The perpetual foreigner stereotype in America is applied mainly to Asian Americans. No matter how long they or their families have lived in the country, they are still not seen as True Americans, they are still seen as foreigners. That is why people are surprised at how good their English is and ask them, “Where are you really from?” – where New Jersey does not count as an answer.
Please note: Asians born in America speak perfect English with an American accent. For most of them America is the only country they know. It is their country too. They are every bit as American as white people.
The girl pictured in the Virgin ad that says “Dump Your Pen Friend” is not from Japan or anywhere in Asia: she is American – at an American barbecue, no less. If that surprised you, then you were applying the perpetual foreigner stereotype to her, as did Virgin.
This is not some small point.
For example, General John DeWitt, in charge of defending the western American states during the Second World War, said this:
A Jap’s a Jap … The Japanese race is an enemy race … It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese… we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.
And so Japanese Americans, despite being native-born citizens charged with no crime, lost everything they could not carry and were sent to live in prison camps during the war. Even the Supreme Court thought their race mattered more than their citizenship.
Japanese Americans have been in America longer than most Italian, Polish and Jewish Americans. So, if anything, they should be seen as less foreign, but they are not.
Another example: Vincent Chin, a Chinese American engineer, had his brains beat in and was killed by two white men in Detroit in 1982. One of them had been laid off by Chrysler and blamed Japan. But Chin was not Japanese. He was not even Chinese: he was American! But despite that neither white man served any time in prison: they got off with a fine of $3,000 and three years’ probation. The judge said of Chin’s killers: “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”
Two ideas underlie the perpetual foreigner stereotype:
- America belongs to white people.
- Race and culture are pretty much the same thing.
Race, how you look on the outside, is seen as a good sign of how you are on the inside.
In America the stereotype is mainly applied to those with East Asian roots, but lately, since 9/11, Muslim Americans are increasingly seen in this light too, so much so that their citizenship does not always grant them the protection and rights that it should.
The stereotype is assumed by those who call Obama a secret Muslim. Colin Powell made the excellent point that even if Obama were Muslim, so what? Plenty of Americans are Muslims, many have even fought and died for the country. If they are not True Americans, no one is.
See also:
- YouTube: What kind of Asian are you? – Ken Tanaka’s great satire of this stereotype – and that thing where whites love to tell Asian Americans about their “Asian experience”.
- stereotype
- In memoriam: Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan
- growing up Asian American
- The stereotype has been applied to blacks in France and China:
- black people as monkeys
Abagond 
I’m a first-generation Canadian born Filipina. I have been told time and time again that I speak English quite well with virtually no accent. I’m assuming these people meant Asian accent. Heh, it does become rather annoying.
Also, not too long ago, there was a “Get-to-know your co-worker” quiz at my work. This quiz was supposed to help co-workers get to know know each other better, build trust, and communicate better. There was this question: Who was born in another country? Guess what? Every single white co-worker, except for the handful of visible minorities, came up to me and asked me where I was born. And the thing is, the ones not born in Canada were originally from Scotland and Italy. No one questioned them because they were white.
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They had a ‘Chinese Head Tax’ here in Canada to deter immigration from China. They had no qualms using Chinese labour for building the railroads though! They made it prohibitive for Chinese workers to bring their spouses over for example. They charged fifty dollars per head initially in the 1880s’ up to five-hundred( a small fortune) dollars in the 1920s’, when Chinese immigration was stopped period. For some reason this did not apply to South Asians or Japanese although informal methods were probably used to keep out or curb immigration from those countries.(my Canadian history is somewhat rusty).
Abagond:
‘Please note: Asians born in America speak perfect English with an American accent. For most of them America is the only country they know. It is their country too. They are every bit as American as white people’.
If someone speaks with the same accent as you do why would you questions their origins? The underlying message is as Abagond details in his article, you are not really American, only whites are American irregardless of your family’s tenure in this country. There are similarities to this type of thinking in Canada also.
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And further note how the Japanese-Americans were put in internment camps, oh excuse me, “relocation centers” during WW2 as they were seen as the enemy, not so much the Germans and the Italians during that time. They were also the enemy, but were obviously not seen as much of a threat.
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I didn’t know about Vincent Chin, that was before I was even born. I read the wiki page on him and all I can say is wow! It’s as if his life wasn’t worth anything. Good looking guy with a promising future just gone like that. The way they went about showed how little they thought about consequences. And what his mother said is undeniably true.
