Platform for the Asian Population in MBHS Emerges

Platform+for+the+Asian+Population+in+MBHS+Emerges

Min Hui Zheng, Staff Reporter

Brooklyn, NY–  Asians have been underrepresented in media and everyday life. The general public does not think twice before poking fun at the Asian community, making stereotypes and getting away with it. This drove the Asian community in Millennium Brooklyn High School to assemble their voices and create a platform that allows them to express their stories and experiences.

Since Millennium Brooklyn High School’s establishment in 2011, the Asian population has been the smallest. According to insideschools, in MBHS, Asians make up 8.7% of the entire student population, while Black and Hispanic students made up 23.4% and 24.9% respectively.

In the media and in public, “Asian” has been limited to just the Eastern countries: China, Japan, and Korea.The media compressed the entire continent of Asia to one category when in reality, there is a total of 48 countries that contribute to that term.

Millennium Brooklyn’s own Asian Student Organization started with 9 members during the first meeting and quickly increased to 16 members. The student members of the club originated from countries like Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Tibet, Indonesia, and many more.

The supervisor of the club, Emily Goldsmith, shared her own experience as an American of Korean descent. She said that she was “always identified as the Asian person and [she] felt kind of alone” in her school community because there “were not many other Asian people.” Later on in college, she became the president of the Asian Student Organization and found that “it was important for [the members] to bond culturally,” which is why she found this club to be extremely important for the Asian community in Millennium Brooklyn.

Goldsmith hopes that the club will be able to “band together with other cultural organizations, to do some kind of multicultural night in the spring semester. And it’s very important for people of all background in the school to see that everyone has their own representation and community they can be a part of.”

Lily He, a club member, explained that their current project, which will last for the whole year, is to “create an outline of the map of Asia while members take turns researching fun facts about each country. [Their] ultimate goal is to fill up the map of Asia and gain awareness that Asia is not just ‘China, Japan, or Korea’, but is a big and diverse continent.”

As the members of the club increase, Goldsmith expressed that her goals for the club is to be more diverse because, “everyone is welcome, you don’t have to be Asian!