Dear Editor:
American. If one is very proud of one’s heritage, one can say “American of Asian Heritage.” However, we should not automatically label ourselves as a sub-group as Asian American unless we label our entire fellow American into subgroups. Since I seldom see a newspaper refer to our governor, Jay Inslee, as European American governor, I would not refer to myself as Asian American. I was very angry when people kept referring to Gary Lock as our Asian American governor. Somehow, it implies Gary Lock is not a full-fledged American like any other Washington governors.
The continued identifying of ourselves as a subgroup is just perpetuating our image that we are not mainstream. With the continued increase of Americans with multiple heritage, I am not sure this continued labeling of Americans will help anything. I applaud NW Asian Weekly, as it advocates a lot of issues for our community. Label the issues, but not the people. I am a Rotarian, but never say I am an Asian Rotarian. I am an American and not a hyphenated American. I think the debate of Asian American or Asian-American is completely missing the point.
Thank you for allowing this discussion. (end)
— David Chan
I am an American of European ancestry who would like people to stop calling me and my fellow European-Americans “Caucasian.” The term “Caucasian” is a racist term that was invented to classify my people as a sub-species of the human race. Just as “Negro” was invented to classify Africans as a sub-species of the human race, the term “Caucasian” was invented to classify Europeans as a sub-species of the human race. Both “Negro” and “Caucasian” are racist outdated terms that are considered offensive by today’s standards. Call us “European-American” not “Caucasian.” Nowadays the media has rightfully stopped calling African-Americans “Negro” but yet the media still calls European-Americans “Caucasian.” The media needs to stop using the racist term of “Caucasian.” As a European-American, I take offensive by that term. Call me “European-American” and not “Caucasian.” Thank you very much.