Angelica's A-POP Blog

Asian Americans in the Twenty-First Century: Oral Histories of First- to Fourth-Generation Americans From China, Japan, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos

Introduction

• P. 1
  • Gold Mountain, or Gum San–that’s…San Francisco Harbor in 1848.
    • I never put that much thought into why so many Asian immigrants came to the west coast. I guess now I have an explanation
• P. 2
  • In his eyes, Asian Americans identity is far less a determining factor in his life than that of being a gay man.
    • For some people, knowing who you are on the inside is way more important than what is being shown to everyone else on the outside.
• P. 3
  • Both Karl Ludwig and Kristin Houghton were…from China and elsewhere in Asia.
    • This reminds me of a story about a father that adopted a Korean baby that we believed to be Chinese. He raised him to be Chinese American until one day he found the adoption records that stated his birth parents last names.
• P. 4
  • “My sister was pushed out of her seat on…so they would say ‘but I’m Chinese.’
    • A remake of Rosa Parks, but still a tragedy.

1. Living in America
   1. Circle of Life
      1. Asian Americans as a Movement
         1. P. 14
            1. I think race is always going to be an issue.
               1. I’ll have to agree on this one. I think that regardless of how much time passes, there will always be a problem, a war, a fight, or a disaster that will turn others against them. Sometimes a blanket of blame is easier for others to swallow, and the rest will just have to wait and see if they choke.
      2. From Toi Shan to the Olympic Peninsula Gateway
         1. P. 19
            1. I was a grunt, a private. The lowest is private.
               1. My father tried to join the Navy when he was in his late teens. He scored a 93 on the ASVAB but was rejected because they thought that he cheated. He took the test again and scored a 97 that time. Finally, he was guarded by two soldiers and the station general while he took the test a third time. He got a 99. At the time, my father only had a green card, so even though he had a high enough ranking to be a Captain, they only offered him the position of Seaman (lowest). My father refused and now he’s a diesel mechanic.
      3. The Promise of America
         1. P. 28
            1. At times you could sense you were different…thinking, The Chinese man, or something.
               1. Growing up I’ve gotten used to the number of stares that I would get from strangers. I was never taught Spanish or any history about Mexico or Cuba, and therefore have little to no connection to my roots other than my skin, eyes, and hair. For me, the most frustrating to watch is whenever I have walked into a Mexican store, restaurant, or community and get stared at for speaking English. They stare at me like I’m an alien in someone’s skin.
   2. Settling In
      1. It’s About More Than Hitting the Books
         1. P. 33 – 34
            1. Before that nobody called me, but…they think, Oh this is a girl.
               1. I can relate to this statement so much. I don’t like wearing that much make up. Mostly because I forget that I’m wearing it and touch my face, it wears down over time, and I like to just get dressed and go instead of spending five to ten minutes putting it on. During my senior year of high school and freshman year of college, I started to wear make up more. Actually, taking the time to do my face, eyes, nose, and not just lipstick. I had been wanting a boyfriend for years and finally, once I put all that stuff on, someone finally noticed me. And while the first one didn’t last, the next did and once we officially started dating, I stopped wearing makeup again and he preferred me that way.
      2. No Dating, Just Get Married
         1. P. 38
            1. Most of the introductions were done…looked at and to be picked by him.
               1. I was lucky enough to only share part of this experience. My uncle in Mexico is a very rich man and is traditional when it comes to marriage, dating, and making a family. While I’m in a relationship now, if I wasn’t and went to Mexico to visit, I would be asked to go upstairs, get in a party dress, and then come downstairs to find a line of men waiting for me, brought by my aunts and uncles from around Aguascalientes to marry me off to. Disgusting, and lucky that now legally I’m too old for them to try and do that anymore.
      3. Making a New Life
         1. P. 45
            1. I’ve had many jobs since coming to the…My responsibilities are to my family.
               1. I understand his desire for the slow down. While most people would hate to have a 12-hour day like Frank has, it is consistent and therefore more relaxing and easier to manage. Maybe not something that you want to practice going into old age, but enough to settle for a while.
2. Aspects of Americanization
