AA Attitude toward F.O.B.s | Asian American Poll

ATTITUDE TOWARD F.O.B.S
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:18:28 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

Assuming you are an Asian American, what's your definition of an F.O.B. ("Fresh-off-the-boat" immigrant)?
Anyone not born in the U.S. | 31%
Anyone who speaks with a noticeable accent | 30%
Anyone who acts or dresses old-country | 39%

Assuming you are an Asian American, what's your attitude toward F.O.B.s?
I am fully open to friendships/relationships with them. | 44%
I am friendly but would not want to get too close. | 41%
I generally avoid them on a social level. | 15%

Assuming you are an Asian American, what do you find most annoying about F.O.B.s?
They play into offensive stereotypes. | 15%
They are obsessed with flashy materialism. | 39%
They maintain Asian customs and values. | 0%
They are no more annoying than other AA. | 46%

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WHAT YOU SAY

[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]

That's not true on the poll about having relationship/friendship with the FOB. Those AA hardly give me a smile when I first came here as a result, I spent most of my time with caucasians and african americans.
SE FOB Monday, December 23, 2002 at 20:46:21 (PST) [128.251.168.91]

not ABC or FOB,

no, im not trying to say asian should only hang with asian.

the fact is,(if you choose to accept it or not) if you're asian and in a area with many young asian and you don't dress like one, though its not a big deal, they will assume or say you're white/black/hispanic- washed.

for ex: asian wearing FUBU, hugo jeans, Jorans and talkin ebonics. people will say you're black-washed.

wearin dickies, long-sleeve shirt with only the collar button up. people with say you're hispanic-washed.

etc. etc. see what im tryin to say? But HOLD ON now! just because you dress or act a certain way doesnt mean others wont accept you. i know a lot of people are goin to say that im just stereo-typin. but the thing is, there's little truth to it.

i don't have a problem with the way others dress, but i do think it's sad when other asian are ashamed of their own kind so they have to act/dress a certain way, kissin ass, hoping to be accepted. if any of this doesn't make sense, then ill try to explain again. i just thought many would understand what i'm sayin.
Mr. Hann Monday, December 02, 2002 at 22:13:18 (PST) [24.242.251.65]

I don't have problems with people who immigrate to the United States. I have many friends who others would consider to be FOBs, but I don't think of them that way. I guess I'm different from people in that I don't define an FOB the way others define them. I define an FOB to be someone who immigrates and tries immediately to be "Americanized." New car, thuggy clothes, To-Cool-for-You attitude. Those people are the ones I consider to be FOB.

Mr. Hann:
How exactly do you TRY to be white? You act and dress and befriend those you grew up with. Are you saying the little Asian kids growing up in small town should only make friends with the one other Asian kid or have no friends if there are no other Asian kids in town?

6'1 FOB:
America is not bad. It's actually a nice place to live. Not all Asians born in this country forget where they come from and are afraid to speak their own language. In fact, out of everyone I know, I am the ony one who cannot speak their native language (no fault of my own. I want to know how, but some stupid kindergarten teacher told my dad to stop speaking Vietnamese to us at home because my older brother was having language problems. Having no relative over here also heightened this problem.. Oye) I make it up by learning everything else about my culture.

"Umm..maybe because you live in America?? " I think this guy meant that learning the culture of the country that you live in is an important step in being able to live better amongst those around you. He didn't say that he was special in any way. I would want to learn about the cultures of any countries that I visit. Nothing wrong in that, is there?
not ABC or FOB Sunday, December 01, 2002 at 03:01:25 (PST) [209.34.8.8]

I definitely don't think you should classify a FOB as someone who simply wasn't born in the U.S. Here in Australia, many Asians have only been here for one generation. Many Asians of my age might have been born here, but there were also many who missed being born in Australia by a year or so. I highly doubt there would be a difference between them.

Cheers,
Aussie Dude.
Aussie Dude Friday, October 18, 2002 at 18:59:49 (PDT) [210.50.228.5]

I live in the south, so I feel like a cultural ambassador for the whole contintent of Asia. People are always walking up to me asking if I speak English or if I'm "oriental".

Also, I'm Chinese, Spanish, African, and Native American, born in Central America, but I look mostly Chinese. I grew up in the US speaking Spanish (though I'm studying Mandarin at university). I'm not accepted by any ethnic (or white, for that matter) community.
Southern Mutt Thursday, September 19, 2002 at 14:21:34 (PDT) [137.30.101.219]

Why does everybody care so much about FOBs and ABCs...why do we even use those terms? I'm an ABC but I know about traditional Cantonese customs, I eat Chinese food everyday (and not the Americanized stuff..the real deal), I speak Cantonese with my family at home since they don't speak English (which works very well during important phone conversations with friends), and I celebrate the major holidays of the Chinese calendar. I go to a school with a like a 50% Asian population and some people there are FOB or ABC's but no one really cares, only the idiot-jerks who are all into being an ABC or FOB and hit up on other kids b/c of it.
I am not ashamed of being Chinese, back when i went to a Russian majority school and I was one of like five Asians, I was proud of being unique and myself and different. I don't know about my peers, but I know that the people i've met in my school aren't like you "typical" ABCs. There may be people who are like "typical" ABCs or FOBs, but that is not the the majority. All this is just the result of people thinking they're better than their peers and other stuff.

P.S. My parents and most of all my family are so called FOBs, which I define as somebody not born here, and many of them either don't speak English or have an accent. I was born here, which I guess makes me an ABC, but I can speak in Cantonese, though I don't know beyond normal everyday speech, I can read very little Chinese and write even littler (solely because I'm lazy), and I speak English with no accent. I grew up and am still living in a very Chinese-influenced environment (Chinese food, superstitions, etc.) Oh, and up till the time I was four, the only English I was pretty much exposed to was Barney and Sesame Street, and small snippets from my brother and my dad, (which surprisingly was enough). So I don't know what you'd call me...but I'd like to think that you can't label me or anybody else with such a term as "fresh off the boat" or "American born Chinese" because everybody has their own story and the people who care about this stuff have serious inferiority complexes.

*NYC-STUYVESANT RULES!!*
Girl in Stuy HS Monday, September 16, 2002 at 09:19:07 (PDT) [12.88.81.60]

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