Binary Soul
by Guest Contributor John Jihoon Chang
I often feel as though I’m two men living one life. Many of my peers and contemporaries from an immigrant background have learned how to blend their twin heritages, their cultures passed down from their parents and their cultures locally acquired and somehow become a coherent whole. In my case, an Asian American or more specifically, a Corean American. I won’t say this is true for everyone or even most people, but many have navigated this tricky path or perhaps have chosen one culture to adhere closely to in neglect or abandonment of the other.
Growing up, I was one who had never nurtured the Corean in me, rather concentrating on the present reality that I faced as a young person growing up with almost entirely white American peers. There was little value in my Coreanness, especially as it served to distance me from the only society I’d known. It was an inescapable part of my identity, as my genes had mapped my Asian roots upon my face, but it provided little to no advantages in my daily life, rather often distancing me as a “stranger”, though the life I’d known was, outside of food, language and minor household traditions, largely the same as my peers. Nevertheless, the appearance of difference combined with the few elements that my household practiced always seemed to divide, even as each white American household, I found, had different sets of cuisine, traditions and even occasionally the use of language.
As such, I was an all-American type, as it proved the path of least resistance. My sister naively would label me as “whitewashed” or a “banana”, claiming my abandonment of my Corean heritage while she, all the same adopted the similarly American “AZN” identity, one of the Asian American subcultures defined by heavy adoption of urban mainstream American media tied together with that of a mainstream Asian media as well.
Such a moment left me defensive at the time, but to some extent, she was correct.
Back to that later.
After high school, I’d move on to college and discover my Asian American identity. I found myself socializing a lot more with other Asian Americans, built upon the shared experiences of being differentiated from mainstream white America and often (but not always) upon the shared upbringing by immigrant parents. It’s certainly a comfortable place, where those around you don’t expect you to be different and share the same racial angst as you. And it also created a space for a new part of me to grow: the Corean me.
As I came to more fully embrace the Corean in me, I found myself insatiably curious about my heritage, the differences that used to exclude me. I was drawn to the stories of my parents and the history that they had grown up with. Being authoritarians, they weren’t very forthcoming with stories of their own lives prior to their roles as parents and failing to have good relations with them, I turned to the artifacts of their culture; its history, its media and its present state. I found that it all came easily to me, the identity. It was never anything I struggled with, but rather, absorbed it as though it was always a part of me.
And that’s where my sister’s words came in. But, rather than suppressing or abandoning the Corean me, I had just simply ignored it. But it was always a part of me as my parents ingrained the culture deep into me by their own practice of it, even as I myself was rarely a participant. As my typical 20-something identity crisis occurred, this hungry soul within me gobbled up all which it had been deprived and continues to do so to this day.
At the same time, a new thing occurred. You see, my father lives in Corea and to see him, I often have to travel there to visit. The new thing that occurred to me was that I became comfortable there, although initially, I approached the place as any other non-Corean American, the more I drank from the wellspring of my heredity, I found myself more and more understanding of it, to the point of seeming innate. Now, when I walk the streets of Seoul or the gardens of my father’s home province, I feel a strange sense of belonging that I’d perhaps never felt in the United States, a country that accepted me by my birthright, but continues to struggle with me as a true constituent.
But the one thing that failed to happen, is for these two components of myself to synthesize into a whole. As such, I constantly feel like I’m trading my body between two different selves. These days, an American me primarily walks in my shoes. Though some do occasionally question my grasp of English before speaking with me, my tongue speaks the language with ease. I stand in its norms and while I still grapple to be accepted as a member, different from the mainstream as I might be, I’m at ease here, as this nation is the one I’d known the most of my life.
But the other part of me lives all the same. In fact, the Corean me is a very different me. My mindset is different when he comes out. The things that amuse and interest him are different. He’s more respectful, less sly. And I can’t seem to reconcile the two mes. Each feels more comfortable in their respective homes; I’ve become a man whose heart’s been divided by the sea.
I don’t feel whole in Corea. When I’m there, the Corean me lives and breathes and the American me lies dormant. Here, in America, the Corean me is a perpetual foreigner, misunderstood and unaccepted, unable to communicate with society. And so, the whole of me becomes a binary soul, either one or the other, divided but with a solitary presence.
I’m not certain what it will take to incorporate me. I often long for someone else who understands these two separate strands in me. For, while I am Asian American by definition, I’m not entirely comfortable with the moniker, for as much as one of me feels American, another feels Corean. I feel ownership of both, but being incapable of being both simultaneously.
Anyone else out there feel me? That in-betweenness, that binary soul that divides the presence from the present?
A mode-switch that turns you from one person to another, but never the twain meet?
Finding others unable to relate to you completely, since no one understands the other part of you?
I can’t be the only one who dreams in two languages, of two countries, with two hearts, two minds and two souls.
Identity is something that’s always shifting; we grow, we change, and if we look closely enough, we’ll always find something new about ourselves as well as parts of ourselves that have molted away. Have you incorporated? Do you live a binary life? What are your stories?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:
Yes, I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve felt a sense of belonging and comfort when visiting my family in India, yet at the same time I’m forcibly reminded that I’m not really Indian-Indian like my family when they make remarks that I’m loud and obnoxious like an American.
Painful.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 12:40 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
Great post… I like how you’re trying to be honest without also being judgmental.
There are at least three tidal forces shaping my own identity or “soul”. First of all, blood ties. Second, the way I was raised. Third, the way other people perceive me and expect (sometimes demand) me to identify. Shaping my own identity has been extremely difficult given the strength of those forces.
I feel a strong identification with Japan, my father’s country, but not really a strong connection to other Japanese nationals. I don’t see myself as Japanese, so in that sense I “incorporated” myself as American. I don’t feel split at all. But as a Japanese-descended person, I believe I have a claim to a kind of emotional birthright that I’m still exploring and defining.
I don’t enjoy using the word “Asian-American” because it implies I’m only half of each thing… so I dislike it for the exact opposite reason you do.
A friend of mine told me a great insight about these hyphenated names and how they were initially employed to fight against specific racisms. For example, by using “African-American” people emphasized a separate ancestry… although their connection to Africa was purposefully severed, they reclaimed it: “We are not just ‘Americans’, we are African-Americans.” On the other hand, by using “Asian-American” people fought against the perpetual foreigner stereotype. “We are not just ‘Asians’ we are Asian-Americans.”
As for the way I was raised, I have enough experience to know that I have very little in common with Japanese nationals. I don’t even have much in common with Japanese-Americans who were raised in established Japanese-American communities. I’d have a lot more in common with, say, a Chinese-American raised in Alabama.
I sort of fell into being an American. If I really wanted to, I could learn Japanese, move to Japan and live my life as a Japanese national. But it would be an extremely laborious and exhausting project. An American becoming Japanese is more difficult than a Japanese becoming American. I’d have to really want to do it with all my heart, and I just haven’t felt that pull.
Other people have totally different perspectives and motivations, and I can respect theirs as long as they respect mine.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶
Eric wrote:
Thank you for this article. As a Chinese-American born in the US, I can empathize with it on so many levels.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:28 pm ¶
RJG wrote:
I don’t mean to tangent, but is there something I’m missing with the “Corea” spelling? A quick google got an article about how Japan made people use a K because then Japan comes first when alphabetized but it just seems like there would be more to it than that.
Admittedly, I generally roll my eyes when I see woman as wymyn, but I’m wondering if Corea is an entirely situation than that one (so far it does seem to be different than the logic behind wymyn).
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:34 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:
Yes.
