I happened to eavesdrop on a rather interesting conversation the other day. “I’m white,” said a young Chinese girl to a friend. “I may be Chinese on the outside, but I swear, I don’t even speak Chinese, so I’ve got to be at least a quarter white or something.” The girl’s companion laughed it off, calling her a “twinkie.”

It seems to be that as our generation gets older, everyone is slowly losing sight of what it means to be of an ethnic heritage. I remember the long ago days of elementary school, where my fellow classmates and I would prance around in our colorfully vibrant costumes during our annual heritage celebrations. The pride I had in my culture was powerful – I would repeat the few lines I knew in Vietnamese until my whole kindergarten class knew how to say ‘I’m hungry and sleepy’ – and my wall of pride could not be torn down.

A decade later, things aren’t exactly the same. Former classmates and old friends have cast off those colorful robes in order to submerge themselves in a world where Hollister, Abercrombie and Fitch, and American Eagle define everything. They speak less of their native tongue and more like the spoiled kids on Laguna Beach. Though this assimilation into modern American culture may simply be a phase in life, the aftermath is surely hard to reverse.

The United States has been made up of immigrants (Minus Native Americans) for hundreds of years, and as time passed, the children of those immigrants slowly let go of their culture and language in order to fulfill the American persona. I’m not trying to generalize everyone into this category, but really now – how many of you can truly say that you know your heritage?

The value of culture and diversity has been emphasized in schools and communities for years now, but does that do anything to keep the culture alive in each student’s life? I really do think that in enough years time, we will have a generation of children who will know close to nothing about where they came from. We already have people of ethnic descent in our society who know only of their culture’s foods, if anything else.

And in this whirlwind of deteriorating culture, we have also created something entirely different: racial stereotypes. Fellow Asians call one another “twinkies,” – someone who looks Asian, but acts white. African Americans can be labeled as “ding-dongs,” meaning that they are black on the outside, yet white on the inside. Dozens, if not hundreds, of racial stereotypes have been created – just look at Urbandictionary.com.

Michael Jackson, for example. Is he still considered African American? I mean, genetically, he is, but the fact that he bleached his skin white and cut away his nose so that he would look more “American,” I’m assuming, confuses me. There are cultures all over the world that are conforming to stereotypical beauty. It is beauty in the sense that blue-eyed, fair-skinned blondes are perfection. Nations all over the world, including China, Japan, and Africa, favor similar looks nowadays: light skinned with big round eyes. (Basically, almost anything European looking.)

I’m sure that you’ve all heard about the cosmetic surgeries available nowadays. To name a few, there is the procedure that gives you that Western double-eyelid, the reshaping procedure that gives you a nose so perfect that I’m sure that I could pull it off if I tried, and the increasingly popular lip injection that makes your lips twice too big for your own face. And all for what? This false idea that other races, or other traits of other races, are better than our own.

I cannot stand being labeled some form of a racial stereotype; as humorous as people may find it, I find it extremely offensive. I am proud of my heritage, culture, and everything that I am. What makes people assume that the way I do anything affects who I am on the inside? Seriously now, people have no right to assume things about me, or anyone else.

It is these assumptions, these stereotypes, and this loss of culture, that will affect us the most. If we could only learn to accept and truly appreciate what we are and where we came from, everything would be perfect. Alas, change takes time, and with all of the modern-day surgeries available out there, who knows? Maybe everyone will soon become a bunch of fair-skinned blue-eyed blondes driving pink Volkswagon beetles straight into the middle of sayonara-land.