Tags: assimilation | immigration | race

Any chance you had an aunt or friend living abroad? What is your impression of their lifestyle over there?

In this issue of Think, we take a look at our fellow Asians living in Western countries, starting with Ashwin Singh, a Singaporean who had been living in Australia during his study at Queensland University of Technology four years ago. He shared that in the beginning, his curiosity in a foreign land and its culture intrigued him for he was new to it all. However, he soon grew accustomed to life down under and often hangs out with fellow Asians there to study or live.

His interactions with fellow Asians born in Australia often left him with a less than favourable impression, "They tend to be more traditional and conventional than those living in Asia." He cites examples of friends being overly critical of things such as lifestyle and even food! He sometimes find they are also hardworking and do not chill out as often as he thinks they should."

Like Ashwin who is born in Singapore but spent four years of his life in Australia and the other three working in England, Asians originating from their home countries have parallel views about their counterparts living in the West. Those in their twenties, often find older Asians to be traditional, preferring to keep the culture alive whilst abroad.

Ashwin's observations extend to parents of his friends living in Australia who often exercise their need to remind the young ones of their cultures practiced back home. The generation divide certainly explains the cultural exodus amongst Asian youths, who unlike their parents cannot relate, for they grew up in a different country as compared to their parents.

You might have remembered the movie, Bend It Like Beckham which highlighted an Indian family living in the UK preserving their cultural norms by seemingly forcing their young to heed by it. Despite the cultural constraints, the movie managed to share a humourous and often very human side to Asians and their vision of a better life out of their home countries.

However, it is common that when you seek a better life, it does not mean a cultural exodus completely. Hence, experiences such as Ashwin's are common and predictable. Crass generalisations you may say? Certainly, generational divides are not uncommon even in Asia. So why would such a topic even arise in this issue of Think?

We believe such a question is valid still, because cross-culturalism sets itself wide open in a global context. Instead of bringing depth into an already existing idea (cross-culturalism), we think it necessary to pry open an old idea and seek out its initial beginnings.

Asian or Asian American?

When talking about Asians outside of Asia, the dominant global English language media tends to report predominantly on Asians living in North America... One anonymous blogger pointed out that Asians like him living in Russia for example, see the Asians in America get more 'airtime' simply because they're the popular kids in "school".

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S., increasing at rates eight times as fast as the general population. Yet when people think of an oppressed minority there, they are least likely to think of Asians as suffering. This is because of the Model Minority myth; that Asians are hard working and compliant, less likely to complain and resist racism, and more likely to be successful in education and business.

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Asian American Diversity: UCSB Department of Asian American Studies Faculty, photo was taken during the Faculty Retreat during the Summer of 2006. From left to right are John Park, Diane Fujino, Erin Ninh, Xiaojian Zhao (Chair, 2005), Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and James Lee.

But just who are the Asians in America?

I have been studying this issue for the past couple of months via the Internet, interacting with Asian American (AA) forums, both friendly and hostile. I went there to learn about how the Asian community views Asia, and in the process learned a lot about the Asian experience in the west. So I will share some of those discoveries, first by laying out some of the issues that define the Asian American experience, and while I am referring to Asians in North America, many of their experiences have been similar in Europe and Australia (i.e.; "The West").

To start, Asians in the west come from all of Asia; yet to the average westerner, they are all viewed as one homogeneous grouping. Japanese are confused with Chinese, Koreans with Vietnamese, even Singapore is thought by many westerners to be located in China! Studies have found that most non-Asian Americans can't differentiate between Asian Americans.

This is partially because, during the civil rights movement of the turbulent 1960s, activists sought to unite the disparate cultures of Asia into a political voting block, and introduced the term "Asian American" as an alternative to the term Oriental, a term that is considered insulting, emasculating and colonialist.

In the process, many AA rights activists believe that the diversity to be found in Asian cultures has been lost in the eyes of non-Asians. One forum poster at Modelminority.com complained that while African-Americans have the shared slavery experience to unite them, and Hispanics have a single language, he asked what unifies Asians... the use of chopsticks?

There is also the myth of perpetual foreigner in the west; many bloggers and writers have complained of being asked where they were from, when in fact, they're native born, often third generation. Many Chinese families have been there since they came to work building the transcontinental railroads, an accomplishment that they have been denied due credit for in most media representations.

At it's extreme, you end up with a situation like the tragic Virginia Tech shooting, when many Asian Americans felt they were expected to apologise in some way for the behaviour of another Asian, something Caucasian Americans never have to collectively do when one engages in mass violence. This perception that Asians are always to be considered "foreign" is something that many AA activist are striving to break; the barrier known as Mainstream America.

