Challenges of Asian American Teens | Asian American Poll

CHALLENGES OF ASIAN AMERICAN TEENS
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:07:46 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

What is the biggest problem faced by Asian American teens?
Pressure from parents to excel academically | 79%
Identity conflicts related to growing up a minority | 19%
Problems related to dating & sex | 2%
Gang influence, pressure & violence | 0%

What of these is the most common mistake made by Asian parents?
Not spending enough time with their kids | 18%
Pushing kids too hard for good grades | 34%
Being too strict in controlling kids' behavior | 45%
Neglecting the kids' social or cultural development | 3%

What factor contributes most to helping Asian teens grow up to be productive, well-adjusted adults?
Stable home environment | 93%
Cultural bias favoring academic success | 3%
Advantages provided by above-average affluence | 4%

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.]

Is it alright to be goth in an asian comunity? I know dressing gothic is quite a diferent way to dress in the modern world of the U.S, and somhow i feel it has been oddly accepted in our culture. What bothers me is the fact that when an asian person decides to dress more on the dark side, it's considerd 'abnormaly odd'.
I love art and i dress as i feel. The result of my thoughts as an individual has me dressed a little on the darker side of life, and so have others in my school. But for some reason, I get questioned for being goth and being the most 'abnormal'. Many asians shun me for my style. Why? Is it because they are afraid or just think it's disgusting that i don't look all dolled up to look like as if i were to see the president. Like the majority of the country? Please help me out on this question.
asian goth girl Tuesday, December 18, 2001 at 18:39:59 (PST)

blk Amer in China,

You should hang it there.

I once met a Black priest that was an evangelist in China. He had kids while he was there for 12 years.

The kids spoke better Chinese than half AA I know in America. I was greatly impressed with their language skills, as they told me about their adventures in China and Taiwan.

Well anyways, there are 3 black kids in America now who speak fluent Chinese.

AC dropout Wednesday, December 05, 2001 at 10:49:43 (PST)

T.H. Lien,

Growing up speaking Cantonese. I was also intimitated in situations you described in Chinese class. But after 8 years of practicing most people think I'm from Taiwan when I speak Mandarin now. Just practice is all I have to say about situations like that. Get a tape recorder, tape yourself over and over again to remove the accents in the speech. A pain. But coming over as an immigrant I did the same thing to get rid of my asian accent when I spoke English.

Diliacts basics...You know like a romanization system or even a Chinese character for some of the word doesn't exist. For fluent speakers of dialects it is usually just oral teachings handed down the generations. I will let the Chinese Majors in Asia preserve the dialects and all the idiosyncracies.

The interracial thing. I just hoping the moderate white guy goes, "Wow here is someone cool that is half asian. The asian side can't be all that bad."

As for the racist against the Black folks...wouldn't be influence by a half-black anyways. They need brainwashing to change their opionions.
AC dropout Tuesday, December 04, 2001 at 17:18:27 (PST)

Your comment about Mandarin is an interesting one. I don't live in an Asian area (the closes in NYC), so the most useful langauge for me would have been Spanish. But I wanted to learn a language, so I took Mandarin. Little did I know that it was hard, but I stuck it out.

And you know, the funny thing about it is that most of the people in the class were businessmen. Me? just someone that wants to improve themselves at the time. And I was the only Black person in the group!

Little did I know that one year ago I would found a use for it. Learning Chinese has helped me alot when it comes to business deals. It helped me when I was in China two months ago.

blk Amer in China Tuesday, December 04, 2001 at 13:51:29 (PST)

AC dropout:
I took Mandarin last semester ... it was hard for us dialect speakers to compete with kids who attended middle school in Taiwan, and not just on grades. As a result of speaking less and having less fluidity, we got less attention from the prof, which meant that she would not even give us the opportunity for the practice we needed. In debates, they would jump in whenever someone paused to think of a word, and receive praise for their ideas, while those of us who needed practise struggled to get a few words in. I can't say I blame them for speaking up, as our level of conversation must have been pretty boring, but a lot of kids who were smart and diligent enough that they should have kept going instead became discouraged and dropped out of Chinese study after that class.

I'm not really sure what you mean when you say most dialects don't have basics. Survival vocabulary and phrases could be taught by repetition and memorization --- the Pimsleur method claims to teach many languages quite well with no reference to any written material. Among foreigners studying Cantonese in the US, I think those who learned through Pimsleur method have much better accents than those who learned through romanizations such as Yale system (I've seen whole textbooks and dictionaries written solely in Yale with no real written Chinese). Also, a friend of mine from Taiwan showed me his way of writing Hakka using bo po mo fo alphabet, he said it is somewhat well-known among Hakka people there.

Of course, Mandarin is obviously the more useful dialect - the only money I've ever earned being able to speak Hakka was getting discounts in street markets in Hong Kong, in comparison to the job opportunities I've lost out on due to my poor Mandarin skills. But as Mandarin becomes more of an international language, it is then directly less unique and functions less as a marker of identity. Dialects have less utilitarian value, but far more human resonance among those who speak them, and so people may cling to them a little more closely in the future.

Finally, true, some Asian-Americans are not suited by cultural background to relationships with other Asians. Unfortunately, the current racial dogma of the US encourages mixed-race kids "claim" all their ethnicities even if they don't know a thing about them. This results in a bunch of mixed-race Asians who say they are Asian, but without any culture to back it up. A white American meets them and sees that Asians CAN grow up without any attachment to their culture, and maybe thinks that this better for the cohesion of American society as a whole. So what exactly will he think when he sees other Asians who grow up fiercely attached to their culture and striving to preserve it? Quite possibly it will reinforce the view that they are clannish, look down on non-Asians, and don't wish to be a part of American culture. This isn't an out of the blue view, but almost an exact mirror of the process by which many people who hold racist sentiments against blacks reconcile an individual black person whom they like with their unfavorable view of the whole black race.
T.H. Lien Monday, December 03, 2001 at 16:03:58 (PST)

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