Registered: Nov 2001
Location:
Posts: 17

Growing up, I have had to deal with a lot of shame about my own race. Popular media made Asians out to be nothing but asexual cartoons -- nothing but computer geeks, foreign exchange students, and kung-fu masters who functioned as nothing more than props. Real life social dynamics also perpetuated this shame I had. Asians, unlike other minorities, tried their best to assimilate, thereby compromising their own heritage and culture. How many of you can speak your parents' native tongue? It all stems from this collective shame we have of our outsider status and our desparate desire to fit in with the American mainstream.

This shame drove me in the other direction. Growing up, I was always ashamed of the Asian cliques and desire to fit in with the mainstream. I was bad at math, and I wasn't very hard working. Everything about me made me feel awkward and uncomfortable around other Asian kids. What I didn't realize at the time was that I too was desparately trying to fit in and deny my Asianness (perhaps to a much greater degree than anyone else). I was all into the poet/artist/pretentious weirdo persona. In retrospect, I was trying desparately to prove that Asian could be hip, cool, sexy, and angsty. But I ended up compromising part of my identity because I was still pandering to the status quo. To this day, I am sometimes more harshly critical of other Asians, and also still occasionally ashamed. I realize this stems from my own insecurities.

My question is: Does anyone else feel intensely alienated from their own ethnicity? If so, how has this alienation manifested itself?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9187

Not I (says the middle class white kid). I imagine it is more a function of growing up outside of your culture that causes it.

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

To an extent.

I'm part maori - there are no full bloods left, so I live in an age where we are supposed to reaffiliate with our tribes and unify as a collective, as was traditional.

My problem is I don't think like a maori. I believe in individual ownership rather than collective ownership, and I have never been able to feel comfortable on maraes. (Maraes being where your tribe resides and practices thier cultural ways of life). This is largely due to being brought up by pakehas, and the maori in my family turned their back on their culture long ago (as most did, it was frowned on by the europeans when they took over - it is only recently that we have been 'allowed' to return to our roots)

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, my whakapapa (kind of family tree thing) is pretty strong. My ancestors were all kaumatua, (important people) - so I get a lot of letters from people asking me to be a spokesperson for them for this or that, or to represent maori in some cause.... But I can't, I feel like a fraud. I also get extra research funding, grants and scholarships because of my blood. Which makes me feel guilty.

Im not really to sure how it has manifested itself in me, apart from the occasional feeling of discomfort when around maori elders. But I made sure it wouldn't happen to my son - I sent him to kohanga reo and Kokiri - learning centres for maori. He has been brought up emersed in this, and hopefully wont feel as alienated as myself - nor be half as ignorant. He speaks maori fluently, I have a minimal understanding of it. I'm working on getting better though.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: the heart of an awl
Posts: 3692

Growing up, I have had to deal with a lot of shame about my own race. Popular media made White Trash out to be nothing but hayseed bufoons -- nothing but meth freaks, ignorant racists, and hard drinkers who functioned as nothing more than props. Real life social dynamics also perpetuated this shame I had. White Trash, unlike other minorities, never tried to do much of anything, let alone assimilate, thereby compromising their own heritage and culture. How many of you can skin a muskrat or swap an engine with nothing more than some rope and a few logs? It all stems from this collective shame we have of our outsider status and our apathetic notion of the American mainstream, what with all their book learnin' and all.

This shame drove me in the other direction. Growing up, I was always ashamed of the White Trash cliques and desire to fit in with the mainstream. I was bad at hunting and fishing, and I wasn't very lazy. Everything about me made me feel awkward and uncomfortable around other White Trash kids. What I didn't realize at the time was that I too was desparately trying to fit in and deny my Trashiness (perhaps to a much greater degree than anyone else). I was all into the science/computers/pretentious weirdo persona. In retrospect, I was trying desparately to prove that White Trash could be hip, cool, sexy, and successful. But I ended up compromising part of my identity because I was still pandering to the status quo. To this day, I am sometimes more harshly critical of other White Trash, and also still occasionally ashamed. I realize this stems from my own insecurities. You can take the boy out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the boy.

you can be alienated from the social group you're supposed to belong to, (or not), i don't think it has that much to do with ethnicity. if there's some heritage to cling to, you might feel obligated to belong to it. but it seems that nowadays there's not much of a sense of heritage or tradition, that's something that extends across ethnicities.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Posts: 17

That's beautiful. I think that parents have a duty to teach their children their ancestry. I think the dilemma is this shame and fear of this difference. Asian parents especially want their children to fit in and lead as conflict free as possible. They don't want their children to suffer the same discrimination and struggles that they went through. But I think this mentality has led to a sort of identity crisis for Asian Americans. What the hell are we? We're made up of many different nationalities. We have different histories in this country. Yet we are seen as one race. Additionally, we're not marginalized the same way that Black, Hispanics and Native Americans have been. We've been called "the model minority," meaning we assimilate and don't raise a fuss. It's all very complex and seldom discussed.

