Asian Americans

Asian Americans in Hollywood:
What is always the same:
- all Asians can do karate
- they are either dishonorable desperadoes
- or karate superstars

Some Asians in Hollywood:
- Lucy Liu
- Bruce Lee
- Jackie Chan
- Zhang Ziyi
- Maggie Cheung
- Leslie Cheung

Important films with Asians:
- Taegukgi
- Memories of a Geisha

Today we talk with Tushio Onizuka, he's 75 and when he was a child, he was in an internment camp.

Q.: Thanks that you disposed to talk with us about your experiences. In which camp have you been?
A.: The name of the camp was Topaz. I will never forget the time in the camp, it was a humiliation for my family and all Japanes Americans. We were blamed for Pearl Harbour, but we were only hard-working people.
Q.: What did they say to you? How justiefied they the camps?
A.: They tell us it's for our security and that the camps are like holiday camps. I was very young, and first I was very happy to be allowed to go there.
Q.: Can you remember the reaction of your parents?
A.: For them it was very hard, because my father was the owner of a little shop. He was a very proud man and it was really hard for him.
Q.: Can you tell us something about the daily life in the camps?
A.: I can tell you it was absolutly no holiday camp. I have never been in prison, but I imagin it's nearly the same as in the camp. It was full of people and in the rooms were terrible, there was no furniture but cots and pot-bellieds. It was very boring, but the worst thing was, that I was seperating for my family.
Q.:How did the camps change you?
A.: It conformed my opinion that the whites will see us always as foreigners, who were inferior to them.

The sterotype of an Asian American:
- they are shorter
- they have thicker black hair
- they have a ,,yellow" skin colour
- they eat Sushi and rice and insects
- they are friendly
- they take everywhere photos
- they are interessted in technology
- they are hard-working people
- and they are clever

Interview with an Asian American 1982 after Vincent Chin were killed and the judgment were given.


Reporter: Today the lawsuit against Ron Ebens and Michael Nitz ended. They were adjudged to 3 years probation and 3700$. How do you feel about this?

Asian American: It's a shame. I can't understand. There ist no equality in this state. I don't want to know what would be happen if an Asian American kills a white person. It is indignity for all Americans with an ohter origin.

Reporter: I understand, you feel to be treated in an unfair way, right?

Asian American: Yes, of course We were blamded for America's sagging in auto industry. It's ridicoulus.

Reporter: Are you afriad of violence?

Asian American: Yes, it's very hard, I don't want my children to go out in the evenings. We came to the USA to find peace and to escape poverty, only to have a better future, but now we have to live in fear...

Do you know that it costs 3700$ in the USA in 1982 to kill a Chinese American?