According to Lisa Sun-hee Park’s “Assimilation,” she used many examples and scholar’s quote to argue against “assimilation”. She said “assimilation is neither simple nor “natural””(17). The term “assimilation” is about a process that the minority people fully understand and integrate the white American society. (14) She believed that the ‘model minority’ myth which was imposed on Asian Americans was untrue.(16)
Park used Du Bois’s opinions to oppose “assimilation”. Du Bois used the physical difference of African Americans and white Americans to claim that racial difference was not the problem. He said “there is no reason why, in the same country and on the same street, two or three great national ideals might not thrive and develop, that men of different races might not strive together for their race ideals as well, perhaps even better, than in isolation”(14). The problem was assumption of racial inferiority, which “marginalized African Americans”(14).
On the other hand, Asian Americans was thought as “model minority” for other minorities in the U.S because people thought Asian Americans were rich, well educated, and can benefit society (16). However, there were many Asian Americans were still suffering discrimination. “The Pew report in question states that Asian Americans have made tremendous progress from a century ago, when most were “low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination”(16). Therefore, many Asian Americans still lived in poverty and experience intense and direct racism. The privileged Asian Americans, who were not the generation descended from the low-wage labors, are not the same Asian Americans of a century ago, so they couldn’t stand for all the Asian Americans.
In conclusion, after reading Park’s article, I got better understanding in the assimilation issue of Asian Americans. The “model minority myth” was kind of stereotype to me. For example, in “Slaying the Dragon”, there were many incorrect representations of Asian Americans. The differences between Japanese and Chinese described on the magazine was not true. Media influenced people’s mind a lot. Therefore, white Americans tend to believe Asian were all like Suzy Wong. Therefore, assimilation did cause many problem. As Park said, “assimilation is neither simple nor “natural”(17).