It's great that you give your child the opportunity to know where his ancestors come from and what experiences they had.

edit: this was a response to Muffy.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by WastedPotential
stuff

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Registered: May 2001
Location:
Posts: 2701

quote:

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Originally posted by gizmak
I was trying desparately to prove that Asian could be hip, cool, sexy,

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Registered: Nov 2001
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That's exactly what I'm talking about. The cultural emasculation of Asian men. I grew up feeling so impotent and sexually inadequate. So far, I've ONLY dated White women. It's not a conscious choice, but I know there is the element of trying to prove something to myself and society at large. It's part of assimilation under te guise of difiance.

But actually, more and more Asian men such as Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li are seen as sex symbols in the West. So we're making progress (if you want to call it that). I also know many women that find Asian men VERY attractive. We're on our way to becoming as fetishized as Asian women.

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Registered: May 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by gizmak
We're on our way to becoming as fetishized as Asian women.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Ok, maybe the people YOU hang around. Umm. . . I know you want me to get pissed off and call you a racist and stuff. But I know you're just trying to live out some misanthropic fantasy. You're probably a nice guy in real life. Maybe you're even *gasp* Asian.

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Registered: May 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by gizmak
Ok, maybe the people YOU hang around. Umm. . . I know you want me to get pissed off and call you a racist and stuff. But I know you're just trying to live out some misanthropic fantasy. You're probably a nice guy in real life. Maybe you're even *gasp* Asian.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: NZ
Posts: 877

/me shrugs

I though Gizmak was Deadpool in disguise at first.

And youre both wrong. Sexyness is a state of being, an attitude - you just have it. It has nothing to do with Race.

The marginalisation referred to might be true though. I couldn't really say - I haven't experienced it. Maori women are not marginalised for sexual reasons - we are just branded as being brawling thugs with tits

And this:

quote:

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Originally posted by gizmak
chasing hogs and monster trucks are valid cultural activities.

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Has to be the quote of the day.

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Registered: May 2001
Location:
Posts: 2701

quote:

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Originally posted by MuffyTheVampyreLayer
/me shrugs

I though Gizmak was Deadpool in disguise at first.

And youre both wrong. Sexyness is a state of being, an attitude - you just have it. It has nothing to do with Race.

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: That depends
Posts: 28

My dad's family is Mexican. My mom's is European. Growing up, I was either too white to be included amongst my hispanic peers or not white enough to be included with my white peers. So, very early on, I told everyone to piss off and created my own race. I am a plickfu. Because the entire system of racial classification is arbitrary in its origin, therefore void of any logical basis, I deem it invalid. I exist in a classification scheme far beyond that of geographic points-of-origin and physical characteristics.

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Registered: May 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by plickfu
My dad's family is Mexican. My mom's is European. Growing up, I was either too white to be included amongst my hispanic peers or not white enough to be included with my white peers. So, very early on, I told everyone to piss off and created my own race. I am a plickfu. Because the entire system of racial classification is arbitrary in its origin, therefore void of any logical basis, I deem it invalid. I exist in a classification scheme far beyond that of geographic points-of-origin and physical characteristics.

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Registered: Nov 2001
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But can you really fully reject the catagorizations that society imposes on you? I understand that you can rationally consider yourself to have transcended these definitions, but I believe it takes a lifetime to truly accomplish this. I totally agree that racial catagorizations are arbitrary, but they are deeply imbedded in our culture and our psyhes. Therefore, you can't simply stand up and say "I reject this." Just a thought.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: A New England
Posts: 9187

Straight to Hell
(The Clash)

If you can play on the fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise

There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell boys

Y'wanna join in a chorus
Of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa papa papa papa-san take me home
See me got photo photo
Photograph of you
Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Of you and Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice.

Straight to hell
Oh Papa-san
Please take me home
Oh Papa-san
Everybody they wanna go home
So Mamma-san says

You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves the purest rock man groove
and rat poison
The volatile Molatov says-

PSSST...
HEY CHICO WE GOT A MESSAGE FOR YA...
VAMOS VAMOS MUCHACHO
FROM ALPHABET CITY ALL THE WAY A TO Z, DEAD, HEAD

Go straight to hell

Can you really cough it up loud and strong
The immigrants
They wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land and there ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here

Go straight to hell boys

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: East Bay
Posts: 3404

wtf is my best frirnd doing posting in here? even i don't come in here.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Bangor, ME
Posts: 10333

To my great-grandmother and grandmother my siblings and I were their "half-breeds"

Wasn't a big deal with the family, got a little strange during family reunions. Hundreds of cousins, all mexican. Some of them were hot too

Up here in Maine, they didn't know what the hell I was. hehe

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 4501

Reminds me of one of my dad's old employees...she's black, and had four grandchildren who she called "The White Boys" because they were so lightskinned.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 7236

by Asian what do you mean? I ask because in the UK an asian is one from Pakistan/India and the Sub-continent, and I believ that in the US an asian is one from the likes of Japan/China etc.

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