than ever. It is evident that ever since the rise of Donald Trump the incidences of racial attacks, slurs, and discrimination have increased; while these racial confrontations against Muslim and black communities are widely covered by the media, it is important not to overlook the fact that it is happening to other minority communities as well, including the Asian American community. Last October, a highly publicized article in the New York Times recounted the story of an Asian American family who was told to “Go back to China!” after walking out of church on a Sunday.[1] The encounter spurred an outpour of anger and stories from other Asian-Americans who have encountered prejudice, insults, and ignorance and even prompted a response from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted, “Shouldn’t have to affirm it, but EVERYONE belongs in NYC. What doesn’t belong here are comments like you heard today.” At around the same time, a highly publicized Fox News segment called “Watters World” came under fire for its mocking interviews of Asian-Americans in New York City’s Chinatown that critics claimed reinforced negative, racist stereotypes.[2] Like the previous incident, the segment prompted an outpour of outrage and anger, including from Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted to Fox News to “keep this guy off TV.”

But Asian-American discrimination also has an indirect impact on the Newark Academy Asian-American community, in terms of education and college admissions. A 2009 Princeton study showed that Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics and 450 points higher than blacks to have the same chance of admission to leading universities. A lawsuit in 2014 accused Harvard of placing a cap on the number of Asian students admitted at 16% even though the Asian-American percentage of the population had doubled. In 2016, the Asian American Coalition for Education filed a complaint to the Department of Education against Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth for also capping their Asian-American enrollment at about 16%.

As an Asian-American student, these events and statistics are highly troubling to me. Although Asians have often been touted as the “model minority,” this stereotype does nothing except further already existing discrimination against Asian-Americans. For me, Asian-American Heritage Month is important because it highlights the contributions and achievements of Asians to the United States in such a time of racial tension. Asian-Americans, including myself, are often generalized as being a “privileged” and “successful” minority, but the model minority label fails to acknowledge the socioeconomic and educational discrepancies among the many different communities across the United States. By celebrating the contributions and traditions of Asian-Americans, we can bring greater awareness to the perseverance, hardships, accomplishments, and importance of the Asian-American community to the United States and perhaps come a few steps closer to a greater societal acceptance of all minorities.

We are lucky to go to school in such a diverse and welcoming community such as Newark Academy, but this creates the downside that many of us still have not encountered the true discrimination and inequality that many face in the real world today. It is important, that as we pass through Newark Academy onto college and beyond, that we need to be aware of the inherent fundamental flaws that exist in our society to this day.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FAsian-Americans&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=15&pgtype=collection

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/business/media/fox-reporter-accused-of-racism-for-chinatown-interviews-on-trump-clinton-and-china.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FAsian-Americans&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=18&pgtype=collection