Black Lives Matter: Movement for social justice spreads in America

This past Friday, out of the blue, a Chinese-American friend of my daughter from her college days named Andrew (name changed) had called to ask me if I read the online open letter initiated by Christina Xu in New York.The letter, I was told, was written to their Asian-American families in an open Google Doc by hundreds of contributors. The letter by now has gone viral in social media after the recent police fatal shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota (July 05, 06). The letter is a strong reaction to the killings and the Asian American kids are showing solidarity in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) by choosing to stand behind the African-American community. BLM is a civil rights movement that the African-Americans started in 2013 to protest against police aggression on them. The young Asians are asking their elders to understand it and to stand by them.
The letter has been translated in about 12 languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Spanish and Indonesian. So far there has been a call for more translators in other native languages in order to have it reach to other non-English speaking families across America.
I was unaware that there is a social media storm over the letter. Initially, Andrew told me that he found the letter to be condescending because those first generation Asian-American kids assumed that their parents do not understand the racial problems in America and therefore, needed to be taught on racial issues. The letter, however, was based on the younger generations' experience of what's it's really like to be a first-generation American.
Later, I suppose, Andrew thought about his immediate reaction and the fact that he wasn't thinking of all the first generation kids born to underprivileged Asian immigrant parents, their backgrounds and struggles; especially, in the context of his own parents. Andrew grew up in Brownsville (an area in East New York known for extreme poverty.) It is predominantly an African-American area and also an immigrant enclave where a lot of Chinese, Koreans and Bangladeshis live and work. Andrew's parents ran a convenient store there. They had bigger dreams for their son and wanted for him to have a better future. They understood that a proper education is the only way out for their son from the same predicament. He had attended a poorly funded inner-city school, but his parents made sure that he worked hard and made the best of it with the resources available in and around his school. His pursuit of knowledge landed him at Harvard University with a full scholarship. Since then his parents have moved to Queens (a better part of New York) and life now is good for them.
On Saturday (July 16), in an email, Andrew told me, the open letter made him a little uncomfortable at first, as he was only thinking of the accomplished Asian-American families and the upbringing and education their kids were privileged to get. He was forgetting for a moment what his own family went through to ensure a better future for him. He moreover wanted to know if I had a chance to read Xu's letter and if I might write an article about it. My reply was in the affirmative; I also told him that I wasn't sure what parents' perspectives I can bring to light.
Then, his follow-up email  Monday night (July 18), had this to say: "I think the parent's angle would depend on where the parent is from. If you are from China and you are used to police control, maybe police abuse in America doesn't seem that unusual or bad - it seems normal. If you've got different experiences with African-Americans in the inner city - a Korean store-owner for instance, you might have biased views because of experience. If you are a rich Bengali living in the suburbs whose kid has black friends who went to prep schools and Harvard, your views are different. It depends on the country of the parent and THEIR education and background."
I am not sure if the part about the "rich Bengali" was a hypothetical statement or he meant us. In case of the latter, I need to clarify about the "rich" part. Financing a Harvard education where tuition, room and board was a little over $40,000 per year wasn't easy for service holders like us. In Ivy League colleges, there are no merit scholarships. Based on the yearly parental income, they offer each family a financial package if they see a necessity.
Getting back to the letter. Since one of the police officers who was involved with the Minnesota shooting has a last name Yanez (presumably Chinese -American), the Asian-American community is feeling that it somehow reflects on them and they are afraid of divisiveness. They perceive the officer's action as an assault on their hopes and dreams, fairness and equality which equals to achieving one's "American Dream."
The letter began as such:
"Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Grandfather, Grandmother:       
"We need to talk.
You may not have grown up around people who are Black, but I have. Black people are a fundamental part of my life: they are my friends, my classmates and teammates, my roommates, my family. Today, I'm scared for them."
The main points of the letter was an appeal to the older generation; as the first-generation Asian-Americans in their early 20s to 30s reminded them that it is important to have empathy and understanding for the African-American rights and struggles as manifested in the Black Lives Matter movement. The struggle in the 1960s by the African-Americans for greater equality is not now obvious unless great violence occurs by law enforcement or there is deliberate discrimination. Such things are not taught in schools. The anti-segregation laws opened the door for immigration for Asian-Americans which made it possible for the older generation to come and settle in America. Xu's letter acknowledged that fact by saying, "Black people have been beaten, jailed, even killed fighting for many of the rights that Asian-Americans enjoy today. We owe them so much in return. We are all fighting against the same unfair system that prefers we compete against each other."
