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The Term ‘Asian American’ Has an Impossible Duty
In a moment of pain, the descriptor has become a galvanizing force. But what happens when you lump together a group of people whose lives differ so vastly?
I’m not Asian American. I’m a German citizen, born to Vietnamese immigrants. You could say I’m an Asian in America, though I most often feel like an untethered foreigner who’s just gotten really good at nesting.
When I first immigrated to the United States, though, I was often assumed to be Asian American. And with that, I was assigned a culture that I didn’t recognize from my upbringing in Germany or even from having lived in Hong Kong and traveled across Asia for work. It’s a culture that America itself seems to have trouble figuring out.
The concept of “Asian American” was always a little foreign to me. This phrase was assigned the impossible duty of encapsulating the experience of people who once hailed from a continent that contains so many multitudes.
Though the term has largely become affiliated with largely a subset of that population, excluding countries like Russia and often centering around East Asians, it’s worth noting that about two-thirds of the world’s population, or roughly 4.16 billion individuals, live in Asia across nine time zones. There are climates in the region that range from monsoon-drenched tropical to arid deserts. Hundreds of languages are spoken in the region and a multitude of cultures practiced every day.
Even after folks from that continent arrive in America and settle down, their experience remains fractured at best. An estimated 23 million people are considered Asian American and their lives differ vastly. For instance, you will find massive income gaps between people who are grouped under the term Asian American: According to CNN, your typical Burmese family may live off $46,000 a year, while their Indian counterparts have an annual budget of $127,000. 1.5 million Asians in America are undocumented, living in the shadows, while others are well-paid professionals in some of the country’s richest industries, like the technology sector.
And yet their essence and stories are supposed to be captured in two small words: Asian…
