Following his return from China in December 2019, senior Jerry Wang was labeled a “virus spreader.” He was surprised that his supposed friends were the ones making these crude remarks, especially considering the background of those perpetuating the hate — other Chinese-Americans and Indian-Americans.
Wang considers this experience a form of internalized racism from his Chinese-American friends and interminority racism from his Indian-American peers; interminority racism is a form of prejudice where members of one minority group are discriminatory towards members of another minority group. The issue is particularly prevalent in the Bay Area and MVHS, where 79% of the student body is Asian American and the overall minority enrollment rate is 92%.
Within the school community, sophomore Ruchika Varanasi points to an incident from two years ago, where a video of an Asian student at MVHS saying the N-word was sent to staff members.
“There’s definitely no sensitivity towards that,” Varanasi said. “That word means a lot to black people. This is their word. It makes me especially disappointed to know that people who are also Asian are saying this word. There are Asian slurs. You wouldn’t like it if someone said them. So why are you saying that then?”
In the context of anti-blackness within the Asian American community, English teacher Derek Lu has observed many say that this interminority racism often stems from the idea that job opportunities and social acceptance are limited. As a result, minorities are sometimes pitted against each other as a way to protect their own place in society, fostering tension. Lu describes the false stigma that arises from this as the scarcity mentality — a way of thinking that focuses on what someone is lacking.
Similarly, the model minority myth, or the idea that Asian Americans are doing well today and must have benefitted from an elevated status among people of color is also considered by Lu to be an existing ideology present in ethnic groups. He says that the model minority myth goes hand-in-hand with the scarcity mentality, further enabling discrimination.
“I know many AAPI parents who wrongfully believe that other people of color are lazy, poor or homeless because they didn’t work hard enough,” Lu said. “They believe there are unfair advantages for being black or brown and that helping out people of color means taking away from their spot.”
On the contrary, Varanasi argues that sometimes members of minority groups who have experienced racism might project it onto other groups for validation. She says that this further demonstrates how discrimination from majority groups enforces a cycle of oppression, where marginalized groups subconsciously perpetuate the hate they face. Wang shares a similar perspective, also acknowledging that racism inside these minority groups can be attributed to a power struggle insinuated by majority groups.
“A lot of racism that you see nowadays has really stemmed from wanting to fit in with people of power and wanting to be that person who can sit up with them on the pedestal,” Wang said. “I think that’s why it has really spread from this issue of wanting to be like them, holding the same views as them, having internalized racism, to spreading towards larger groups, even within minority communities.”
While the MVHS curriculum provides ample time to discuss white hegemony in Critical Race Theory units during classes such as Honors American Literature, a lack of sensitivity to racial stereotypes is evident in occasional incidents on campus. Thus, Varanasi concludes that a focus on interminority racism is necessary since it is a prevalent issue that often goes unspoken.
Overall, Wang believes that creating change requires people to refocus their perspective with the help of experiences such as his return from China, as an opportunity to learn about overlooked forms of discrimination.
“I could’ve used that experience to stand up for myself and talk to them,” Wang said. “To ask them, ‘What are your thoughts behind this and why would you behave like this?’ And we could have a discussion about why things like this shouldn’t be normalized. Treat others with respect and look at them because they’re all really just human beings like you are.”
