Rooting for Asian vs. U.S. Teams | Asian American Poll

ROOTING FOR ASIAN VS. U.S. TEAMS
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:09:43 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

In contests between athletes from Asia and U.S. athletes, for whom do you root most often?
U.S. Athletes | 26%
Athletes from Asia | 48%
The underdog | 14%
Varies with event and nationality | 12%

What factor is most important in your desire to root for athletes from Asia?
Racial identification | 42%
Nationalistic Feelings | 7%
Scarcity of visible Asian figures in the U.S. | 51%

This poll is closed to new input.
Comments posted during the past year remain available for browsing.

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WHAT YOU SAY

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

I have to tell everyone as an LA Dodger fan it truly breaks my heart to see Chan Ho Park leave the Dodgers to play for another team wearing another baseball uniform.

Chan Ho is making a lot more money in Texas and it's very clear to me that he'll be a great pitcher and highly professional with whatever team signs him, but there is still a big hole in the heart of this Dodger fan for a player who seemed such a natural wearing Dodger blue.

I understand the payroll situation that the Dodgers are in right now and it was definitely a good move to bring Hideo Nomo back to LA. It chokes me up to see such a premium guy leave a baseball club with such potential.

Oh well, that's business. Take me out to the ball game!
Geoff DB geofdb67@aol.com Saturday, December 22, 2001 at 20:16:40 (PST)

I am Chinese-American and I root for the best American athelete, regardless of their ethnicity! A real sports fan roots for the most qualified and best (which will depend on the observer) athlete, not in terms of race. I would also root for a non-American athlete if he/she was the best in the field. Even if they are Russian (male figure skaters and gymnasts), African (marathon running), German, etc. The fact that you people keep harping on the race issue itself, shows that you have not been totally integrated into this great country of ours called USA and DO NOT think of yourselves as AMERICANS at heart. I have tons of African-American, Jewish-American, Italian-American, Polish-American, Spanish-American, etc. friends and they all root for the US athletes, NOT African, Israeli, Italian, Polish, Spanish, etc. ones automatically as "opj" stated! Your statement shows that you live and socialize in an enclosed Asian community and do not intermingle with Americans of other ethnic background. As for "aabb"'s post, you are so full of it! Michelle Kwan is America's skating sweetheart, just like Kristi Yamaguchi is. They're both prides of the US skating world and American fans love them! Michelle and Kristi are as American as apple pie and anyone well-informed of figure skating know that! Kwan hasn't been skating as well recently since her departure from her coach and Hughes really has been doing an outstanding job. Kwan has won so many National titles that its nice and exciting to see new competitors like Hughes doing so well. Which is why the crowd (including me watching at home!) cheered more for her. Yuka Sato of Japan recently won a skating title and everybody loved & cheered for her because of her grace, beauty, and technical excellence. The audience did not favor the other Caucasian American skaters over her because she's Asian. You obviously don't watch a lot of figure skating competitions and don't know much about the sport to make ignorant comments like that. Those who base everything on race (instead of sportsmanship, excellence, national pride, etc.) are just as guilty as the so-called racists you claim the white audience to be.
A Proud Chinese-American Saturday, December 22, 2001 at 16:52:12 (PST)

opj makes a good point. Whenever asians do anything that might smack of treason and unpatriotism the alarm is sounded and neo-members of the House on un-American activities come out of the woodwork to condemn them. But it wasn't an asian who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma. It wasn't an Asian who was recently caught selling top-secret stuff and giving away the identities of American spies to the Russians.
hoehoe Wednesday, December 05, 2001 at 14:11:22 (PST)

In any contest I root for the poorer country. If a country from Asia is involved against a European of western country the team from Asia is generally poorer. It's more heartwarming to see a poor team win. Winners from the west will just probably pawn their medal to buy an X-box or front row tickets to a Britney Spears concert anyway.
michelle kwan IS a U.S. citizen Saturday, November 17, 2001 at 13:01:00 (PST)

C'mon as if Jews(no matter what nationality) don't cheer for Isreal, German-Americans don't cheer for Germany, Italian-Americans don't cheer for Italy, and so forth.
It's all good; it's just sports.
opj Friday, November 16, 2001 at 11:44:50 (PST)