No, not for me. It doesn’t work if the language was not passed down. I cannot “pass” as a Chinese person among native Chinese. As soon as I open my mouth, they think of me as a whitewashed banana, and therefore stupid. (I can “pass” (against my will) as a foreigner to white people, so I get the worst of both worlds. I’m a foreigner to white people and a foreigner to native Chinese.)
However, I have the dual consciousness thing that comes from being a racial minority.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:37 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
My dad is a 2nd generation Chinese-American. His family came to Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1970 to run a grocery store and we are still there, running a Chinese buffet. He speaks English. He speaks Cantonese, but rarely to my sister and me. He does not read Chinese.
My mom is a 1st generation Chinese-American. She grew up in Guangzhou and was sent to work on the farms during the Cultural Revolution. She came to Greenville, Mississippi in the 1980s and since not long after that, has been working in the restaurant with my dad. She speaks Cantonese, Toisan wa, Mandarin, and English. She never taught me Mandarin growing up, though I did take a year of it in college and can understand it on a basic level.
I can understand Cantonese. When I was very young, before I started kindergarten, my grandparents and great-grandma were alive and took care of my sister and me while my parents worked at the restaurant. I still remember every night they came to my grandparents’ house to pick us up around 10:30. We didn’t have a normal bedtime like other kids, nor did we have allowances, grounding, or any of those other frivolous American things. When my grandparents passed away and we were a little older, we came home to the restaurant every day after school. Our regular customers always remember my sister and me studying in the corner. We read tons of books. I could read from the time I was 2 1/2 or 3; I was at County Market with my grandma and read “no beans” on the side of an Armour chili can. (Armour chili is still a Joe family favorite–though if it doesn’t have beans, it’s not chili.)
We studied hard because every day, in every part of our lives, we were reminded, firsthand, where we came from and that we had the chance to do something more with our lives than be chained to the restaurant. When I was younger, I felt a lot of jealousy and anger because all the other American kids had so much more “freedom” to play sports, to “hang out,” to live regular middle-class lives like the kids on “Home Improvement” (a hilarious 90s TV show). After many years, especially having graduated from college recently, I have begun to come to terms with how much suffering and sacrifice my parents really put into making sure my sister and I have a better future. I feel lucky to have parents like that, and I feel very proud to have a family business that is humble but honest. I have come to understand that haters gonna hate, and I feel fiercely defensive against anyone who wants to take advantage of my parents.
I still haven’t gotten over a lot of the isolation of never having grown up in an Asian community and not knowing much about the Chinese language(s), but I feel lucky to know what I do know, and more importantly, that the sense of family values that is so lacking in mainstream Southern culture, American culture, and even the culture of Asian-Americans who had the fortune to grow up in places where there is a sizable AA population, has been instilled in me. I can always pick up a Chinese book and learn. I can always visit a Chinatown and see what it’s like to live among my “own” people. Without those values of respecting and honoring family, I think I would be an empty-headed, self-hating Asian. That’s a lot worse than not being able to speak Chinese or not having any Asian friends.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:38 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:
I don’t know why I used the term “native Chinese”; it doesn’t make sense. I mean I am a foreigner to white people and a foreigner to Chinese people native to China.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:46 pm ¶
JC wrote:
Yup, same here. I’ve always thought of myself as having two sides – the American and the Chinese side. In Asia my Chinese side comes out, and has a good time, but just like you described, a part of me lays dormant. I find myself missing things like NRP and drive-thru lane.
I do feel more whole and at home in Asia though, and I’m hoping one day to be confident enough to live there for good; not for myself, but for the future generation. I don’t want them to grow up a mental hapa like me – looking to be long in a country that doesn’t really want you and dehumanize you in the media. The reason which drives my parents to immigration no longer holds true for my generation, and I’m not sure I want similar fate for my offspring. I didn’t like growing up in a white supremacist country which sees you as the perpetual foreigner, and I really don’t see that changing in this generation or the next. I don’t want my child to have to be an “Angry Asian (American) Man” or constant worry about dumb issue like “white privilege” (why should I educate the whites about something inherent to themselves?). So based on my experience in both places, I think I’d rather let my family be just Asians. They’ll make more real, lasing friends (my wife keeps in touch with her grade school pals), have more fun (there are safe, proper places to hang out at 2AM), enjoy closer family relationships, and eat much, much better food. Given the way the economy goes, probably higher standard level of living too. If they want to come a live among the Whites when they grow up, well it’s their call.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:50 pm ¶
John Jihoon Chang wrote:
@RJG – My reason for spelling it with a “C” is actually much more simple than any political reason: I just like how it looks better. Seeing that many other romance languages spell it with a “C” and the Republic of Corea itself accepts the “C” spelling as much as the “K” spelling (although official documents usually go with the “K” spelling due to Corea’s ties with the US), I just go with what looks more pleasing to my eye. As always in these things, your mileage may vary.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 2:52 pm ¶
Notebook wrote:
I know this may sound odd, but I don’t think I really have no modes to switch. Not in the sense that I know I have one mode but the complete opposite–I have absolutely no modes to switch to.
Let me try to explain–I was raised with siblings that constantly abused me, whether it was through words or other means. As a result I don’t have a good relationship with any of my other siblings. I was never raised with any particular culture–I suppose the closest it can come close to is “white,” but since I’m a black male, I don’t even fit into that. My other extended family members, for the most part, are nonexistent.
I’ve spent the latter part of my teen years trying to fit into the “white” culture, but that didn’t work. I was constantly teased by the majority of my black peers and even though most of my good friends turned out to be either white or Mexican, I still didn’t feel like I fit in. I didn’t have any “family” to fall back on aside from my Mom and stepdad, who meant well at times but were imperfect when it came to issues like this.
I tried finally getting into this one crowd at Church last year, and it worked for awhile, but when I found out that they were homophobic, I realized that they’d never accept the “true” me. [At the time I claimed I was bisexual, but now I rescinded that not because I was ashamed of it or anything, but rather I think I was confused about why I was wanting to be attracted to anyone, but that's a completely different topic I suppose].
Sometimes when I read comments like JC’s I get jealous because they have a “home” that they can go to, but I don’t. No matter where I’ll go, I’ll have no home culture and I’ll feel like I’m… I don’t know… transparent. Not that I’m blaming anyone for how I turned out or trying to insult anyone–it’s just frustrating that it seems like I have no other place to go besides to a culture that won’t even accept me because of the way I look. I’m either stuck trying to hopelessly improve a culture that doesn’t want to be improve or go to another culture that’ll probably reject me.
I don’t know, maybe I’m not looking hard enough, although I can probably give up on trying to find anything on my family since my biological father’s side is more or less nonexistent and my mother’s side rejects me.
I’ve been lurking around here for the longest time, hoping for the right opportunity to express my feelings on this particular topic. I hope I didn’t offend anyone, that wasn’t my intention.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
tck wrote:
What I read above spoke to me to the core of my being.
The daily choices between culture.
The inbetweeness.
The search for continuity rather than fragmented existence between divided worlds of American-ness and Asian-ness.
I just wanted to add short perspective here from those of us who could be considered ‘hidden immigrants’. As a white american who grew up overseas, I can REALLY identify with Chang’s dilemma: The binary Soul. (actually they usually call us the Third Culture Kids)
But my story is in reverse, and my story is hidden. if I don’t bring it up, this whole hidden immigrant identity will go unnoticed.
I have the privilege (and sometimes burden?) to let my immigrant past and my disconnect with America remain unoticed and just blend in, while I struggle to negotiate my place and my ownership of a country, city that feels like home, but everything about my white outward appearance screams at me that that is not the case. That I do not belong and I am a foreigner. And as a white person, am I even allowed to call it home?
