Somewhat A Saint

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Blog #5 - Claudia Kishi Club Rules

 Claudia Kishi was a character of the Babysitter’s Club who was Asian American. Claudia Kishi was the Vice President of the Babysitter’s Club and was Japanese American, she was the character that everybody wanted to be, not just Asian Americans, which was very rare for kids growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, many Asian Americans grew up aspiring to be like Claudia Kishi, but in real life, not just as a character. Thus, many Asian Americans began to break the model minority mold and instead began to follow in Claudia’s footsteps and they too followed their creative and artistic sides.

     The reason why it’s important for Asian Americans to be represented in popular culture is to give both kids and adults role-models to look up to. Asian Americans as a whole are underrepresented in pop. culture. This is due to the fact that there isn’t that many Asian American creatives out in arts, film, and the media. Due to this, many Asian Americans believe they cannot accomplish anything in those respective fields due to a lack of representation; if there is nobody to look up to, who they can relate to, then they would be alone doing something that Asian Americans don’t tend to pursue. However, thanks to characters like Claudia Kishi, there has now been a growth in the amount of Asian American creatives. Thus, there are now many stories, shows, movies, arts, and so on, that Asian Americans can look up to and use as inspiration for their own work. Asian Americans, and human beings as a whole, do not need to be limited in what they choose to do with their own lives. Instead, they just need to see that it is okay to step out of society’s mold and pursue their own passions instead of letting others dictate what they should do with their lives; we control our own destiny, nobody else does. The more representation that Asian Americans have in popular culture, the more Asian Americans will be willing to accept their own creative passions instead of following the generational jobs that we have been expected to follow. As a result of this, Asian Americans and our cultures, will begin to be more understood and accepted in American media. Not only that, but we can pave the way for other persons of color to do exactly the same thing that we are doing.

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Blog Post #4 - Xenophobia in the U.S.

With the increased spread of COVID-19 has been an increased spread of racism towards Asian Americans. A lack of direction from a person known to be the “most powerful man on the planet”, the President, has not helped the case at all. Instead, this individual has thrown more wood into the fire and has been a key factor in the increase of xenophobia towards Asians and Asian Americans within the United States. Unbeknown to many of these racist individuals is the fact that Asia is the largest continent in the world, of which over half of the world’s population is from. Albeit, these racist attacks have mainly been targeted against East Asians as well as South East Asians. The fact of the matter is that Asia, as a whole, is so large for these individuals to comprehend that they must group Asians together into one smaller group. 

     To digress, there have been multiple instances in my life where individuals, of unspecified races, have been racist towards Asians/Asian Americans. I, looking more white than Asian, was not the receiver of said comments. However, upon hearing them, I would call out the racist perpetrators. The majority of which would defend their remarks by saying that “those people”, in reference to Asians, should leave “our” country, in reference to us being white. These situations would result in me revealing that I’m also Asian, which would typically shock the perpetrator. The point being, these racist remarks have no place in society as a whole, as we are all human beings. To judge an individual based on their appearance is similar to reading the first page of a book and then immediately reading the last page of it: there’s no context to understand what or why something has happened. Thus, if these individuals really wanted to prove a point, perhaps maybe we should all follow their advice, including them following their own advice, and “go back to whatever country we came from.” Then this land that is “our land” would be given back to the Natives who have lived here for thousands of years, but once again, that’s a concept too large for them to understand.

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Blog Post #3 - What Home Tastes Like

     Home tastes like a happy household. A house filled with love and a full family. This house is a home because it is a fusion. A clash of cultures. Four different people, different ages, different backgrounds, but they are one full family. Home tastes like salty Ilocano-styled adobo and Irish stew on the following day. Home smells like traditional Filipino food and firehouse food. Home is a place where beef stroganoff is made one night and beef sinigang is made the next. A place where french toast and bacon is made in the morning while spam, rice, and eggs is made for dinner. Home is somewhere that had once existed, a place in time filled with love and a full happy family. Home no longer exists because the people that have made home have passed on. Home no longer exists because that house is no longer physically accessible. Home no longer exists. Home will never exist again.

