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

ATTITUDE TOWARD F.O.B.S
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:18:16 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

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viet Said:
There's no way in between because i find most people who live in US for along time lose their sense of identity: they stop speaking their language for one, and they forget their culture.

My respond:
I don't think that Asian American people like me who come to America and learn to speak English are loosing my Identity, see, that's what I'm talking about, you just see people as either have an identiy of a Totally vietnamese or totally American. But sorry, I'm both , even if you like it or not, I consider myself as both culture because I can't say that I'm only one(culture) because it's not true. And yes, I came here when I was young, and I went to school and I am force to learn English, but is that a bad thing? I mean, I live in America, where the main language that everyone speak is English, sure I forgot alot of Vietnamese, but so what?, once I'm in American I think it's better for me to focus on learning English, and I do hope that my English skill is way better than it is now. Because? in case you don't know, communication and fluency means alot in America, especially if you want to get a fine job and influence people and succeed in life.
I use to work in an office, the office purpose is to hire people, and my boss was in charge of that, and believe me, no matter how smart you are and if you have a perfect GPA, your employers are not looking into that as much as to see how you communicate and your attitude.

well, I'm sorry if you think this way. I've also personally knew alot of vietnamese people who graduate with their bachelor or master but couldn't find a job due to their english problems.
Well, I'm not perfect, I not both fluence at Vietnamese and English, but I know much more English than Vietnamese, well, lucky for the one that knows both.
And I do want to learn Vietnamese also, just that I haven't find the time, and I put other things before that because it's more important.
aagirl Monday, July 29, 2002 at 13:03:13 (PDT)

Just to make things clearer, I didn't make any name calls after the first paragraph. i just stated my judgements/opinion about what i have seen. if i were to make name call, i would have otherwise indicated the name, and not to forget, i know what your name is.

What do you mean when you say the "real traditional ones" are like this and that? Can you clarify what a non-traditional vietnamese is? My cousinS are traditional vietnamese also, but they don't fit any of your discriptions, so the traditonal ones that you have indicated are the one that you have seen. Not all other tradtional ones. The thing with vietnamese, i think, and many other other non-vietnamese is that they get mixed up between judgements and facts.

I cannot tell you, AAgirl, what the traditions for vietnamese are because some vietnamese act different than others, but i can tell you what i do as a vietnamese.
viet Friday, July 26, 2002 at 20:49:12 (PDT)

Viet,

Viet Said:
It's just that in the vietnamese society, family tends to live together that's why you see the wife lives with her husband's family. otherwise, the marriage couple would be on their own, and the wife goes with her husband.

I say:
Yes, this is true, but I don't usually sees the husband come live with the wife's family. Alot of times, the mother(or family) of the husband wants him to live with them even when he's already married, therefore the wife has to live with them also. I know personally alot of women who doesn't like to live with her husband's family. I know, not all vietnamese families are like this, especially the one who lives over here( but the majority are) , and my family are not like that, for your info, I'm just saying the real traditional one are like that, especially in Vietnam.

Viet Said:
MOreover, by calling someone a fob, what does that prove to yourself? well, you are not a fob, yeah. but you are not white either, so you must be whitewashed

I say:
Just to clear things up, I did not call anyone a "fob" if you read my post clearly, contrarely, I said that I did not like it when people label me or anyone else a fob or something else. Well, excuse me, by you calling me "whitewashed" is just pure stereotype, because you don't know me.

And also, when you want to marry someone, the parents or family's opinion does matters greatly. Say if a guy wants to marry a girl with a different religion from him or no religion, his parent or relative would not like that, but usually a vietnamese son or daughter usually obeys their parents first, because family are suppose to be the most important according to the tradition vietnamese culture. I've seen this too many times, so I'm not exagerating, sure, american culture does this also, but I'm just clarifying on the vietnamese culture, which tends toward this more often.

Well, so sorry to offend you or anyone else for that matter. In my perspective, every culture has its pros and cons, I will not praise or put down one culture or another. This does not mean that I am "whitewashed" or whatever.

And to say again, I did not say that all vietnamese people or family are like what I said, I said the real traditional ones, and if you think otherwise or if your relative or family are different, then hooray, good for you.

And I do not just base this just on my own experience, I've seen this very often in other's experience as well to the best of my knowledge and others.

Okay, so if totally disagree with me, then would you please tell me what the traditional vietnamese culture are like then? maybe you would like to enlighten me, maybe there are something else that I'm missing.

And I did not write that post to make the vietnamese culture look bad, since I am vietnamese myself so why should I do that. I'm just stating the things I like and dislike about it, just as I did the American culture, so you don't have to be so defensive about it, I don't see so being so defensive about my opinion on the American culture, just to say I am vietnamese and proud of it, so no need to be like that towards me.

I guess that just how you feel, if I were to say something not good, you would jump in and criticizes me for it, and then what about the good things I said about the vietnamese culture? I didn't see you mention it.

Anyways, I'm not here to bash anyone's culture or to label anyone, just to restate again that each one of us shouldn't be label as one or another, because I believe that alot of people including myself sees and believe in different things or a little bit of both from both culture, and so I think it's wrong for ome people to label other as one thing. I don't think of myself as being totally vietnamese, totally whitewashed or whatever other fancy names out there, which is not true about myself.

Well, hope you understand what I'm talking about, have a nice day to you. I'm just stating my opinion.
aagirl Friday, July 26, 2002 at 00:15:31 (PDT)

Fobs or Asian Americans, we're all Asian. Let's not let where we come from pull us apart. We're all Asian and we should take the best virtues of both worlds (Asian or American) and combine them and leave everything bad behind. If we make an effort and befriend each other, we can make connections and strengthen ourselves as a group. We'll eventually also better ourselves and move up in society faster if we work together.
ribs Wednesday, July 24, 2002 at 19:10:24 (PDT)

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