These are all questions I deal with, while I have the longing to just belong, to have roots, tied to ONE place, unquestioned.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 3:40 pm ¶
atwork wrote:
As an adoptee I understand this feeling of being stuck between two worlds very well. White america and my asian heritage which I have been denied. I envy korean americans who, despite the identity issues they may face, still had the comfort of family and friends who looked like them and understood them.
I agree with JC’s perception of America and would like to share their sentiment of one day moving back to Asia. Although at this point Asia is just as foreign to me as I appear to be to most white americans.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 3:50 pm ¶
RJG wrote:
@John Jihoon Chang:
Thanks for the quick reply! This was the first time I came across the C usage, and didn’t realize that it was an acknowledged spelling of the word, let alone as prevalent/accepted as you mentioned.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 3:51 pm ¶
Aliza Hausman wrote:
I like to think that I am finally becoming comfortable with the feeling of being an outsider and an insider at the same time. And I didn’t reach that point until, on top of my Dominican identity and my American identity, I had added on my Jewish identity. Most of the writing I do is about negotiating these three different cultures that often have conflicting messages. Perhaps, I am not supposed to find a home in Israel, America or even the Dominican Republic. Perhaps, the home I have to find is within myself and that’s the home I have to embrace.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:03 pm ¶
jessabean wrote:
I feel you. I’m Korean-American, walking mostly in American shoes, just like you. Unlike you, I haven’t been back to Korea since I was 3, I don’t speak the language, I don’t know one whole half of my family.
The Korean me feels far, far away and I don’t quite know how to connect my two halves, other than to start learning the language and preparing myself to return to my other home, and meet my family.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:05 pm ¶
[dave] wrote:
@John Jihoon Chang: This was really powerful. The basics of the story are totally different for me, but it resonates on a deep level nonetheless. Thanks for writing it.
@ atlasien, Notebook, Elton, Restructure, DIMA, JC, tck: Thanks for your stories too.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:12 pm ¶
anna wrote:
I’ve struggled with this all my life. Born in Sri Lanka with family from India. I came to the U.S. when I was seven and we’ve never gone back. All I know is my American life that my parents struggle to understand. When asked where I’m from I say I’m Indian because that is my ethnicity. But all my life I’ve had to defend my claim to India since I was born in Sri Lanka. When in Sri Lanka I was an Indian Tamil who couldn’t speak my language too loud. When in America I’m an immigrant with no country to claim.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:18 pm ¶
Anca wrote:
This is not something that has to do with race. I`m a first generation European (Romanian) immigrant and I find myself in your post…
My (other European immigrant) friends have a saying: `we`re too Canadian to be Romanian, but too Canadian to be Romanian`…and what`s shocking is that this process occurred in a generation!
Mod Note – Actually, everything on this site deals with race. If it *also* speaks to your experience, that’s fine, but further comments discounting the racial aspects of the post will be deleted. – LDP
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:33 pm ¶
F. wrote:
#14 Aliza Hausman
“Perhaps, the home I have to find is within myself and that’s the home I have to embrace.”
I agree with your sentiment, absolutely.
I am Chinese American but the only language I know is English. The only culture I know is American. Sure, I could take Mandarin lessons. I could immerse myself in Chinese culture and history. But that’s not going to completely bury or replace my American-ness, either. That’s not going to change the identity I’ve developed the past decades I’ve had growing up American.
If I moved to China, the way I act, the way I dress, the way I speak will always give me away as a Chinese person who was raised outside of China. I won’t be able to completely connect to Chinese– even if they look like me, share my ethnic heritage– because I didn’t have the same experiences in America as they had in China. So whichever place I choose– America or China– I would never fit in completely.
And that’s not even including the fact that many Chinese would not accept me either.
The only way to find my place is to find it in myself.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:38 pm ¶
Anca wrote:
Typo:
*but too Romanian to be Canadian
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:39 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
Powerful essay John. I can really empathize with you, because even though I am not Asian-American and don’t have an immigrant background but as a black female who grew up in a mostly white town, I certainly feel like I have a dual identity too.
Notebook, thanks for sharing your story. Nothing offensive in it at all. It sounds like you have had a really isolating experience in childhood and early adulthood. I’m sorry you don’t seem to have anyone who you can really feel like yourself with. Virtual hugs! Stay strong my brother.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:53 pm ¶
Reiter wrote:
I can definitely relate to the feeling of being caught between worlds. I’m 2nd generation Chinese-American, born and raised in NYC, but my Chinese language skills are horrible and I have little connection to Hong Kong (where my parents are from; I’ve never been there myself). I also indentified more with white friends (with some POCs here and there) growing up while my brother went with the whole AZN-pride crowd, but that’s changed in recent years ever since I’ve joined the military and seen the world outside NYC a bit more (made more Asian friends, mostly hapa and Filipino but some Japanese as well).
Even now I still feel I don’t quite fit in (whether we’re talking Asian-American, white, even military which is dominated by white faces). Looking back, even with my first girlfriend (who was white), race was an issue of rebellion at first (even if her family accepted me with open arms, my family was on the fence with her) but I realize now that my race was more of a passing fad of hers more than anything really deep (she was the type to collect kitschy Asian knick-knacks and such).
Perpetually lost in translation is a feeling that’s hard to shake, it seems.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 7:44 pm ¶
Asada wrote:
hump, returning turtles. =D
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 8:04 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@ John Jihoon Chang
Fantastic post. Beautiful and very moving. My story is like yours but one generation removed: my father’s (first) generation were the ones who divested themselves of the original culture. As a result I don’t speak Arabic and know only fragments of Lebanese culture. Like you, I have reached behind me to reclaim the pieces that were set aside and lost. My family has mixed feelings about this. On one hand they are excited by the fact that I study Arabic and on the other they are threatened by the fact that I am essentially undoing the hard work of assimilating their whole generation undertook in order to be “American.” In a way their ambivalence comforts me because it tells me that they too feel like part of two worlds.
@ tck and Aliza Hausman
I definitely cosign the “inbetweenness” that comes from the process of negotiating being simultaneously “inside” and “outside.” As others have said I am extremely aware of the cultural “space” between me and folks who are from the Middle East. I have come to value the hybrid elements of my identity though and to see them as a source of strength. Arab/American (I use the slash, not the dash if I have a choice) is a unique identity and I like to think it gives me the opportunity to see things in the larger culture I couldn’t otherwise.
But yeah, it can be lonely.
When I was younger I was very angry about this. But I
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 9:51 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
oops. posted too soon.
last sentence should read:
But learning to accept this has been an important part of growing up for me.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 9:55 pm ¶
Dahee wrote:
Thank you for this wonderful post. I, too, am Korean-Canadian, and everything you wrote spoke to the very core of me. I feel exactly the same way, and I wish I could find an answer.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 10:01 pm ¶
Luis wrote:
@tck
I have a friend with a similar dilemma. She was born in America but moved to Japan as a toddler with her family. She’s grown up culturally Japanese, but, being white and blonde, seen as a foreigner. She’s in the States for college, she should be comfortable, and yet her close friends and boyfriend are Japanese and she’s back in Japan for some time in University there. Neither country will really let her feel at home.
I think the fact that Asian-Americans have been making inroads in the U.S. for so long means that there is some hard-won progress for belonging, but there is no parallel movement in Japan. Japan is just now examining it’s relationship to foreigners and immigration with whites, blacks, Chinese, Koreans, and even ethnic minorities like Japanese-Brazilians who have immigrated as Dekasegi for work. Things aren’t much different in Korea or China, I’m sure.
