Asian Americans and racism in the USA
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Abstract
Asian Americans are a minority group of both immigrants and person born and raised in the USA. It has been the fastest growing minority group and is considered to be the model minority of the USA due to various factors such as hard work in both academic and employment that successively leads to economic prowess among this minority population (Chou, 2008). The history of the Asian American dates back to the ancient times when they occupied the American land before the European invasion. The tribes that occupied the American land are commonly referred to as the Native Americans. A majority of the Asian American people that are living in the USA are immigrants. Both individuals and the community/communities are faced with various challenges such as adopting the American culture and retaining their root cultures at the same time. However, the major issue of concern is racial segregation they are faced with. Like any other subordinate group in the USA, the Asian American people are not spared off the vice. They experience discrimination emanating from the fact that they are different from other minority groups and as well the whites. They are subjected to discrimination in various fields in which they are engaged such as education, employment, immigration, land acquisition and others (Phan et al. 2009). This forms of discriminations have their impacts on the several life aspects of this minority groups including mental health impacts as discussed in this paper.
Introduction
Asian Americans are individuals or distinctive groups of people from the east, southeast, and Asia that have immigrated to the USA. Various individuals and as well groups of Asian Americans delves differently depending on what they believe is their position on American soil. A majority of them use their country of origin to describe themselves, for instance, Indian American. Others describe themselves simply as Asians or Asian Americans while a minority of the groups describe themselves as Americans. The major groups of Asian Americans of Asian Americans, categorized with their country of origin include Chinese, Filipino, Indians, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese.
A majority of the Asian Americans in the USA are immigrants while a smaller percentage of this population are American born. The primary reasons for moving in America are education and career. The Chinese Americans are the majority population of Asian Americans in the USA. The Indians make the biggest percentage of the Asian Americans enrolled in the higher education system of the USA. This population has been able to take the career and education opportunities that present in the USA.
Over 60% of all Asian Americans aged between the ages of 25-60 hold a higher education degree thus making it easier to successively secure employment. This makes the majority of the Asian Americans quite successful in this fields compared to other populations in the USA.
In most cases, Asian Americans are wrongly perceived to be individuals with similar characteristics regarding their culture, social, traditional background and other aspects of life. On the contrary, Asian Americans consists a group of people with diverse cultural and other traditional traits. However, like any other community within a society, the Asian Americans portray some similarities in their cultural practices and beliefs with other communities. They do uphold family like most of the other populations in the USA. They intermarry amongst themselves and as well other American populations they interact with.
Distinctive traits of the Asian Americans in the USA
The majority of the indigenous groups of people that lived in the USA commonly referred to as the Native Americans were Asian tribes most of them being the Indians. This indicates how deep the roots of the Asian Americans run into the history of America. Both individuals and groups of the Asian American people display traits that will by all means identify them with the Asian roots. The population of Asian American is the fastest growing in the USA having overtaken the growth rate of the Hispanic population. Among the aspects that these minority groups stands out is the educational and economic accomplishment they enjoy compared to the general population in the USA.
Racism issues facing the Asian Americans in the USA
Like any other race and tribes across the globe, Asian Americans are as well subjected to racism and discrimination based on their culture and background. Racism is experienced in education, employment, criminal procedures, voting, immigration and other fields they are engaged in. The vice is perpetrated by both the persons in authority and the general population, in this case, the non-Asian Americans. * Education
As earlier noted, Asian Americans hold education with such pronounced importance. In the past, there have been demonstrations by the student of Asian origin to enhance their learning. They were previously barred from joining particular schools in the USA. Despite their perceived success in academics, Asian American do still face challenges with the education system of the USA (Chung, 2014). Discrimination in enrollment of new students, in particular, institutions of higher learning still prevails though minimal compared to the earlier days. This deprives the Asian American students off the opportunity for fair and equal access to education facilities and resources (Nishita et al. 2015).
Public support for the Asian American students in as far as education is concerned is as well minimal in comparison to their European American counterparts in the USA. A simple initiative like taking into account some of the critical Asian cultural aspects while offering education are enough gesture indicating equity. In contrary, the system is so rigid, and the students are expected to adopt its concepts as they are making it harder for them.
The stereotype that all Asian American students are good performers is among the factors that worsen the situation. It is important to note that majority of the Asian American students are ones that immigrate into the USA. This fact calls for a bilingual system of education as the majority, in this case, are not fluent in English. Assuming that the Asian American students are smart and therefore not taking into account their dialect while facilitating courses puts them on the disadvantage side. Some of them are struggling to adapt to the American system of education contrary to what most people presume.
