How Asian American Are Changing the Face of America - Case Study Example

Asian Americans and America Introduction “According to the Census Bureau of the US, the current population of United States of America is over 300 million” (Uba, pp. 256-292). This number makes the United States of America as the third largest populous country on the planet earth after China and India. More importantly, the USA has the most diverse population. Ethnic diversity, ancestral variety, racial groups and other minorities have made the United States of America as one of the most diverse and pluralistic country all over the world. Amongst these groups are “White Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic and Latin Americans, German Americans, Irish Americans and English Americans” (Chan, pp. 125-189) are just few of the many ethnic, ancestral and racial groups spread all over the United States. This paper tries to focus over the Asian Americans part with three prominent examples and dynamics involved with their lives and lifestyles. In addition, this paper also tries to understand the concepts of globalization, Trans-nationalism and multiracialism. Asian Americans Popular historian Yuji Ichioka deserves all the credit for inventing the term of Asian Americans. Before this term, people usually referred Asian Americans with the name of Orientals meaning the people from the east (Lott, pp. 46-192). It is not unusual to know that these were the social activists of the 1970’s that made this term popular within and outside America and all this was happening because of the social rights movement of that time for this community in the United states. According to the basic definition, “Asian Americans are those Americans who have an Asian origin at least from the side of one parent” (Min, pp. 11-29). The most common groups in Asian Americans are of “Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Pakistani Americans, Japanese Americans, Cambodian Americans, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Filipino Americans” (Kitano, & Daniels, pp. 85-129) and other groups. “The demographics and data reveal that Asian Americans form the third largest racial minority group in the United States after the white Americans and African Americans” (Hune, pp. 256-387). In addition, studies have also revealed that Asian Americans are the ones with the highest levels of educational attainment and lowest poverty rate (Kitano, & Daniels, pp. 85-129). They also perform well when compared with others on the scales of household incomes and savings and personal incomes. Chinese Americans make the largest ethnic sub group followed by Filipino Americans. Indian Americans rank the third in the list and immediately after them are the Vietnamese (Dudley, pp. 38-56). Moreover, more than 75% of the Asian Americans live in the urban areas of the United States. New York, Texas, California, New Jersey, Hawaii and San Francisco are at the top of the list of the places where high levels of Asian American population is settled (Ancheta, pp. 18-41). In addition, considerable amount of nurses, doctors and dentists of Asian American origin are a part of the workforce of the United States. Examples of Asian American Icons Jerry Yang Jerry yang was born in Taiwan in the year 1968. When he was at the age of eight, he along with his family moved to California, United States. When he migrated, he only knew only one world of the English language and that was “shoe” but within the time of two years, he started speaking the English language like any Native American as described by her mother (Dudley, pp. 38-56). His mother who was an English and drama teacher raised him. Unfortunately, jerry Yang’s father died when he was only two. In addition, his hard work at the initial level of his studies and straight A’s gave him a chance to study at the Stanford university which he accepted and this was the beginning of a great revolution in the history of internet and search engines. Along with his friend David Filo, they marked a new chapter in the history of Internet business in the year 1994. They were unhappy regarding the lack of organizations on the internet regarding the sites and this made them to create “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” (Kitano, & Daniels, pp. 85-129), which was soon converted into Yahoo! This was just the start of the journey and soon after that, in 1995, both these friends founded Yahoo! Since then, Yahoo has been one of the biggest brand names worldwide receiving more than one billion hits each month (Kitano, & Daniels, pp. 85-129). Jerry Yang served as the CEO of the company for a little while and he step up as the CEO on January 13, 2009 for Carol Bartz. He still class himself as the Yahoo chief, which he is with out any doubts and he is also a members of the Board of Directors of Yahoo! it is still his job to look after the media and the managerial side of Yahoo operations. He is married to Akiko Yamazaki (Lott, pp. 46-192). The couple met in Stanford University. Yang is very close to his family as he spends his every whole Sunday with them. His worth estimates more than 900 billion US dollars and around 11% of the Yahoo! In addition, according to the time Magazine he was also named in the list of the 25 most influential people on the web of 2008. Elaine Chao Elaine L. Chao is a very respectable and distinguishable name in the history of American politics. She arrived in the United States as an immigrant from Asia when she was only eight years old but what matters is that she holds the title of becoming the first Asian Pacific women in the history of United States to presume the office of US secretary of labor. She served this office during the presidency of Geogre W. bush and during the years of 2001-2009 (Dudley, pp. 38-56). She was the 24th US secretary of labor and the first in the 21st century. Before being appointed as the US secretary of labor, she worked with the heritage foundation from 1996-2001 and her performance and contributions are still admired. However, more importantly, the huge chunk of the respect, which she gains, is due to her efforts after taking over as the CEO and president of United Way of America. Her phenomenal hard work made sure that the organization succeeds in gaining the lost trust and confidence of the people after accusations of financial mismanagement and scandals surrounding American charity organizations (Kitano, & Daniels, pp. 85-129). She is also remembered as the director of Peace Corps, government service of Deputy secretary of transportation and Chair of federal maritime commission before she presumed her office as the US secretary of labor. This MBA from Harvard Business School has until now received around thirty-one honorary doctoral degrees for her services and contributions to the private and the public sector. She is married to the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (Lott, pp. 46-192). Cassie (Cassandra Ventura) Born in the house of a Filipino American father and an African and Mexican American mother, Cassandra Ventura or Cassie, which is her stage name, is a renowned R&B and hip-hop singer and model. She released her first Album titled “me & U’ in year 2006 which has sold around 0.3 million copies