It’s interesting to look at different cases from different perspectives.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 10:23 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:
@Notebook:
Don’t worry, I feel you.
When I read Elton’s comment, including the statement, “Without those values of respecting and honoring family, I think I would be an empty-headed, self-hating Asian”, I am jealous and offended. Elton had the fortune to have a non-abusive and non-dysfunctional family, but not everybody has that. I wasn’t taught any “family values” except for lessons in abuse and dysfunction. I don’t see how things beyond my control make me empty-headed and a self-hating Asian. Then again, maybe it contributed to my early hatred of most things Chinese.
However, I do feel like I have a home, which is in multiracial areas of Toronto. I don’t fit in with a white group and I don’t fit in with a Chinese group, but I feel at home in a racially and ethnically mixed group. The more diverse, the better, because the less I stand out.
On the other hand, I always felt that I had “no culture”, because white people expect that I have a (foreign) culture since I’m not white, yet I repeatedly fail to meet those expectations. I’m constantly reminded about how I fail culturally when a white person insists that I know how to write their name in Chinese, or quizzes me about China, or tries to speak to me in Chinese.
I used to think that I was not allowed to identify as Chinese, because I didn’t have enough “cultural points”. However, once it really hit home that a person of a certain ethnic background does not have to act a certain way, that ethnicity is not inextricably linked to culture, I could finally own that identity.
Culturally, I’m influenced by friends and strangers of different races and ethnicities. Culture is fluid and dynamic, and not tied to ethnicity, so I don’t have an ethnic identity crisis from absorbing different cultures in multicultural Toronto (via individuals).
However, I still think that white people need to cut out that “white people have no culture” crap and the assumption that a person of colour has strong ties to their heritage culture. (John Jihoon Chang’s story may actually confirm this white narrative.) For some reason, I think of the song “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge, and wonder if white people think all families of colour are “that close”. Isn’t there a stereotype that people of colour are really tight with each other?
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:07 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:
P.S. – No hate to Elton, but I think his “family values” idea is very problematic.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:23 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:
This is a great post
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:19 am ¶
Fatemeh wrote:
Whoops! Got cut off.
This is a great post. As a biracial, bicultural American, I feel very similarly, but not quite the same: while feeling left out of mainstream America, I feel left out of mainstream Iranian identities, leaving me feeling left out of both halves of myself.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:22 am ¶
PureGracefulTree wrote:
Thank you, John. You have given words to something many of us feel and have difficulty articulating.
I identify as Asian-American more than Taiwanese-American, and I believe this is largely because my most defining experiences were of being a racial “other” more than being of a specific Asian country. I like what you said about how you found space for the Corean part of you to grow. Perhaps, one day, I can feel the same.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:40 am ¶
Elton wrote:
Restructure,
What I meant by self-hate is the CHOICE to reject one’s family values because one is delusional enough to think that attempted assimilation into the mainstream will make one’s life better. There are things beyond our control, like the circumstances of our upbringing, but when I see people who had almost the exact same lessons and benefits that I had in terms of family values but have chosen to reject them, I criticize them for the choices they have made, which to me epitomizes a forgetting of their roots, empty-headedness, and self-hate. I’m sorry I can’t go into further detail because I would be hinting at some painful family business.
Now, I’m not saying I’m Mr. Perfect, because I’ve gone through (continue to go through?) some self-hating Asian-American identity shit. Society puts us through that by marginalizing us. Nor am I talking about superficial stuff like whether one can speak one’s ancestral language or embraces one’s ancestral culture on a superficial level, because my born-and-bred-in-Arkansas ass would fail. What I really mean is that it drives me crazy when children who are raised to respect their parents on a deep cultural level decide that’s for sissies. If growing up in mainstream America means ditching your family values, then I guess I’m an immature loser.
To clarify, the point I’m trying to make is, look, I don’t really know Chinese, and I grew up in Arkansas, so maybe you can call me whitewashed. If I spoke fluent Cantonese and Mandarin and grew up in Chinatown and listened to Chinese pop songs and had tons of Chinese-American friends that I drank bubble tea with in my import car, would that make me more “authentic” or give me more pride in my culture? No, because those things are superficial. My parents work from morning to night every day in a rough part of a rough town, isolated, shuckin’ and jivin’ in that goddamn restaurant for unappreciative idiots, not for shits and giggles, but for the future of my sister and me. I constantly worry they’ll be killed in a robbery, as Chinese shopkeepers in our town have been in the not-too-distant past. I know assholes are always picking on them, trying to get something for nothing, always trying to take advantage of Chinese buffet owner/operators. I know that on a superficial level, I haven’t been gifted with the kind of wealth and privilege most of the people I went to college had.
But I do know that I have something far, far greater–family values such as loyalty and honor. I don’t always do the right thing. Sometimes I am selfish and lazy. But I try, in everything I do, to be a good son. I know that everything my parents do is for my benefit, and everything I do reflects on my family. I’m on my own now, but I try to get home as often as I can to help out. Work sucks, but if I’m not there, it sucks even harder for my mom and dad. So I try. I make an effort.
Some people haven’t been so fortunate to have a family business like the one that has given my life so much meaning–yes, hardship and suffering, but meaning nonetheless. I don’t know if I can judge them. Live and let live, I guess.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 3:34 am ¶
Bee wrote:
I think I have a mode-switch that other people invented.
In the journal I had been keeping two summers ago whilst travelling in Malaysia, Thailand and Bali, I wrote, “Maybe I am half-not-English, half-not-Malay.” This nugget of angst reminded me of a poem I had quite uncharacteristically written, more recently, about my grandmother Mak Eng and her house in Sibu. In the poem I had supposed my sister and I to be “neither this nor that,” using the image of “other people’s bare brown feet” as a marker of those other people’s authenticity, a kind of obvious and embodied belonging which we were denied. Ranciére writes that the “process of identification is first of all a process of spatialization. The paradox of identity is that you must travel to disclose it… Spatialization presents by its own virtue the identity of the concept to its flesh”. I can’t really remember a time before I was able to observe the peculiar shift that took place as I moved between Hemel Hempstead, a new town just outside the M25 where I went to school, and Sibu, a town on the Rejang river in Sarawak where my mum was born. That movement effected a regular transformation in my sister and I: from feeling often very English in Malaysia to feeling quite foreign in England. I was born in the UK, but when I am there people still ask me where I’m from. Here, I reply. Then they ask me awkwardly where I’m… you know… originally from. What’s my… erm… background? (Or, in other words, why is my skin brown?) When I’m in Sibu, people usually refer to me as orang puteh (white person) and wonder what I’m doing with all these Malay people who are, in fact, my close family. Once, some children approached my sister and I and proceeded to inform us that I was “seventy per cent Melayu, thirty percent orang puteh” whilst my sister, whose skin and hair are a shade fairer than mine, was just “twenty percent Melayu, eighty per cent orang puteh.” They had exposed us; my sister promptly burst into tears.
*
The paradoxical position of belonging to multiple places and, consequently, to no single place entirely, tends to be associated with an uncomfortable privilege. Edward Said – whose autobiography, it should be noted, is entitled ‘Out of Place’ – has said that his various identities and the multiple ‘worlds’ to which he belongs have afforded him “an odd, not to say grotesque, double perspective”. It is this ambivalent position, paradoxically incorporating the privilege of distance with the affliction of never wholly belonging, to which Hollinshead refers in his discussion of diasporic identities. He characterises these as an uncertain, even schizophrenic way of being, somewhere between the richness of a “transnational oversoul” (a term he borrows from Wilson and Dissanayake) and an awkward, off-balance “half-soul”. His argument that such identities are “invariably protean” suggests both insecurity and an automatic worldliness not available to more stable, unambiguously territorial identities which tend to lend themselves to essentialised notions of land and belonging. Others have noted the potential in ‘diasporics’ for the realisation of radical political alternatives, advocating the deconstruction of the parochialism associated with nationalism and other politicisations of identity which bind it to particular territories.
