Prejudice Being Chinese and Living

Prejudice

Being Chinese and living in America, I have experienced my share of prejudice. Sometimes you do not really notice it, and other times it is obvious. But there are also ways in which I have shown prejudice and judged according to stereotype. In Los Angeles there are so many different races and ethnicities that it is impossible not to observe the way different people interact and think of one another. As Ruchlis shows, prejudice can present itself in various forms, whether through anti-locution, avoidance, discrimination, physical attack, or even extermination. I have not witnessed extermination, but I have certainly witnessed or been apart of the others. This paper will talk about one way in which I have experienced prejudice and one way in which I was the perpetrator of prejudice.

I remember being the recipient of prejudice when I was younger and in a part of town that I was unused to frequenting. Because whenever Asian tourists come to L.A. they always carry with them a lot of cameras and take many pictures everywhere they go, locals can make fun of the way Asians behave whenever they visit foreign places. But since I live in L.A., I don't behave in the same manner as visiting Asians. Nonetheless, because I look Asian and sometimes travel around time with a group of my Asian friends, outsiders might look at us as if saying, "Where is your camera?" I am sometimes very worried about the way people perceive me.

One day, being out with my friends, we went into a shop where apparently the owner did not like Asians because as soon as we entered, he disappeared. This was a clear case of avoidance -- for while we waited for some time to buy water and the man who was supposed to be working the cash register refused to come over to us, he had no problem waiting on a Mexican couple who came in some minutes later. The man himself was Mexican, and my friends and I decided that this was a Mexican only shop -- so we left without purchasing our water. We could not be certain, but we all felt that the Mexicans looked at us on our way out and smiled and made jokes about us! But we had no way of knowing for sure -- they might not have done any such thing. Nonetheless, we were all angry.

Now, perhaps I am misjudging the man and the situation altogether: maybe he was too busy restocking shelves to really notice us -- even though there were four of us and we were being loud girls! Then again, maybe it was the fact that we were noisy (and maybe even rude and flippant in our demeanor) that he did not stop what he was doing to wait on us. Perhaps he was sensitive to the fact that he was different -- I cannot say. I felt offended at the time, but I no longer do -- because I myself have behaved in a similar way -- and I do not know if it was because of racial stereotyping or prejudice or just annoyance with people altogether or just simply being in a bad mood one day -- but I have also shown what could seem like prejudice, and it was in the same exact manner, too.

Once when I was working, a group of young black men came into the store. Sometimes such groups can be irritating because they say things beneath their breath to one another right in front of you and then they laugh and you do not know what they are laughing at or if they are laughing at you. One day when I was supposed to be working the register, such a group came in: they were noisy in the way they entered the store, and already they were snickering. I did not want to have to face them, so I backed away and busied myself with another preoccupation so as not to have to wait on them. From the other side of the kitchen I observed my manager taking their orders. Another co-worker even started imitating the black customers by speaking in the type of slang they use and making the same kind of movements and gestures. I laughed at him because he was saying what I myself was thinking. And at the time I was relieved that I myself did not have to deal with them because I was tired and not in the mood to deal with what I considered to be their harassing behavior. But since then I have realized that it was my job to wait on them even if I did not want to because of the awkwardness I would feel doing so.

Both of these examples of prejudice included elements of what Ruchlis calls anti-locution and avoidance. And they both dealt with instances of groups. My group in the first story was what Ruchlis calls an "in-group," and the black group in the second story was my "out-group." Groups are often intimidating -- and that may have been one factor in the way the man in the shop reacted to my "in-group" and the way I reacted to the "out-group." People in numbers often feel more confident and out-going and expressive in their actions than when alone, so it is no surprise that group of young people of any ethnicity will act out boldly are make comments to another for a laugh or to show off. I did it when with my friends, and the black people did it amongst themselves.

What I learn from this is that just because you are with people of your own race and in a group does not mean you do not have to take into consideration the fact that others are around you. No one likes to feel intimidated, and people who are loud and in groups can often be intimidating.

Ruchlis also talks about self-fulfilling prophecies -- about how what we perceive may come true even if it was not true (despite our perception). For example, maybe if I had waited on the customers who came through the door instead of running in back to avoid them, I might have been able to see first hand that what I had presumed would be snickering comments made at my expense were really nothing like it all. But because I viewed them from a distance I was safe to keep my perception instead of seeing them as individuals and people like me. Maybe even if they had made a comment for a laugh, I might have born up well under it and showed that such behavior was unnecessary and not very gentlemanly. Why should I not show that they should behave in front of a lady? Maybe if I had waited on them they would have behaved anyway! Maybe they would have proven me wrong in my prejudice.