My Prejudice Experience - Essay Example

Assignment Most Asian people are considered to be intelligent, but at times, if I may state, in a negative manner. They are considered to be people who spend their time only in studying, and not experiencing the other aspects of life. Most people stereotype Asian people as hard working in a robotic way. That is, Asians are thought to be intelligent people but not smart enough to handle various situations faced in practical life. However, this is not entirely true. It is a fact that most Asians are very hard working, serious towards their academics and sincere in their work, but that is not all. They also enjoy fun aspects of life. I am proud to say that I possess the strong Asian work ethics and serious attitude towards studies. At the same time, I am also proud to state that I have lived a balanced life by experiencing both, indulgence in various exciting and fun experiences of life and sincere efforts at academic performance. I have come to the United States from Indonesia to study and make a name for myself. Sadly, I am stereotyped by most of my American friends as a studious Asian who goes abroad to study. I do agree that I have the same hard working and professional attitude that most Asians have, and the process of leaning interests me a lot. At the same time, I also believe in living the life to the fullest and hence, enjoy attending parties, love to take a night off every now and then, and let myself loose and have a good time. Hence, I feel isolated when some of my friends leave me out when indulging in fun activities. as they misunderstand me as a person who does not love having fun. Many a times it has happened that I was not asked out by my friends as either they considered me to be too religious because of me following Christianity faith, or they thought that I am concerned about nothing but my academic work. Sadly, this stereotyped thinking suffocates me as I am quite a fun loving person and my inherent personality is that of an extrovert. Fearing prejudiced treatment, when I first came to the United States and started attending my university, I made friends only with Asian people, thinking that Americans would be too snooty or would not show acceptance due to my nationality. I was under the impression that American people were a little difficult to be friends with, as popular culture had made my thinking biased. For example, I stereotyped Americans to be racist or having discriminatory attitude against people belonging to other countries. Furthermore, I was also under the impression that most Americans were not too fond of Asians due to the fact that they were academically smarter, and hence, had more potential in education and more opportunities in career in the U.S., than the Americans themselves would have. This led me to cut myself off from anyone who was not an Asian and as a result, I wound up making very few friends. This prejudice that I had towards American people soon changed when I began to let them enter in my life. After knowing their true nature, I started feeling sorry for the attitude that I had possessed earlier. I realized that if I was not prejudiced, I would have made a lot of friends in a very short time. In fact, more Americans than Asians have helped me during my time of need and trouble in this country, and that has made me realize that it is not good to have prejudice against a group of people, or a nationality for that matter. According to Ruchlis’s article, the level of prejudice that I felt against Americans can be classified as antilocution and avoidance. This is correct, as in a mild way, I was trying to avoid people belonging to any other ethnicity than Asian, and avoided speaking with Americans even if I needed any help. When I first arrived in the city, I even spoke against Americans at times, thinking that they were prejudiced against Asians and stereotyped them. This prejudiced thinking made me to behave and react in wrong manner. At the same time, I feel that even I was discriminated against by the Americans when it came to my social rights as they would often leave me out of parties and evening outings, thinking that I would be too busy focusing on my academics. After understanding the experiences that I underwent, I came to the conclusion that very faulty logic was present in prejudices held by me and my American friends. Firstly, miscommunication between me and my friends led them to believe that I was too academically focused to enjoy myself. Secondly, I was hesitant to make friends with Americans because of what I had presumed their nature to be. This could be understood as argument by laziness or uninformed opinion. Deep thinking helped me to understand that due to lack of communication between people, more than half of the times, what people assume about other people is not true. Because of poor reasoning, judgement and trust issues, I lost out on making friends with few American classmates and as a result, they misjudged me as an academically focused person without any respect or feelings towards others in other parts of life. This could be characterized as argument by generalization connected to the fallacy of the general rule by which I understood all Americans to be the same and thus refrained from forming relations with them. My culture and religion has taught me to live with other people peacefully and adapt to different kinds of people. Back home, I am used to living with a large family and having joint relations with friends and extended family members. Hence, I have tried to make this conduct a part of my daily life even after coming to the States and settling down here. I host dinners and get-togethers for my friends in order to let them know that I am always there for them during their times of happiness as well as trouble, despite of their culture or their nationalities. Furthermore, my social and cultural background has taught me how to get out of sticky situations involving prejudices and stereotypes by not getting too tensed about aspects that do not matter to me much. I have learnt how to make new friends by opening up to people, and to curb my feelings of being an outsider in the States by understanding that I am wanted by my friends and that they would not leave me out based on a few assumptions. Works Cited Ruchlis, Hyman. "Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination." Clear Thinking (n.d.): n. pag. Print. Read More