A letter to Rhode Island Senators about Ethnic groups’ subdivision
By Luke Lu
Honorable Senator XXX,
It has come to the attention of some, especially those amongst the Southeast Asian communities of New England, that recently the State of Rhode Island has signed a new bill into law, RIS0439, which advocates have proclaimed as the "All Students Count Act". This act calls for the dissemination of educational performance data from various groups of students, and to subdivide these groups into further categories to achieve this. However, the title of the act is woefully misleading, as by 'groups of students', this bill actually aims solely to subdivide the already diminutive "Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander" student body into a plethora of new categories determined by "ethnic divisions", while neglecting to do the same for the other groups that account for 96 percent of the Rhode Island population. Supporters of the bill state that this act is essential to recognize the diversities within the Southeast Asian population and how different socioeconomic and ethnic conditions have effected educational performance, and point to the"underserved but overachieving community" of Southeast Asians, stating that the act would in fact be a great educational boon to the Asian community by spotting apparent "underlying ethnic divisions". As a matter of fact, the Huffington Post even recently wrote in their article [Rhode Island House Passes Act That Would Expose Asian-American Achievement Gap] the following: "Southeast Asian-American activists are celebrating a Rhode Island act that could have a huge impact on the underserved students in their community."
However, despite being a relatively average thirteen-year-old Asian American student in my community, when this act was brought before the attention of my family and myself, we were by no means celebrating. Quite on the contrary, actually. When I perused over the bill and later read the subsequent Hufffington Post article, I was quite appalled. While I must commend the article and the interviewed Quyen Dinh for bringing light to many issues of the Asian-American community, such as lack of English proficiency, problems of poverty for immigrants, high PTSD rates amongst students, etc, the resulting product of the equation presented still failed to add up. As Chinese American and Southeast Asian activists opposed to the bill have already stated long before myself, the Asian American community accomplished the "Achievement Gap" through hard work and effort rather than a clear ethnic divide. Also, the perceived gap in achievement still does not equate to academic success (as also mentioned in many pro-actarticles), but dividing the Asian student body into even more parts only achieves to complicate the terrible grievances of poverty, language divide, cultural disconnection, and depression that face many students. What is perhaps the most distasteful part of the act to many is the fact that the proposed ethnic divisions do not equate to national divisions, nor often to even the ethnic identities of the peoples forced into the program. There are many reasonable claims of how this information is both unnecessarily and unasked for by the Asian community, and could potentially stimulate only more ethnic divisions along with further unwarranted or even corrupt actions. This tax-intensive data collection program also forces Asian-American students such as myself and countless others to tabulate ethnicity based upon the ethnicity of one's parents, which could be mixed or not even accurate in the slightest.
As a matter of fact, this process is always inaccurate in identifying ethnicities. This article being read here is supposed to depict not just the stand point of immigrant parent activists, but equally that of American-born citizen students such as myself who are often oblivious to this issue, which included myself until recently. And from the perspective of a Chinese Asian American, I identify as an Asian before as a Chinese, and always an American before an Asian American. I, along with so many others far more or less achieving than I (mostly moreso) and far more or less fortunate than I, have all had the fortune of being born an American. By the sweat and toil of immigrant parents seeking a better future for all their children, to the blood and hope of the Revolution, the American identity is not something that can be seized so easily from myself, nor any Chinese-American, nor any Asian-American, nor any American or hardworking immigrant, whether they be born here, born elsewhere, but always born free. Thusly, the ethnic divisions imposed upon the Asian American community in Rhode Island, California, and elsewhere is only a prelude to unjust divisions of all Americans everywhere. As Martin Luther King Jr. once famously spoke as he broke the chains of inequality in the African American Civil Rights Movement, that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere", so too must we as Americans and immigrants, parents and students alike, say the same about the ethnic divisions imposed against Asian Americans in this "All Students Count Act". But it must not be only an Chinese battle, as the primary engagement is being waged now, nor an Asian battle, as the war is becoming, but rather an American battle to call down educational data collection depending upon race, ethnicity, or what not. It may be a foolish claim. It may be a child's hope. It may be a flawed stance. It may be a controversial position. And it may be an impossibility. But starting with RI S0439, perhaps, peacefully by word of mouth, a claim, a hope, the impossible, may become a reality.
Sincerely yours,
Luke Lu
