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You are here: Home / Opinion / Letters to the Editor / LETTER: RE: Are we Asian-American or Asian American?

LETTER: RE: Are we Asian-American or Asian American?

August 15, 2014 By Northwest Asian Weekly

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

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Related

Filed Under: Letters to the Editor Tagged With: 2014, Asian American, Asian Rotarian, David Chan, Dear Editor, European American, Gary Lock, Jay Inslee, Vol 33 No 34 | August 16 - August 22

Comments

  1. James S. Morgan says

    August 18, 2014 at 3:23 am

    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 Both “Negro” and “Caucasian” are racist outdated terms that are considered offensive by today’s standards.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.

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