Three weeks ago, I just came to America. I’ve heard a new: a young black man named Michael Brown was shot by police in Ferguson. It caused protests and riot. That was the fist time I began to think about the racial issue.
When I read Rodriguez’s article, I’ve been trying to figure it out what is the reason. It seems easily to answer: the difference, which has already existed here. It sounds plausible, because difference is everywhere. You can see different color or cuisine or language or literature or fashion. As we classify goods according to their difference, we, human being, also can be classified according to our difference. But there still are some people who can not be classified exactly. Richard Rodriguez is one of them. He is mestizo, raised in San Francisco, California. He finished his education in Stanford University and Columbia University. He spoke America English, of course. Is he a pure American? Richard give us two answers. Yes and no. It depends on how we define American.
When he was in college, he was reinvented by President Richard Nixon. He learned to call himself a Hispanic. Even though “there is no such thing as a Hispanic”. He was classified and even had separate cafeteria table. Since then, the separation occurred and that was caused by classification.
As a student from China, I could not tell more about black-and-white issue. However, in China, there is another kind of prejudice, regional discrimination. Let me tell you a story. I’m from Beijing. When I was in college which was also in Beijing, I lived with other five roommates in dormitory. One of them was Fu. Fu has a terrific Beijing accent. Since everyone came from Beijing, we thought “OK, we are the same.” But, it was not. After a couple of days, he told us that although he raised up in Beijing, his parents were from Hunan(a province of southern China). Since then others saw him in a different way. Even though you can not see the difference.
How come? In my story, I think...