Would it be better, then, to resist that impulse towards an immediate and automatic localisation of identity? As Casey notes, ‘Where are you from?’ is the first thing we ask of a stranger. Instead, should we entertain that possibility of de-localisation contained in what Clifford calls the “intercultural identity question” of ‘where are you between?’
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:52 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
Interesting post.
However, I can never totally relate to these kind of stories.
I don’t think that people realize how much they actually had until later…but it shouldn’t have been so hard to realize it at that time.
I am often surprised at the people who grew up ashamed of being in a bilingual home. When I was younger, that was one of the things I desperately wanted. Most of the people around me had parents who were from overseas, and they spoke with them in a different language.
I also never got how moving overseas to be with people who look like you could solve anything.
There are certainly a lot of people in the US who will judge you by your looks, but does that mean you run away?
That’s what it seems like to me…running away.
Trying to catch the dream that in a country filled with people like you that you’ll be automatically accepted.
This narrative has been played over and over by blacks, Asians, hispanics, etc. And oftentimes the result is not total acceptance or anything close to it.
I guess what I want to say is that you need to work with what you’ve been given.
I’ve had so many people assume that I am foreign or that my parents are foreign that I can’t keep count.
But, I can’t run off to any foreign country and surround myself with people that share some bits of culture with me.
What I do is a lot of explaining.
Where ever I live I’m going to have to explain what I am, so, I might as well get used to it.
Even if the OP was to move to Korea permanently, he’ll still have to face questions of why he acts in this way or that, why he used this speech form, etc.
…the same way I don’t really understand mixed people who feel one race in one situation and one race in another situation.
It just seems like someone’s trying too hard to push themselves to be something they’re not..
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 9:04 am ¶
Restructure! wrote:
Elton,
I try to own up to my privileges and I recognize that I’ve inherited them. However, I personally reject filial piety, because it meant an authoritarian requirement of blind obedience, and that whether something was true depended on whether the person who said it was higher in the hierarchy. It’s also somewhat sexist.
I really don’t see the justification for it except for an appeal to tradition. I respect the elderly because old people tend to be physically weaker, but I hate the guilt trip of “you owe us everything, because we gave birth to you.” If you accept that, there is no end to what you have to sacrifice, and you would never be able to live life for yourself.
All this was also mixed together with physical displays of power, patriarchy of husband over wife, and abuse. Sorry, I don’t respect abusers, even if the abuser is my parent.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 10:31 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
little mixed girl, you seem to be a dismissive of the experiences of the author and other people who have the same feelings or echoes of the same feeling. If this wasn’t your experience or how you relate to your being always assumed to be foreign that is fine but it doesn’t seem very fair to be so casual with what other people feel intensley. Maybe it doesn’t bother you, I know there are plenty of things that bother me that don’t bother others and things I could care less about that drive others up the roof but when it is something someone feels deeply and affects their growth as a person and how they feel about who they are and their place in the world, it doesn’t seem right to dismiss how they feel even if you don’t understand it or relate personally. It can be hard to not feel wanted or accepted in your own land for many of us, and if you have had similar experiences and it doesn’t make you feel bad that is great for you but we haven’t all reached that place and may never reach it.
Also, though I agree that travel can make you appreciate your own country more, and seeing other people’s families and their culture or home life might make you appreciate your own more, but if you have been abused or alienated in some way and you find solace and more comfort changing your life, or your location for somewhere where you can feel comfortable in your own skin, I think it is wonderful. Though you are mixed and are making these comments, in a way what you say seems very tied up with what white privilege really is (not in your experience per se but the your attitude of being dismisive) of being automatically able to feel American and never have people question if you are “really” American and can always feel at home or at least welcome in most places in America with no doubt about your right to be there and a total lack of understanding of people who don’t feel the same way b/c they are part of a marginalized group in society and as though the people who feel that way are in some way making it up or over reacting. You seem to have the latter half of that notion without the automatic assumption of your “American-ness”
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:44 am ¶
Joseph wrote:
@littlemixedgirl
I’m not really sure where you are coming from with your post. I respect that you begin with “I can never relate to these kinds of stories”–everyone has a different experience and the one portrayed in this post doesn’t resonate for you: okay. But what I’m not clear about is why you went on to write the rest of your post if you couldn’t identify.
You may not have intended it but you sound really judgmental. Can you say more?
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:56 am ¶
Elton wrote:
Restructure,
At this point in my life, at least, I do try to embrace filial piety, not in a super strict sense, but in the sense that I try to help out my folks and care for them the way they’ve cared for me.
It is not about something being owed to someone–people who think that way know nothing about loyalty (or patriotism, for that matter). I realize that I came from a kind of family that is increasingly rare in today’s society and that it gives me a skewed perspective on reality. I don’t mean to be so judgmental about others, but…
Without my family, without the hard work and suffering and sacrifice my parents went through to get me a superior education and spoiled American lifestyle, I would not be where I am today. Maybe if I had shitty parents, I would feel differently. I did feel differently when I was a stupid kid and thought there was something wrong with parents who never had time for anything but work, who “made” me spend all my time in that stupid restaurant instead of being like the mainstream kids. But I would be deluding myself if I didn’t own up to the reality of my situation. Besides, I’m not the only kid in America who’s had to make certain sacrifices because his family has a business to run.
But it is not because I have a sense of owing my parents anything, despite all that they have given me, despite all the burdens I have put on them because of stupid selfish decisions I’ve made. It’s not so much about guilt that I think it’s important to keep your family values close to your heart, it’s that without that, at least for me, I wouldn’t have much of anything. I don’t have Asian “pride” in those superficial trappings like language and who I hang out with. Obviously, I would have a hard time fitting into either China or America. So the only people it makes sense for me to be loyal to is my family, not because I owe them anything, but because I think I would be without identity or self-worth otherwise.
Some people (not you specifically, Restructure) think it’s super fabulous to abandon their roots and everything that gave them meaning and existence just because the people they came from are marginalized or, at the very least, uncool. I think that’s hypocritical and self-destructive. Now, simply taking superficial steps to “reclaim” “your” culture is not going to fix everything, nor is it even the point. But if there is some emptiness in your life because of some sort of self-rejection or self-hate, then I think it would behoove you to get over yourself and fix your attitude first. Because in the end, it’s not about you, yet it is ultimately for your benefit. I don’t know.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:02 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
Pushing Hands is a great Ang Lee movie about issues of cross-cultural conflict and filial piety:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105652/
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:09 pm ¶
Desiree wrote:
This article resonated so much with me, as did the comments that followed.
@Aliza (#14) – What a beautifully eloquent way to put this.
As a Black/Latin woman growing up in the Midwest I have always struggled with siding with one race/culture over another. Unlike some other posters, I had a stable home life and ‘choosing’ felt like betraying one of my parents. However, like other posters, I never felt like I fully belonged anywhere other than with my parents. Extended family gatherings were awkward, as though I had come in to the middle of a conversation, not entirely sure what everyone was talking about.
I learned to speak Spanish because I love languages, I eat and cook the food because it pleases me, I listen to the music because it speaks to my soul.
