Interview with Jenna Scalia; An Asian American's Account of the Media

By Cassandra Clarhaut, Eric Cubbler, and Heather DeVine

America, and the rest of the world, is in the midst of rough relations with North Korea. The things we see, read and hear in the media paint a picture of strict militant citizens, violent, and sometimes mentally unstable.

We asked Jenna Scalia, a Shippensburg University Sophomore, what it was like growing up Korean in America, and how the media depicts her ethnicity.

Jenna Scalia, a Sophomore at Shippensburg University,
is a Asian American adopted by white parents.

“I mention ‘Korean;’ I feel right away that I am being judged. I've never been to Korea but I they look at me like I am a spy for the North,” Scalia said. "I don't speak any Korean or even have a hint of a foreign accent."

Scalia is adopted by white parents. Her birth family is from South Korea, where relations with the North have recently crumbled. According to CBC news, “North Korea on Tuesday urged all foreign companies and tourists in South Korea to evacuate, saying the two countries are on the verge of nuclear war.”

Even if it’s just a threat, simply empty words, the depiction in the media is that North Korea is making moves—dangerous and complicated moves.

So the words are said. According to U.K.’s The Guardian, “the North has threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the US.” Readers think, “Koreans are going to blow up the U.S.” though it is clearly specified “North.”

This isn’t the media’s fault, the reader’s assumption that North Korea and Korea are synonymous words. But perhaps the constant harping on the threats considered news intensifies the perception that Asians are spies, as Scalia mentioned.

People that Scalia knows sometimes make jokes about her ethnicity. She doesn’t mind, though they can be “somewhat over-the-line.” Scalia said, "I can understand an occasional joke on my ethnicity from my good friends, but when someone I barely know says something right away, is when I get upset."

It seems unbelievable that a woman born in the United States, adopted and raised in a white family, be mocked. Put an Asian face on this woman, give her darker skin and smaller eyes, and Voilà; in America, the jokes crack themselves.

Other than the jokes, Scalia also said that social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, are “more annoying than the news.”

“Like those memes and pictures. Also, the jokes that they say about Korea when it's one man [‘s leadership] and not even the country that my family is from. (South Korea)

"I even see people that I know, post things that I clearly don't know what they are talking about."

Scalia is referring to the pictorial one-liners that generalize a nation, and make Asian-Americans, in this case any Korean, out to be stupid, crazy and the like.    

The constant blast of in-your-face opinions, often from opinionated and ill-educated individuals, is typical of social networks. Many share racist comments without a thought about it. Scalia said, "You know how the social media is, everyone has a voice behind a computer screen."

It seems though that in person, and particularly on campus, Scalia has had less trouble with acceptance.

Though most of her friends are white, she hasn't

 felt a need to form alliances with other Asian-Americans.  She has not attended any diversity or cultural group meetings to meet someone with the same ethnical background. 

“I haven't had a hard time fitting in at Ship at all. I've had the same friends since freshman year, I have 3 great roommates that I love like sisters and they're Caucasians,” Scalia said.

"I like my friends for their personalities, not because they look like me."

She does feel that more of the school population is white, however her classes are usually balanced with other members of the AHANA groups.

In social activities, Scalia sees more “Asians and Blacks,” but she says that most of her friends are white.

Is it then, perhaps, that because of her typical American upbringing, that Scalia is more comfortable with white people?

“I feel comfortable around everyone. No one makes me feel out of place or awkward. I can talk to someone who is Asian just as well as I can talk to someone that is white or black or even Hispanic.”