Does Ethnic Affinity Matter?

"Squandered-potential" is what I believe happened to filmmaker Spike Lee.  His "It's a black thing you wouldn't understand" to summarily exclude outsiders is something that I've pondered about my won "Asian-ness".   In college, (college is where it seems all Asians go) I joined to Asian-American club, to go to potlucks.  I wasn't interested in tales of exclusion and second class citizens, because it seemed that Asians were living the American dream, very much unlike the histories of black and hispanic suffering (even though many have come a long way, and some still exploit it). 

 

Now, I have a family member, who's made something of herself, wants special recognition of minority status for our teeny, tiny ethnic group as a honorary director of the census for this group.  Her interest, like those of so many other groups is to seek special recognition.  She campaigned for Obama, raised money for him, was invited to a whitehouse photo op and I guess now wants some kind of payback is a czarincess of my teeny tiny ethnic group.  Yes, every group does it, and but yet, why does my sister as self-made person want to penalize the new comers by giving them that government cheese (I'm figurative here), that will inevitably sour in their stomach, destroy their initiative.

I am a proud American, and a proud Burmese.  These facts of identity are not exclusive and certainly don't determine the how we live.