Erica Guo

Pr. 2
Asian-American Workshops
Asian-American identity is a topic that resonated within me in my adolescent
years. It was a part of me most definitely when I was younger, but I feel like many of the
problems crystallized when I was old enough to understand what they were. I think
identity is something that should be explored in every ethnic minority, and that topics
within this one often overlap with allyship of others. The model minority myth breeds a
situation in which Asian-Americans are encouraged to be quiet and studious, even if that
is not their true selves. There is also the pressure to assimilate: how can Asian-Americans
expect to do as well as white Americans and break the bamboo ceiling if they are
stereotyped as quiet in their work? Physical differences such as the famous epicanthic
fold in East Asian eyes also make it more difficult for Asian-Americans.
I worked with the After-School Learning Tree. It is a predominantly ChineseAmerican care center that children K-6 go through after school. I had already established
ties with them, as I went there for daycare as a child. My younger brother also goes there
right now. The things they already did to work on Asian-American identity was teaching
children Mandarin Chinese, how to write it, and many things relevant to Chinese culture
in general. I think it was the perfect place to foster a beginning understanding of AsianAmerican identity, since children need to learn about it when they are young. For younger
students, I focused on broad topics like stereotypes and how they pertained to race. For
older students, I discussed Asian-American identity in relation to vocabulary words like

privilege and power. Often, politics was thrown in the mix. One of the most heated
discussions involved the Chinese Communist overthrow of the bourgeois. Some of the
children believed that the violence against the bourgeois was despicable and should be
condemned despite the privilege the bourgeois held. Others said that the brutality was
terrible but the overthrow was nonetheless necessary. Asian-American political identity
was often influenced by parents ideologies. Those whose grandparents had escaped to
Taiwan or had been persecuted under the Communist Revolution were more inclined to
lean right, whereas those grandparents who were part of the Communist or Cultural
revolution were left-leaning.
I think the hardest thing I learned (and Im still working on) is keeping my opinion
to myself and encouraging students to think for themselves. In the very beginning I
realized I was talking at them. Also, its important to recognize that Asian-Americans are
not a monolith and therefore have very different opinions amongst themselves. For
example, when I was discussing Eurocentric beauty standards, many of them didnt agree
with my opinion (which I may have been too outspoken about.) They said that those
standards (big eyes, pale skin, high nose bridge) had always been there before Western
influence. The next session, I more slowly unrolled their bias against Eastern features
and for Western features when they were more likely to agree that faces after South
Korean plastic surgery were more attractive than before plastic surgery.
I think I will continue to give workshops after this service learning project ends. I
might also do some extra work giving private tutoring to kids who want it geared toward
Asian-American identity. I learned that I work better by teaching smaller groups. Finally,

I learned that the purpose of teaching isnt to mold children into beings they arent, but
into people that can think for themselves.