“What kind of law is this? What kind of justice? This happened because my son is Chinese. If two Chinese killed a white person, they must go to jail, maybe for their whole lives… Something is wrong with this country.”
Honestly, those two men probably wouldn’t even live to see jail if it had been so.
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@Herneith:
Please correct me if I’m mistaken as my Canadian history is also rusty, but when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was completed, there were NO Chinese railroad workers present during the official ceremonial driving of last spike photo.
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Regarding Vincent Chin, the murderers virtually got off scot-free. The three years probation and the $3,000 fine is a slap in the face imho.
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@leigh204
‘Please correct me if I’m mistaken as my Canadian history is also rusty, but when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was completed, there were NO Chinese railroad workers present during the official ceremonial driving of last spike photo’.
The fact that they imposed this ‘head’ tax on the Chinese workers speaks to this. From their treatment of the Chinese worker(I believe many died building the railroad), they were viewed as less than human so would not warrant any recognition whatever their efforts. Besides, they were probably viewed as being fortunate in being in the country to start. Ever hear of they propaganda slogan ‘Yellow Peril’? This was rampant during that part of Canadian history. The trickle down effects of that racism can be felt today when someone asks you where you’re from despite having a Canadian accent and being born and bred here.
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Japanese Americans have been in America longer than most Italian, Polish and Jewish Americans. So, if anything, they should be seen as less foreign, but they are not.
The ironic part is Japan doe the same thing to their foreigners. Koreans have been their for generations and they will never be seen as real Japanese. Nor would you or I if moved there.
Btw, While we put Japanese in internment camps they tortured American soldiers and used them in medical experiments, including biological warfare tests and dissections.
And yes, German Americans were interned: http://www.foitimes.com/
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Not Really:
The Japanese Americans who were put in the prison camps WERE NOT FOREIGNERS! THEY WERE AMERICANS!!!!!!!
Your comment seems to assume they were foreigners. You are commenting on a post about a stereotype while using that very same stereotype.
That is what is ironic.
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“You are not getting this: the Japanese Americans who were put in the prison camps WERE NOT FOREIGNERS! THEY WERE AMERICANS!!!!!!!”
SO WERE THE GERMAN AMERICANS!!! Yet no one cares, and few even know about it.
You are commenting on a post about a stereotype while using that very same stereotype.
Nope, I brought it up to give a parallel; America is not unique. It’s not uniquely xenophobic – it’s not uniquely prejudice, as much as you’d like to think it is.
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Who cares if it is unique? It is still wrong.
And whatever point you were trying to make, your comment still assumed that Japanese Americans are foreigners:
“The ironic part is Japan doe the same thing to their foreigners. Koreans have been their for generations and they will never be seen as real Japanese. Nor would you or I if moved there.”
Your style of moral reasoning is used by whites to also excuse the slave trade and racism.
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Your style of moral reasoning is common among whites, who use it to excuse the slave trade and racism.
Who cares if it is unique? It is still wrong.
You don’t think that Japanese Americans don’t take the superiority complex from Japan over here? Would you presume to think that most Asian Americans feel blacks are equal to them?
Please let me know what Asian Americans have done to help the black community.
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@Not Really:
“The ironic part is Japan doe the same thing to their foreigners. Koreans have been their for generations and they will never be seen as real Japanese. Nor would you or I if moved there.”
(This is about the Japanese in Japan; not Americans of Japanese heritage. I will agree with you that the Koreans have been in Japan for generations and are not considered Japanese. However, the same thing applies with Okinawans.)
“Btw, While we put Japanese in internment camps they tortured American soldiers and used them in medical experiments, including biological warfare tests and dissections.”
(Again, you’re referring to the Japanese from Japan.)
“And yes, German Americans were interned: http://www.foitimes.com/”
(Of course, they were interned and so were the Italian-Americans. I never stated that they weren’t interned, BUT the overwhelming majority were Japanese-Americans.)
Sidenote:
Hey abagond. Please tell me how you italicize your quotes on here. Thank you in advance.
