ABSTRACT
Do Asian newcomers feel safe and welcome at school? All students should experience a safe and welcoming school environment. A right to a safe environment is one which includes both the absence of verbal and physical abuse, particularly abuse that is racially motivated, and a positive welcoming school atmosphere. All' students should have fair access to schooling resources. By practice, this equity issue applies to populations which have suffered historically; thus policies, such as affirmative action, are written to correct historic wrong-doings. Blacks, Asian Americans, native Americans and Latino Americans have a history of exclusion. Clearly Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian Americans of earlier immigration waves have suffered greatly because of their race. This suffering continues even to this day, albeit at a reduced intensity level. It is equally clear that the recent resurgence of the 'Yellow Peril' fear places the newer Asian arrivals in the same position as those Asians whose parents and grandparents arrived generations ago. Although Asian Pacific Americans from earlier groups (such as Japanese Americans) are seen as 'arrived', those from the later groups, including the Vienamese, Lao and Khmer, face racism and the need to gain a foot-hold at the bottom of the social ladder, as well as English language competency and acculturation to American society. Persons from other minority groups may argue that they have suffered more and that consideration of newer groups is less warranted. In large part, this type of argument is inflammatory, because it degenerates into claims of who had the 'worst' experiences and, consequently, into arguments of priorities which become the basis of ethnic conflicts - a sum-zero game (what you gain, I lose; what I gain, you lose) in which somebody always has to lose.
