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Post by jefe on Jun 8, 2010 11:54:36 GMT -5
^ a Shaolin monastery - perhaps to experience a new form of suffering?
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Post by jefe on Jun 8, 2010 11:52:37 GMT -5
Actually, I grew up a stone's throw from Andrews Air Force Base (home of Air Force one) and there were several kids from military families with Asian mothers in my school. But it seemed that all of those kids seemed to pass as "white" in school, even though I *knew* they were Eurasian. I think it was because they had western names, and their Asian mother was basically cutoff from the Asian communities, as they followed their husband.
My father felt that being ethnic Chinese in America incurred him all sorts of discrimination, and his parents were a hindrance to him. His Filipino-American friends liked to have parties and go dancing, have BBQ picnics and all sorts of social activities and he learned to have fun with them. So, for me, ethnic Chinese gatherings growing up were family affairs, but Filipino-American gatherings were my Father's friends. White gatherings were also my father's friends or co-workers. My caucasian mother was the one who was not from the local community, so we did not have gatherings that were family or friends from her side. That is why I always suggested in this forum that mothers may have more impact on what goes on INSIDE the house, but the father has more influence on the social contact and social positioning OUTSIDE the house. But in the case of Asian war brides, they were so much cutoff from their original communities, that their kids really could not get that exposure to their Asian side as much unless the family was reposted back to Asia. The Asian war bride mothers treated their kids as white, as *American* and that was how they saw themselves (from what I could tell).
Leading my father? - - - you see, I learned to understand and read and write Chinese better than my father. I worked in a Chinese restaurant and went to a Chinese church and travelled to Asia more than he did. I went back to his father's hometown in China before he did. I moved to HK. So, yes, it was me who took my father around to get back in touch with his roots. In fact, it is also me who is encouraging my *ninang* godmother to reconnect with her Filipino roots more too. I have been to the Philippines more than she has and I take her to Filipino places when I visit her -- and I am not even Filipino.
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Post by jefe on Jun 7, 2010 1:56:17 GMT -5
^ Gee, my experience was so totally different!
It's funny, but I think our parents treated us more as "Asian-American", comparing us to the *other* Asian kids in the community, not to the white ones. My mother shared with us very often about her upbringing in a mid-sized Alabama town, but perhaps due to the rejection of her pregnancy and marriage by her parents, she never thought of that culture as being one that represented my brother and me, nor one that we could participate in fully. Even when we visited Alabama as children, we played with the kids from another Eurasian family nearby - didn't mix with many of the white kids and definitely NONE of the black kids (which was not difficult due to segregated neighborhoods). However, my brother really gravitated to both American football and his southern roots in High School, and wanted deperately to attend the University of Alabama, the same place where Bear Bryant was coach. At that time, George Wallace was still governor, and my mother, who remembered vividly the time where we were small children during segregation, the time when non-whites were barred from attending the University of Alabama (you remember the scene from "Forrest Gump" when they allowed the first non-white to attend?), actively pushed my brother NOT to attend university in Alabama. He ended up going to university elsewhere in Maryland.
It is funny, my mother would tell me when I was in university that I was lucky - learned about Chinese culture YET knew as much about being white as her brother (REALLY? white people in small southern towns)? I felt as I watched both through window portals through the outside, never knowing what it was like to be inside.
My father never thought of us as "white" kids, At the same time, my father wanted to integrate more into the white community, teaching us that we were Chinese-American, yet promoting full participation in white culture. After his parents died, he consciously avoided the Asian-American communities, esp. ethnic Chinese ones, lest he be associated with them. He did meet up often with his Filipino-American friends, though. But after I learned Chinese, worked in a Chinese restaurant, attended a Chinese church, travelled to HK and Taiwan, etc. my father sort of "revisited" his Chinese heritage in late middle-age. When I got involved in Filipino cultural groups and learned some Tagalog, he was ecstatic. But it was I who led him, not the other way around.
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Post by jefe on Jun 3, 2010 23:17:45 GMT -5
I used to bitch about high school here. Now, you'll hear me complain about uni! s***, how time flies.
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Post by jefe on Jun 3, 2010 23:16:12 GMT -5
^ This kind of thing could happen to me in NY, but not so much in other places. The place needs to be diverse enough in the first place.
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Post by jefe on Jun 3, 2010 23:13:17 GMT -5
^ There are Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, etc. And once you get to be a certain age (and your social contacts are more self-directed rather than directed by your parents), you can voluntarily do (or not do) all the switching you choose.
