Ji, Mary
8East, Humanities
April 3, 2003
What it mean to be
American?
How powerful race can be in this
country and how powerless when matched against human will.
– Becoming American
Apparently, the lives and stories of Maya Lin and Vincent Chin
contain many parallels and yet many differences, and the way they were
perceived by others affected their lives. It all commented on race and
nationality and how they were mislead. Racial minorities who are treated by the
broader American are looked as lower with no respect and shouldn’t be able to
share the same rights. There have been a few Chinese who have the human will to
speak up against the unconstitutional rights Asians are getting from the whites.
Furthermore, the race is competing against human will power while on the other
hand, race and nationality affects how different ethnic groups are treated in
society, mainly the Asians.
Clearly, there are comparable issues between Maya Lin and
Vincent Chin and the affects of race and human will between their cases. People
determined who they were based on their race and nationality. Whites were
racist against Chinese back then because they were said to be people who steal
jobs and have little dignity and rights. Whites don’t look at their nationality
before they judge them which clearly show you that there are different types of
Chinese coming from different parts of the world, so they can’t just judge that
on one particular spot. Maya Lin was able to speak out and gained respect, even
if it was a little, while on the other hand, the Judge Charles S. Kaufman gave
an unconstitutional approach to the murder of Vincent Chin. Maya Chin was a
Chinese America who was the designer of the Vietnam Memorial and when the
whites found out that a Chinese designed it, they doubted it because they
fought with Chinese before. And in Vincent Chin’s case, he was murdered because
two Caucasian men thought that he was Japanese by the way he looked. This shows
how, ”How powerful race can be in this country and how powerless when matched
against human will,” which basically mean each race in this country is powerful
in one way or another, but when race is powerless when no one have the human
will to speak when others don’t. “It is because of you little motherf*ckers
that we’re out of work,” Eben, was the Caucasian men that beaten Vincent Chin with
a baseball bat while Nitz held him. They blamed Japanese carmakers for the
problems of the white auto industries.
Plainly, you can notice that their also have been many
difference existing in their stories because they had different form of racist
acts done to them. Maya Lin wasn’t respected as the designer of the Vietnam
Memorial because she was a Chinese American, or in other words a yellow person.
She was judged by her race and not her nationality. She was from Athens, Ohio. Vincent
Chin was thought to be a Japanese guy because of his color and race. The two
who murdered him didn’t think about his nationality, and if they did, they
would have figured out that he wasn’t from Japan and wasn’t Japanese. They
murdered him because he looked like Japanese. Maya Lin was a Chinese designer
who when noticed by whites saw her as a Chinese woman, and judged her
appearance. Before, they had blind competition where they judge the design
first, then the designer, and when they saw that the designer was Chinese, they
became odd. And for Vincent Chin, he looked Japanese and was killed for that.
This shows how racist whites were back then. The entire races were powerful,
but when the races go against each other, they are powerless when they have to
go against and speak when others won’t. Race is powerful because Vincent Chin
got killed because of his race. The white race was considered to be the
dominant race back then, so it didn’t want competition and it didn’t want to
work with their enemy which was considered to be Maya Chin.
The ways they were perceived by others affected their lives
by showing how other viewed them as Chinese and not being people who were part
of their country. Since they were judged by others, their lives were
tremendously affected because they weren’t considered as being equals. Maya Lin
wasn’t appreciated at first because she was colored and she had a Chinese
background. They wouldn’t accept her at first because she was that way. Vincent
Chin was perceived by others as a Japanese man by two white automobile workers
who were out of work. They viewed him as a person who has stolen their jobs.
Maya Lin, Vincent Chin and basically ever Chinese have been affected by whites
showing how the whites really have hatred against the Chinese American
community. It shows the types of rebels we have to deal and live with in our
very own societies. The way they were perceived by others definitely shows you
what measures were being taken to clear Chinese. The way racial minorities are
treated by the broader American culture obviously show you how broader
American’s look as, if they should have more rights and be unequal towards
others who don’t have the same culture and race.
Undoubtedly, Maya Lin and Vincent Chin have faced
indescribable hatred against for being one race that appears to be others while
still having “human will” to speak such as how Maya Lin did and the powers of
the words changed the appearance of the hated. The racial minorities are being
treated by whites unfairly such as how they treated Maya Lin and Vincent Chin;
they determined them by looking at there outer appearance and their race
ignoring their nationality. Even today,
there are still inhumane people that judge by looks so teachers should be more
critical and teach materials that relate to the controversial issues reflecting
society. You should have human will and stand up to racial rights that most
wouldn’t have the courage to do and be able to consider what the faults of the
rights that racial minorities get differ from dominant groups.
Bibliography:
Matthews,
Kevin. “Vietnam Veterans Memorial.” Artifice, Inc. 1994-2003.
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial.html
“Maya Lin
Biography.” PBS, Inc. 2001.
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/
Yip,
Alethea. “Remembering Vincent Chin.” AsianWeek, Inc. 1998.
http://www.asianweek.com/061397/feature.html
Ho,
Christine. “The Model Minority Awakened: The Murder of Vincent Chin-Part 1.”
Asian American Artistry, Inc. 1996-2003.
http://us_asians.tripod.com/articles-vincentchin.html