   1. Answering the Call
      1. Changing the Tide of History
         1. P. 56-57
            1. I think it depends on where you…and the books that have been written.
               1. Growing up in Eastern Washington, we were never taught in school about the Internment camps. I had to learn about them on my own.
      2. Into the Governor’s Mansion
         1. P. 67
            1. I really had no idea when I was in high…heard of until that junior year.
               1. I had no plans for college at all until I was a senior in high school and only found evergreen because I decided to miss my Japanese class that day. Best game of hooky ever.
      3. Restaurant, Public Office, Even Bruce Lee
         1. P. 72
            1. I eventually got married; but my…but not for the actors to court us.
               1. Unfortunately, this happened almost 30 years before Ronald Reagan passed the no-fault divorce law. I’m happy for the women that have the law now. As for Opera singers, without a company, the actors are useless and therefore were seen as bums without a stage or makeup.
      4. Grassroots Victories
         1. P. 77
            1. But the daily newspapers had chosen…wrote. That was their big hit on me.
               1. In a working-class society, I think it’s easy for most to forget what is most important in life. Jobs can fire you, a building can collapse, your favorite doctor could die, but your family will always be there.
      5. Marriage and the Green Card
         1. P. 85
            1. There are many, many such cases. This…kind of life or ax over her head.
               1. Shows like 90 Day Fiancé have really humorized how scary of a situation this can be for women.
         2. P. 86
            1. A lot of times parents who live many…isolation, including from her own family.
               1. Having studied Indian culture before in the past, I know that divorced and widowed women are seen as a disgrace, something dirty to be around. Regardless if they remarry, they have already been seen as touched by another and will be shamed until the day they die. For widows, if they chose to not to die (Sati) with their husbands, they get put into widow houses to live in, away from everyone else.
      6. Building an Orphanage in China
         1. P. 92
            1. I begin to understand how contributing…own sense of direction and core values.
               1. The best way for you to help your community is to first understand it.
   2. Passion for Music
      1. Cowboy from Japan
         1. P. 98
            1. I also sold many, many CDs in Australia…up and put it on the radio.
               1. My radio station KAOS does this with all of our music. It makes me want to go look for his album now.
      2. Jimi Hendrix of the Ukulele
         1. P. 101 – 102
            1. In the past there’s always been this…much respect for that instrument as well.
               1. I remember playing a little pink ukulele as a kid. My sister’s was purple, my dad’s blue, and my mom’s yellow. My mom still has hers, but my sister destroyed mine one night when she was mad at me.
      3. The Fortune Cookies
         1. P. 108
            1. But my dad, an educated person from…New York City, but that was it.
               1. I think the majority of the public don’t understand why so many young singers and bands are poor when you have acts like Drake and Katy Perry performing. Everything costs money and the singer is just the product. Ticket costs may be high, but the artist themselves will maybe get back 5% to 25% of whatever was earned at each event.
   3. Growing Up
      1. From Laos to Iowa
         1.  P. 113
            1. I was in the ROTC in college–Gonzaga…I encounted how the world was going to be.
               1. As someone who is a Spokane native and has attended Gonzaga Prep, the high school that preps you to go to that university, I can confirm that to this day, 95% of them are white, act like bitches, and is a toxic environment.
      2. Harlan, Kentucky
         1. P. 117
            1. I have never seen so many minorities in my life.
               1. I remember thinking something similar to this when my mother first forcibly introduced me to a Turkish family that lived down the street from us.
      3. Growing Up in Los Angeles
         1. P. 119
            1. I remember when I was in eighth…but he’s always really careful.
               1. My grandmother had a similar experience when she was working at a convenience store. The man didn’t shoot her, but from that day on she didn’t like African American men. She passed that fear onto the rest of the family so now you’re seen as a rebel if you date an African American.
      4. Portland, Oregon
         1. P. 129
            1. On Sunday after church my mom…because it stunk up the house.
