> And this is something like the paradox of assimilation: those who critique assimilation and Westernization often do so from a set of political values that are

> And this is something like the paradox of assimilation: those who critique assimilation and Westernization often do so from a set of political values that are, fundamentally, Western. They may become radicalized as Asian Studies minors at college, but they’re Western colleges, staffed mostly by white people, and the framework of ethnic philosophy that disdains the Western influence is often quite foreign to cultures that are… foreign. Despite the article's concluding sentence, I think the underlying drive is much simpler, and any college politics serve as only a post-hoc rationalization [1]. That drive being the human need for group identity, for which being simply "American" does not suffice to them. On the other hand, their parents never felt a lack of their identity, so in this way they are like fish, confused when someone experiences thirst. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning#Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_reasoning#Motivated_reas... - though the domain in this case isn't exactly "moral"