Esther Bae
Dr. Steph Brown
English 306
9 December 2016
An Open Letter
to Asian American Students on Affirmative Action
The “model minority” they
call us. Somehow, we as Asian Americans and more specifically, Asian American
students, have been modeled into a stereotypical image by society. And somehow,
we have adopted that image as our own reflection of who we are. But, we are
much, much more than what society limits us to. Thankfully, limitation often encourages
perseverance and creativity. With that, we too, can build a creative image for
ourselves - uniquely individual, yet all-encompassing a powerful community of
camaraderie. This is not possible without public speech and more importantly,
in the form of protest.
*Paragraph Structure (2nd
paragraph). Purpose: Give background/statistics on affirmative action. Main
character = affirmative action. Focused topic string.
Affirmative action, words used by President John F. Kennedy during his
presidency in the early 1960s, has been an influential and controversial policy
that has been heavily criticized for producing counterproductive effects (Le, “Affirmative
Action and Asian Americans”). “Affirmative action was created to ensure fair admission practices and to
rectify a long period of racial discrimination. The policy is outdated, however, and causes a form of reverse
discrimination by favoring one group over another, based on racial preference
rather than academic achievement” (NCSL, “Affirmative Action”). Affirmative action, is still discrimination in and of itself. Although
the use of (overt) racial quotas has been made illegal, implicit racial quotas
remain in place – especially, prominent in the context of college admissions.
In a widely cited study done by Princeton sociologists Thomas Epenshade
and Alexandria Radford, “Asian American applicants at [eight selective public
and private universities] received a 140-point penalty compared with whites”
(Chun). Asian American
students, on average, have to score 140 points higher on the SAT (the national
college entrance exam) than whites to stand equal in chance for admission – a
prime example of counterproductive affirmative action. Because of these
statistics, Asian American civil rights groups have argued that “Universities
should reflect our diverse democracy and expand opportunities for those
students who have overcome significant barriers” (Joshi, “Stop Anti-Asian
Bias”). However, the practice
of such admission policies, especially true in elite private
universities, has yet to be terminated. Is affirmative action simply a matter
of “targeted goals” rather than an incentive for racial quotas? And how,
exactly, are the two different?
*Paragraph Structure (4th paragraph). Purpose: Introduce the
need for protest. Main character = “we” – as in Asian American students. Chained
topic string.
Racial
quotas – implicit or explicit – isn’t
right, and neither is it fair for
us. As Asian
American students who are seen as less equal with “lower” exam scores
compared to our counterparts before the holistic application review from the
very beginning, we should be concerned that we have not done enough for change.
As the competition for college admissions and graduate/medical school programs
rises from year to year, affirmative action, will too, grow stronger in
practice – increasing the chances of counterproductive affirmative action on Asian American students. We need to protest
fervently, in a variety of ways, and gather a large, supportive community. With
the inception of
affirmative action hurting the Asian American community in terms of equal
opportunity for higher education, the crisis – a period of time in which we carry out our protest – should
be now.
There are a
number of diverse ways in which we can protest against the implicit racial
quota system. Firstly, start at the college that you are attending! Joining an
ethnicity club to become a collective identity and together, reach out to the
sponsors – deans, professors, advisors – is one way to start locally. However, the backlash to any
sort of protest – including this very one – marks a period in which our
communal identity (as Asian American students) is jeopardized. The concerns of
those reading this open letter might include: questioning of our own integrity
as the “model minority” and whether or not the open public will take a minority
group’s protests seriously. Therefore, the need for ethos should be emphasized.
Often times in academia, the support from well-respected, higher-ranked people with
academic titles is effective use of ethos – a strategy used to legitimize and
expand protest and campaign. This support from academic influencers leads to
connections including administrative educators and legislators who have access
to directly guide affirmative action decisions on minority groups for college
and graduate school admissions.
Furthermore,
citizenship participation
is needed for all modes of communication including the traditional manners of
writing to and visiting hopeful candidates for support but also, in more
progressive ways, using mass media. The growing reliability on mass media,
especially social media forums, proves to be powerful (and more importantly,
fast) when relaying ideas. Many polarizing topics are discussed through social
media – an example being hashtag wars that seem to grow in number each day.
Although, media tends to hyperbolize certain statements, this effect can be
used to our advantage. Interestingly, social media does two things quite
effectively: share information quickly and share information across the globe
to a range of cultural audiences. A bigger audience that will hear about the protest
increases the chance of our protest getting through to legislators and board
committees directly imposing the practice of implicit racial quotas.
One may ask, how exactly do you
know that Asian Americans have been subjects of counterproductive affirmative
action? This is when logos proves to be the most effective persuasive strategy.
Findings from studies (like the Princeton study) are sources of evidence that
can speak loud messages in the form of simple numbers. Such research studies
and surveys should be replicated (to ensure reliability and generalizability).
