Kelvin Qian
What are you fond of about of your culture?
“Let me tell you a historical piece of trivia. Have you heard of Alberto Santos-Dumont? He was a Brazilian who had French and Portuguese heritage and he’s considered in Brazil to be the inventor of the airplane, which is different from America. So, Santos-Dumont is a name with a hyphen, and when he writes his name he puts an equal sign, because he wants to acknowledge both his European and Brazilian heritage. I kind of feel the same way. I’m proud of being Chinese because looking back in history, we basically invented everything. We invented gunpowder, paper, compasses, seismographs, plows, wheelbarrows, massive engineering projects like the Grand Canals, basically the ‘greatest empire’ in history. I put that in quotes because that’s a loaded term. But I’m also proud of being American. I feel like the 2016 election actually affirmed that American identity because it showed how many Americans believe in the ideas of multiculturalism, diversity, liberalism. These are the kinds of things you don’t see in China - at least not multiculturalism, which might explain why some of these immigrants are racist.”
Yeah, it makes sense. Obviously, America’s population is more diverse, although there are a lot of ethnic minorities in China and their history is really rich.
“Oftentimes I see how these minorities are treated, either as tourist attractions or discriminated against. It’s not like in America. In the United States, you see minorities standing up for themselves both in history and right now, and how Asian-Americans also participated in the civil rights movement.”