With the influx of the Asian American students in the institutions of higher learning in the USA, most of these institutions started excluding Asian American students from enrollment. This was despite the students having met the qualifications required for admission. The population of the Asian American community was estimated to be about 3% in the USA. The population of enrollment in the higher education learning institutions at that time was estimated to be beyond 15%. This is downright discrimination based on the student’s race. There must have been other measures to ensure that all students attain the quality of education they deserve and in the institutions for which they meet the minimum requirements.
• Employment
The Asian American community is perceived to be beyond average regarding their economic status. However, there exist disadvantages regarding this minority group’s employment opportunity. These disadvantages are based on the racial background of this minority groups. Besides being termed the model minority community, they still face inequalities and inequities in procuring an employment from time to time. As compared to their Caucasian counterparts, the number of Asian Americans who are still unemployed is high despite the fact that the individuals in comparison have equal levels of qualification (Schachter, 2014).
From another dimension, the unemployment among the Asian Americans can be attributed to the fact that a majority of this population have attained higher education thus making it harder for all to secure employment opportunities. This factor insights racial bias when organizations and institutes are employing new workforce. A disparity exists even within the Asian American communities, whereby the individuals with higher levels of academic qualifications experience more employment deficiency compared to those with minimal qualification. This translates to more European American individuals being employed as the Asian Americans are left out (Schachter, 2014).
Despite high levels of qualification for higher positions in the American organizations, the number of the Asian American persons at the level of a chief executive officers across the country is countable. Not even in the managerial positions do the experienced and academically qualified persons get an opportunity to be promoted. A majority are left in the common working employee positions as some of the equally or lesser qualified white people get the promotion. This comes with utter frustration among the victims of such discrimination and to an extent affects their performance at their places of work.
• Hate crimes
Hate crimes against the Asian American peoples are more often directed to children and other persons in the learning institutions. The victims are in most cases fatally injured from the physical abuse they are subjected to. Some of the cases have gone unpunished, and the legal systems in most cases fail to term these cases as hate crimes against a minority population. A case of a 16-year-old Vietnamese student was stabbed by a peer, but the case was treated as manslaughter earning the culprit just five years in jail (Walton, 2015). With such judgments by the legal system of the USA, the crimes are bound to persist as the perpetrators are not subjected to their deserved punishment. Series of xenophobic attacks against the Asian American people have also been reported.
• Healthcare
Any form of discrimination has been lately associated with poor health outcomes among the Asian Americans. This is especially in the mental health of the immigrants who experience various forms of discrimination by their racial background both at school, homes, and workplaces (Xu et al. 2014). Being a minority race is in itself a vulnerability to segregation. There exist mental health disparities among the Asian Americans and the European American populations that have been shown in various studies and are believed to be driven by racism that the minority group is subjected to.
The health practices that are in place for intervening the health problems the Asian American population are not sensitive to their cultural suitability. For the maximum benefits to be realized, the services in place should be short of any form of bias and should match the cultural heritage of the clients in question. This in turn will most definitely increase the demand for healthcare among the client and subsequently promote the communities wellbeing (Nishita et al. 2015). For instance, integration of the Chinese traditional and complementary medicine with the national healthcare system would give the immigrants an option of the form of intervention they prefer.
Impacts of racism against the Asian Americans
Most of the negative outcomes that racism against Asian American populations have been observed. Whether individual or collective, any form of discrimination has detrimental effects on the victims. Among this is the self-efficacy and self-esteem that are most affected. Both at the workplace and school, the individuals are most definitely not in a position to perform to their potential capacity if at all they experience any form of discrimination on the basis of an aspect they cannot do away with, race (Tawa, 2012). Participation in the community and other activities is totally crippled by racism. The subjects to racial discrimination, hate crime cannot give any contribution that might be beneficial to all if they do not feel accepted in the society((Tawa, 2012).
Conclusion
Even though the situation of the Asian American populations in the USA has changed for the better with time, there are still problems that they face as have been observed. To counter these problems does not only enhance diversity but at the end of the day everybody benefits from it. Despite the vice being deeply inscribed in the society, all measure ranging from legal, political to social interventions can be employed to enable the people to realize the importance of living in harmony despite their color, tribe or race. It is crucial to bring up a generation of children who cannot look at another and despise them due to their race. This can be achieved by nurturing them with the notion that all human beings are equal by all means (Xu et al. 2014). This way, the future generation shall have been saved from the vice of racism.

References
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