               1. The church I grew up in had a lot of Norwegian and Scandinavian traditions. One of them was to make lutefisk for Christmas. It’s a piece of fermented cod that is cooked in lye and then rinsed again and again until the fish becomes clear. Then you can eat it with butter and salt. The smell is revolting, but it tastes pretty good.
      5. Growing Up in Hawaii
         1. P. 135
            1. We’re a very close family but it’s almost…where the whole family sits together.
               1. My family did the same thing. All retreating to our different rooms to eat or cooking at different times so that we wouldn’t be in the same room or doing the same thing as someone else eating.
      6. Between Continents
         1. P. 141
            1. I don’t think of myself as Asian, or Asian…someone are two different things.
               1. I understand David’s situation so much. Wanting to be more than just a description and not fitting into just one description either. Wanting to just be yourself.
   4. Education, Expectations, Work
      1. Cultural Anchors
         1. P. 142
            1. I think it has a lot to do with the…he asked me my opinions or anything like that.
               1. My father was the same way. Just get things done, don’t “get sick,” and anything less than healthy was a weakness. Things like emotions were things that only women felt and men just needed to work and take care of the house. Very closed off from everything emotional.
      2. Of Work and Family
         1. P. 149
            1. I saw my friends, my schoolmates…put me higher up in the food chain.
               1. I got my first job when I was 12 years and since then I have only been unemployed for a little over a month. In that time, I have learned that I never want to be unemployed and that I don’t want for anyone to take my place as a breadwinner or to make my own way for me. So long as I can walk, talk, read, type, and have a voice, I will find some way to work and not let someone else do it for me.
      3. An Editor of Entertainment News
         1. P. 156
            1. It’s interesting now to see who…very odd thing to become famous for.
               1. I think the same thing when it comes to Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. They don’t do much other than being someone for people to look at or fantasize about how rich they are. Why them?
   5. Views from Within
      1. Chinatown, New York
         1. P. 159
            1. And the apartments, little dinky…have to pay a lot of ret to stay here.
               1. I remember my parents telling me when they first started to move across the state to King County, that they first wanted to live in Seattle by Uwajimaya, even living in the apartments above the store! They were too expensive, but if they had a couple thousand more, they could be living there right now.
      2. Of Japanese Towns and Cultural Communities
         1. P. 164
            1. You have, in this strange kind of…become romanticized, popularized Japanese.
               1. I think a lot of the anime community know and understands that not everyone that is Japanese loves, watches or read anime and manga. But, I have met people that have no clue that the pop culture of reading and things like anime and manga are like the comic book version of America. They are seen as the losers or the geeks. The ones that have spent more money on buying collector’s items than they have on rent and spending every waking movement of their free time in a mangaka’s world. Now comics are starting to pick up again and get into the mainstream, but not every country’s version of that carries the same passion.
      3. Hmong Community
         1. P. 170
            1. I grew up in elementary school thinking I was American.
               1. I remember the first time it was pointed out that I was different in 1st grade. My teacher brought us to the art room to let us pick out a shipment of books for us to take home. I was looking through the books and my teacher handed me one instead. It was the story of Goldilocks, but the book had two sides. One was in English and the other in Spanish. I thought that she just wanted for me to learn Spanish now or something and not that she thought English was my second language or that my parents didn’t know English.
      4. Vietnamese in Maryland
         1. P. 181
            1. I estimated that 50 percent of the Vietnamese workforce works in the nail industry.
               1. My aunt (Korean) owns and runs a hair salon in Oklahoma and only hires other Koreans to work with or for her. Her way of giving back?
      5. Living Outside of Koreatown
         1. P. 185
            1. I don’t know about the thinking on…and what car you’re driving.
               1. I lived with my cousin (half Korean) for two months and while I was staying with her, the only time that she would dress up and really put any effort into the way how she looked came to when we would go to an Asian market together. Makes sense now.