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@Not Really:
German American are the largest group in America of European descent. Do names like Eisenhower, Pershing, Hoover, Babe Ruth, Bush Roosevelt, Astor, Chrysler, Heinz, Hershey, Rockefeller, Trump, Westinghouse., Anheuser, Nimitz, etc. Why were ‘nt these people and the millions of other German-Americans sent to internment camps? Why were these people chosen out of millions? If they were interned due to the fact they were of German descent, then every other person of German descent would have been also. Hell, Eisenhower and Rockefeller would have been the first ones. That’s not to say none were interned, but yet they saw fit to intern hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans. There is a discrepancy here in regards to numbers. As Abagond states most of the Japanese interned were American-born, some several generations American. This is a classic example of it ‘happened to us to!’ arguement to divert the focus from the topic at hand which is why Asians born and bred in the U.S. are seen as foreigners still. The examples given are used to illustrates this. Two wrongs do not make a right, however, that is not what is being discussed.
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@Herneith:
“The fact that they imposed this ‘head’ tax on the Chinese workers speaks to this. From their treatment of the Chinese worker(I believe many died building the railroad), they were viewed as less than human so would not warrant any recognition whatever their efforts. Besides, they were probably viewed as being fortunate in being in the country to start. Ever hear of they propaganda slogan ‘Yellow Peril’? This was rampant during that part of Canadian history. The trickle down effects of that racism can be felt today when someone asks you where you’re from despite having a Canadian accent and being born and bred here.”
(Considering there were many Chinese labourers coming into the country at the time, “Yellow Peril” evoked negative images of being sickly/jaundiced and something that posed as a threat.) It’s no wonder this propaganda slogan worked quite well in limiting Chinese immigration.)
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Leigh:
To get italics you put <em> where you want the italics to begin and </em> where you want them to end.
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Even though Chin’s killers had beat him to death based merely on his race – and just a few days before his wedding – the judge said: “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”
White life here is being held to be way more valuable than Asian life.
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Not Really:
So what if the Japanese look down on me? It still does not excuse what was done to them BY WHITE PEOPLE.
The law is SUPPOSED TO protect everyone EQUALLY. You may have no trouble excusing it when it does not, but I do.
So while you try to make excuses for this sort of stuff, try to make it seem not so bad, to me it is extremely troubling.
Just because someone, somewhere has done the same sort of evil, terrible things that white Americans have done DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT OR ANY BETTER. You may draw comfort from that fact, but I do not.
Whatever can be done to anyone in the name of white racism can be done to me. I am on the wrong side of the fence: you are not. So your arguments do not have the same effect on me that they have on you.
When the Jews were being sent to be gassed by the Germans, I doubt they drew much comfort from the fact that the Turks had killed over a million Armenians.
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@abagond:
Leigh Says:
To get italics you put where you want the italics to begin and where you want them to end.
I did it! Yay me! Oh, thank you! I appreciate your help! 🙂
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Oopsie! I did it incorrectly! lol!
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During the war, the Japanese-Americans deemed disloyal to the US were “voluntarily” deported to Japan. Many of them didn’t want to go there as they knew no other life than what was in America. Ironically, the Japanese thought the Japanese-Americans were more American than Japanese.
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So what if the Japanese look down on me? It still does not excuse what was done to them BY WHITE PEOPLE.
The law is SUPPOSED TO protect everyone EQUALLY. You may have no trouble excusing it when it does not, but I do.
In this case everyone’s right were violated: The Japanese Americans, The German Americans, and the Italian Americans. Of course, more Japanese were sent to interment camps because they were such a tiny percentage of the population. Imagine trying to put millions of German and Italian Americans into camps during the middle of the war. It would have taken massive coordination. No doubt, Japan was seen as more of a threat because they directly attacked us.
My point to you about defending Asian Americans is this: Where is
the reciprocity? I don’t see Asians sticking up for black rights; I don’t seem that the various marches; I don’t see them standing up and demanding equal rights for blacks. Most Asian American I’ve known have views of blacks that are quite similar to many whites.
“The fact that they imposed this ‘head’ tax on the Chinese workers speaks to this. From their treatment of the Chinese worker(I believe many died building the railroad), they were viewed as less than human so would not warrant any recognition whatever their efforts.
The irish were treated no better when they came to this country. “No Irish need apply signs” were common in the 19th century. In the south the Irish were seen as less valuable than slaves and they worked at jobs that lead to high mortality rates. For it was better for a free Irishman to die than a slave that was worth money. Irish catholics were targeted by the Second Klan as well in the 1920’s.
Even though Chin’s killers had beat him to death based merely on his race – and just a few days before his wedding – the judge said: “These weren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”
Reminds me of Derrion Albert.
