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FEATURES: Students Across the Globe
from Issue 6 - May 2021
NEHA JOSEPH
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MEGANA KASHYAP
It is no secret that online school has been unique for the average student at Cupertino High School. Yet, in order to maintain a sense of normalcy, students at Cupertino have stayed engaged in online zoom classes and continued to hang out at parks with friends. But what about when a student is in a different country? The added layer of being in a different country introduces an extremely unique aspect to the experience of online school. Students like Neha Joseph, a senior at Cupertino High School, took the opportunity of online school to partake in classes in another country, some- thing that very few Cupertino students share. Joseph travelled to Taiwan in June to meet family in Taiwan but it soon turned into an extended stay that ended in September. Through that time, Joseph experienced online school in Taiwan which she explains no easy task. While it gave her the opportunity to explore Taiwan, she had to adjust to the 15 hour shift in the time zone from California. Said Joseph, “Doing online school in another country especially in another timezone was especially tiring because I had to adjust to taking classes at night and sleeping in the morning, so I had to adjust to my school schedule and time zone, but I still wanted to partake in the daily activities in Taiwan so I also tried to sleep as little as possible, it was hard to bal- ance”. She says that the change in schedule from last year, the new online schedule, contributed to the huge adjustment to the online school in Taiwan. Joseph explains that last year’s schedule had very limited Zoom classes and was more focused on adjusting to the pandemic, this year, however, required students to join in all Zoom classes and had a much stricter deadline. Her teachers were, however, extremely accommodating to Joseph and understood the strain of time zone shifts.
Joseph’s near-nocturnal class schedule included her being awake for most of the night. During classes, she explains, it was easier but during breaks was when the challenges began.
Said Joseph, “To stay awake during breaks in my classes I had to scroll through Instagram in order to stay awake, I didn’t trust myself to take naps”. While her mother was asleep during the night she was working away at classwork. But, when it came to homework she often had extensions for which she could go to sleep and complete her homework in the morning.
During the day, Joseph explored Taiwan. She would go out with her mother and sister to dine
at restaurants and grab boba while sightseeing. Compared to America, Taiwan had a much more organized fight against COVID-19. This played a big role in her ability to go around the city and enjoy luxuries like dining in at restaurants, something many Americans have not been able to do for the past year. Joseph’s half a semester in Taiwan shows that Cupertino High School students have constantly risen to the challenges that online learning has brought along. Her incredible story, one for the books, shows the incredible experiences that pandemic has also brought on.
INVESTIGATIONS ANAMIKA SANGWAN
INDIA
ANKITA ACHARYA
writer
Anamika Sangwan, a former Cupertino High student in the class of 2022, has faced the unusual circumstance of having to attend online school in two different countries: India and the US. Said Sangwan, “In the US, I did [online] school for three months, from Feb to the end of sophomore year. In general, I’ve been doing it since Feb till now.”
Similar to how Cupertino High School (CHS) reduced curriculum in the spring of 2020 to account for remote education, Sangwan noted that in India, “they have reduced 30% [of the curriculum].” However, unlike CHS, this reduced curriculum has continued on into this school year, continuing to negatively impact students.
“We have an entrance exam before college [...] So they reduced the 30% from schools, but we still have to study it for college. So it’s not really helpful for me,” Sangwan stated. Instead of being taught the curriculum, students are now forced to self-study.
She has also seen impacts on standardized testing, similar to how the SAT and ACT were cancelled for US students. “There’s a final that you take in 10th and 12th grade and those have been canceled. You’re losing the practice of having tests conducted off-line, because everything’s online. So you can just search up the answers,” said Sangwan.
She continued to note the changes in work ethic that online school can bring about, stating, “You have the entire web in front of you. Who’s gonna choose to study? You go to the buffet and you’ll choose the chicken instead of the salad, every time.”
She believes this will impact her even after remote education ends. “After this, I go into college, and the jump is going to be big, and I wouldn’t know what to do, because the environment is lost,” said Sangwan.
Sangwan believes that CHS students have the advantage of administrators and teachers that care. “In the US, they cared [...] and they tried to keep the stress level low, limit the number of assignments. But here, you have to log into every single class and take notes and turn in stuff and go to school, you get what I mean? And the assignments over there were pretty easy and the assignments over here are [not].”
Sangwan also noticed that CHS students have
to spend comparatively less time in front of a screen than students in India. “We have six classes every day, and it’s from morning 8 to 4 in the evening, and outside of school, I have extra studies, so that is like 5-8pm, so I have 12 hours of classes every day. It’s really bad for me.”
Students also have different focuses in the two countries. Said Sangwan, “There’s a big gap. Over here, people are so focused about their future and what they’re gonna do in college; people care about the future more than they do about the present, and like, mental health does not exist.” She believes that CHS students have a healthy, simultaneous focus on both the present and the future.
Ultimately, while online school has become a universally common part of student lives worldwide, it’s important to note that our experiences are often very different.
ELIZABETH WANG
SONIA PATIL
opinions editor
It is no secret that there are vast differences between American education compared to other countries’ education systems. From the changes in culture to the teacher-student relationships, major factors affect the stress and community for schools in Singapore. The jump from the Singaporean education system to the hyper-competitive Cupertino High school environment for current junior Elizabeth Wang was a shock.
Said Wang, “Over there, it’s more of parents pushing the kids, but the kids are still together and supportive. It was just a chill environment, where we could all relate, and we were all ‘suffering’ in the same school […] Here, students themselves are pushing themselves, so it’s a lot more of kids against kids.”