From the early 1800s the racist Chinese Exclusion Act was designed to prevent immigrants from Asia from establishing permanent roots. Asian women were not allowed to immigrate, and Asians were not allowed to own land or intermarry with other races. Successor laws, such as the 1924 Immigration Act, effectively excluded "undesirable" immigrants, which included Asians. So the amount of seventh to fifth generation Asian families is minimal.

The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 repealed the "free white persons" restriction of the Naturalization Act of 1790, and immigration increased, but there were still rigid quotas. It wasn't until the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 that Asian American demographics changed rapidly. So upwards of 80% of Asian Americans today are first or second generation Americans.

But this sense of "otherness" is not solely due to recent immigration trends. There is a subtle form of racism and discrimination in the western media when it comes to Asians, especially Asian males, who are either portrayed as emasculated nerdy geeks, or villainous kung fu gangsters. While these character-types are commonly found in HK, Taiwanese and Singaporean media, in the west they have provided major obstacles to breaking through the "bamboo ceiling" in culture and business.

Furthering this sense of otherness is a lack of knowledge about Asian American history, both amongst Asians and non-Asians alike. For example, while there is an African-American History month (February), there is only an Asian American Heritage month (May), which in itself implies that there is no history to be found. But the truth is very different.

Japanese Americans have the highest rates of native-born citizenship, and assimilation into American values and customs, and yet suffered during WWII when they were interned in camps based solely on their ancestry. They have since fallen from the largest Asian ethnic group to sixth largest, as the immigration has slowed and birth rates are low. Chinese and Filipinos still predominate, yet Indian Americans are quickly catching up, following up on the Vietnam War era immigrations to the US from SE Asia by Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and Thais.

			Asian Americans in business report a glass or "bamboo ceiling" where they cannot aspire to higher positions of management. They have been accused of various things, including being too aggressive, having poor communications skills, and suffering from a megalomania that they can do anything.

So with the long and varied history of immigration from all parts of Asia over many generations, how do the native born and FOBS (fresh off the boat immigrants) view the countries of their ethnic origin?

These views are as varying as the cultures themselves. FOBs, or first generation AAs, still have a memory connection to their home country, and bring with them their culture and preferences plus a first hand knowledge of what life was like 'over there'.

Many of them seek to "cast off" this old sense of self in order to increase their chances of cultural assimilation, yet they can only go so far as society accepts them, including acceptance by American-born Asians.

Ethnic identity amongst second generation AAs is very much tied to the process of assimilation. As the offspring of immigrants, the second-generation person is born immersed in the culture, values, beliefs and behaviours of the "host" country.

Depending on their parent's desires, they may choose to retain their traditional familial ways growing up within mainstream America, or they might just blend in completely, with a disregard of traditional expressions of Asian culture entirely in favour of complete socioeconomic assimilation, to participate as full members of American society.

There is a lot of disparagement directed by the former towards the latter, who call those who assimilate completely into mainstream culture, even intermarrying, as "honourary whites" and "white-washed" while the latter accuse the former of casting themselves as "forever foreigners" and perpetuating stereotypes.

This argument by the latter was explained to me brilliantly by one Canadian Asian:

"Asian culture does not exist. I don't know of any such thing. People from Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and China have markedly different cultural values, and people from different regions or different social groups within those countries also have markedly different cultural values. As for me, I don't belong to any of those groups. I love burgers and pizza. I watch NFL football on TV. I only speak English. I drive a Mercury. My dog is a family pet, not a snack. I laugh at water, er... American beer. And when someone asks whether I'm Chinese or Japanese, I tell him I'm neither. I'm a Canadian. End of story."

Third generation AAs often find themselves longing for the cultural affiliation of their "home country", and are more likely to be active in seeking out knowledge of "who they are." For many third generation AAs, their parent's assimilation doesn't necessarily lead to a diminished sense of ethnic distinctiveness, but instead may give rise to a heightened sense of "otherness" (i.e.; non-whiteness) and the adoption of a pan-Asian identity that actually rejects the host countries' culture in favour of ethnic identification.

In the UK, this is often the group of South Asians targeted by Islamic extremists for recruitment purposes, but in the US, it expresses itself by an immersion in a pan-Asian cultural experience that usually escapes first generation immigrants who tend to identify only with their nation of origin.

It is within the framework of the second and third generation that I came to see their views about the Asia outside their borders. Immersed in North American corporate media, most of what they read and see on TV comes from within; few of those who answered my informal survey claimed to be fluent in another language aside from English. But their reaction is more relevant. They have a great sense of pride in the rise of China and India for example, yet you will find many derogatory statements in forum postings about those same countries and what goes on there.