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Not Really,
The point you are missing is that most of the Germans who were interred were not born Americans. They were foreign-born Americans or Germans and their American-born children. That is a distinction.
Germans who had been here for generations were already integrated into American society and were left in peace. Whereas people of Japanese ancestry who had been here for generations and had no ties whatsoever to Japan were interred.
I am a foreign-born American with (obviously) split loyalties. So I can understand the idea that foreign-born persons may be more of a threat to national security than those who are born and bred here. But if someone is born and raised here it is a different story. That is what makes the Japanese internment so horrible.
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My boss (Indonesian born and raised in California) used to complain about the “perpetual foreigner stereotype”. It’s really true.
I have the same problem in Germany. Even though I spoke German with a German accent, dressed like a German, have a German husband, worked for a German company, have a German last name, etc. I was still constantly asked where I’m from. Um… Germany? When I’d answer that they’d always respond with, “No, I mean ORIGINALLY.” Um… Germany?
There’s a Turkish comedian who had this topic as part of his stand-up routine. He’s 3rd-generation German but is constantly asked where he’s from. It goes something like this:
Wow! Your’ German is really great. You don’t even have an accent. Where are you from?
(Names a German city)
No, I mean, where are you REALLY from.
(Names a German town)
No, I mean, where are you REALLy from.
(States his parents address in the town)
No, you don’t understand! Where are you from ORIGINALLY?
Oh, of course. Why didn’t you say so? (Names the German hospital where he was born, including the ward and room number.)
I crack up laughing whenever I hear that one. It’s a classic.
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@Not Really Says:
‘The Irish were treated no better when they came to this country. “No Irish need apply sign’s” were common in the 19th century. In the south the Irish were seen as less valuable than slaves and they worked at jobs that lead to high mortality rates. For it was better for a free Irishman to die than a slave that was worth money. Irish catholics were targeted by the Second Klan as well in the 1920’’s.
Be that as it may, this is not what the topic at hand is about. I think everyone is in agreement that atrocities have occurred throughout history. What is being discussed here is the perceptions of native born and bred Asians being perceived as ‘foreigners’. The examples being used by Abagond are used to illustrate the point. This topic is not about what group did such and such to another group per se. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of history, knows at least some of this. You are hijacking this topic with the generic white arguement ‘but that happened to us to!’. You are impeding the readers in their quest for knowledge based on lived experienced which is just as valid a source of information as any out there! Perhaps you should go to the suggestions segment of this blog and ask Abagond to write an article about historical atrocities(if he hasn’t already?). In particular Irish and Germans persecution during wartime or any other times in history. In the meantime, you are hindering the topic at hand which is; ‘Why Asians are Perceived as Perpetual Strangers’. Thank You.
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This article and the people commenting shows that although most of your readers are concerned with issues of racism affecting the African dispora, only a handful in contrast are concerned with issues of racism affecting other people of colour who are not African.
It may read as people are only concerned with issues that they perceive to relate directly to them but not to issues that affect other people even though these problems are shared by all (including whites) and nothing is going to improve if everyone just sticks to their own little group and care nothing about everyone else.
Such divisions have been invented by racism and whiteness, of which everyone here seems to be superficially against but strangely enough, many seem to be buying into this white branding of division with little questioning.
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my school has so many international students from China (and South Korea too i think…), that i wouldnt be surprised if some who were born and raised in America got treated like or mistaken for one of the foreign students.
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@alwaysright101:
Oh, gosh. This reminded me of my first day in hs as I was a new student there. One teacher mistook me for one of the international students from China and Japan. She spoke to me very slowly and made hand gestures, “You…look…lost. Please…follow…me. I…will…help…you!” I told the teacher it was okay, and that I’ll find my way around. She was amazed that I spoke English, and she asked me where I was born. I just told her I was born here. And did she ever turn beet red.
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@leigh204:
My grandmother had a friend of Japanese descent just at the onset of WWII. This man was at least 2 generations from Japan. He could not speak any Japanese except the requisite ‘Hello and Goodbye’ literally.
Back in those days, the people of colour ‘stuck’ together as there was so few of them. You didn’t have the racialized hierarchy and it’s intendant divisions that you have today.
Well, this man came to my grandmother crying. Apparently, representatives from the Canadian Government came to him and asked him to spy on Japan. Needless to say, this man was scared witless. Number one, he was 6’3, and two, he couldn’t speak Japanese to save his life! They wanted to parachute him into Japan whereby he would proceed on his merry way and start spying. Of course the Japanese would have noticed him right away and opening his mouth would have confirmed their suspicions. You see, the Japanese would have seen him for what he was, which was a North American who happened to be of Japanese descent, for the most part all ties severed with Japan.
