Internment (n.): the imprisonment of people, usually for political reasons and targeted towards a certain group of people. On February 19, 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, an order that allowed for the evacuation of anyone considered a…

Hard-working employees, law-abiding citizens, straight-A students. These labels have been plaguing the APIDA community since the end of World War II, when this community’s perceived universal prosperity was used to suppress other minority groups, especially Black Americans. The model minority concept delivers a disturbing message to minority groups…

Officially, the model minority myth is the belief that all Asians are naturally high achieving. Unofficially, it meant that my childhood was a constant barrage of jokes about having to go to Harvard and become a doctor or lawyer. It meant stepping into a room and knowing that…

I sometimes come across scenes in movies or TV shows that make fun of Asian students’ obsession of getting As. The characters (usually white) would ecstatically celebrate getting a B, while their Asian peers look gloomy, if not depressed. Although years passed since I watched this sitcom, I…

Cultural assimilation (n.): the process in which individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society Cultural assimilation is a term that many immigrants from the APIDA community are all too familiar with. When I think of assimilation, the first thing…

** Author’s Note on Community Terminology: there is an academic and cultural dispute over whether Filipino or Pilipino is best to describe the diaspora from the Philippines. In recognition of the indecision, F/Pilipino is used in this piece.** Arguably, the biggest plague of Asian America’s history is the…