A blog in the Iowa State Daily by criticizes Asian immigrants and international students who only associate with others from their native country (photo from UC Berkeley website).
Kim argues they are only hurting their communication skills and English language development by doing so. Of course they do it because they are most comfortable with people who speak their language and are from their culture.
He writes:
“Since a lot of international students stick together without getting along with or meeting Americans, their English conversation skills don’t improve quickly or at all. Therefore, they are not able to create opportunities to experience new culture in the States.”
There is a lot of merit to what Kim says. I would also add that American born students are missing out on an opportunity as well–to learn from people from other countries and cultures. Its funny, students and most Americans love to travel to experience other countries and cultures. But when those countries and cultures come to America, they shy away.
Its a two way street. All of us would benefit from cross cultural communication.
Read the blog in the Iowa State Daily and let us know what you think.
re: Why hanging out with only Asians may not be good: This is a little absurd. This type of segregation is called De Facto segregation. There’s no malicious intent behind congregating around people of the same background and culture. It’s, in a cynic way, a defense mechanism towards xenophobic majority groups that cause people to not feel comfortable in interacting with people outside their social norms. Just like putting a few white people at an all asian party; I can say from personal experience, they wanted to leave almost instantaneously. Though it is a false inferiority complex that these non-western/non-white individuals create for the themselves, one can’t say that there isn’t a correlation with these de facto segregations occurring widespread on campuses because the community just isn’t as inclusive as everyone wants it to be. Exhibit A: Greek Culture. Exhibit B: Elitist Academic and Social Societies. Exhibit C: Life.
RE: Why hanging out only with only Asians may not be a good idea: Maybe they should offer Asian American studies on campus as a must for graduation..for foriegn students as well as the average Asian American including non Asian students.