Funny, his own country didn’t view him as such. He was perceived as a foreigner, as other. Of course they threatened him with imprisonment or relocation. I guess he was supposed to learn Japanese by osmosis! Despite being unable to speak Japanese and being bigger and taller than most of the Japanese at the time, they approached him with this proposition.
Anyhow he ended up changing his name and passing for Chinese! He disappeared into one the the Chinese communities in the States. My grandmother never saw him again. Since Asians are perceived as all looking alike to most whites at the time, (this may have been one time where racism served a purpose!) this was possible. He wasn’t really Canadian was he? At least according to his own government.
There was alittle known incident against Sikhs in 1914 the ‘Komagata Maru incident’ in which Punjabi Indians were turned away in Vancouver. whilst trying to immigrate to Canada When they returned to India they were met by the British naval ships. Consequently, 20 people were massacred in a ‘riot’ that ensued.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komagata_Maru_incident.
These histories whether personal or documented are not widely disseminated into society at large. They should be as they constitute a link in a chain of such racism against Asians which is still felt today albeit in a covert manner such as ‘The Perpetual Foreigner’.
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Irish Americans would make a great post, especially since they started out in America as being seen as lesser creatures (made clear by Not Really’s comment) but in time became full whites in good standing.
But, as Herneith pointed out, that is off-topic here.
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Therese said:
“nothing is going to improve if everyone just sticks to their own little group and care nothing about everyone else.”
I agree. Almost from square one, racism has been used in America to divide people and keep them weak, particularly the working class and people of colour.
If you notice, Not Really tried to play down racism at every turn except for one time: in noticing the divisions between blacks and Asians. Why is that?
Sure there are Asians who kiss up to whites and look down on blacks. But there are black people like that too, you know. It is one of the main ways racism is used to divide people: throw a few bones to the sell-outs to buy their loyalty. It was how the British ruled a fourth of mankind.
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In the lifetime of most people reading this, or at least that of their children, whites are going to become a minority in America. If people of colour remain divided like they are, then a huge, huge opportunity is going to be lost.
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If people of color remain divided like they are, then a huge, huge opportunity is going to be lost.
Hear, hear! I am all for people of color uniting to fight racial prejudice.
And thanks for the tip about italics.
I guess I’m kind of in a unique position because I take crap aimed at pretty much every race or ethnic group out there. Ah, the joys of being an “incognegro” (love that word, by the way). Although I guess it’s not totally off-base because I have Cherokee, Japanese, African, English, German, and Czech blood in me. So I guess every epithet applies.
Leigh, I had a woman ask me last week if I was from the Philippines and if I “liked it here, in America”.
She spoke to me very slowly and made hand gestures, “You…look…lost. Please…follow…me. I…will…help…you!”
LOL!
Yeah, Americans speak slowly as if I am an idiot and the Germans speak REALLY LOUD as if I am deaf.
Although I must admit it’s good for a laugh to be at a Bavarian fest and have some drunk German guy stumble over and offer to teach me the disco-fox while pulling out every last bit of tourist-Spanish he can dig up and gush about how much he loved Brazil.
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Black&German Says:
I guess I’m kind of in a unique position because I take crap aimed at pretty much every race or ethnic group out there. Ah, the joys of being an “incognegro” (love that word, by the way). Although I guess it’s not totally off-base because I have Cherokee, Japanese, African, English, German, and Czech blood in me. So I guess every epithet applies.
Damn and I thought I was mixed.
Here’s my genetic make up:
Black part – Jamaican, Haitian and Dominican.
White Part – English, Spanish and French.
Native American – I don’t really know.
East Asian – Again I don’t really know. Perhaps there isn’t any.
Funny thing is I don’t look mixed at all. Probably because I’m mostly black.
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Vindicator:
The Czech part probably has Roma in there. But saying, “Do you have Gypsy blood?” to a Czech is fighting words, so I’ve never asked.
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The Japanese ancestor is funny because we had picture of him and thought he was Oriental (Turkish). But then my father (who has genealogy as a hobby) dug up documentation and was like, “What kind of weird-ass name is that?” LOL! We still don’t know what in the world a Japanese guy was doing in South Carolina. We’re speculating it had something to do with construction. Railroads, maybe?
