Chris Diaz Diaz is a second-year
political science and Asian American studies student with a minor
in English. E-mail him at [email protected]. Click
Here for more articles by Chris Diaz
Take a close look at the latest Microsoft Network commercial.
It’s filled with most of the offensive Asian racial and
ethnic stereotypes you can imagine.
A young, attractive Asian woman brings her boyfriend home for
parental approval and things don’t appear to be going well.
As her parents look down in disgust, angered at their
daughter’s choice, the young man shows the parents his stock
portfolio. All of a sudden, looks of disgust turn into looks of
excitement as both parents come to a consensus that the young man
is the right one for their daughter. Cleverly, he has found a way
into the hearts of his girlfriend’s parents: money.
Such a negative image of an Asian couple wasn’t enough.
The parents are dressed in some Asian ethnic garb and appear to
live in some kind of martial arts looking studio-slash-temple with
rice paper walls. Their actions are accompanied by some weird
high-pitched Bruce Lee sound effect.
Although most of us may not think so, this commercial contains
some of the most insulting portrayals of Asians. But, if
you’re like the typical apathetic student, you might just
brush it aside as some trivial joke that doesn’t merit much
complaint. Hey, its not your fault such caricatures are depicted on
television right? You’re not the racist, sexist or
heterosexist putting up all these derogatory stereotypes in the
media, and so you’re not to blame, right?
Choose what you like, but in varying degrees, every person on
our campus is racist, sexist and heterosexist ““ some
blatantly, others more implicitly. Unfortunately, most of us fail
to recognize this fact. We’ve been trained to believe that in
our world no one is judged by their skin color, gender or sexual
orientation, but solely by the “content” of their
character.
Regardless of what one may say, within us all lay internalized
assumptions of racial minorities, women or members of the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender community that become manifested in
our daily behavior. Whether in the form of attempting to avoid
sitting next to someone of color in lecture or making a
misogynistic remark in discussion, these assumptions clearly
prevent us from giving every person the equality of treatment and
respect they deserve.
 Illustration by EDWARD OYAMA The core curriculum at this
university, however, does nothing to ameliorate this problem.
Despite 10 years of struggle on behalf of concerned faculty and
students, UCLA still stands as the only campus out of the entire UC
system lacking any type of ethnic and gender studies requirement.
Such classes would demand that students recognize the inherent
diversity of the world around them.
The necessity of having this requirement becomes clear in light
of increased campus apathy to issues affecting people of color,
women, and members of the LGBT community. Our current campus
climate makes it increasingly difficult for historically
discriminated groups to feel welcome at this supposedly
“diversity-loving” university. This prevents many
students from taking these issues seriously.
For example, recent attacks on fund distribution for student
advocacy groups reflect a climate of inherent misunderstanding and
indifference toward issues faced by students of color.
Branding SAGs as self-interested beneficiaries of a so-called
Praxis “political machine,” critics are quick to
neglect the important role these SAGs play in facilitating dialogue
on issues faced by people of color and women such as racial
profiling, hate crimes, gender inequity, access to education and
other topics not regularly addressed in our current core
curriculum. This, in turn, has stigmatized the programs put up by
these groups as an unnecessary aspect of university life.
Additionally, earlier this academic year, members of the LGBT
community had to deal with attacks on “Queer Life On
Campus” ““ Welcome Week programming aimed at promoting
tolerance for members of their community.
Categorized as unappealing to the majority of incoming freshman,
many criticized USAC’s sponsorship of a program centered on
the issues experienced by non-heterosexuals. These individuals felt
USAC should have refrained from promoting such an
“exclusive” program, ignoring the positive effects it
would have for increasing sensitivity for everyone in
attendance.
Consistent in all instances lies the underlying theme that
issues pertaining to student of color groups, women and the LGBT
community are not important to our campus community. Our campus
sends the message that it doesn’t recognize the urgency of
educating our students on these persistent and relevant societal
problems.
Some may argue that I’m over-analyzing these attacks on
student groups or programming as occasions of ignorance; they may
say I’m going out of my way to make these attacks sound as
assaults against historically discriminated communities when they
really aren’t.
Like Adam Epstein’s submission (“Unfair
criticism of USAC president based on scant evidence,”
Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, Feb. 28) you can argue that you asked an
Asian friend for help on math or science homework just because you
needed the help. You can argue that you asked a Latino friend for a
margarita just because you wanted a margarita. Essentially, you can
argue that racial, ethnic or gender stereotypes have played no role
in your decision to do anything.
That’s exactly why we need an ethnic and gender studies
requirement.
The whole point of requiring a student who wouldn’t
normally enroll in an ethnic or gender studies course is to
illustrate how they may subconsciously operate according to ethnic
and gender stereotypes despite a conscious statement or belief
indicating otherwise.
Essentially, you can’t fix a problem if you have no
comprehension of what you’re trying to fix. Understanding
what constitutes ethnic or gender stereotypes needs to occur before
anything else. We can’t say that we don’t let
stereotypes affect our behavior or that we are sensitive to ethnic
or gender issues until we understand what actually comprises those
stereotypes and issues.
This requirement would play a strong role in creating the
critical awareness necessary to break down the persistence of
explicit and implicit discrimination against people of color, women
and LGBT communities. On other UC campuses, such courses may be
avoided by listing the requirement under an already existing
general education category such as the humanities or social
sciences.
Without an ethnic and gender studies requirement at UCLA, we
promote apathy and ignorance toward issues that do have universal
relevance. We allow students to continue thinking that offensive
commercials, attacks on our campus student groups and programming
are nothing but trivial disputes.
Without such a requirement, we prevent ourselves from
understanding how these incidents are all symptomatic of a larger
societal problem that needs to be addressed.