Stereotypes Of Asian Americans

Stereotype
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Christopher DeFusco
May 21, 2012

The first situation involving stereotyping I was involved in was racial. I am Asian and sometimes I face racial accusations and comments. Though I do not pay much attention to comments, they still do bother me to a degree. For example, one day my wife and kids were walking with me through Wal-Mart and a group of people passed us making Asian jokes. When they walked passed me they started mimicking and trying to talk Asian (making fun Asian dialect.) My wife said something; I just kept walking as usual and paid no attention to the event. However, the comments did bother me. Later on in the store, the same people mimicked me because I was looking at
These stereotypes are based on negative encounters or negative experiences without enough supporting data to back up the reason for the stereotype. There are a few errors in judgment in this situation. It is like saying all Asians are skinny, or all Asians are short. While statistics show that a great percentage of Asians are short and skinny, this is not all. In fact, the world’s tallest man was actually Asian. There are obese Asian individuals as well. Any characterization of groups complied of opinions are not relevant and are just mere stereotype. Some stereotypes are good and some are negative. Stereotype allows individuals to know something familiar. A stereotype characterized a race or a specific mood of people into groups. For example, when we hear gothic; most people think black, cold hearted, chains, heavy metal music. In actuality gothic is just a sense of style and expression. Not all people that dress in all black are gothic. Not all people who are Gothic are sadistic and cold hearted. These hasty generalizations can hurt people in the long and short term. In a positive aspect, African American’s are stereotypes as being good basketball players. Well just because someone is African American does not mean they have a basketball court in their backyard or watch the game weekly. This type of generalization is not really negative and harmful to a person; however, this assumption is still not good. Any assumption
I was guilty of stereotyping a race myself. I am active duty Army and I was deploying overseas. We are briefed and trained on the signs of danger and be aware of the warning signs of terrorists and suicide bombers. It is not right however, it was like second nature to stereotype all Middle Eastern individuals. Each person I looked at while deployed my first time, I looked at like the enemy. I had to be safe and assume all people to be “the bad guy’ you could say. This of course is not right. The media does not help either. This is what I mean when I say that stereotyping allows people to expect something. When people hear of the Taliban, they think Middle Eastern people that hate the US, wear turbans, and make plots to harm us. This is not true and I learned this first hand. It is hard to be at war with the Middle East and not stereotype the entire culture. My second tour my MOS (job in the military) changed from infantry to the hospital. My second tour enabled me to see the innocent side of the Middle Eastern culture. I taught classes to everyday people living like you and I. people that lived like we live. They went to work, went home to a family at night, and were just as innocent to the war as we are here in our living rooms. This was an emotional tour and a revelation. It is hard to imagine with what we hear over here in the US. When actually living in the other culture and seeing first-hand how innocent