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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
An Asian American Culture?
he concept of a pan-Asian American identity is questioned by two groups of skeptics: recent immigrants and non-Asians. They point to the lack of a shared culture and the history of conflict among the homelands of Asian immigrants. Most often cited are Japan's recent imperialism against its neighbors and the historical resentment against Chinese domination.
True enough for Asians in Asia, but these points miss the mark when it comes to Asian Americans.
Historical animosities are meaningless to Asian Americans who were either born here or who came here at children. And the shared experience of being Asian in America is a strong glue that binds Asians to one another.
That conclusion begs the question: has this shared identity produced a distinctive Asian American culture shared across the boundaries of ancestral origin?
To the extent Asian Americans speak an Asian language at all, it is typically our ancestral tongue. Our Asian travels focus on visits to the ancestral homelands. We show a distinct preference for our ancestral cuisines. So where is the shared culture?
Perhaps the commonalities aren't as obvious as a distinctive cuisine, a traditional dress or colorful rituals, but they are considerable. What AA home doesn't harbor a karaoke machine? What AA family doesn't count its blessings by the number of degrees from elite universities? What AA utility closet isn't jammed with tennis rackets and/or golf clubs? What AA doesn't feel uplifted when another Asian of no matter what national origin distinguishes himself? What AA doesn't gripe about the media portrayals of Asians of no matter what national origin?
We AA also like one another's cuisines and company, judging by the frequency with which we routinely patronise one another's establishments. Ranch 99 and Yaohan markets, pearl tea shops, pho noodle shops, sushi bars and Corean nightclubs and barbeque restaurants are magnets for Asians of every nationality.
Do these add up to an Asian American culture? Or are they merely nostalgic remnants of ancestral cultures in the process of slipping away?
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Discussions posted during the past year remain available for browsing.
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:56:35 PM)
When I grew up in Hawaii, in which the population majority is Asian, I learned to distinguish clearly between different AA groups. Everyone in Hawaii does. But now that I live in Boston, where Asians hardly put a dent in the population census, I tend to feel a stronger kinship with individuals of different Asian ethnicities. There aren't many of us, so we share more of a common bond, a common perspective. Plus, there's always safety and strength in numbers. Why not bond?
Until recently in Honolulu, we even distinguished between Japan prefectures where our AJA families originally came from. But all this is blurring due to intermarriage between AA groups (as well as with non-AAs). Most of my cousins are part-Chinese, for example. To most non-AAs on the East Coast, this would all be unimportant, because AAs are lumped together. As long as mistreatment is not a concern, I can't really castigate them for this-- this is human nature.
That's one of the things I love and miss about Hawaii-- Asian Americans are the dominant culture, and operate in an AA-based cultural milieu, where our differences are understood, respected, and appreciated. Whites in Hawaii, on the other hand, are more or less lumped together. Again-- human nature.
So two weeks very year, during my annual vacation back home, I can remove the "minority" status that's thrust upon me in Boston, and enjoy being an everyman for a change.
Yonsei
Tuesday, July 09, 2002 at 07:46:29 (PDT)
At least as I see it, all the commonalities (and some of the ones Ed mentions are only really an aspect of East Asian culture) will slip away unless young Asian-Americans do a lot more to tie themselves to the lives and behavioral norms of our homelands. Ironically, only by recalling the cultures which produced mutual suspicion among the immigrant generation are we going to retain similarity with each other and distinctiveness from the mainstream.
The real test of a culture is whether it could be perpetuated from one generation to the next. Asian-American communities lack the most important part of that: ability to get the ancestral languages passed on. Saturday-morning daycare "schools" aren't cutting it. Everything else we consider "Asian-American" culture - the food, the music, the fashion - is just a trend and will mutate or pass away. What will be the legacy after that? Not much, unless we retain ties to the cultures in the homeland which remain alive.
Don't trust the significance of language? Quebec French-Americans in New England had a separate culture going for 50 years, because they built up their own French-speaking schools, churches, legal practices, and even universities. But then the state of Maine was the first to move against the schools, taking over their administration and switching them to government control and English-language teaching. By the end of WWII, the community was dying, while it had thrived for decades before. Now, Quebec-American identity in NE is completely dead. The continued widespread Chinese youth culture in Malaysia owes its entire existence to the fact that there is a Chinese-language alternative to the national-type schools teaching solely in Malay. Other SE Asian countries which broke their Chinese school networks witnessed rapid cultural assimilation of most of their Chinese minority, and in some cases, that assimilation didn't even bring political equality and social respect along with it.
T.H. Lien
Monday, July 08, 2002 at 23:14:53 (PDT)
In my opinion, it varies from one AA to the next.
dsfbcbsijdbax
Monday, July 08, 2002 at 05:30:17 (PDT)
Asian American culture has arison out of the fact there are safety in numbers and children rarely share the same animosity that their parents might have towards one another.
When an Asian American does something extraordinary or is successful, I'm sure all Asians feel some pride, regardless of where they came from. I know I do.
Also, it's a shared experience of being different and singled out. Anyone who has been teased knows that these kids saw them as Asian, not as specifically Corean, Japanese or Chinese.
Our younger generation is also more likely to intermingle and date, much more than our parents ever did.
Asian American culture is a mix of adopting white culture while retaining our Asian culture.
That's how I see it anyway.
huu76
Monday, July 08, 2002 at 03:40:08 (PDT)
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