Sing Sheng

In chapter two, Living in the Suburbs, Becoming Americans, of Cindy Cheng’s book Citizens of Asian America, Cheng discusses the how suburbanization became a process of Americanization for minorities. She does this by examining race and its role in assimilation, how women and families played a role in the perceived assimilability of Chinese Americans, and how the story of Sing Sheng tested how democratic the United States truly was. In chapter two Cindy Cheng argues that the transformative potential of suburban living promoted America as a place accepting of all people regardless of race, which fails to discuss how social divisions based on race worked to the preconceived notions that white Americans held such as the perception of assimilation, …show more content…
In the Sing Sheng case, Sheng attempts to move into the Southwood suburb in San Francisco but his neighbors instructed him not to move in. He decided to hold a neighborhood meeting to discuss his residence in the community and to vote on whether he should be allowed in or not. His method of going about attempting to become accepted by the neighborhood is what is most interesting because he could have used the legal system to gain entry to the neighborhood. Racially restricted neighborhoods were illegal and he could easily have forced his way in, but he chose not to. He decided to let the people choose his fate. The people voted to not allow him in by a substantial margin. Sheng chose to try and create lasting change in the world rather than simply getting to live where he wanted. He wanted to create real change, and real change comes not by changing the laws, but changing the people. Laws do matter and they are part of the process of creating change, but they do not constitute complete change. Real change is a process in which a politically controversial event has to occur, the laws have to change, and the people have to change. Sing Sheng’s case perfectly shows each of these steps. The event that occurred was him not being allowed into the neighborhood. This stirred up a national debate on the issue. The next step in the change would be for the laws to change. In this instance, the laws had all already been changed. Racially restricted housing had been outlawed. The last piece of change that has to occur is a change of the people. The people in the Southwood’s neighborhood clearly hadn’t changed because they voted against. This showed that even when the law changed, the people hadn’t changed. True change doesn’t happen until the people buy in and the United States