Le Hoang Nhat Vy,
Huntington Beach, CA
As an Asian American growing up, I have been continuously been called the looking same as my other Asian friends even though we are two completely different people regardless of what any people say. It really irritates me when that happens. I grew up in Vietnam for my first 10 years of life and not once have I encountered the stereotype of looking the same! Well, it was because Vietnamese or Asian in general is not the minority, we are in fact the majority. There were no such things as stereotyping me as a mathematical person because we were all mathematical people! But as soon as I step foot on the cultural melting pot known as the United States, I was constantly being stereotyped and made fun of (which is absurd to me). How does someone mistake me with a completely different person when the only things in common were our hair and skin color? East Asians have a higher genetic diversity than even the Oceanians and the Native Americans but I don’t go around mistaken Sam for William because they are not the same person!
There is a term that I learned in my Anthropology class called Differential Worth which means that races were ranked according to moral and intellectual standards that were based on the researcher’s population affiliation.
Many scientists have made sexists and racist conclusions just based on their research, for example, Pierre Paul Broca, who is a French anthropologist believed that males were smarter than females because he classified humans based on their brain size. However, as I expand my knowledge in Anthropology, I realized that Anthropology should only be focusing on the morphological differences between species and not focused on sex or race. I listened to a report by NPR where they reported that even though millennials are now accepting racial differences but there are some people who are mostly white, still grew up with different mindsets and experiences which is weird to me for some reason. I still believe that stereotyping should not be a thing anymore even if some are true, or at least stereotyping where the person is being insulted or put down upon. Anthropologists are out here focusing on the cranial vaults and morphological differences because of their curiosity not of racism nor sexism, they are sincerely just researching for the development of humans and I hope that we, as humans, can also advance to the point where we don’t prejudice categorization on certain races.