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Blog Post #2 - Asians and COVID-19 (A Weird Attempt at being a Poet)

The United States of America, a country created by immigrants who pushed out natives and stripped them of their land. The U.S.A. a place where it is still seen as a sin to be gay. "America The Great”, a place that blindly follows “faith”. The Land of Opportunity, a place that is a fan of disunity. . . It is no surprise that a country with so much pride has singled out a racial group, once again, for a simple lie. 

    Whether or not you are Asian or if you look Asian, you are now public enemy number one. Your family is no longer seen as “Americans”, but is now the reason we can not go out and have fun. It doesn’t matter if you’re Cambodian, Viet, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, or Malaysian, you are still an American. Once again, this country was built by immigrants, for immigrants. It shouldn’t matter how you look, but then again, ask any racial minorities and they’ll tell you to read a book. This country’s history is built by the people who have been put down for centuries. And still, those same people have been struggling to be treated right and are put into penitentiaries. This country is not the Land of Equality, but simply the land of dishonesty.

     I don’t normally write like this, but I stepped outside of my comfort zone because change never hurt. Unless, of course, you live in the U.S. where change is the one thing that is always sought out for, but never achieved. We are witnessing the downfall of a country that was supposed to be great, but instead the “leader” has chosen all of our fates. America, the Beautiful? No, America the Pitiful. 

      COVID-19 is not an Asian problem nor an Asian American one. It’s the world’s problem. We have no right in taking responsibility, but we do have every right to stand up for one another and protect each other. Whether it’s our Asian brothers and sisters or our fellow minorities. We are all one in the same, the human race, if you see it any other way then you are simply a disgrace.

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Blog Post #1 - Who I Am?

   My name is Sean S. and I am a Bay Area native. I’ve lived in the Bay Area for all, but one year, of my life. With that, the East Bay will always be my home as that is where I spent my childhood growing up at. I was raised by an Irish-American dad and Filipina mother. This basically means I am biracial as well as bicultural. 

      For that reason, I am glad I grew up in the Bay Area as it is one of the most culturally diverse places in the world. Growing up, I was always confused why I looked different to everybody else, but it wasn’t until I moved to an elementary school where most of my classmates were Filipino, as well as racial minorities, that I felt like I was included and accepted. I attended that elementary school for all, but one year. In fifth grade, I moved to SoCal and absolutely hated it. Everybody there was super privileged and there were barely any Asians, let alone mixed people or minorities, where I had moved to: Palm Springs. After that year, my family decided to move back to the Bay Area and I would end up re-enrolling at my elementary school/middle school. I would now be located in the North Bay, which meant I had to adapt to a commuter lifestyle. I no longer lived in my hometown and as a result, the only time I saw all of my friends was at school. In addition, my family started to get smaller. My dad would unexpectedly pass away and my life would be flipped upside-down. I began to hate school because it brought unnecessary stress to my life. My grades began to drop, and I no longer was the straight-A student that I used to be. In addition, my school only had one creative arts class for our art program: drawing and painting, which I absolutely sucked at. That contributed to my GPA dropping even more because, obviously, I sucked at art. Despite that, I found solace in listening to music, pro-wrestling, and photography throughout those tough times. Weird, right? All of those are arts, yet for some reason I hated art. Very cool and edgy, Sean. 

     Regardless, I was lucky enough to get into the same High School as the rest of my close friends, but that meant I had to commute even further as my High School was located in Berkeley. Despite that, I somehow made it work. I never really tried in High School because I just had no interest in school, anymore. That changed when I entered the Theater Arts program at my school and found my love for acting. It turned out I wasn’t as bad at being creative as I thought I was. Instead, I never had the opportunity to develop and showcase my own skills because I was never offered that option growing up. I began to fall in love with being creative, but I still hated school. Near the end of my senior year of High School, my grandma, who had lived with my family my entire life, would also pass away. At that point, I was absolutely done with having to deal with life’s BS, let alone school. My goal was to simply graduate and figure out what I wanted to do after that. For the most part, I did well throughout High School, despite half-assing it, but that last semester of High School nearly prevented me from graduating. With the sympathy of my teachers, I managed to pass my last semester.

