Asian American Studies 197A
Winter Quarter 2002

Reflection Journal 1

Locating Myself Within the Landscape Called Asia America
By Jenny Breyer

I would like to respond to the first question, but first I think it is necessary to locate myself within the landscape called Asia America. I am a Korean adopted, single parent from Fort Collins, Colorado. My connection with the Asian American community (if indeed one exists) is precarious. As far as my class bearings, my parents are hardworking people with easily identifiable working class values. I did and do strongly identify with the tenets of "working hard." I had my first babysitting job at the age of eleven and my first real job at the age of fourteen. Becoming a single parent pushed me from a working class environment into the welfare system.

And as my ethnic bearings go—well it’s a fairly interesting mélange. At one level, being raised in a homogenous white population marked me racially. I was always the nonwhite one. Being racially marked is a different experience depending on one’s geographic location. In California, there is a certain amount of confidence that goes along with being marked Asian. In Fort Collins, Colorado it is either something to overcome or an angry shield that one cannot afford to lower. Yet at another level, many of the perspectives I gained were "white." In one of my more schizophrenic moods, I think of myself as suffering from a variation of the Stockholm syndrome. Please help, I’ve been kidnapped by white people. Don’t get me wrong, I love white people. Some of them are my best friends.

Undoubtedly, these are both times of great opportunity as well as grave danger. Complacency is stamped upon each student; even those who manage to engage in activism steadily loose their drive with each following year. Unfortunately, the world’s problems are too great and complicated to be solved within a couple of years. I imagine that the problems of the world will always be there; the only thing we have control over is our response to these difficult battles. To remain steadfast to an ideal is one of the hardest parts of activism. But if we are aware of the difficulties as well as the rewards of activism, it allows for a greater chance that we will stay and continually work towards our goals of social improvement.

But the person of color who has access to money, education, and resources can do the greatest good as well as harm. For example, many scholars of color use the discourse and lives of the disempowered people of color as a platform for their own issues. They reveal the falsity of the model minority — there are too many Asian/Asian Americans who live below the poverty line. And yet they pivot the light back to themselves and talk about the glass ceiling instead of focusing on the part about all those poor Asian/Asian American folks. It is not that glass ceiling issues are not important — they are; it is that the disempowered are only noticed when they can further the agenda of those people of color with access.

The fabric of America relies heavily on the myth of the American dream. The power of the myth seems to grow exponentially the further down one goes on the socioeconomic food chain. The symbolic power of things is almost overwhelming in its siren’s call. Owning a Mercedes, for most people, means far more than a commitment for social change. It is therefore no surprise that those most disempowered invest so strongly in things — they recognize the status that they can acquire through things. Neither is it a surprise that those most disempowered make the strongest, most committed activists since in many ways they have the most to gain. Those women who balance being in an unfamiliar place, a long workday, families, households and social activism are people whom I aspire to be like.

I also believe that low-income immigrant workers know the dangers and rewards they face when they meet an affluent person of color. They recognize that help might come but possibly at the price of something they hold dear. I have been a single parent for almost five years now. I know how hard it is to have to work for a living. The summer before I came out to UCLA, I was working two jobs (at Taco Bell and as a nanny) about sixty hours a week. I also know first hand that the welfare system requires a person to learn a certain degree of expertise in order for the recipient to have access to its services. I have also been exposed to enough theory to know that the welfare system is an elaborate machine that allows the government a dangerous amount of power over the individual. I also recognize that as a graduate student at an elite university that I have access to an incredible amount of resources. Although there are substantial differences in the lives of the low-income immigrant workers and mine, I do believe that they have seen the same dangers and rewards I have seen.