Asian American Stereotypes Research Paper

“These are different times…we’re trying to break stereotypes, break what people have assumed for so long about a culture, about an individual, about the world…this is for discussion…a time for not assuming things.” (Genara Banzon, November 28, 1996). Immigration has created a diverse society today that often includes culturally rich environments that contain more than one culture. Artist Genara Banzon shared that quote during an interview, in which he expressed his thoughts about society needing to move forward, and leaving stereotypes behind. Stereotypes are an ongoing dilemma in the world because people are still believing the over generalizations that are being implied to all in a certain group, and classifying them the same. Asian Pacific Americans have fallen victim to the stereotypes, which reflects on the visual culture of the depiction of Asian Pacific Americans. Stereotypes, history and other issues such as immigration and biculturalism have raised the question of what are the audience perspective and visual cultural representations of Asian Americans, and the important impression that the ideas post 1965 era raised was how Asian Americans represented themselves in American culture. Modern and contemporary Asian Pacific American artists have used the ideas and questions brought up post 1965, which include immigration and
Desai from his article, “Whither Home: Asia/America Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art.” He says “Fundamentally, they no longer have the choice of belonging to one place, one culture, or one country. Their sense of ‘home’ is no longer equated with an unqualified sense of belonging” (Desai, 367). Desai says that because of these issues many question their existence, their belonging, and have ongoing issues of identity. Asian Pacific Artist have been faced with issues of immigration, biculturalism, their history and stereotypes that they depict in their art