People who come to America are expected to assimilate into the culture and social ‘norm’. Yoshino had covered the topic of covering and how to survive in the world in which we live; it becomes necessary for someone to have a false self. Yang had the opinion that Asian-Americans in particular just kind of sink into the background because of their upbringing and so covering for them would be beneficial to help them move forward. In an article written by Anne Phillips so argues that assimilation can sometimes be a bad thing in that, for example, in the case of say women with hijabs, some places don’t want women wearing them because it means that they are being oppressed by their culture or religion. However, the choice to wear the headpiece may be the female’s decision and is not being forced upon them. Opposite what Yoshino, Yang and Phillips believe, the French are on the other side of the assimilation versus multiculturalism debate.
Yoshino believes that assimilating is necessary in order to survive and that covering is good on a minimal scale. He says that you have almost a split personality in that you have a true self and a false self. People portray the false self in cases that they may not feel completely secure being their true self. The false self is covering the true self so that it isn’t vulnerable in a sense. A true self is more sensitive and so the false self covers the parts of the true self that may not necessarily be accepted by the group that they are associating with.
Yang both disagrees and agrees with Yoshino’s theory. He believes that Asian-Americans should learn to essentially cover their inability to show much emotion. It is almost like he’s saying that they should undo any teachings that they had received and now they should have an opinion and voice it. If they are in a meeting and their boss is talking, respond. What Yang says they should do is basically the opposite of what they had been trained to do their whole lives. On...