I am chinese and when it comes to sport i go for any asian country to beat other countries. I think most asians do as well. Its a sign that even though our cultures may be sligthly or largely different, we can still all relate to one another.
Microphone Testing Thursday, November 01, 2001 at 19:22:29 (PST)

Lee and Lee:

Most of the recent Asian murderers that one of the Lees referred to, blindly followed a white man's ideology called Marxism. Everyone complains about how the white colonial powers traded cheap products for valuable Asian products. But, no one talks about one such exchange. Long time ago, Asia was the free trading hub of the world. Sheng Ho and the Chola empire of South India were major trading powers. The Anglo Saxons were living in the caves, and hunting and fishing predominated. Then the Arabs established civilization in Spain and France and the Chinese traded with the west on the Silk Road. Then the Arabs retreated, until recently they are the ones hiding in the caves (Bin Laden) while the whites are the modern day moors. The roles have been reversed. Similarly with Asia and Europe. The whites exchanged the primitive civilization for modern civilization with the Middle East. The whites gave Asia communism and in exchange Asia gave up its free trading rights to the west and retreated into their "caves". Hence we had Mao Tse Tung and Khmer Rouge.
Asian Historian Monday, October 29, 2001 at 17:02:36 (PST)

aabb:

What do you expect from the predominantly white crowd in Denver? You want to know about the congressmen who represent them? You may or may not have heard about a town called Littleton. Two and a half years ago almost to the date (I think it was April 20), two white boys massacred other mostly white Americans in a High School called Columbine. Two days ago their congressman was complaining about crime increasing in Littleton due to Mexicans. This congressmen Tom Tancredo does not consider Asians to be real Americans and wants to keep the country majority white. Throw into that mix another Congressman by the name of Bob Schaeffer and another clown who was a governor by the name of Richard Lamm. They have been complaining about the foreign hoardes in America, ie., Asians and Hispanics. After the September 11 incident they even wanted to close the border although President Bush has opposed all such legislation so far (God bless him!!). A lot of white people in Colorado and Idaho are "exiles" from California, basically running away from Asians and Hispanics. Two families moved to Littleton basically because their sons were interested in Asian girls in their High School and one of them was blown away by a white boy in Littleton.

To make the long story short, for all I know the crowd probably really thought that Ms. Kwan is from China or Taiwan and not from the United States. Peggy Fleming who was a commentator in the 1988 Winter Olympics actually supported the German Katrina Witt over the African American Debbie Thomas. Rep. Tancredo frequently refers to Asians as foreign hordes. And that may be the only information their white constituents get about the Asian or Hispanic Americans. So what do you expect?

As for me, African Americans do well in a number of sports. I for one rarely support whites in any sport. Many are not really good at it, with the exception of winter sports, swimming, synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. Even in regular gymnastics, the best American teams have been well integrated, as far as the women are concerned, and the story is the same regarding Figure Skating and a number of other sports.
Asian American Male Monday, October 29, 2001 at 16:54:52 (PST)

OK, I know many non-Asians will question why we tend to favor athletes of our own race and color regardless of whether they were born here or from Asia.

Let me tell you that in all sports, there is racial favoritism. I just saw it last night.

Figure skater, Michelle Kwan, has never been the darling of the sports public as she deserves. I just witnessed this on TV, when the Skate America title was held in Colorado.

No one cheered for Kwan, although she was spectacular by all means in her performance. The crowd's favorite was the runner up, Sarah Hughes.

Kwan won, and the judges don't lie whether they white people in the crowd like it or not.
aabb Sunday, October 28, 2001 at 18:27:33 (PST)

DAMMIT!!! The Mariners lost! DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN
Damn! Tuesday, October 23, 2001 at 13:05:53 (PDT)

A reply from Lee to an Idiot.

I am very sure that you are not an Asian but an imposter! I am not quite sure what the hell are you doing here anyway.

You are actually defending a racist comment probably made by you in the first place.

Next time you can at least be brave and leave us your name..even fake one..COWARD!

Ngoc Lee

Lee Monday, October 01, 2001 at 08:52:14 (PDT)

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