Less competition between students helped her create closer bonds with her entire class, where academics were seen as a collective effort. With an environment she felt comfortable in, traveling with her school became one of the highlights of her education. Said Wang, “I got to go to a lot of camps, basically huge sleepovers. We went on this one week camp in China for a week, and we got to meet students from there, kind of like an exchange program, but it was really fun […], and if you have low income, the government pays for you.”
While she has many fond memories of her schooling in Singapore, she did come across a few setbacks. Said Wang, “The teachers were a lot more strict. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing because you’re being pushed and know that the teachers care for you, but at the same time, it’s a bit too much.”
Coming to America provided a considerable change, as most of Wang’s teachers had laid back attitudes towards school work. However, having been used to the demanding nature of Singaporean teachers as an incentive to work harder, she faced a new struggle to find self-motivation in American academics.
On the flip side, the overwhelming academic pressure in Singapore at a young age took a toll
on her childhood. Rather than living carefree as a child, the future always was in the back of Wang’s mind.
Said Wang, “There were these national examinations, and the teachers were like ‘you’re going to become janitors or failures if you don’t do well’ or ‘Oh, you’re gonna pull down our school’s name.’ And actually, there were suicides for 11 or 12 year olds because of the stress [...] There’s a disadvantage because I wished I had a [more fun], stress-free school [experience].”
Despite her struggles with both countries’ education, the move from across the world brought out the more independent side of her personality. Said Wang, “[In Singapore] We’re not really encouraged to think for ourselves. So it’s like, listen to the authority, listen to your elders and follow… America is pretty individualistic, and we didn’t have that there. So it was nice living here and actually being able to learn more about things going on, and then actually speak out about it.”
SINGAPORE
THE PROBLEM WITH THE SLOGAN “STOP ASIAN HATE”
KATELYN CHU
investigations editor
In recent months, especially following the Atlanta spa shootings, a larger conversation has been sparked about Asian hate and increasing cases of violence against Asians in America. In 2020, hate crimes against Asians rose almost 150 percent, with almost 3,800 incidents reported during a year of the pandemic. Alongside these rising rates, more people have begun to stand up and discuss anti-Asian racism, including on social media and in more coverage by news outlets. With this momentum, the slogan “Stop Asian Hate” became popularized and is used as the title of the “Stop Asian Hate” movement, at rallies and in social media posts as a way to spread awareness and show solidarity.
The slogan acts as a rallying cry and a hashtag to spearhead a movement against anti-Asian racism and violence. However, despite the positive intentions behind the phrase, “Stop Asian Hate” does a disservice in its failure to express the depth of racism Asians have faced, and continue to face, in America. The word “hate” implies smaller, isolated incidents of violence. By simplifying and passing the problem off as hate or just as a strong dislike of a certain demographic, the reality of deep-rooted anti-Asian racism in America is ignored. There is a long, existing history of bigotry, prejudice and racism which needs to be learned and addressed as such–something the slogan glosses over.
With no shortage of anti-Asian incidents throughout the United States’ history, it is not hard to find prominent examples. In 1854, California’s Supreme Court established that Chinese Americans and immigrants did not have the right to testify against a white person in court. Called People v. Hall, the case ruled that a Chinese man’s account of him witnessing a murder was not valid, based on the belief that the Chinese were “a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point”, a sentence written in the case itself. Subsequently, in 1871, 20 Chinese Americans were lynched in LA, an event that was later called the Chinese Massacre.
Then in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed, banning the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for 10 years. A federal law, the Exclusion Act specifically targeted and discriminated against people of Chinese descent and is described
#STOPAAPIHATE
as being “the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality.”
Another large-scale injustice occurred during World War II when 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were living on the West Coast were forced to live in internment camps. 62 percent of them were U.S. citizens, but it made no difference. Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order
9066, which set up the groundwork for their removal, many Japanese-Americans lost their property, homes, businesses and the majority of their private belongings.
And in the weeks that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, one thousand “bias incidents” were reported against Arabs, Muslims and South Asians, including 19 murders, assault, vandalism and harassment–a myriad of violence and discrimination they were subjected to because of stereotypes and generalizations.
From People v. Hall to outright murders and internment camps, there is an ugly, obvious pattern that becomes apparent throughout history–a pattern wo-
ven from the long-existing racism and anti-Asian sentiment. Without a doubt, it is crucial to learn the past that the movement’s newest slogan seems to gloss over. However, as with a lot of topics surrounding social justice, it is also imperative that we be careful not to fall into the tricky trap of nitpicking movements. Oftentimes, criticism is welcomed as it highlights places to improve. But in the cases where hypercriticism is taken too far, the intense scrutiny can quickly become counterproductive, distracting from the crucial, hard-hitting activism. For example, some could argue that when one says the slogan, people already know the mention of “hate” includes the whole American history of it. The problem outlined in this article about the phrase “Stop Asian Hate” dances in the gray area between “making a big deal out of a minor detail”, nitpicking, and a message that rings true.
Either way, this is a valuable critique to think about in that it pushes activists and those of us involved to delve deeper into the issue. Hearing the argument opens our eyes to reconsider if we have been approaching anti-Asian racism appropriately, educating ourselves about the past and
treating it as a recurring and historically systemic issue. With this in mind, we can move forward, continuing to read books and resources on the topic, reach out among our close circles, donate and report incidents. Nonetheless, despite the flaws with the phrase “Stop Asian Hate”, it remains a step in the right direction, and there is a lot of work to be done–beyond criticizing a slogan.
