Yell-Oh! Part 2. Thinking as a whole.

Still reading Yell-Oh Girls! by Vickie Nam, I decided to communicate with other Asian American females via web and in reality to discuss the issues based on the book. Yell-Oh Girls! is a collaboration of different writings written by young Asian American girls describing their hardships and experiences, including family matters, racism, discrimination, and so forth.

Realizing back in the past, racism jokes and puns revolving around Asians - no - all races, don't really exist because people are racist. It's because we, as people, are ignorant. After watching a YouTube video response to a college student describing "insane Chinese people screaming in the library", I realized the reason of these problems. In the video response, the YouTube user describes the truth behind common Asian stereotypes.

The original video was a UCLA girl who rants about Asians in a library. She describes these people screaming about troubles in Japan and their members there, etcetera. What the problem was was her. This girl is not racist. She also states that she has Asian friends. She's just...ignorant. Back in childhood, I always called African-American's black. This is a common, offensive comment towards an African-American. But, honestly, it was too long to state these two words. These types of ignorances aren't just coming from African-Americans or Asians, but all races and genders.

The reason why typical Asians cannot leave their families is because we don't want to. My sister takes two-hour trips to college and she never leaves, much like the typical American who lives in expensive dormitories. We have superbly close connections with our families. Why would you want to leave in the first place?

So who's to blame?

First, being the media. Very few Asian Americans are portrayed in the media. In the foreword of the book, Vickie Nam writes about a magazine featuring Niki Taylor with Asian-styled clothing. She questioned the editor, "if you were going to portray Asian clothes, why didn't you at least use Asian models in the fashion spread?" and the magazine editors did not respond at all. This is a very oblivious scenery. One-hundred percent of Asian stereotypes are portrayed in various T.V. shows, mostly cartoons.

Second is the people that spread these stereotypes, followed by the people who believe these and use them. Remembering the ignorance of people, sometimes people should educate them. Maybe they don't know where Asia is. Heck, others probably don't know true Asian culture.

So, the definite culprit?

I don't know. But most likely the media.