    College came around and I had absolutely no desire to do anything about it. I, surprisingly, got accepted to all the colleges I applied to. They were all CSUs because I had no motivation nor desire to fill out the UC application and answer stupid essay questions. Regardless, I decided to attend school down in, you guessed it, SoCal. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, but after orientation, I realized that I did not want to go to college at that time in my life. So right after orientation, I dropped out of that college. Easy right? No. Remember the part about my mom being Filipina? Yeah, I still had to go to college. Thus, I attended a local university in the North Bay. For only two weeks. Then I dropped out of there because I was burned out and tired of school - I hated that place. After that, I ended up working a decent restaurant job for a few months and invested my money in buying my dream camera setup. That’s when life changed.

     My mom and I would have the opportunity to travel back home to the Philippines! We also traveled to other countries in South East Asia. That never would’ve happened had I stayed in school. It was also perfect timing because I had just upgraded my camera setup, so you guessed it, I shot thousands of photos during our stay in Asia. I found solace through my own photography work, instead of the work of others. I was now the dreamer and the creator. After our month away in Asia, I decided to go back to University which is how I ended up at SF. I still don’t like school, but I appreciate it way more. Plus, after everything I’ve been through, school is so easy. When you’ve experienced the worst things in life, the fear of failing at school is non-existent; it’s an easy job for me. Nothing compares to losing your home and family, so forgetting to do an assignment or not living up to a teacher’s expectations is literally laughable in comparison. 

    With that, I have no fears in life. I know I’ll be fine one way or another - this goes beyond the realm of school. I trust and believe in myself enough to know that I’ll accomplish whatever I plan to do. Whether that’s being a photographer, a pro-wrestler, an actor, potentially producing my own music, all of those together, or some other wild shit. I know I can and will do it. If I set my mind to something, I will achieve it. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, I will not stop until I’ve achieved my goals. Ultimately, I want others to find solace through my own creative work. Lastly, I want to trailblaze a path for other Hapas/Mixed Raced individuals and Asian Americans who want to be creative with their life. Once I can create that pathway for others, then I’ll be happy.

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Mid-semester C.A.R

     The main themes and topics I found in my learning resources, mainly The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui, is the cultural and generational gap that is ever present in Asian American families. The growth of Asians in America has to do with the emmigration of Asian individuals and/or families to the United States for a plethora of reasons, push-pull factors, such as war, corruption in government, class divide, genocides, etc. As a result, there is typically a divide between Asian immigrants who came to America and their offspring who are born within the U.S.A. Whether this be a divide in communication or other factors varies from family to family, but for the most part all Asian Americans can come to some sort of agreement that there is a cultural and generational divide amongst their family in one shape or another.

     The root causes of these problems stem back to the push factors of the generations who came to the U.S. first. Essentially, whatever pushed first generation Asian immigrants to come to America is where these problems come from. Whether that be the aforementioned factors or other reasons. The cultural and generational gaps are ones that are a result of the sacrifices that first generation Asian Americans had to make in order to make it to the U.S. As a result, some families are open about this gap and divide, whereas others are very closed off and never speak about their past experiences. Although many younger/newer generations of Asian Americans would love to hear the stories of their ancestors who have come to America, to establish the life they live, many of these stories are too painful to relive.

     I personally connected with Thi Bui’s story and the relationship she had with her mother. Thi Bui could never really fathom all the sacrifices her mother had to make in order to create a new life in America. Yet when Thi Bui gives birth to her child, that all changes and Thi Bui begins to create a relationship with her mother that allows her to understand her mother’s life story. As a result, Thi Bui began to close the generational and cultural divide that is seen between Asian immigrant parents and American born Asian children. The reason why I connected with her story is because I have gone through the same process in learning about my own mother’s life and the sacrifices she had to make in order to start a new life within the U.S. It took many years to begin to understand and see things from her perspective, but now that I know the story, I am forever grateful for what she did to better her life as well as create a life for me. As a result, I now take pride in being half Filipino and I hope in the future I can establish a following of individuals who are proud to be multi ethical. As our stories are similar to older Asian American generations, in the sense that we too are facing new struggles that many do not understand. As a result, it is our duty to either be open about what our life was like or to keep the stories hidden under the rug, never to be spoken of again.