Asian, Latina, and Proud David You 10th Grade

In “Model Minority” by Jason Koo and “Clashing in Coney Island” by Sheila Maldonado, both authors portray a sense of cultural identity within their writing to capture the complexity of being a minority in America. Koo and Maldonado are Brooklyn poets who write about their own struggles as minorities. Koo describes the Asian stereotypes that perpetuate throughout his daily routine. On the other hand, Maldonado captures her perspective as a Latino-American in Brooklyn through a class photo. As young writers, these authors provide a new narrative to a previously underrepresented topic. Through these two poems, the authors question our current social norms in American and its impact on our national identities.

Both Jason Koo and Sheila Maldonado use their own racial identity to challenge the implicit pre-existing notion that minorities are inherently inferior in terms of entitlements within our pre-dominantly-white population. Moreover, both Koo and Maldonado use the idea of space and relaxation to emphasize the consequences of racial stereotyping on a regular basis. Koo describes these unspoken norms of Asian Americans through his journey on the subway. Koo writes, “I make myself into as tight an Asian as possible in crowds/ As a...