Fong is Right

To the editors:

Peeling away all the venomous prickles of the article by Justin G. Fong uncovers a bona fide attempt to provoke all Americans to question their identities, to free their minds from the social paradigm of race, and to seek out communities to which they are bound not superficially by chance at conception, but by a deeper-running social fabric.

Fong is right. The phenomenon of Asian self-segregation that we see occurring at college campuses across the country is a classic case of deceptive appearances and mistaken identity. While many Asian Americans bear similar physical traits to "homegrown" Asians, these characteristics do not translate into equally similar traits of character and mind. Realizing this, Fong rejects the thoughtless wholesale packaging of the gamut of Asian-Americans--by both Asian-Americans and others--into one unnatural community.

Granted, Fong makes some egregious faux pas in his open letter, but these missteps do not justify many Asian-American students' simplistic accusations that Fong has set Harvard Asian-American students back 10 years. Such attacks stem from a complete failure to appreciate his point that we must strive to live by the truth of our substance rather than blundering down the path of superficiality and falsehood by ignoring the basic human responsibility to be true to oneself.

Additionally, attacks that label Fong a hypocrite are shots below the belt that leave the content of his speech unscathed. If we require that we dismiss as incredible everything ascribed to those who do not practice what they preach, we must do away with all esteem for the vast majority of humanity.

Let us recognize Fong as a well-intentioned individual who made legitimate observations--however poorly constructed and immature his presentation--and that his apparent hypocritical sanctimony is inconsequential. That done, let us examine his closing remarks in "The Invasian" and do the piece justice by allowing his poignant last words to resonate in our hearts: "The more the Asians stick to themselves, the more alienated we feel from their community, and the more alienated they feel from our community... Can't we all just get along?"

Arar Han