University of Georgia

Terry College of Business
 
 

For some people, being Asian American means being town between two cultures -- having ties to both but belonging to neither. For many Asian Americans in today's society, relevant and important issues dealing with being a minority tend to be unspoken about rather then addressed.

In the society we live in, peer pressures and the feeling of fitting in tend to dominate our behaviors and attitudes and have subconsciously caused some individuals to consider their own minority label as a curse rather than a blessing in disguise. America, known as the melting pot, is the land where different races can come together and ultimately learn from one another.

However, the reality that exists is that in this pot are many who only like to identify themselves as the "--- American," and what results are minorities wanting to be part of the majority. There, what has developed into a major psychological problem facing Asian-Americans today is, in simple terms, banana syndrome (white on the inside and yellow on the outside). I should know. I was in this syndrome until my sophomore year of college.

I remember vividly as my mother relentlessly tried again and again to teach my brother and me the Chinese language as we were growing up in American society. However, regretfully and painfully looking back, I realize how my refusal to even utter a word of Mandarin and my totally Americanized attitude upset my mother to the point of tears and disappointment. Striving to blend in with my American friends and ignoring the Asian-ness that my parents tried so hard to instill within me seemed so easy to do when I was a teenager.

However, what I did not realize until much later is the harsh reality that I wound up hurting them instead of appreciating them. Today, I am glad to express that my parents and I are closer than we have ever been in the past, the reason being I am proud I'm Asian-American and I admire my parents for their tremendous courage to leave their native homeland during a time of political instability and economic uncertainties.

Peer pressure led me to dislike being Asian in an American society. I wanted to forget I was Asian but was reminded of it when I looked in the mirror. Even then, I wished I had brown hair and bigger eyes. I feel confident in saying that most Asian-Americans go through this phase, and sadly, still many never learn to escape it. For the longest time, I did not like to associate myself with the term "Asian" with my acquired "American" identity completely until I went to Taiwan for the first time in the summer of 1989 since the age of 8 (my parents' decision). What I thought would amount to be just another vacation turned out to be the best experience of my life.

Two years since that summer, I am learning Mandarin and speaking with my mom as well as gaining further insight involving Asian-American issues in hopes to make a difference in other Asian-Americans' lives. Minority -- a word I once chose to escape is a word I'm learning to understand and appreciate.

Asian-Americans are very much a minority in America, but along with "minority" comes the uniqueness we have to offer to share and educate with the multitude of people in this great country of ours. Preserving the Asian tradition is a tradition we can be proud to maintain throughout our lifetimes and pass down to future generations.
 

Cindy Ho
UGA Senior, International business

The [UGA] Red & Black