Stereotype of being different
Danny Nguyen
10/29/20
English 1-A
Professor Escobar
A book of my choice
The book I have chosen is “All you can ever know,” — Nicole Chung. The book I have chosen as the message the author has incorporated into the book has a lot of meaning to it and how it relates to real world life now, as it arises in society nowadays. The audience should read the book as it is about her childhood life where her ethnicity was different from her family that she was adopted into, a white family. Her whole life when she was younger, she thought she was white all along because of the school she went to and what her environment was like what she was surrounded by. Coming across a couple that wanted to adopt and asked for her own opinion personally as they know and want to know the feeling of the person that was adopted to see if that person supported that or not. I strongly believe that people should read this because similar problems may have been happening to them as well, that they are brought into a different family and being stereotyped by other different ethnicities.
Next, as Nicole experienced her elementary school, a kid made fun of her ethnicity, saying stereotype lines of “Me chinee, me can’t see” as a stereotype that asian people can’t see because they were born regardless of their eyes. This line has been the racial slur used against many asian-american as an insult as well as squinting their eyes back and making their eyelids very thin to indicate what asians look like. She didn’t understand what the kid was trying to get at, but all she knew was that the kid was making fun of her as she is considered “different” in their school as she was the only asian to attend there. As the problems she has faced for being “korean,” relates to the real world situation now especially ever since COVID-19 has started. I have seen all across social media that people are using boards and the caption on it would go like “Asian-american are a threat to us all,” another would go like “Asian-american is a virus, kick them out.” The fact seeing this makes it hurtful as they assume every asian people they see no matter the ethnicity, they assume that we all are chinese and are the carriers of the COVID-19 and have bought it into the countries.
This book chosen is a great factor in bringing in how adoption and ethnicity can be affected in many ways where the family won’t understand as for adoption. It states how being different is affected and not just for being asian, other ethnicities as well. Asians aren’t only the race that is facing discrimination, it’s the fact that other race choose to stereotype another where this is ongoing especially right now with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they both have different views on things. People don’t like what the other is trying to gain/obtain and they choose the other as it is better for their goal of the people in the future. Especially the ever going protest and riot of BLM “Black Lives Matter,” it has caused such an uproar in the society and ever since it seems nothing has been done to better confront this, no action from the government. As the society is going on now it is a bit better now, as police bow down and “handshake” a different person of ethnicity to cancel racism. Especially, for Indian people they are seen as terrorists by people and that is very racist because it’s crazy to see how people think that when a person of race does this, it affects them all with what that person of race has done or as a group of few. I know this topic will upset many, but I had to list it in order for it to be known out there in the world of what other race/ethnicities are facing right now. There are far more than problems with race, that I have not listed here.
Lastly, as from my personal experience, being Vietnamese I have gone through a time such as the author in the book “All you can ever know.” Being asian-american myself, there were always stereotype “Why do you guys eat dogs and cats?”, “Why are your eyes different?” There were always comments made on me, such as “Aren’t you supposed to be good at math?” “Do my homework for me.” It didn’t mean anything to me, because I was too careless to care of what they would say or I was just naive to what they were saying. I was treated as I was seen as Chinese because of a username I had in Japanese, the other person was thinking that we were “the nasty asians that bought COVID-19 over” it was an experience with my friend as well, he is wasian, a mix of white and asian. No matter the race, there’s always a stereotype and it’s not fair to the ones that have not done a part or so in obtaining that stereotype. I strongly recommend this book who believes in equality for all races/ethnicity.
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