      6. Claiming Space
         1. P. 186
            1. This was mainly to let my community…have the opportunity to dismiss me.
               1. While I know Shamita is saying this with the best interests possible, it does feel to me that she’s trying too hard to make herself recognized, rather than being herself.
   6. After September 11
      1. Very Tough Times
         1. P. 193
            1. On Park Row, they’ve closed the…angry with City Hall about all of this.
               1. I think it’s both sad and remarkable that the city still has so many open wounds left on land even after all these years.
      2. New York’s Chinatown: Getting Back on its Feet
         1. P. 197
            1. Population-wise, Chinatown is probably the largest community that suffered in the shadow of 9/11.
               1. It angers me so much that I was never taught about any of the other communities that were affected due to 9/11 other than Americans and anyone who was believed to be Muslim. To me, this just adds to America’s Education System being a failure.
      3. Within the South Asian Community
         1. P. 198
            1. September 11 actually changed our…support Bin Laden,” idiotic stuff like that.
               1. I remember watching the movie My Name is Khan and watching the citizens around New York being attacked by everyone. It was horrified to watch.
3. Journeys and Passages
   1. Passages
      1. Reconnecting
         1. P. 208
            1. My life would probably have been…we understood each other.
               1. After nearly 13 years apart I was finally able to reunite with two of the exchange students that shared my home with me. Today I call them my sisters, but I wonder if they had stayed in the home longer if they had lived with us for months instead of weeks, would my life and heritage be more altered?
      2. Marriage
         1. P. 214 – 215
            1. When we got pregnant
               1. I thought that it was interesting that both parents got pregnant. Usually, in lesbian couples, I’ve heard of them adopting or only one person would get pregnant and have the baby. This is a rare case for me to see both parents.
      3. Being Asian, Being Gay
         1. P. 227
            1. When I came out to my parents, we didn’t speak for several years.
               1. My sister was 18 when she first told my parents that she was bisexual, and they laughed her off because she was dating a guy during the time. And for the 7 years, she has only dated men or at least said so publicly. While I know at least that my sister has been with more than just men, it was sad to see our parents laugh at my sister’s sexuality and say, “no, you’re not. You married a guy.”
   2. Journeys
      1. Adopted, from Seoul to New Jersey
         1. P. 229
            1. It was like taking someone and throwing him into a completely alien environment.
               1. I’m guessing this is some of the experiences that my father felt when he first got to America. My mother was able to translate for him, but after a couple of months, he had to ask for anything that he wanted in English, or she would ignore him.
      2. Found
         1. P. 246
            1. Do I feel vindicated that they found me? Yeah, because my sister kept her promise.
               1. This reminds me of the movie, The Color Purple when Celie is finally reunited with her sister after decades of being apart.
   3. Three Generations
      1. Of Personal Challenges and Triumphs
         1. P. 247
            1. First he opened with the phrase, You’re…me. Then he would give me hell.
               1. I got this same kind of treatment from my mother especially growing up. Being told that I had to push harder and that if I didn’t that I would end up “a laborer,” and have a miserable life. This started when I was in 6th grade and went on until I left for college.
      2. Journeys of Self Discovery
         1. P. 254
            1. I had lived in Taiwan for a year after…the real China, which is mainland China.
               1. This statement made me shrink, thinking of all the people who would be in an uproar hearing this.
      3. Hapa with Strong Chinese Roots
         1. P. 259
            1. Now I live in Portland and I’m an Americorp volunteer.
               1. I remember applying for an Americorp position. While they are a great service, they barely provide enough money to keep their volunteers in their homes. “The poverty feel,” comes with that job.

New Vocabulary:

Pollyannaish:
The Pollyanna principle is the tendency for people to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones. Research indicates that at the subconscious level, the mind has a tendency to focus on the optimistic; while at the conscious level, it has a tendency to focus on the negative.

Amerasian:
Having one American and one Asian parent.

~ by Angelica Perez on April 15, 2019 . Tagged: Assignment, Talking Points