The Big Wrap Up Part 1

Well, tomorrow will be the last day of our Asian American Culture class.

I guess to wrap things up, I'm going to draw the overall conclusion to every experience I had in that very class.

It all began when the summer started. I developed an interest in my own ethnic identity after reading through the history of China. I was fascinated by 5000 years of advancement in civilization. Not to mention the Olympics were going to happen in Beijing in those coming months. I had enrolled in an Asian American Studies class at City College because I wanted to broaden my knowledge. It turns out that class and our Asian American Culture 210 class were very similar. The CCSF guys were struggling with the construction of the City College of San Francisco, Chinatown branch while the SFSU guys were struggling to maintain Ethnic Studies on campus. Basically, I now realized that no matter where I am, there will always be those that are passionate about educating and maintaining our identities.

I learned a lot from that class that would eventually prepare me for this ETHS 210 class. In fact, I can't help but to admit that our team had the upperhand one time in class because I knew a lot of the facts on all the major and minor ethnic groups of Asia and their early Asian American experiences. What I wanted out of the class was to understand the concept of an Asian American identity.

I grew up not knowing what exactly that was. I would come to acknowledge that at the very minimum, Chinese American identity is a fusion of hip hop and Hong Kong identity. Hence why back then, you would see groups of teens in baggy clothes sporting dyed hair in the streets of San Francisco Chinatown. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was one of those kids.

It wouldn't be until I started participating in this class that I noticed there is a constant struggle in Asian American culture and society. The struggle to rid ourselves of past stereotypes and progress to integrate ourselves into the overall mainstream America. I had always believed that we Asians had it pretty good in the country but that was before I realized that it's just San Francisco where almost everyone is Asian.

At first I thought this class would be by the book like my Asian American Culture class but it offered much more. A hands on experience. I can not think of too many places that offer an experience like APAture and unity in SFSU where clubs like ASU, PACE, and KSU all come together for various purposes.

I really liked the whole concept of splitting into groups and creating team names. I think it was even better when groups merged together and everyone got familiar with one another. Personally, I felt our group wasn't as fully functional as the other groups. Since day one, we had 2 group members drop the class. Our roll calls wern't perfect because during attendence, we went by "If It Ain't Rice, It Ain't Nice" rather than "Kamikaze". (Thank god, that was fixed...last week)

I really had a blast doing the midterm and I didn't fully appreciate the Asian American Studies struggle until the 40th anniversary of the TWLF. The staged protest was an experience I don't think I will ever have in any other class.

*More to come*