I just received this email from a friend who goes to Scripps. Her aunt sent her this article, and here is a link to it:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070430/lam_2

The article is "Let It Be Some Other Asian" by Andrew Lam and refers to the Virginia Tech massacre.

Lam brings up a good point - when rumors circulated that the shooter was Asian, the various Asian ethnicities all hoped that he would not be one of theirs. I never really thought about it, but after reading the article I agree that I probably would have felt a whole lot worse if the shooter had been Japanese or Japanese-American. This is a shameful and rather selfish thought, because no matter what the perpetrator's ethnic background, he has made countless people suffer because of his cruelty. We shouldn't focus on whether he was Korean-American, Chinese-American, Vietnamese-American, Japanese-American, etc., but on the objective fact that he was an individual who committed an atrocious crime.

Lam's article reminds me of the issue which Hisaye Yamamoto brings up in her short story "Wilshire Bus." The Japanese-American woman on the bus is relieved that the man on the bus attacks the Chinese couple, and not her. She makes the distinction between herself and the couple who are being unjustly attacked. Why does she not do the right thing and, rather than being inwardly smug because the white man did not target her, particularly, stand up for her "fellow" Asians? While there are times when clumping certain ethnicities under the "Asian" label is undesirable, or even offensive, there are also instances when people need to learn to unite under a common cause.

I know it can be difficult to separate the criminal from his Korean-American identity. Nevertheless, we need to see past this and realize that we are all responsible for helping each other get through whatever happens in the coming weeks, months, years. The "other" Asians cannot just sit around being relieved that it is not someone of their ethnicity who did this. That is very self-righteous, and unnecessary in a time when we should be coming together rather than discriminating and pulling apart.