Letters to the editor

Ethnic community can help foster understanding

In response to Ernest Yang's piece "A hick, not a hyphen" (July 27, 2005): what I find problematic among a multitude of statements is, for instance, when Yang suggests that identifying with any ethnic or "minority" group and perhaps finding community in that group is a "divisive" thing that is, at heart, "un-American."

These communities are sites in which groups can come together to create an ever-inclusive body that fosters understanding for all people while retaining their unique cultures and practices as well as dispelling the "EuroAmerican culture above all" mentality. Communities for generations have allowed underrepresented people to have a voice in the mainstream dialogue they might otherwise been unable to have.

Though yes, specifically the period of Jim Crow is behind us, more subtle and deceptive forms of racism are abound in great numbers. Was it not in our parents' lifetime that Japanese Americans (born in America, I might add) were interned for "their own safety?" Is it not in our own post 9/11 world that Middle-Eastern Americans have been victims of racial violence in record numbers? Maybe if they just waved more American flags, ate more apple pie or changed their names to variations of "Brad" they'd considered "real" Americans.

As an ethnic minority myself, I can understand that to be stereotyped by someone is unfair and upsetting. But just because I choose to identify how I do ethnically and racially does not mean I don't believe in unity or I only associate with those from my group. This is why I find the very idea of a "typical" American so troublesome.

-- Luke S. Lee

Senior, American ethnic studies