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I think most people who appear to be ‘racially ambiguous’ are asked where they are from at some point or are aked on a constant basis. This can prove enervating for whites especially due to their need to pigeonhole people. I feel that this will influence how they will subsquently treat you. That joke provided by Black&German is an illustration of this!
In gerneral, people will ask racialized people where you’re from up until the umpteenth generation, progressively becoming more exasperated if you did-not just ‘get off the boat’. Why not come out and ask you what your background is. The person can choose whether or not to answer. I think in effect that they are pointing out your ‘foreignness’ at least in their perception.
I get asked constantly “where are you from?”. If I’m in a particularly ornery mood, I will go back to the umpteenth generation, which baffles many. Otherwise I just tell them I’m from my mother. I also get asked which island are you from.(there is a large West Indian population here in Toronto). I tell them ‘Centre Island’ which is a small island just off the Toronto Harbourfront. I constantly get asked as to where my accent is from. This is particularly insulting as I have a distinct Canadian accent punctuated with the proverbial ‘eh s’. In reality, those who ask me about my ‘accent’ are really asking about my origins but for some unknown, reason are afraid to just come out and say so.
I get the where are you from from other blacks also. I think they ask me this in order to find commonality in a possibly shared cultural background for, as I said before, there is a large West Indian population here. There is a large African diaspora here period. They appear to be genuinely interested when I tell them of my background for the most part as do other People of Colour. Asians and other people of colour can also tell similar tales. I have gotten sick and tired of this so in effect I have stop engaging in ‘information session’, I am not being compensated financially for this ‘teaching moment’.
People, if some one asks you where your from say ‘I am from my mother have a nice day” end of conversation. I am speaking of strangers or semi-acquaintances approaching you of course. For some bizarre reason they feel free to approach you unsolicited and ask you these questions. They are designed to put you in your place as an outsider or time server in your own country.
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@Herneith:
Thanks for the story! The gov’t officals weren’t thinkers, were they? Your grandmother’s Japanese-Canadian friend was 6’3…oh yeah, that’ll work. He might as well have been Godzilla. Not to mention, he didn’t speak so much as a lick of Japanese. Let’s see. Why not throw a Westernized Asian to spy for us because he looks like them, and hopefully, the enemy will give us the info we need.
*rolls eyes*
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@abagond (#31) says: If you notice, Not Really tried to play down racism at every turn except for one time: in noticing the divisions between blacks and Asians. Why is that?
White society has designated the minority myth with Asians and the stoopid myth with Africans – which is entirely untrue and ignores Asians who are struggling and dismisses Africans who are geniuses.
The result is, some Asians and Africans believe in this model minority myth. Asians think they’re better… even though they’re really not. Africans think even Asians are against them, even though it is the lies spread by whiteness.
Then there is the myth of sexuality and sportsmanship. Anyone who has not heard of the asexual unsporty Asian has been stuck in some other dimension. Anyone who has not heard of the hypersexual sports freak African has also been in lalaland.
Even the women have been subjected to comparisons and not favorably either. The Asian female is seen as submissive and shapeless whilst the African female is supposed to be sassy and curvaceous – what about all the women who do not fit these stereotypes? There is the boyish Asian unwoman and the loud hypersexual African unwoman both completely untrue and harmful to all people’s views of a healthy individual body condition/shape.
The Asian and the African have been held by whiteness as abnormal and as opposite to each other to make whiteness seem normal and safe. Asians and Africans who fall for this trap are hurting both themselves and eachother. They should be working together not against eachother.
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@Therese:
Amen! I couldn’t have put it better myself.
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The Asian and the African have been held by whiteness as abnormal and as opposite to each other to make whiteness seem normal and safe.
Have you ever noticed how when white people are in a large group without any minorities present it doesn’t seem weird to them? They don’t even notice. But if they are in a large group without any other white people present it makes them uncomfortable?
It’s because white = normal. White people see themselves as raceless.
It’s funny because if my husband and I walk into a large gathering full of white people my thought is “Geez. Everybody here is white.” (it seems unnatural to me and I wonder why that is so) but if I mention it to my husband he’s like “Huh? I hadn’t noticed.” (it seems natural to him)
Macon had an interesting entry on that phenomenon.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/09/see-no-problem-with-being-surrounded-by.html
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The Asian and the African have been held by whiteness as abnormal and as opposite to each other to make whiteness seem normal and safe.
