Choi Misrepresents Asian-Americans

To the Editors of The Crimson

Introspection can yield important lessons about oneself, but applying these lessons to a population is misleading and succumbs to the same fallacies of stereotyping. Daniel Choi's February 5 editorial "Off the Beaten Track," while raising some valid points, unfortunately loses them in a mass of confused generalizations.

It is a fact that the rate of Asian-Americans applying to med schools is on the rise, and there is truth in the assertion that Asian culture fosters this career route. My parents typified Korean culture with their insistence on medicine for my career; they valued financial stability, respect of the community, family loyalty and human life.

The path to medical school mirrors my parents' own path of immigration to the United States: the quiet self-sacrifice, the tremendous intellectual and physical burden and the eventual reward of a secure niche in America for the next generation. If this toilsome history is the source of the stereotype of the hardworking, academically motivated Asian-American, then I damn well better be proud of my background.

Rather than feeling pride, Choi is furious that his life was a concoction of parental aspirations and that people dismiss his struggles as a relic of a politically incorrect stereotype. In one sweep, he accepts a negative stereotype for all Asian-Americans based upon his own struggles. It is not the stereotype of Asians being pre-meds being grade-grubbing, socially inept anal warts.

Both have their causes and their representatives; both should be rejected on the basis that everyone has a choice to follow or diverge from the stereotype--and that many choose the latter.

Choi insidiously accepts stereotypes--which rob us of our choice to act independently--as truth. Asian culture may push us in one direction, but it is our decision whether or not we wish to follow it. Neither continuing nor straying from the pre-meds track is a folly. Folly only occurs when we cannot think autonomously and thus fail to make an independent decision.

Perhaps it is a lack of uniform passion that bothers Choi. Indeed, it seems that the "collective sense of identity" Choi envies in other ethnicities is a matter of passion. Black students can rally passionately for civil rights and Black pride. Jewish students can rally for the state of Israel and against anti-Semitism. Asian-Americans, on the other hand, have difficulty finding common ground because they consist of a wide variety of ethnicities, cultures and languages--unfortunately clumped together without much thought.

Our various histories in America are based on the link of muffled racism with occasional exprssions of overt racism. The persecution of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the exploitation of Chinese in building the transcontinental railroad, the harassment of Korean grocers in New York and the general suspicion of Vietnamese after the Vietnam War are the most blatant examples.

The abscence of racially uniform passion in Choi's life is not replaced by any personal passion. That he chose to join a "slew of clubs and activities" merely to pad his Harvard application belies his self-interest and does not represent his race. It is this view of Asian-Americans lacking passion and independent thought that I find most repugnant and incorrect.

I must also point out that moving to the right politically has absolutely nothing to do with the pre-med track or being Asian. If Choi's goal is to abolish the prevalent stereotypes, then I must admit that Korean-American males are stereotypically conservative. Furthermore, accepting stereotypes as readily as Choi does never takes into account individual reactions to similar backgrounds. He is not "off the beaten track;" he merely found direction in his own track. Robert C. Rhew '92