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Gaoyang Chen

ENGL 107

Professor Edmiston

03/19/2017

How Asians Treated in America

Last week, I interviewed Vincent Xu about his opinion about the community and

some information about one of the communities he belongs to------ Asians who lives in the

United States. He talked his experiences and some interesting and funny stories as a Asian

who lives in America now. He always crying when he first came to America because he could

not understand anything when other people was talking. He thought that there were really

good two ways to improve his English and adapt to his new life in the United States: the first

way is going to church with his friends in his free time and the second way is meeting new

friends and had conversation with them. It took him a really long tome like a few years to

learn a new language and adapt in a new environment because he is a shy person. We also

talked about the culture difference between China and the United States. Last we spent some

time talking about a kind of sensitive question------ How Asians who lives in America are

treated by America and other people who are from different countries and live in America

now? I am really interested about this topic and I did more research about the treatment

problem.

When I interview the Vincent Xu, he talked about his opinion and experience which

seems like that Americans did not treat Asian who lives in their country really well. He is

always being laughed at by the American students in the school. Some students laughed at

him about his Chinese name, and some students laughed at him about the strange accent he

has when he spoke English. Sometimes they even make fun of him, I know they were not
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malicious. Also I told myself that do not care about what other peoples talking, just be

yourself, dont let them to affect your positive attitude. Vincent Xu said. From his talking, I

feel like he is a really optimistic person, but not all the people well have the similar motion

when they face the similar situations. So I want to explore more about the treatment of Asians

who lives in America problem by doing more research and reading more sources to see that if

the Americans really treated Asian Americans unequally.

In the book Asian American: A Primary Source Reader, authors write a lot of

information about the Asian Americans. For example, he writes about how and why Asian

came to America, how were the live condition looks like when they live in the United States.

In this book, there is a part called Chinese Immigration and Naturalization Laws, and I

think this a really good source for me to look at. In this part, the writer talks about the live

condition about the Chinese people who lives in the United States, which most of them are

not really good, and some of the Asian Americans even lives kind of poor. From looking at

this, it gives me some information that Americans did not treat Chinese people or Asian

people really well. They dont have a good live condition and a lot of Americans did not want

to communicate with Chinese people or Asian people. I also get some information that

Chinese Americans social class or position in the United States is not really good or in other

words, below the average.

In the book Asian American, Roger Daniels basically talks about some events and

information about the Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 such as the anti-

Chinese and anti-Japanese movement. In his book, he writes that The America to which

Chinese came in 1849 was a nation in which both racism and nativism had become endemic.

(pg. 31) The anti-Chinese movement happened in the 18th century and Chinese Americans

were treat differently in the United States in the early days. Also another good example that

Americans treat Asians differently is the anti-Japanese movement. These also remind me
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about what Vincent said that Americans will laugh at him when he was in the school in the

interview. I believe that these unequal situation is changing overtime and Americans treat

Asians more equally than before, but these treatment problem is still existing now in the

America. I dont think it is good that we have this racial discrimination because everybody is

equal and we should try our best to change this problem and give the equal back to the Asians

who lives in the United States.

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Work Cited

Daniels, Roger. Asian America, edited by Roger Daniels, University of Washington Press,

2011. ProQuest Ebook Central,

http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy3.library.arizona.edu/lib/UAZ/detail.action?

docID=4305907.

Schlund-Vials, Cathy J., 1974, and ProQuest (Firm). Asian America: A Primary Source

Reader, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017.