Have you ever noticed how when white people are in a large group without any minorities present it doesn’t seem weird to them? They don’t even notice. But if they are in a large group without any other white people present it makes them uncomfortable?
It’s because white = normal. White people see themselves as raceless.
It’s funny because if my husband and I walk into a large gathering full of white people my thought is “Geez. Everybody here is white.” (it seems unnatural to me and I wonder why that is so) but if I mention it to my husband he’s like “Huh? I hadn’t noticed.” (it seems natural to him)
Macon had an interesting entry on that phenomenon.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/09/see-no-problem-with-being-surrounded-by.html
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The model minority stereotype probably applies better to West Indians and African immigrants in America than to Asians as a whole, but you do not hear about that. Nor, on the other hand, do you hear about Laotians and Cambodians in America and how so many of them are poor and drop out of high school.
The model minority thing, to the degree that it has any truth, is not an Asian thing but an immigrant thing and immigrants of a certain kind at that. It has little to do with race. But it is twisted to serve the ends of white people to get them off the hook and, as a sort of bonus, it helps to divide blacks from Asians.
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No one in Japan would notice a tall Japanese Canadian because all Asians look alike 😉
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@abagond says: The model minority stereotype probably applies better to West Indians and African immigrants in America than to Asians as a whole, but you do not hear about that. Nor, on the other hand, do you hear about Laotians and Cambodians in America and how so many of them are poor and drop out of high school.
Of course I’d be buying into another stereotype if I were to jump onto this enthusiastically as I was about to but what you say is true in more than just a few cases.
West Indies + African immigrants = seriously, I have met a few and read about a lot who are computer experts… how zat for some competition for that mythical Asian geek?
CN Le has written about the model minority myth in regards to Asians particularly SE Asians The Model Minority Image.
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@abagond:
Yes, and all Asians speak the language of the countries their families originally came from despite many being in North America for generations. It’s genetic I tell you….not!
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I deleted a comment from “Johnny”, who may have been Igor. In any case, it was a right-wing plagiarizer who cut and pasted Racial Myth #1 from this Free Republic article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/762059/posts
It argues that about half of all people sent to internment camps in America during the Second World War were white, that the internment of Japanese Americans had nothing to do with race.
Deleted as plagiarism.
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abagond, why don’t you just give in and admit you’re a racist and call it a day. Whites can’t do anything right in your eyes. In your eyes, We’re all evil. We all think and act the same way. You’re pathetic and so is this blog and most of the anti-white conspiracy theory yahoos. Hopefully someday you will learn to get the hatred out of your heart. However, at this time you’re a very sad, myopic and mean-spirited person.
In your eyes, white people have to be held up to higher moral accountability. That’s because, in the eyes of the racist on this blog, the civilizational and moral superiority of whites is a given.
That’s why There will be no examination by you of the racial discrimination that exists under India’s caste system, nor of the virulent anti-Semitism that prevails throughout the Arab Middle East. Intense scrutiny will not be brought to the realities of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda, where tribal hatred between the Hutu and Tutsi has led to mass genocide, involving the murder of millions of people, in the last decade. Nor will “racism” be found in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe conducts a war against white farmers because they happen to be white.
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Did you hear about Lou Jing in China. Why don’t you ever talk about that?
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@Rose – this is not about white people, it is about the system set up by whiteness called racism. Firstly, do you know if Abagond is white (pointing out the wrongs of white people does not make a white person less white) or black (being pro-black does not make one black if they are not born so) or some other poc (because ya know, the world actually isn’t white and black only)? Unless he is white he does not have the backing of the institution to be racist (even though he would disagree with this definition of racism). Secondly, he has already written about Lou Jing if you had bothered to look under “New Stuff”.
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Rose:
1. At least I express myself in my own words and do not cut and paste my thoughts from websites like you do. That last paragraph comes from Front Page Magazine.
2. I am not holding whites to some impossibly high standard. Is equal protection under the law TOO MORAL for white people? In this post I complained about what? Japanese Americans being sent to prison camps even though few were charged with any crime. That is setting the bar too high for white people? Or two white thugs kill a Chinese American and serve NO PRISON TIME, like his life was worth nothing. That is too much to ask? Do you know how sick that sounds?
3. I have written a bit about the Congolese war and about genocide and about racism in Brazil, France and China, but for the most part I write about American racism, particularly against blacks. Not because I have some double standard but simply because it affects me way more.
