Verified Document

Chinese American Racial Stereotypes In American Media Term Paper

Racial Stereotypes Cultural Biases in America Against Individuals of Asian Extraction

Attention Getter

Personalize issue even for non-Asians

Racial Stereotypes

What they are in general

Why and how they exist culturally

Anti-Asian Stereotypes

Long-standing nature

Asians not seen as true Americans

Trading Cards

Advertising of past

Advertising today of anti-Asian nature

Negative Asian Stereotypes

What they are Why bad

Positive Asian Stereotypes

What they are Why no 'good' stereotype, good or bad

Violence Against Asians

Radio talk show host

Chinese delivery person

Call for Tolerance

Speech Text

Cultural Biases in America Against Individuals of Asian Extraction

Look around you. How many faces of color do you see? Or, perhaps you yourself are considered or consider yourself a person of color. We would like to think that we are all the same under the skin, so to speak. Yet our culture tells us differently. In the phrases of James Chan, the Chinese cultural historian, the media reflects the culture and serves the culture, but is also embedded in the biases of culture, and thus reinforces its worst aspects in all of our minds.

Unfortunately there are many stereotypes against individuals whom are deemed to be different, Asian-Americans as well as African-Americans and other historically discriminated...

Because Asians specifically are often thought to be relatively recent immigrants to America, it is common to think of discrimination against Asians as relatively new as well. However, sad to say, this is not the case. The construction of the 'exotic Asian' is an old one -- older, in fact, than television or electronic print on the Internet. Even trade cards, a kind of commercial business calling card popular in the 19th century, frequently made use of Asian stereotypes.
Think Asians aren't really that discriminated against? Think of some of the images of these cards from the hundred years ago past -- Opium smoker. Dog eater. Even if you find such stereotypes to be abhorrent, they are still present and available within our cultural context, and the trading cards of old show how long-standing a grip such images have, in our cultural, if not personal imagination.

Think that the ideas I have just listed are too harsh? What about "we'd be happy to do your laundry" or "pig-tailed coolies" or even "we obey." All of these trading-card images play into so-called positive or humorous stereotypes of industries Asians are or were supposed to dominate. They also highlight the supposed obedience inherent to Asians as a group, as embodiments of negative and characteristic 'groupthink.' Even the idea of the 'rat' analogous to Asians, as discussed in the title of Chan's article "Rough on Rats," shows how Asians have long been construed as collectivist rather than individualistic or creative in their identity -- unlike 'real' Americans, the implication is,…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Chan, James. "Rough on Rats" --Racism and Advertising in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century." The Chinese Historical Society of America. Article retrieved on April 11,2004 at http://www.chsa.org/features/ching/ching_conf.htm

Ginsberg, Marsha. "Crisis inflames biases against Asians." San Francisco Chronicle. 2001. Article retrieved on April 11,2004 at http://americanmediawatch.tripod.com/id39.htm
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Chinese-American Stereotypes Chinese-Americans Form One of the
Words: 749 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

CHINESE-American STEREOTYPES Chinese-Americans form one of the most professional and most well educated sections of American population yet they are still portrayed as 'unwanted' ethnic minority by electronic and print media. The stereotyping of Chinese-Americans goes back to the days when trade cards were used for advertising and is still a part of media depiction of this community. Stereotypes may not always be negative in nature, but they are certainly based

Chinese American Studies
Words: 3006 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

Chinese-American Studies: Wen Ho Lee Case United States of America is a melting pot of various communities who have been residing in the country for generations. They feel assimilated into the American culture where many of them have been born and brought up in the U.S. And hence have remote connections with the country of their ancestors. As a result, they feel very much a part of this country and believe

Chinese-American Women and Their Experiences
Words: 12463 Length: 45 Document Type: Term Paper

Figure 1. Demographic composition of the United States (2003 estimate). Source: Based on tabular data in World Factbook, 2007 (no separate listing is maintained for Hispanics). From a strictly percentage perspective, it would seem that Asian-Americans do not represent much of a threat at all to mainstream American society, but these mere numbers do not tell the whole story of course. For one thing, Asian-Americans are one of the most diverse and

Ethnic Groups in America Chinese-Americans:
Words: 2672 Length: 9 Document Type: Term Paper

" Additional Information on Irish-Americans: The U.S. Census 2000 reflects that there are approximately 34,688,723 Irish-Americans presently living in this country, which is quite a bit down from the 1990 Census of 40,165,702. There is only one group (ethnic group) in the U.S. that is larger than the Irish-American group, and that is German-Americans. Irish-Americans are both Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants; Irish Catholics are concentrated in large cities throughout the north

Racial Profiling Is Not New, However, and
Words: 1036 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Racial profiling is not new, however, and was a theory of sociology in the late 19th century known as Social Darwinism. Incorrectly using Darwin's theory of evolution, the Social Darwinists believed that some species were morally superior to others, and even some races superior to othersJohnson () Public perception, though, believes in favor of seeing race as a reason for crime, and having a considerable fear of anyone outside their own

Racial Profiling American Society Has
Words: 2857 Length: 9 Document Type: Research Paper

For the past several decades the emphasis in policing has been building trust in the community. Making the streets safe for everyone requires mutual cooperation between the general public and the police. Without community support, the police cannot do it alone. In this regard, respect as been shown to be a better tool for decreasing crime than fear and when fear is present residents tend to avoid contact with

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now