Mapping Asian Americans in the South

Melissa McKinney

For my last blog post, I’m sharing my semester project in which I used Neatline, a plugin in Omeka, to create a digital map. This project made me think about discussions of the Asian American experience in the South. Having grown up in Georgia and then attending college in North Carolina, I’ve spent a lot of my time wondering what happened to Asians 嘉盛外汇 during racial segregation. Did we count as white, black, colored, or were we simply ignored? This map only touches on the beginnings of the myriad of…

Can I Have a Spring Roll and Chicken Fried Rice?

Adrianne Cheung

Today, my friends and I went to an Asian fusion restaurant. It serves curries, pad thai, chow fun, lo mien, Singapore noodles, sushi, hibachi and Chinese American food as well, like the “General Tso’s chicken” and “Sesame Chicken”. These types of restaurants are quite normal in America and the food is usually fine, but the food is usually not very authentic. It’s just not what you would get at home. As a Chinese American, growing up I would get so offended when they said that Chinese-American restaurant food was Chinese…

#BeingAsian

Adrianne Cheung

In the mighty world of Twitter, there lives a hashtag, “#BeingAsian”. It is an interesting mix of people complaining about the racism they’ve faced, poking fun of Asian stereotypes, and celebrating Asian/Asian American culture. Ultimately, it is about Asians being Asian, living their lives, sharing frustrations and sharing their happy events. Some of the posts are included below. They point to the extent to which our ethnicity permeates everything we do and go through. The encounters of racism on the train might be few but they wouldn’t happen at all if we were…

Tiger Woods is also Asian?

Melissa McKinney

I love ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, and every week I eagerly wait to see what the writers have in store for us. In last week’s episode “The Masters” (3×20), Emery, the middle brother struggled to share the excitement of Tiger Woods’ win in the golf tournament, the Masters, as a triumph of a Asian and African American athlete with his peers. Everyone he spoke to only saw Woods as a African American athlete, 搬瓦工 citing Woods’ African American father as evidence of his racial heritage. Much to the frustration of…

Crazy Rich Asians

Melissa McKinney

The other day I saw an article about to a  on Facebook. The person who shared the link was enraged to say the least about Chung’s reaction. Chung later clarified her comments about the casting of a half-Asian star in the film when they refused to cast anyone not ethnically Chinese, but her reaction points to an interesting issue about Asian media representation. Of course, being half Asian doesn’t make someone less Asian. In fact, if anything, it’s better to have the multiple examples of Asian identity in media. Having read…

Dating as an Asian Male

Melech Maglasang

With the Sex Positivity fair coming up at Davidson College, a random factoid came up about Asian women being one of the most desired by most people, while Asian males were seen as less desirable.  I did a little digging to see if there were any peer reviewed articles on the subject. I didn’t look too hard but, there were none. If you do a quick google right now you’ll see a bunch of unofficial articles discussing the subject with some form of “data” but there really was no concrete literature…

“You must be smart.”

Adrianne Cheung

Google: “You’re Asian. You must be smart.” and behold the many articles and blogs about the being the model minority. I am not for writing on the same topic so many other people have talked about but maybe if enough people complain about the same exact thing, it will get noticed; so I’ll add my 2 cents to the fray. Now, on the surface, the assumption that Asians = smart people seems like a good thing, but look closer, and think about what that statement is really saying. Because we…

Lawyered!

Melissa McKinney

There’s a quote I heard once that I particularly like, “if you’re not scared, then you’re not sticking your neck out far enough.” Well as a millennial, POC woman about to graduate and embark into the “real world,” I suppose there’s a plethora for reasons to be scared. What I like about this quote though is that is suggests that being scared and uncomfortable is okay. That’s how you grow and learn. I can’t say that I’m not terrified of what the future brings. Most people usually are. As I…

Arrival in Miami

Melech Maglasang

The day was December 25th, my father, my sister, and I just landed from a 24+ hour journey at Miami International Airport.  Stereotypes of America reinforced by the prominence of western television raced through all of our minds. I even thought it would be snowing since that was what happened when it was Christmas in the United States.  We were walking through the airport and the people I saw there surprised me.  In my head I was expecting to see white people with blonde hair and blue eyes bustling about…