The letter ended with the following quote: "The American Dream that we seek is a place where all Americans can live without fear of police violence. This is the future that I want - and one that I hope you want, too." "With love and hope" and signed by "Your daughters, sons, nieces, nephews and grandchildren."
The elder Asian-American immigrants, who didn't get an opportunity to integrate with the mainstream society, because of lack of decent education, had failed in securing good jobs. Without proper skills and English language proficiency, they had no choice but to remain confined within their own ethnic communities. As a result, the African American problems are not viewed as their difficulties and they had remained detached. The younger generation feels it is time to change this rigid-mindset by supporting the causes of African-American conflicts.
In the midst of growing protest against dehumanisation of African-Americans and in support of BLM, the young adults in the Asian communities, no longer perceive the black people inequality as something of America's problem by choosing to remain indifferent. The Asian-American kids go to school with other black kids but they hardly get any training at home about how to be a part of a unified America.
There is no denying that a lot of the Asian immigrant families have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and cannot concern themselves about the problems of another race. They see it as a failure of the government policies where after decades of rhetorical talks about equality,it still remains a concept.
In terms of complex racial hierarchy, most Asian-Americans in America see themselves in the middle, with the whites at the top, and the blacks at the bottom. The elderly Asians in general believe that the fight for African-American cause is antithetical to the fight of Asian-American rights, and, therefore, tend to look away.
But their children, the first-generation Americans who have access to mainstream America beg to differ. The letter stated that "Many Black people were brought to America as slaves against their will. For centuries, their communities, families and bodies were ripped apart for profit. Even after slavery, they had to build back their lives by themselves, with no institutional support - not allowed to vote or own homes, and constantly under threat of violence that continues to this day."
The younger Asian-Americans now are taking a stance against racial inequality and police violence, particularly aimed at the black Americans by saying that all people are equal and Black Lives Matter regardless of the person or his race or who takes them. They do not want to be bystanders in the fight of BLM because as a minority they see it as their fight also. They are asking two long overdue questions: 1)Are they going to choose a society, where the lives of black and brown people - including black and brown Asian-Americans have no value?  2) Are they going to stop the discrimination against the non-whites and the concomitant dehumanisation by joining forces with all minorities to achieve their idea of the American Dream?
The phrase,the American Dream, from rags to riches that every immigrant is after is now considered a cliché ever since historian James Truslow Adams introduced it against the backdrops in addressing inequality in the 1920s. Adams meant it in terms of corruption, financial espionage and corporate greed. In writing about the American Dream, F. Scott Fitzgerald in his acclaimed post-recession novel the Great Gatsby had portrayed Jay Gatsby, the protagonist, as a fraudulent character who made it big through his sinister activities. Gatsby's vast wealth was supposed to mean a failure of the American Dream, and not the popular misconception that took hold among immigrants.
The phrase, as a metaphor, remains popular in American vocabulary. Today, it connotes a different meaning and a very endearing term among the Asian-American parents as they believe in endless possibilities and success. To most Asian parents who have been living in the United States, there is a materialistic component attached to the American Dream rather than intellectual sustenance. These are mostly those parents who themselves did not have the exposure to an western education, and that is why in the letter there was a reference to how the kids appreciate their sacrifices in a foreign land so their offspring could make it big in the future. "You've never wished your struggles upon me. Instead, you've suffered through a prejudiced America, to bring me closer to the American Dream," was said in the next to the last paragraph of Xu's letter.
Most Asian-Americans, who can afford it, want a nice big house behind a white picket fence, with one Lexus SUV and one Acurasedan on the driveway. They want their kids to be the best in everything while they are in school. Most of them typically settle for good public school districts where education is free and the kids can excel in math, science and music. After high school,getting into an Ivy League college is a dream come true but only without having to spend a penny for it. They would rather send their kids to a state university, unless an offer for full financial aid comes from a prestigious private college. Whatever parental portion they pay in terms of tuition is with the hope that there will be a big return on their investments when their sons/daughters get lucrative positions at Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and become hedge fund managers or directors. The ones in the West Coast tend to prefer for their children to become the CEOs of a startup IT Company in Silicon Valley. Some mothers want their daughters to find their own Mark Zuckerbergs and live happily ever after.
But their children today want to make different life and career choicesthan the one their parents had mapped out for them. The young adults want to pursue their own dreams (sometimes by dropping out of medical school like Andrew did to study digital art), want to support all causes of the minorities in America, want to be the voice against police injustice by writing letters in an open forum, have people sign petitions in support of the Black Lives Matter. While doing that, they want the elders on their sides and seek their blessings. That is their American Dream.
[email protected]