There are many forums popular with the Asian American community; the ones I visited with frequently were www.modelminority.com, www.8asians.com, www.aznforum.com, www.forumosa.com, www.ukasian.co.uk and www.yellowworld.org. Of all the forums, I spent the most time at the more controversial ones, Modelminority.com, which prides itself on being the most militant.

I'm not sure what that says about me, but it did give me an insight into the perspectives of the more radical expressions of AA culture, as the moderator pretty much lets anything go. Just be warned that if you grew up in "racial harmony" Singapore, most of what you'll read there will blow your mind, and would get you arrested if you were to engage in it here.

I found from these forums, that many Asian American native-born actually do travel to Asia, especially China, Japan and Vietnam. I won't go into too much detail, except that while most loved the experience, many were disappointed that they were still treated as "inferior" due to the language barrier. One guy posted, "I don't know how it is with Chinese people, but Japanese people are notorious for "complimenting" whites on participating in anything that's "Japanese" (the language, Japanese customs etc.), no matter how poorly they do it."

To which another replied, "Chinese people do the same if they know you're a foreigner, whereas if you're of Asian ethnicity and don't speak Chinese, they think you're just dumb and treat you as an inferior."

This language barrier could be why Asian Americans, (the most likely of minority groups to travel by air in the US), are the least likely to travel to Asia, preferring to avoid the cultural homelands, (a trend Asian travel bureaus are busy trying to change this year with massive advertising and PR campaigns in the west targeting the Asian expatriate communities).

In the various forums, there is a lot of talk of Asiaphiles (non-Asians who have a fetish for all things Asian, especially Asian women) and White Privilege (a sociological construct describing the advantages enjoyed by white persons beyond what is commonly experienced by the non-white people in those same social spaces), and frequent polling of which Asian nation is the most "white-worshipping". On one poll I pointed out that they left out Malaysia and Indonesia, and one poster replied "We're not talking about Indians, jerk." To which another poster politely corrected him.

On this issue of geography, we've all heard of the famous study that found 28% of Americans couldn't even find America on a world map. So it is understandable if this lack of geographical knowledge is evident in the Asian American communities. Responding on Modelminority.com with a correction to one poster that "snake head" was NOT a term invented by "YT" (say it three times quickly), but was from the Chinese 'rén shé', he tersely wrote, "And which Chinese do you speak? None of the Chinese forum posters present adhere to that terminology, me included."

I then pointed out that it's Cantonese slang, and he replied, "So it's a Cantonese slang, not a Chinese slang. Get it right white boy," the distinction lost on him.

The issue of "White Worshipping" raises the most noise when it comes to the issue of WM/AF, that is, white males intermarrying with Asian females. Social scientists have found that Asian American women are, in fact, almost twice as likely to out marry than Asian American men are. For this they get labelled SOW (sell-out whores) and a host of other foul names I won't print here.

One poster wrote to me "The view that Asian women should only date Asian men, has nothing to do with controlling how Asian women date. It's about social dynamics that are set up, in that if an Asian woman dates a white man, they cannot, in any way claim to state they support Asian men. It's impossible. The reason being in that white men have set up a system where Asian men are viewed as romantically inferior. Thus, if Asian women date white men in droves, it serves to prove their point. Therefore, Asian women are willingly or unwittingly assisting in the emasculation of Asian men."

Yet amongst many of the forums, it is a point of great pride when an Asian male dates or marries a white female, or appears in a movie role as the romantic lead with a non-Asian woman. In reality, AA men are rapidly approaching parity with AA females, so this issue might soon be moot. But in the meantime, it is a subject of much derision and contention.

So there you have it, a brief look at the Asian American experience. We found Asians abroad on the whole to be proud of their cultural heritage, yet many sometimes distance themselves and look down upon anything Asian, and this has mostly to do with the mainstream media's reporting on Asia (bubble gum Singapore, toxic food and toys China, Communist Vietnam, islamo-terror Indonesia, etc.) in an Anglo dominated culture.

In hours of discussion with strangers on the net and friend in the states, I've found most AA's have felt alienation and confusion over their cultural identities. There are many different coping strategies, from the positive to the violent. The question remains if the day the hyphenation and alienation can be stopped will have to wait until the question "where are you from?" becomes extinct.

As my good friend Wendy Chan put it, "we're little, yellow, different," (a play on the famous American Advil medicine advert). American society (including its Asian members) haven't quite figured out yet how to accept and celebrate its minorities without the emotional racist baggage, but there's always hope with the next generations.