Frank WuFrank Wu is a Distinguished Professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, where he formerly served as chancellor and dean.Asian American Pacific IslanderDo We All Look Alike?“You all look alike,” is what people told me when I was a kid growing up. As an Asian American in the Midwest in the 1970s, before diversity was “a thing,” I was always aware my family was different — and difference was not celebrated. I laugh, or try to, now if anyone accuses me of identity politics. They have it backwards: I struggled to assimilate, to avoid being marked by my heritage. I understood to be accepted by my peers, I had to forsake my ancestors.June 2, 2020Asian American Pacific IslanderThe Allure of AssimilationI know ethnic nationalists. We all do. Some of them are unassuming in the sense of being modest even as they assuming in the sense of dividing the world and its inhabitants. For them, geography and borders are demarcated by ancestry and bloodlines. By their definition of belonging, only natives qualify as kith and kin. As a Chinese American, I feel vulnerable right now because of the anger toward China. If I insist, as I do, that I am an American, I doubt I am convincing.May 5, 2020African-AmericanAsian Americans are Not the “Model Minority”Asian Americans are wrongly assumed to be doing well, uniformly and virtually without exception. The stereotype, dubbed “the model minority myth,” has been debunked again and again, but it persists in ideological claims that Asian Americans demonstrate racial discrimination has been eliminated and hard work is all it takes to do well.April 27, 2020OpinionRacists Can Be Nice — But DangerousI have a hypothesis about bigotry. My colleagues in the civil rights movement might not like it. I share this conjecture, because I believe it should influence our advocacy against discrimination. My commitment remains the same, but my strategy has changed.April 20, 2020African-AmericanA Primer on Asian AmericansAsian Americans fight against “the perpetual foreigner syndrome.” That is the sentiment that no matter how much they try to be American — or in fact have always been American — they must be secretly loyal to another nation.April 7, 2020COVID-19Coronavirus Is Not a “Chinese Virus”All anybody can talk about, even think about, is corona virus, COVID 19, the novel disease that has overwhelmed the world and brought human interaction to a hard stop. Calling it “the Chinese virus” only worsens the situation. Regardless of whether it is deemed “racist,” the persistent use of the term even after protests, is problematic. It only harms our efforts to control the spread of illness by adding animosity to the air.March 25, 2020African-AmericanBeware the Racist Who Claims to Be “Rational”Among the most dangerous arguments for racial profiling are the most rational. They are persuasive because they are by definition based on logic and statistics. The premise is that a stereotype is true, or more probably true than false, or at least more true of the group subjected to it than of other populations.January 21, 2020African-AmericanHow Should Asian Americans Respond to Asian Racism?Asian racism is an especially touchy subject for Asian Americans. For every effort to denounce the attitudes overseas comes the inevitable backlash of “Who are you to judge us?”December 16, 2019African-AmericanStop Using Asian Americans to Defend Against Disparities, Then Rejecting Them as Non-DiverseAsian Americans are ambiguous in civil rights. Perhaps Asian Americans themselves are ambivalent as well. Neither Black nor White, Asian Americans challenge the standard understanding of racial justice. Whether they are integrating into the majority or if they will be “people of color,” they should have autonomy and not be used to advance the ulterior motives of others who may not have their best interests at heart.December 4, 2019Opinion“Color Blind” Is Not What It SeemsAmong the concepts the law has distorted is “color blindness.” When Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1963, before the Civil Rights Act was enacted, he popularized a phrase that has been invoked by those who have not shared his idealism.November 5, 2019Page 1 of 4Next Page