The reality is that we have been, are, or soon
will be subjects of prejudice
in the field of education – either by lowered quantitative entrance exam scores
and/or being thrown unrealistic expectations that we as Asian American students
have to execute and showcase in our educational and professional careers. This
idea gives all of us an incentive to push for and fix the implicit quota system
and to also, create colorful beams of singularities and characters for
ourselves. In order to do so, we must first, collectively, take action to
maximize the potential for desirable results (a time of consummation in which implicit quotas and
purposeful differences in expectation of test performance are eliminated). To
define collective action would be to state that it is a “result of purposes,
resources, and limits, as a purposive orientation constructed by means of
social relationships within a system of opportunities and constraints” (Melucci
332). As we collectively march onwards with a purpose into this trajectory of
protest, we, Asian American students, will rise up against the injustice of
affirmative action, and build a new, creative, individual image that resonates
from within. Because, you are much, much more.
Sincerely,
Esther Bae
*This open letter would ideally be
published in The New York Times or USA Today.
The purpose
of my conclusion (last paragraph) was to bring all my arguments into one and
create coherence on the issue of affirmative action not only on the Asian
American student community, but importantly, as humans subject to bias.
Therefore, creating coherence and offering theoretical takeaways (the idea of communal
identity and defining collective action), I thought, were the two most
effective forms to use to conclude my open letter.
Word count: 1138 (open letter alone)
Explication of
my open letter
My open letter utilizes the technical workings of a
protest including key frameworks for theoretically defining the rhetoric of
protest and the rhetorical trajectory of protest. In the beginning of this
course, we learned how rhetoric (i.e. persuasion) is applied across a
rhetorical situation in which the author (or more appropriately, rhetor, in
public speech) addresses a message or purpose (having considered the context of
the situation) to the audience. An open letter would be a piece of rhetoric
that utilizes written language to persuade an intended (Asian American
students) and an unintended audience (general public, but especially administrative
educators/legislators influencing affirmative action). I was the rhetor – the person
who has written and created this piece of rhetoric in the form of an open
letter.
Rhetorical
strategies, pathos, logos, ethos, are the primary appeals to rhetoric – often
times, a combination of the three generating the most effective form of
rhetoric. In my open letter, the use of pathos (appeal to emotion using “emotional”
diction such as prejudice, injustice and emphasis on cultural community), ethos
(I, myself, being an identifier of the protest able to foresee possible
objections to my argument), and logos (statistics/numbers from widely cited research
studies) were utilized.
In this
course, we learned the idea that protest followed a trajectory – a timeline
from inception (birth/epiphany/realization of an issue) to rhetorical crisis
(moment/period of time in which the protest analyzes and disseminates the
logistics of the undertaking to the protesters) and finally to consummation
(the finale; the resolution – or failure or regrouping) by examining Griffin’s
essay on “The Rhetoric of Historical Movements.” In my open letter, the inception – the
realization of the growing practice of implicit quotas set in college/graduate school
programs) – and the crisis (how we, Asian American students, should take on
this protest) were discussed.
Deluca and
Peeples introduced a radically new way of thinking about the impact of mass
media (and more specifically, the direct impact of violence on mass media) by
explaining how the public sphere is fashioned almost artificially and how
technologized mediums have become the (only) source of news for most people
living in the Digital Age. My open letter mentions the power of social media
and how the speediness and prevalence (across cultures and age groups) can
generate a wide audience in a minimal amount of time.
Lastly, Melucci
established the idea of plurality and identity in social movements, and more importantly,
redefined collective identity and collective action by separating fields and
actors. As aforementioned in my open letter, collective action, defined by
Melucci, is “the result of purposes, resources, and limits, as a purposive
orientation constructed by means of social relationships within a system of
opportunities and constraints” (Melucci 332). Since the action is collective,
it is important to emphasize that there exists identity that is collective as
well – a key element to a successful protest.
Works Cited
Chun, Edna. “Are Asian Americans Disadvantaged by Affirmative Action?” Racism
Review, 2 July 2016. Accessed 7
December 2016.DeLuca,
Kevin M. and Peeples, Jennifer. "From Public Sphere to Public Screen:
Democracy, Activism,
and the 'Violence' of Seattle." Readings in the Rhetoric of Social
Protest. Browne, Stephen Howard, and
Charles E. Morris III, eds. State College, PA: Strata Publishing, Inc., 2013. Griffin,
Leland M. "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements." Readings in the
Rhetoric of Social Protest. Browne,
Stephen Howard, and Charles E. Morris III, eds. State College, PA: Strata Publishing, Inc., 2013.Joshi,
Hrishikesh. “Stop Anti-Asian Bias.” Inside Higher Ed, 13 May 2016. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/05/13/elite-colleges-should-not-penalize- asian-applicants-essay. Accessed 7 December 2016. Le, C.N. 2016. "Affirmative Action and Asian
Americans" Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. http://www.asian-nation.org/affirmative-action.shtml.
Accessed 7 December 2016.Melucci, Alberto. "Getting Involved: Identity and Mobilization
in Social Movement." International
Social Movement Research. vol. 1, 1988. p 332.National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). “Affirmative Action.” Education. http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/affirmative-action-overview.aspx. Accessed 7 December 2016.
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