all over the United States (Han, & Hsu, pp. 123-285). She started her modeling career from the age of fourteen and started appearing in the TV ads by the age of sixteen. She is just twenty-three years old now and still there is a long way to go for her. In her short career she has appeared in a movie “step up-on the streets”, and has five video singles, has worked with artists like Lil Wayne, Akon, Kanye West, Chris Brown, Mario, Diddy and others (Uba, pp. 256-292). Cassie started appearing in the news in April 2009, when she was reported to shave the right part of her head for no obvious reasons. When interviewed and asked about this, she replied that she has done all just because every body wants change in his or her life. At the same time, this is also a message from my side to all of the people that I do not really care about whatever anybody is thinking. Several people have pointed out that this may be a complete attention-gaining stunt done by Cassie since she thinks that she can get the attention of the media and people by doing all this, Cassie is thinking that these actions would bring her in spotlight as they did bring other stars. Discussion It is widely believed that and research and observations has proven it to be true as well that there is huge level of difference between the Asian and American Cultures. The Asian culture is very much close to the collectivist model (Zhan, pp. 38-75). Asian people have a towering work ethic; they consider it important for themselves to respect their elders, they live in nuclear families where fathers or the eldest person is considered as the head of the family, they associate high value with their values, family and education. They view their leaders to be portraying the traditional style of being kind, considerate, gentle and down to earth. They look towards their leader to help them grow and nurture in the same way in which they look towards their head of the family to help them out. High ethical and moral character is maintained and that becomes the basis of judgment (Louie, & Omatsu, pp. 178-269). Women are respected in a little different manner and are not treated equally with man and this point goes both in favor and in against of the women rights. However, Asians are not believed to perform very well on the scales of confidence, risk taking ability and empowerment. Asians are good at working under autocratic style of leadership; they perform well within teams and within well-defined hierarchal structures (Hune, pp. 256-387). However, the case for the American culture portrays a completely different picture in many above-mentioned aspects. Personal success and freedom are placed at the top in the American culture over all the ethical values and family associations. Americans are good entrepreneurs and like to work in a democratic kind of leadership style where they are empowerment and where they find enough growth opportunities. Now, despite all these cultural differences, there are uncountable Asian Americans who have been able to live in America and have left irremovable marks in the history of the United States. This also makes us think regarding the phenomenon of Transnationalism and globalization (Louie, & Omatsu, pp. 178-269). These unusual performances by so many Asian Americans are of prove of the above-mentioned couple of growing phenomenon. By the advent of the 21st century, both communication and traveling become so easy that it eradicated all the possible boundaries of age, race, gender, ethnicity and more importantly nations and states. Now people live in a world where the flow of people, ideas, knowledge, goods and cultures is unstoppable (Zia, 23-87). People are increasingly becoming a part of only one culture and that is the culture of this planet. With this increased competition, the strong bonds of nationalism and patriotism are may be vanishing a little bit as communications and exposure is increasing (Zhan, pp. 38-75). In short, now the boundaries between Asia and America are so loose that any Asian can come into America adopt their culture and bring a revolution in his or her field of work. Whether it is forming a search engine like Yahoo!, whether it is becoming the US secretary of Labor or whether it is about becoming a renowned music or art icon. Another concept that has come into action because of this increased communication and loosening of international boundaries is the concept of multiracialism. Consider the example of the famous R&B and hip-hop singer Sean Paul. His parental grand father was a Jew of Portuguese descent and his parental grand mother was a from an African and Caribbean background. In addition, his mother is Chinese Jamaican and English origin (Hune, pp. 256-387). Now, it is tough job for anyone to figure out that what should be actual origin of Sean Paul. Despite the fact that he simple calls himself as Jamaican but we know that he is a little more than that. One can also consider the example of Cassie, which is given above. Born to a Filipino American father and an African and Mexican American mother, Cassie would be confused to call her self either a Filipino African Mexican American, just an American or a Filipino American. As all these different ethnicities and races are getting closer and more and more inter racial marriages are happening, this confusion is increasing. Moreover, conclusion indicates that not only these three people are only Asian Americans, but also they are some thing more than that. According to the US census Bureau, Multi racial people accounted more than 2% of the US population in the year 2006 (Han, & Hsu, pp. 123-285). In fact, the biggest and the most important example in this regard can be of President Barack Obama since he is born to a Christian Euro-American mother and a Muslim African father. This phenomenon is turning the United State of America even as more diverse as it was ever in the past since the numbers of ethnicities are races are increasing in this way. Works Cited Ancheta, Angelo N. Race, rights, and the Asian American experience. Rutgers University Press, 2006. Chan, Sucheng Asian Americans: an interpretive history. Twayne, 1991. Dudley, William Asian Americans: Opposing viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, 1997. Han, Arar, & Hsu, John Y. Asian American X: an intersection of 21st century Asian American voices. University of Michigan Press, 2004. Hune, Shirley. Asian Americans: comparative and global perspectives. Washington State University Press, 1991. Kitano, Harry H. L., & Daniels, Roger. Asian Americans: Emerging minorities. Prentice Hall, 2001. Lott, Juanita Tamayo Asian Americans: from racial category to multiple identities. Rowman Altamira, 1998. Louie, Steve, & Omatsu, Glenn. Asian Americans: the movement and the moment. UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press. 2001. Min, Pyong Gap. Asian Americans: contemporary trends and issues. Sage Publications, 1995. Uba, Laura. Asian Americans: Personality Patterns, Identity, and Mental Health. Guilford Press, 2003. Zhan, Lin. Asian Americans: vulnerable populations, model interventions, and clarifying agendas. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2003. Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. Read More