However, I would be lying if I said it didn’t sting when my Colombian boyfriend told me he’d never marry me because I wasn’t Latin enough or when my Black boyfriend laughed at me for not knowing what an HBCU was.
My White boyfriend loves, respects, and honors me but again I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the impact our relationship would have on our children’s cultural upbringing.
Elton’s post (#33) resonated as well because even if you did all the ’stuff’ it’s still superficial. This idea of cultural authenticity is so dynamic – I have 100% Mexican cousins that speak no Spanish and don’t cook and listen to American pop music. I use language, food, and music as broad cultural identifiers because there’s so much that goes into it – but what ‘combination’ makes you authentic?
Aliza’s right – being comfortable in your own skin is pretty much all you can reach for, anything more is a bonus.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:12 pm ¶
Anca wrote:
No Latoya, this has absolutely nothing to do with race, but everything to do with culture.
Race and culture are completely different; and there are so many cultures within one race (e.g. White race—Romanian, English, French, Scottish, Polish, etc…). Each race is very varied culturally.
To imply that one race has one culture is completely backward. Just as it is to say that just because one is Asian one must follow Asian culture.
This article is about feeling like one doesn’t belong in a culture; and this is true regardless of race, it affects all immigrants.
I must say that I’m extremely dissapointed about Racialicious; I’ve been reading it for a very long time, and the message seems to be more and more “our way or the highway” (e.g. banning Cynthia is one example of this).
Don’t start banning people (or not posting their messages) just because you don’t agree with them, because you might just find yourself alone in the future.
Mod Note – And don’t start lecturing people on how to run their site when they ask you not to dismiss racial analysis on a site about race, or you may find yourself banned. Like you are now. – LDP
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:23 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
What helped me most in getting to that “comfortable in my skin” place was giving up on the idea of being a “whole” personality in the first place.
I decided fairly on that I was being held by society to an unreachable, unreasonable standard. Why internalize this standard? Why torment myself with it? Why not just give up… refuse to play by the rules?
I’m not ever going to reconcile all aspects of my identity. I’m always going to go through life with something missing. But by accepting incompleteness and imperfection, I can accept myself as not being valued any less (or more) than all other imperfect human beings.
Since I was raised with some Buddhist principles, and have become a Buddhist, I find the philosophy really helps with reconciling the issue of a split identity or soul. And it’s not so much a reconciliation, but a questioning of the entire dynamic of split versus whole.
By describing my own thought process, I don’t mean to deprecate the experience of anyone who takes a different approach, and wants to actively heal and move towards a whole personality. Having a goal of radical transformation and healing is great if your heart is really leading you in that direction. It’s just not my own path.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶
kristin wrote:
@ anca (although maybe this may be weird to do because you can’t really respond anymore…)
“this has absolutely nothing to do with race, but everything to do with culture.”
while i agree that to an extent this post deals with aspects of culture, specifically the duality that comes from the immigrant/immigrant children/children of immigrant experience, i feel that this is particularly underscored by the fact that in the u.s. the author would be racially identified as ‘asian/pacific islander/american’. this then further problematizes the earlier duality (of culture) that you seem to identify with, as the author himself talks about the experience of growing up in the u.s. but having a ‘foreign’ face. this speaks to the racial experience of asian/pacific islander/americans of being a ‘perpetual foreigner’, etc. this means that racially, identifying as anything not white, one is an outside in one’s own country – thus creating a further duality. i hope that helps on why this is both a racial and cultural issue!! because obviously they are quite different, just as much as race and ethnicity, and ethnicity and culture differ, but at the same time i feel like the author was able to work with all three. tight.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:04 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
Also, demanding on separation for race versus culture when people talk about their lived experiences is totally unrealistic.
Different ethnicities and cultures are racialized to a degree dependent on their placement in a racial hierarchy.
Growing up as a Japanese-American, I was a target of the same racial insults a Chinese-American would get. People even told me to go back to China.
On average, a Chinese-American has more in common with a Japanese-American than a Chinese national has with a Japanese national. And that common experience has a lot to do with their/our racialization.
Culture and race and ethnicity are separate only as theoretical constructs. When it comes to day-to-day living, they have plenty of messy overlaps.
The more a particular ethnicity is racialized, the more expectation there is by society to conform to certain stereotypical forms of identity. People don’t expect a Polish-American to speak Polish, but a Chinese-American is expected to speak Chinese; African-Americans and Native Americans are expected to have other non-linguistic ways of conforming to their racialized identities. And if they don’t happen to conform, they have to explain themselves to the satisfaction of their interrogators.
All of this makes it very difficult to carve out your own identity (which is, after all, the American ideal) as you grow up under the weight of so many pre-existing expectations… expectations that are frequently arbitrary and conflicting.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:48 pm ¶
JC wrote:
reading all these comments made me realized that having this dualistic mindset is pretty common among AA or even other American minorities. It’s feel like it’s a universally shared experience with ANY non-white growing up in this supremely racist country.
When I read comments like Notebooks about he being a black male as no where to “go back”, that really hit me pretty hard. I guess as an AA who speaks an Asian language, I have some choice on where go next, but many other minorities who suffers don’t have anywhere to go. Such is the tragic legacy of these United States.
I do want to add that I share the pain of neither here or there like the all of you. I’m more American in Taiwan and the perpetual foreigner in White America. I’m “damaged” enough that I can never be fully comfortable anywhere. Even while in Taiwan, watching my wife having get-togethers with her kindergarden, grade school, junior high, high school, college, even cram school pals, I realize that I can never be at home like her. When I talk to “local” guys I can emulate their accent, but I can never share stories about college entrance exams or military duty. It’s just like that I can emulate a perfect Western American accent but I can’t never share a with my white friends about Christmas or Thanksgiving. When I’m stuck the the smog of Asian cities I missed the cleaner pastures of American wilderness, yet when I’m surrounded by SUVs in an American freeway I miss the intimacy of Asian food stalls. I really don’t know what the answer will be for me, so I just try to enjoy everywhere equally, and use this binary or duality to my advantage. But like some of you, there’s just no place I can really call home.
This is probably why I write about my family more – it’s too late for me, but I have a say in what THEY will become – someone like me, or someone like their cousins in Taiwan? I don’t quite have the full answer yet, but I think I’m getting there.
@luis – I think your friend will be better off in Japan. Although there are issue with racism in Japan, if she identify with being a Japanese I think she will be happier in Japan. The racist world view no longer hold true for the younger gen and many foreign-looking people are very popular or emulated in Japan – like Yu Darvish (best pitcher in Japan), Thelma Aoyama, or Anna Tsuchiya. Once you’re part of the Uchi, you’re pretty well protected and respect in general.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 2:20 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
@atlasien cosign. Anca, you could take your argument to further extremes b/c not only is race is social construct, but to some degree you might also argue that ethnicity is a social construct as well. We all came from a common ancestor, and what your “ethnicity” is has more to do with where your relatively recent ancestors came from within the past several hundred to several thousand years, if you are fortunate enough to be able to go back that far. The Irish, Welsh, and Scots are all Celtic or Gaelic people, many of the French are also of Gaelic/Celtic descent, as are many Spaniards. There are also French who are of Germanic descent, and the English are generally of Germanic descent as well.* Now do you think all the descendents of Celts/Gaels or the descendents of Germanic tribes consider themselves to be the same ethnicity? In America where many people are even more recently mixed, and most people of European descent are called White, perhaps they would. But in Europe, do they all say we French/Spanish/Irish etc or Germans/English are all the same ethnicity? I think not. Why? Because their cultures have changed and evolved since their common ancestors split up and had many different influences since then, same thing with race.
