The stereotype that "all Asians are the same" has damaged the identity of Asian Americans and resulted in the injuries and, in some cases, the deaths of Asian Americans. One example of mistaken identity occurred in 1982 when a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin was beaten on the head with a baseball bat. Witnesses recalled that the assailant, a white male who worked in an American autoplant in Detroit, verbally blamed Chin for the ailing auto industry, assuming that Chin was Japanese. During the height of anti-Japanese sentiment in Detroit when many workers lost their jobs due to the economic recession and competition from Japanese automakers, Vincent Chin was attacked and died because he looked Japanese.

I speak from my personal experience as a Korean American. My Asian American friends and I were physically assaulted by a group of teenagers who kept calling us "Nomo" (the new Boston Red Sox pitcher who at the time pitched for the LA Dodgers). They punched two of my friends in the face, kicked the side of my car, and smashed the back seat window, which shattered over three of my friends who were seated in the back. None of us was Japanese. At another time, a not-so-sober man approached me saying that he fought in Vietnam to save "my people." Thinking I was Vietnamese, he targeted me out of a crowd while waiting for a bus.

The reason for revisiting these painful experiences is to portray a piece of the immigrant experience, which reflects a large population of adult learners in Massachusetts. Immigrants who come to ESOL and citizenship classes may have questions like, "Why do store workers ignore me, but pay attention to white customers?" or "What is a `chink'?" How do adult learners grapple with feelings of being victimized from subtle and blatant forms of discrimination? How should adult educators discuss issues of diversity and racism?

Asians in the United States
We are fortunate to have adult educators who have spent time in foreign countries learning the native language and culture, yet there is a distinction between learning about an ethnic group in its native country versus understanding ethnic groups living in the US. The lack of an institutionalized system for learning about Asians in America nurtures generations of ignorant Americans and places a burden on the individual to learn on one's own time and interest. If we dig deep into American history, we will find policies driven by economic and political factors that promoted the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the internment camps of Japanese Americans, who were American-born citizens, during World War II. Both policies reinforced the stereotype that Asians are not Americans, but foreigners, no matter how long they live in the US or what contributions they make to American society.

One way of preventing the perpetuation of these stereotypes is writing this article for Field Notes which provides background for how a reader could unintentionally internalize stereotypes about Asians. I hope this article has helped to expand your understanding of the Asian American immigrant experience and will assist your work in the adult education community.

Amy Park is assistant coordinator of the Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium at Adult and Community Learning Services, Massachusetts Department of Education. She can be reached by e-mail at: apark@doemass.org