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发信人: protoplast (巴山虎), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标  题: an article worth reading
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Wed Jun 23 12:48:58 1999)

                           A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
                                 By Ted W. Lieu*

        "Are you in the Chinese Air Force?" the elegantly-dressed lady
sitting next to me asked.  For a moment I was left speechless.  We
were at an awards dinner and I was proudly wearing my blue
United States Air Force uniform, complete with captain's bars,
military insignia, and medals.  Her question jarred me and made
me realize that even Air Force blue was not enough to reverse her
initial presumption that people with yellow skin and Asian features
are somehow not Americans.  I wish this was just an isolated
incident.  Unfortunately, too many people today still view Asian
Americans as foreigners in America.

        I have been told countless times that I speak "good" English.  I
have had strangers come up to me and attempt to mimic the
Chinese or Japanese language in a derogatory manner.  I have been
asked why a chink such as I would be interested in watching NFL
football.

        The majority of the discrimination I have encountered all
center on the view that I am a foreigner, that I am not part of this
country, even though I grew up in Ohio, attended college in
California, and was commissioned as an officer in the United States
Air Force in 1991.  This presumption that I am a foreigner does not
appear to apply to the same degree to other Americans.  When we
see someone of African, German, Hispanic, Irish, or Russian origin,
for instance, we usually do not assume they are foreigners or
tourists in this country.  On any given day, if I walk around with a
camera, I will be mistaken as a tourist from Asia.

        Perhaps this "foreigner-syndrome" is so prevalent because it
has deep historical roots.  From the early days of our country's
history, Asian Americans were thought of as foreign, different, and
unable to assimilate.  Over one hundred years ago, in 1889, the
United States Supreme Court, in the case of Chae Chan Ping v.
United States, upheld the exclusion and expulsion of Chinese
immigrants.  The Court declared that Chinese immigrants
"remained strangers in the land, residing apart by themselves, and
adhering to the customs and usages of their own country.  It
seemed impossible for them to assimilate with our people[.]"  The
Court ruled that because "the United States . . . considers the
presence of foreigners of a different race in this country, who will
not assimilate with us, to be dangerous to its peace and security,
their exclusion is not to be stayed[.]"

           In 1912, then presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson
announced, "In the matter of Chinese and Japanese coolie
immigration, I stand for the national policy of exclusion.  We
cannot make a homogeneous population of a people who do not
blend with the Caucasian race."  In 1942, the United States
government rounded up thousands of Japanese Americans and
forcibly relocated them into internment camps based on the
irrational fear that Japanese Americans were somehow loyal to
Japan, rather than the United States.

           Even today, the struggle for acceptance of Asian Americans
is not over.  During the 1998 Winter Olympics, figure skater
Michelle Kwan won the silver medal and Tara Lipinski won the
gold.  Ms. Kwan grew up in Southern California and is one of the
stars of the US Olympic Figure Skating team.  Nevertheless, the
headlines the next day on MS-NBC read:  "American beats Kwan."
In 1982, two autoworkers in Detroit beat a Chinese-American,
Vincent Chin, to death with a baseball bat because they viewed him
as a Japanese foreigner who was taking away their jobs.

            Sometimes the discrimination is more subtle than a
blatant headline or a hate crime, but it can still be just as
insidious.  A few days after the bombing of the Chinese Embassy, a
local news station sent a reporter to interview Chinese Americans to
get the Chinese-American response.  It was clear by his questions
that the reporter was attempting to elicit some sort of anti-
American sentiment.  The erroneous presumption, however, is that
Chinese Americans are somehow linked to the government of
China.  Why would a Chinese American, like me, who has never
even set foot in Beijing, have any different response to the bombing
than, say, an Italian American?  I also point out that after the
tragic gondola accident in Italy, which occurred when a United
States Marine jet accidentally severed the gondola cable, the same
news station did not ask for the Italian-American response.

           This subtle rationale linking Chinese Americans to the
government of China, when carried to an extreme, is the same
insidious rationale that justified the United States government's
action of interning Japanese Americans during World War II.  When
a minority group is improperly linked to a foreign country, that
linkage fundamentally calls into question their loyalty, their
citizenship, their "Americaness."  Unfortunately, Asian Americans,
more so than many other minority groups, have been saddled with
the burden of having to prove our loyalty to this nation.

           Incidents involving a few isolated Asian Americans have
unfortunately highlighted this burden and provoked a backlash
against all Asian Americans.  I do not know if Wen Ho Lee, the
Chinese-American scientist who was fired from Los Alamos National
Laboratory, is guilty of espionage or not.  But I do know that the
over 300,000 Asian-American scientists and engineers certainly are
not guilty of anything more than having an Asian surname.

             And their Asian surname has been enough to bring about
heightened scrutiny, derision, and outright discrimination.  A Los
Angeles Times news article reported that an Asian-American lab
employee was asked if he had "dual loyalties;" that snickering and
laughter broke out in a roomful of computer users when an Asian
American was introduced to lead a session on computer security;
and that many Asian-American scientists now express fear they will
face obstacles to their career progression.

             Similarly, the campaign finance scandal involving just a
few Asian Americans led political parties and campaigns to
question the validity of any donor with an Asian-American
surname.  I certainly do not condone those few individuals who
broke campaign finance laws.  But it is wrong to brand the over ten
million hard-working, tax-paying, and deeply loyal Asian
Americans in this country based on the actions of a few
individuals.

           America is a nation founded by immigrants and built on
the ideal that anyone can be an American if they believe in the
principles and values of the United States Constitution.  Indeed,
the Vietnamese-American immigrant who does not yet speak
English that well, but is starting a small business and believes in
freedom and democracy, is much more American to me than a
fifth-generation midwestern Caucasian who blew up a federal
building because he had a problem with federalism.

             It is time to reverse the irrational and insidious
presumption that Asian Americans are foreigners, have dual
loyalties, or are somehow linked to the government of a foreign
country.  As an officer in the United States Air Force, one day I may
be called to give my life to my country.  It would be a shame if
some people still question what I mean when I say "my country."

* Ted W. Lieu is a Captain in the United States Air Force.  The views
expressed herein are his own and are not to be taken as the official
views of the United States Air Force.
--
Most people talk and write nonsense some of the time,
some people talk and write nonsense all of the time.
But it can be difficult to detect precisely who is talking and writing
                    nonsense and when

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