The real point is that, as others have said, this piece definitely has a racial aspect because of the additional othering based on appearance and “racial” identity that externally labels someone who is Asian, or Latino, or Black. So yes, as an immigrant from Europe who came to the US at an early age, or the child of European immigrants you may feel othering and out of place in American society to some extent but no one is going to look at you and say, “you are Russian/Polish/Czeck/Serbian” or whatever your national origin is when you walk into a room. You will be read as white and given the benefit of the doubt as being a”real” American, unless you have a foreign accent and then it won’t happen until you open your mouth. You can easily pass and quietly slip into the larger American (read white) society and will have a much higher degree of acceptance. Or if people do know, they’ll say “Oh my great-grandfather was from Poland” and you will have another identifier to link you more with being “American” than someone whose family originally came from Japan, China, Korea or anywhere else in Asia, or wherever. Not to discount your feelings of isolation, but there is an added dynamic of race coupled with discrimination and it is your white privilege that allows you to overlook that so blithely.
Also as Latoya pointed out, this is a site on race, so why would you come here to discount the experiences or racial minorities, or take the universal aspects of what people have to say to mean that there is no racial tie in? Finally, you have many places where you can go and be in the chorus on dismissing racism or voices that mention racism or bring up race. As far as I can tell Racialicious is a forum to discuss race and if you are respectful, and willing to listen and to articulate views, even if they go against the majority of readers, you are fine, BUT when you regularly dismiss any racial aspect of what we discuss, or constantly make the same kinds of point, again and again and again, then you are in trouble. Latoya works hard to make this a safe space for people of color, women, people of a variety of sexual orientations and varying gender identities and all of their allies of whatever stripe to discuss race in a world and on an internet where these groups don’t have as many safe spaces to talk about these things without being written off as too sensitive or racist etc and to have their ideas respected. It is also about conversation not just throwing out what you want to say without any give and take or as a place to just make trollish comments or to stir up trouble.
*Note –I’m talking about what you “traditionally” consider as French, Spanish, etc not to say that recent immigrants are less French or English or whatever but I’m using those terms to discuss those who are descended from ancestors who have occupied those nations or geographical regions for the past several thousand years.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 3:20 pm ¶
Elton wrote:
Restructure,
You know, I think we are talking past each other. You are talking about resisting an abusive family situation and I am taking out some of my frustrations about my trying to be a good son and finding value in that while some people seem to want to reject anything related to their roots. Apples and oranges.
I don’t know anything about domestic dysfunction and don’t mean to judge your situation or imply that any of what I’m going on about applies to you.
I am just trying to work out my outlook on how to cope with not fitting into mainstream America because my parents are working-class immigrants and coming to the conclusion that instead of hating myself for coming from such a background, being proud of where I came from is the right thing to do.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 3:54 pm ¶
lunanoire wrote:
For readers who grew up as generation 1.5 or 2, what is the role of friends from the same generation and same ethnicity? Did that help you feel culturally understood, in terms of having to navigate 2 cultures? Were/are there still many differences among gen 1.5 or 2 so that created barriers to feeling understood? I understand how some view gen 1.5 or 2 as perpetual outsiders, both in the US and in the “country of ethnic origin” but where do you find people who see you as you see yourselves? Is it about creating community wherever you can find it?
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 6:17 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Lisa J
“You will be read as white and given the benefit of the doubt as being a”real” American, unless you have a foreign accent and then it won’t happen until you open your mouth. You can easily pass and quietly slip into the larger American (read white) society and will have a much higher degree of acceptance.”
You know I could have laid odds that this thread, in which people of many different ethnic and racial backgrounds found common ground in a lived experience of their “inbetweenness” would lead to reductive statements like these. It never, ever fails.
Look, I want to be clear that I do not cosign Anca–it is not cool to dictate what a thread is “really” about by dismissing race…on a website devoted to the discussion of race and culture.
But.
It is just as uncool to dismiss the THOUSANDS of other cultural cues that separate immigrants from the mainstream of America. This mythical “benefit of the doubt” you reference is just that. There is a well documented history of antipathy and violence directed toward immigrant populations that don’t break down along racial lines. These dynamics may not be visible to you–especially if you are completely focused on skin color to the exclusion of other dynamics–but that does not mean they aren’t there.
You are completely flattening a complex repertoire of gestures that make up the experience of immigrants ,–no matter where they are from–as they try to enter the mainstream. I can assure you that an immigrant who–for example– smells “foreign” because s/he eats a lot of beets and cabbage will not have the doors of mainstream America fall open for her/him because s/he has fair skin.
Yes, of course white skin is an advantage in this culture. But reducing the complicated process of assimilation down to only this broad racial component is ridiculously simplistic. And really, it is incredibly offensive to have ones experience dictated no matter who is doing it:What you have written above is just the flip side of what Anca wrote.
Not okay.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 9:11 pm ¶
Daniel wrote:
I”m not sure how you readers and commentators will take this but from my personal opinion, I take a more fatalistic route. I deal with the cards I’ve been given and make the best out of it. My background is more similar to Elton, I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, my parents are ethnic-Chinese from Vietnam (war refugees) own and operate a Chinese restaurant, had to deal with bastards time to time, etc. I had many aquantinces from similar situations, yet I can surely say that we all are unique individuals with many different opinions regarding everything, including topics concerning race and culture.
I don’t really know how to explain my opinions regarding this binary soul in a concise manner. I recognize that life is a journey, we all go through phases and periods of ups and downs, but in a sense, we (as in human beings in general) are constantly growing, learning and progressing in so many ways.
I’ll just say this. What help me the most with my self-discovery process was constant learning, interacting with many people and trying my best to view things as they are not what they appear to be. Accepting reality may be a better term. If people can get past the superficial layers along with moving forward with whatever that’s bothering them, it’s not really a binary soul many of us who relate have…rather it’s two facets of one person, multiple pieces of the whole puzzle. I understand what this article is saying but it’s just….well to simply put, towards the height of self discovery, using myself as an example…I am not just an Asian American, Asian, American, Chinese descendent, POC, Midwestern man, etc. I can confidently say I am I am.
Hope that didn’t confuse people too much but sorry if it did.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 2:13 am ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
@ Lisa J and Joseph.
I wasn’t intending for my post to come off as dismissive or mean.
I understand what he’s saying/going through, and I understand that others go through the same thing.
But I feel like people that have the most seem to feel like they have the least.
(family, a home, various support systems)
Why do so many people feel like life is black or white, this or that?
That’s the part that doesn’t sit well with me.
I felt like the post was more like “I have to be one or the other, but never both…never myself”.
I guess I didn’t express that well enough in my original post.
I’ll ride the last part of Joseph’s post about white immigrants to say that they also have their own immigrant experiences.
While people might not notice that my former co-worker was a recent immigrant when they first saw her, they could tell as soon as she opened her mouth.
She seemed to spend a lot more time with another co-worker who was also a recent immigrant and from asia.
It might be easier for the children of those immigrants to slip into white american society (like a few of my classmates), but it’s a different story for the parents that came from overseas.
There may be many areas where they benefit, but if they are from a non-English speaking country they also face discrimination and other challenges.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 9:49 am ¶
Adrienne wrote:
I can identify with a lot of John’s sentiments even though I am not bi-racial… as a bisexual/bigendered person I also feel that
“in-betweenness, that binary soul that divides the presence from the present.”
