Scenario Korean Panethnic Identity

							                          Scenario: Korean Panethnic Identity

―I used to think I was white. I wanted to be white. This was when I lived in a small
town. No one discriminated against me there—not in an overt way. I had white
friends. Then in fourth grade, I moved here. I saw that Asians were treated like
the scum of the earth. I thought that wasn’t going to happen to me. I don’t have
an accent. I have white friends. But I walked around and people called me chink.
They called me chink to my face.‖ (Lee, 1996, p.110)

Initially, Young attempted to reject her ethnic identity. In fact, she asserts that she
wanted to be white. She assumed that other Asian Americans were discriminated
against because they were culturally different (e.g., spoke with an accent). After
her own experiences with racism, however, Young began to believe that
regardless of how she acted, non-Asians would always see her as Asian. Her
personal experiences led her to embrace her Korean identity and to embrace a
panethnic identity as an Asian American. For Young, cultural aspects of her
ethnic identity were secondary to the social and political aspects of her
identity....[Young’s experience illustrates that] [i]ssues of race and power are
central to the ethnic and racial identities of Asian American students. (Lee, 1999,
p. 117)

Source: Lee, S. J. (1996). Unraveling the model-minority stereotype: Listening to Asian American
youth. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lee, S. J. (1999). ―Are you Chinese or what?‖ Ethnic identity among Asian Americans. In R. H.
Sheets & E. R. Hollins (Eds.), Racial and ethnic identity in school practices: Aspects of human
development (pp. 107–121). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.