In her memoir Chinese Girl in the Ghetto, Ying Ma expresses both resentment and a feeling of superiority towards everyone in her community. She thinks she is better than other Chinese people because she chooses to fight back against the system of racial oppression rather than turning the other cheek. Even while she participates in the violence of the "ghetto" she feels like she is above other students because she excels in academics. She thinks she's better than other students in her academically gifted classes, who are mostly financially privileged and white, because she struggles against a lot more odds to succeed academically. Ultimately her book comes off as self-righteous and arrogant and she seems unable to see her own racism because she is blinded by her own experiences.
After getting into a fight with a Latina girl in which none of her Chinese peers intervene, Ying Ma seems to feel that she is the only fighter in her ethnic community. She takes pride in the fact that she fights back against people who make racist comments about Asians. In her experience other Chinese people do not fight back, but instead stay silent in the face of racism. She herself frequently takes this stance, but her ethnic pride comes into play when she violently retaliates against racist comments. In this instance she stands alone, showing that she does not feel ethnic pride in connection to her ethnic community. Instead her pride separates her from her Chinese peers and makes her feel superior to them because she stands alone against the system of racial oppression.This is a very individualistic version of ethnic pride, which is almost contradictory because we think of ethnic pride as being proud of a group to which you belong. In her case, she does not show that.
By John Oco, Yanping Tan and Clara Leonor Cruz
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