Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Opinion

Truth Esguerra

Sometime last year, I was driving on my way to school in the morning.

I was simply driving down Montague Expressway, which was full of traffic at the time, when I had a stressful encounter with another driver.

As I was driving, I noticed a car tailgating about a yard behind my bumper. It seemed that the driver was in a bit of a rush, but there was nothing I could do because of all the cars ahead of me. As I continued my drive, the tailgating car suddenly changed lanes and paralleled his vehicle to mine.

The driver then lowered his window and yelled, "Get off the road you stupid chink." Then, in a sudden instant, he overtook my car and continued to zigzag his way through the lanes.

"Did he just call me a chink?" I thought to myself.

I am not Chinese. I am a Filipino-American.

Also, I am a pretty safe driver. I usually drive the speed limit and give a space cushion to other drivers. I have never gotten a ticket.

So why did the driver yell an angry, racial slur at me? Did he believe the stereotype that Asians cannot drive?

Now this incident left me with a question: Do Americans really want their country to be an ethnically diverse nation?

Though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and the Civil Rights Movement changed America forever, has it really extinguished America's feelings of racial disgust, or is it just buried beneath the soil ready to rise?

I hear them all around me: Asian insults, white insults, black insults, Mexican insults and Jewish insults. There are stereotypes of all blacks being very good in sports while all Asians must be nerds. If people in this nation want peace and equality, why do they create judgments that bring other people down?

Is that what America is - a smorgasbord of different people who don't understand each other?

I have resided in the quiet town of Milpitas basically all of my life. As far as I know, Milpitas, an ethnically diverse city, has been pretty good at handling the different demographics.

Our businesses are diverse, our schools are diverse and our city government is diverse. Why can't America become more like my humble, little town?

There are some who are trying to loosen these tight racial issues. Movies such as "Crash" and comedians like Chris Rock are making it more comfortable to talk about racial issues.

But are they working?

What does it take to unify the races here in America?

Does it take the destruction of the social ladder? Does it take a universal language? Does it take an African-American or Asian-American president in the White House?

Do Americans want unity and equality at all?

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