Blog Post 1 (Assimilation)
- In her piece Assimilation, Park discusses the complexities and history of the term assimilation. She brings up points of view arguing that assimilation is both an attempt to mitigate cultural diversity in the U.S. by normalizing whiteness and a system that awards minorities who fit the status quo of being the ‘good foreigners’ with a “secondary status” as an American . Park claims that assimilation is not all-natural and that the state/authorities play a hand in assisting minorities to assimilate in America. She also says that assimilation’s purpose is not to become reality but to serve as a distant end goal, thereby making its intention more of a focus than its definition.
- Park uses two minority groups to support her points: African Americans and Asian Americans. She references W.E.B. DuBois who asked the question “assimilation into what?”, bringing up the point that African Americans are already Americans and therefore should not need to conform to a white agenda (pg 1). This idea feeds into the notion that the state purposefully paints whites as the ‘ideal American’, “eradicating minority cultures” (pg 2). She then mentions how Asian Americans are seen as a successfully assimilated group (“enjoying high educational achievement, good (white) neighborhoods, and interracial marriages to whites”) because of the focus on the racial/social groups of Asian Americans who are known to be doing well (pg 3). However even the most accomplished Asian American cannot be categorized as a full-fledged American the same way a white person can.
- Assimilation is the process of a minority group learning the ways of and adjusting to “fit in” with the majority. Park suggests that assimilation is more accurately defined as a “normative measure[s] to center whiteness as the national identity” (pg 1). It is the erasure of minority culture in a futile attempt to gain a “secondary status” as an American. A model minority is defined as “assimilation exemplified…a myth strongly entrenched in the U.S. narrative of its national origins as a liberal democracy” (pg 3). In other words, it provides a facade of equality that covers the fact that it perpetuates racial inequalities and offers ‘good’ minorities the secondary status aforementioned.
- The story of many young Asian Americans in the Chop Suey Circuit (i.e. cabaret performers) of the 1930s-50s accurately reflect Park’s argument that “Asians in the U.S. hold an impossible position in which they are simultaneously projects of inclusion and exclusion” (pg 3). Despite the fact that many of these performers were born and raised in America and drew inspiration from American entertainers, they would have to pander to white audiences by accenting their “exotic-ness”. They could be considered successful by the curious crowds that they drew in, but never earned close to what any decently popular white performers made.
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