Understanding as a Political Tool

Most Americans don't know very much about Asia beyond the fact that everything seems to be produced in China, the Japanese are kinda weird, and Indians get all of our outsourced work. This doesn't paint a great picture of Asia. We asians should try harder to spread a greater understanding of who we are. This is in keeping with my feeling that not explaining how we can't handle certain situations the same way as a white family in this post is lazy. Without an understanding of who we are, how can we expect our political goals to achieve the greater part of sympathy?

Many Taiwanese take part in political parties back home and may have some affiliation with groups in the US which are trying to break the glass ceiling for those who work here. We put the facts of how our numbers in high ranking positions are lower than they should be despite our obvious academic achievements. I feel that a part of our problem is a lack of understanding of our culture and who we are. We don't have that many notable artists (more on the lack in a later post) which try to bring our story into the American consciousness (beyond kung fu movies) so we have to get our story out in other ways. This includes explaining in better detail how are family situations are instead of just assuming others won't be able to understand.

The LGBT movement has had a great amount of success in part because most people know 1 or 2 and those 1 or 2 are very vocal about their situation. Obviously, our situation may not be quite as dire. We have a relatively good standard of living because of our high education level, but that ceiling is still there.

So, Asians, think about how to explain your life and tell people who are not asian because inside the group we understand. Outside, there needs to be more understanding.