Ease Of Privilege Summary

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The corresponding readings for this week shared the common theme of understanding collective identity and assimilation of minority groups into the American Culture. Author, Laura Enriquez, defines collective identity as “ an individual’s cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader community.” In Enriquez reading, she analyses the Dream Act and the coalition building behind such movement that has created a collective identity that seeks to assimilate immigrant youth to the American education system. On the other hand, Min Zhou’s reading seeks to answer the question of whether Asian Americans are becoming white and forgetting their roots. I found Zhou’s reading to be the most interesting in that it touches upon a very important …show more content…
Although we understand that race is not real, we continue to give into the classifications of being distinguished by being “white” since the term is associated with privilege. Falling into this category signifies that you’ve achieved that goal. Going back to the reading of “Ease of Privilege” we can draw connections between the Asian adaption to the American culture with the students ability to ease into St. Pauls in that they didn’t necessarily have to be rich or in their case, necessarily have to be white, in order to be considered white or rich, everything had to do with the way in which they adapted to the situation. As Zhou’s states, Asians are the model minority in that they have achieved a larger financial and educational status in this country in comparison to any other group. I definitely see this idea thought our country in that many Asian families have built businesses and large factories that generate economic profit. Just here at UCLA, the Asian population has surpassed that of any other ethnic group and continues to grow