Eliminating the Prejudice against Chinese International Students is Critical
The community I personally perceive myself most clearly at this stage of my life is as a Chinese international student, who has been living in the United States for over 6 years. People from China and people from the U.S. will have different perceptions of my community. So perhaps sometimes people will wonder which perception can best and most accurately represent my community. As part of this community, I relate to the stories of Daniel Gao. I agree with Daniel Gao’s article that although Chinese international students are easily misunderstood and treated with prejudice due to the different cultural backgrounds and language barriers, such misunderstandings could potentially become severe, even though they still try their best to eliminate the prejudice by sharing his own stories and feelings.
As a matter of a fact, Chinese students make up the bulk of the international student population, which means China has largely stepped into the Western educational stage. However, the single story about the Chinese international community happens a lot in U.S. According to Daniel Gao in his article “The Truth About Being a Chinese International Student”, domestic people consider Chinese international students as “a bunch of rich kids” or simply “giant babies”. Daniel Gao spoke up about some of the misrepresentations that the others used to think of us by telling a different version of story, coming from his own experience, and from other fellow Chinese international students. Unlike what others tend to describe us, Daniel Gao explained through his own experience how hard we work to finish the courses, manage to get good grades and to catch up with others. The Chinese international students all come to this faraway land, carrying bigger dreams and great purpose. This is real deal for us since we’ve been coming across our own struggles and difficulties. I say that because I also think of myself as one of them, constantly staying up late for papers and projects just to make better of myself and to get a great grade. It never has been easy but is totally worthy for me. It is true that some of the Chinese students act as what they think they are, but as in any community there are people just like that. It’s important to look at the whole story with a more comprehensive perception, rather than through some long-ago books and television works created by the other communities and systems who are probably not that familiar with the truth.
In addition, Daniel Gao revealed the truth by illustrating the stereotypes and biases carried on the shoulders of Chinese students, titles such as bookworm, rich kids, and the invisibles. But where do all these come from? Beyond the possible sources, such as domestic students, university faculty and staff that we have direct contact with, those perceived stereotypes and discrimination are subtly distributed by many systemic forces in Western countries, in this case, the Western educational system. The system itself accepts us, but meanwhile the people in this system but from different communities don’t really know us. And when these people are the ones also in full charge of the system, the situation could be even worse. The intentions hiding behind these perceptions are worth thinking about. The main power of America is not willing to share too much further their resource, wealth, and power, because there are risks that, in the long term, the other communities will threaten the existing structure of the Western world. Therefore, to get their way, alienation seems like one way to exclude others, with the help of separation and debase.
Although Daniel Gao describes a single story inside the university and gives a very vivid account of what happens inside the university, he does not explore his topic in more depth. There are more things to think about in depth about Chinese international students and the whole Asian Chinese community, such as the social conflicts. Consequently, it’s dangerous to neglect this kind of misinformation as they can dangerously misguide their receivers and gradually influence people’s subconscious to make unthoughtful decisions. All of us should do our best to avoid being manipulated as “puppets”. All these misconceptions can turn into discrimination against us, against our community and bring some serious problems such as unequal treatment, spite, and even hate crime. We are all living under the situation of Covid-19, where all of us must stand together and try to make it through. Nonetheless, there are anti-Asian acts reported not just in America, but in other Western countries too such as UK, Australia. Even though I haven’t experienced any malice so far, because I live in Los Angeles, a city with a large Asian population, so the city is relatively friendly to Chinese international students, therefore, my case doesn’t stand for every Chinese student here or elsewhere around the world. The description of Daniel Gao is just part of the whole story about the stereotypes of our community. Stepping out of schools and colleges, ancient and new stereotypes and prejudices against Asian community still exist in western society. During the outbreak of Covid-19, Asian Americans and international students have reported such as being spit on, yelled at, or even threatened in the streets. Looking back at these outbreaks of discrimination is a sobering lesson of the consequences of racial labels. A solid proof of existing social stereotypes.
So why are there so many stereotypes in American society? If we think about it more deeply, I think it might relative political struggles. We can even hear racist rhetoric by politicians. Because of their special status, their voices are very influential and powerful, and these leaders are leading the way in increasing the wrong image of the Chinese people, for instance the spokesperson in North America used to label Chinese people as “living in most unhealthy conditions” and “low standard of morality”. Such terms are inaccurate and offensive to the whole community. Those fear-mongering terms serve the underlying political ends. Another example is the former American president Donald Trump’s erroneous use of the term “China Virus” for Covid-19, being first step to racialized violence and causing Chinese international students to have faced many misunderstandings since the outbreak of COVID-19. We have been discriminated against by the “Chinese virus” stigma while overseas in the early stage of the pandemic. Moreover, because of the rapid development of China in recent years, the United States has a slight sense of national crisis. Chinese international students have thus become political casualties. We have been targeted in multiple ways by the anti-China politics. Politicians try to play the game of blame China for gaining votes, Trump implemented several anti-Chinese international education policies, such as banning some postgraduate-level Chinese students and researchers in advanced sciences and technology from entering the US. He and his government stopped granting visas to Chinese international students in chip-related majors to prevent China from developing its chip field. He accused them of stealing intellectual property from America and having links with the military of our own country. This policy was endorsed by some US Senators as “a targeted approach” to handle security threats from China. Although the trade war is a game between the two governments, it also affects Chinese students in the U.S. Not only us, but even our parents are worried that if the trade war keeps happening, it will eventually lead to another Cold War or even World War III.
From my point of view, the policymakers and the authority need to think carefully about the new dynamics of international education in terms of the huge market share of Chinese international students. Chinese students deserve to be treated fairly in their pursuit of quality education overseas and should not be treated as just patrons. More members of the community could stand out to complete and clarify our story like Daniel Gao. Meanwhile we hope that more and more people would like to hear the voice of this large community. Despite the pressures we currently face, we will continue to engage in global connectivity and scholarly endeavor as we should.