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Post by jefe on Jun 3, 2010 23:11:01 GMT -5
I guess it is because you said "You can ignore your racial heritage, try to ride that line,", I didn't realize that they were 2 separate options, so I assumed that you would try to identify with neither. I did not understand that there was another choice, trying to identify with both.
I don't think it is a superior choice. But for me, identifying with one or the other is routinely denied to me. Ignoring racial heritage is only available in places where others are doing the same.
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Post by jefe on May 31, 2010 1:47:38 GMT -5
and I do worry that Asians will just view me as white. That of course denies my whole reality and experiences. Yes, but by avoiding contact, and by focussing all your contact on the group that you are familiar with (ie, white people), you are reinforcing the denial of that very reality and experience - in some ways even passively denying it yourself. It might seem overstepping to give any advice to someone in their 40s, but you really have got to find it in yourself to stop worrying about this. (I would try to give advice to someone half that age, but someone that age would simply not listen anyhow.). 1. Accept the fact that some Asians may simply view you as white. That is what Asians do to many Eurasians (even those who are very *Asian* in other ways), and it is just an initial impression (that might remain *fixed*, but who cares). View it like someone viewing you as beautiful or fat -- an individual viewpoint. 2. Realize that some Asians will view even *full* Asians raised in an Asian family as *white* or at least western, reflecting their interpretation of their behavior, values, and awareness. 3. Proactively go after any and all things you want to learn about or experience. Do not let some petty worrying stop you from doing things you want to do. Try something new - something I recommend to people of all ages. 4. Acknowledge that you have responsibility to expand others' awareness as well. That particular Asian that you are worrying about may simply not know any better. After knowing you, think how much you will open up THEIR eyes. Is this possible in your current geographic area? I knew that I had to leave the community of my childhood at a very young age -- I decided at age 16 to go to Boston for university just to get exposed to things that my parents had been denying me.
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Post by jefe on May 28, 2010 22:25:54 GMT -5
^ So, you mean it is more a cutural and social identity that links you up with other people, and for this reason you tended to gravitate to these people, and it "just so happens" that the majority of them are Caucasian.
I still wonder why I had such a different experience. I was born and raised in the USA, lived in (or attended schools with) majority black, Latino and white neighborhoods at different times. In fact, I have vivid memories of having my school district re-organized so that suddenly I was going to a *slight* majority black school (my parents decided to MOVE as they knew it would be overwhelming majority in a couple years), then moving into an all-white neighborhood as a child, and being terrorized as the *non-white* family infiltrating the neighborhood.
And growing up, I did not make many friends. So, I cannot say that I gravitated toward any racial group.
But it is interesting to note that, once I had some more control over my exposure to social circles (around age 16), my circle became increasingly Asian - to be the majority by the time I was age 18-19. And by the time I was age 21-22, the majority of them also tended to be NON-native English speakers, ie, immigrants / foreign students who did not speak English most of the time. I spent most of my non-family time in the USA with people who lived outside the mainstream and who did not speak English most of the time, if at all.
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Post by jefe on May 28, 2010 22:05:09 GMT -5
^ So, you think it is impossible to identify with both sides simultaneously?
I found myself unwilling to ignore my racial heritage, but also impossible to identify with only one side.
But I admit that socially speaking, I am about 80-90% skewed. But that is only one aspect of identity.
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Post by jefe on May 28, 2010 3:13:27 GMT -5
Go scuba diving every week, . . .
Otherwise, gym, and occasionally swimming, hiking, snorkelling, none of them competitively. I am at the stage of my life to delay aging to keep fit enough until old age.
I used to do volleyball, but my knees / ankles cannot take it anymore.
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Post by jefe on May 25, 2010 6:28:13 GMT -5
^ I have had people debating my ethnicity / looks right in front of me a lot too. I have thousands of such conversations that I have had to endure.
but you cannot always walk out - indeed, if so, I would have to walk out of class, out of interviews, out of my workplace, out of having a drink with my friends, out of a boat into a raging river, out of an elevator . . . . . .
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Post by jefe on May 25, 2010 6:15:20 GMT -5
It is not easy for me to relate to Eurasians -- they all have very different experiences.
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Post by jefe on May 25, 2010 6:13:39 GMT -5
^ At least EAN was salvation for someone!
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Post by jefe on May 25, 2010 6:10:10 GMT -5
^ Sorry, but I don't see how their show was militant. Raising awareness does not require militancy.
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