I’ve learned a lot about how to cope with my two-sided self from reading about the experiences of people with multiple racial backgrounds. We share that sense of never really belonging in either group, of having to switch back and forth between the two selves. American culture is so polarized that anyone who doesn’t fit into a neat category faces this struggle. I think movements that encourage people to embrace all sides of themselves and others can do a lot of work to support each other, even if one movement focuses on gender and another on race.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:03 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
@little Mixed Girl, I see where you are coming from. @Joseph, I did say the children of immigrants or people who came at a young age not the immigrants themselves, that’s one, 2 I KNOW quite a few white people who are the children of immigrants or who came at a very young age, it was not until they TOLD me their parents were from Russia, Italy, Poland, that I knew where they were from. They didn’t have different smells from the other white kids, they had the same accent and were treated the same way as all of the other white kids in our school to my view. I don’t appreciate being called simplistic and I didn’t say that internally you don’t feel like an other, I did say that you can hide, b/c you can. I can say you are being simplistic if you don’t think that as a white immigrant or recent you are not the recipient of different treatment than a person obviously of color, or someone who is say Chinese whose family has been here since the 19th century but who is constantly assumed to not be American and who is constantly asked “where are you from”. I also know immigrants who are from England and Ireland and most of what I hear is, how cool that is, and people wanting to talk to them and who say, I love your accent. Very different from the treatment someone has who is Asian and has an Asian accent. I’ve been in meetings lately with a very intelligent senior level member of our staff who is middle aged, is from Asia and has a strong accent. Everytime he opens his mouth lots of goofy smiles break out, and he is somewhat dismissed. Do you think if he had the same status and intelligence and spoke with a German accent he would get the same level of mocking to his FACE? Doubt it. You can say I am not cool but it is different in this country when you have white skin, always. Do all immigrants have it peaches and cream, no and that is not what I said, but being able to pass into white society, to be accepted, to be considered as dating material, to get a house, to get credit, even just to get basic respect is a hell of a lot easier for someone from Russia than someone from Africa, period dot in of story. And if you want to take my nuanced statements to say I am NOT COOL and to personally insult me, so be it. I am not cool and I’m ridicuolously simplistic. There feel better now?
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:37 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
Also, yes in the 19th and early 20th century there was lots of “ethnic” strife against recent immigrants when there was a large influx of people from Southern and Eastern Europe and the Irish, who were not read as white BUT once they were here for a short period of time they got to become white and join the club, as did there children. Today, any one who comes from Europe, is read as white, and for the most part unless they are in an all white enclave with few other racial minorities around to take the real heat, there is no where near the level of anti-immigrant sentiment heaped on them as was heaped on the Europeans who came earlier, or the scorn today heaped on people from Latin America, or Asia.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:45 am ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Lisa J
No, no, no… I do not mean that YOU are simplistic, I would never say that. I meant your argument was too simplistic. Same with “not cool”. I was not picking at you, just what you said.
And I do not argue with the idea that white skin brings obvious advantages–it would be silly to argue that it didn’t. But your original post came a little close to paraphrasing that old Eddie Murphy sketch where he dresses like a white guy and discovers that he never has to pay for anything and there are cocktail waitresses on city buses. (I can assure you that this is not true by the way…there is a buffet and it is totally self-serve. Kidding!)
Come on Lisa you obviously know enough about history to know that it isn’t as easy as all that. It takes generations to pass into whiteness and it isn’t always easy depending on where you are originally from. The violence and social exclusion that new Americans experience may be invisible to you but it is there, that is all I am saying.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 12:10 pm ¶
Restructure! wrote:
@Elton,
I agree that we’re talking apples and oranges, but I still don’t really “get” filial piety. My background is middle class, though.
Also, does anyone have the link to the thread where Cynthia was banned? Unfortunately, I missed that.
@lunanoire,
I’m 2nd gen, and I didn’t exactly hang out with 2nd gen people of the same ethnicity. I feel I have more in common with 2nd gen people of colour as a whole (such as, but not exclusive to, South Asian, Filipin@, Caribbean people) than with 1.5 gen people of the same ethnicity and race. I identify more with 2nd gen women of colour than 2nd gen men of colour. I identify more with 2nd gen white people than with 1.5 gen people of the same ethnicity and race.
I find people who see me like I see myself because I live in Toronto, Canada, and there are a lot of us in the same boat. Location, location, location. Luckily, I was born and grew up in a place with lots of others like me.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 7:32 pm ¶
twincitizen wrote:
@ Lisa J
“Today, any one who comes from Europe, is read as white…”
I don’t know that I entirely agree with this statement. Whiteness is an ever shifting thing. There are certain categories which have become somewhat racialized in this culture; categories like “Muslim”, or “refugee”. And if you belong to any of these categories, it doesn’t matter how white your skin is, your status as “White” is definitely not a given.
The Bosnian folks who showed up in my hometown a while back (pre 9/11) are from Europe. And they definitely have white skin. Doesn’t mean they’re treated as white (or even human in the worst of instances) by the rest of the community.
The Othering directed at this group of people — taking place at the intersection of xenophobia Islamophobia, class bias, and cross-cultural cluelessness — is pretty nasty. And it looks, sounds, and operates a hell of a lot like good old fashioned racism.
The treatment a (white-skinned) Bosnian student at the local high school receives is pretty much identical to the treatment a (brown-skinned) student who is the kid of Mexican migrant workers receives. And it is NOTHING like the treatment a French/English/German/ Swedish foreign exchange student receives.
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 12:11 am ¶
jaye wrote:
Sorry I’m kind of late to this…but um, what does 1.5 gen mean as opposed to 2nd gen?
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 9:24 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
@Joseph, I see where you are coming from. It wasn’t my intent to dismiss the immigrant experience of whites just to say how different it is and the greater ease of at least external fitting in and a greater opportunity to “pass” internal, psychological, and other difficulties aside. Also, I know it took time for Irish or Italians or whomever wasn’t of the right type of European extraction to be considered white but that has changed now and if you get off the plane today and you are of largely European descent or appear to be, you are automatically given white status today.
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 11:16 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
twincitizen, I didn’t see your comment until after I posted my last comment. Point taken. Isn’t it possible it is more a religious thing? If he looked exactly the same but wasn’t already known to be Muslim wouldn’t he be treated differently or say if he moved somewhere else and didn’t have an obvious affiliation with the Bosnian Muslim community or if it was large enough of a place, say a city, where everyone doesn’t know everyone else’s business would he still be treated differently from other white people? I don’t know. I agree whiteness can be sort of shifting or that it sort of has hierarchies to some extent.
I am sorry to hear though that those Bosnian Muslim folks are being treated so badly for their religion though and it is very unfair, especially since they are coming from such a troubled area originally. I hate to see anyone mistreated, including immigrants of whatever color or national origin.
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 11:25 am ¶
lunanoire wrote:
jaye, gen 1.5 refers to people who immigrated during their formative years, so part of their experience includes childhood/young adulthood in more than one place.
If the definition is incorrect, please give a more accurate one.
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 1:46 pm ¶
jaye wrote:
lunanoire: thanks!
Posted 21 Mar 2009 at 7:43 am ¶
nick wrote:
I hesitate to post here since I’m white and have never experienced anything approaching what has been mentioned here (although I have felt my share of disconnection and isolation).
But I will say this, I hope those who feel a sense of isolation, of not belonging to a specific group, find a sense of contentment in simply being themselves, whatever that may be.
Ultimately, you are more than your ethnic and cultural background. That is your starting point, not your end point.
And I believe there are places where people of all backgrounds and mixes can live and work together, as individual people rather than representatives of a greater group who’s beliefs and drives they may/may not agree with.
Just my thoughts.
Posted 21 Mar 2009 at 8:13 pm ¶