4. I am racist and I know it:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/i-am-racist/
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@Herneith Says: I get the where are you from from other blacks also. I think they ask me this in order to find commonality in a possibly shared cultural background for, as I said before, there is a large West Indian population here. There is a large African diaspora here period. They appear to be genuinely interested when I tell them of my background for the most part as do other People of Colour.
I have to admit to being a lot less snarky in my response to other PoC in regards to “where I’m from” even though they are asking the very same question as white people but you know that they understand what it’s like to not be seen as the “true” [insert westernised nationality] and they have probably been asked that question themselves. White people (and again I’m a bit more lenient with foreign white people) get the answer consisting of various cities including the hospital where I was born, most people of color will get the name of my foreparent’s country… maybe after one town name.
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I did write about Lou Jing:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/lou-jing/
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@Rose:
Johnny is that you?
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abagond Says:
No one in Japan would notice a tall Japanese Canadian because all Asians look alike 😉
We do??? 😛
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@Rose:
‘abagond, why don’t you just give in and admit you’re a racist and call it a day.
Abagond has admitted to this on many occasions. Obviously you have not even perused this blog or else you would have read this.
In your eyes, white people have to be held up to higher moral accountability.
No “Rose’, it is not a ‘given’ to the ‘racists on this blog. You see Rose, being in the power group does infer the mantel of higher moral accountability on your shoulders. A mantel I may add that was not voluntarily put there by racialized people. You see fit to complain about people who discuss the adverse effects of white supremacy? You see “Rose’, one should be aware of what is going on around oneself. It can be deleterious to one’s mental and physical health if you are not. For you see, as with any adversity, the more you know, the better you can deal with it, thus lessening these deleterious effects. But then you wouldn’t want that would you? Else you would not have an excuse to harass racialized people with the ‘mighty whitey’ syndrome.
You’re pathetic and so is this blog and most of the anti-white conspiracy theory yahoos. Hopefully someday you will learn to get the hatred out of your heart. However, at this time you’re a very sad, myopic and mean-spirited person.
No Rose. It is you who are pathetic. You deflect the argument from the topic at hand which is why Asians are seen as perpetual foreigners. It’s as if you came here to lecture the ‘coloured’ and ‘orientals’ as to what they should be discussing. Maybe we should have invited you to moderate like good ‘coloureds’ and ‘orientals’? I’m sure you have much to teach us! Did you even bother to read the topic heading? It appears not. I suspect you haven’t even taken a look at this blog to see that it has a plethora of subjects open to discussion. Not just topics on race. If anyone’s myopic it is you. Your tone is patronizing and condescending. In fact, I think that you, Johnny and NotReally are one in the same person, although I could be wrong. If I am, it still doesn’t excuse your racist rant couched under the guise of concern for other racialized people and people in general. Your diversionary tactics have been to no avail.
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How come no one has informed “Rose” that all of the problems that she mentioned all have a root in white supremacy?
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How come no one has informed “Rose” that all of the problems that she mentioned all have a root in white supremacy?
She already knows that, hence the diversion from the topic at hand.
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White society has offered and provided many people of color with an unprecedented and unmatched standard of living, human rights and legal protection that you will find nowhere else in the world, including their respective countries of origin.
Much of this blog contains whining and rambling about such trivial nonsense like “ooh, people think i wasn’t born here, oh its soo horrible” “ooh I cant wear dreadlocks to work, awww it’s so cruel”
; this garbage needs to be put into some serious perspective. Take a trip to China and see how you are treated, while walking down some average street; or why not go to India and live with the locals for a while, and see how much they care about racial sensitivities.
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Arab Slave Trader alert!
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Rycher Says:
White society has offered and provided many people of color with an unprecedented and unmatched standard of living, human rights and legal protection that you will find nowhere else in the world, including their respective countries of origin.
Not all have done this.
Rycher Says:
Take a trip to China and see how you are treated, while walking down some average street; or why not go to India and live with the locals for a while, and see how much they care about racial sensitivities.
Are the “Go live somewhere else” argument. Typical deflective tactics.
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White society hasn’t offered us anything but the crack of their butt.
LOL!
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[…] the conflation of Asianness with foreignness should not contaminate the research methods of studies on the racial perception of East Asians. […]
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Yes, I see the girl in the Virgin ad as a foreigner. No I didn’t apply the “perpetual foreigner stereotype” onto her. I’m looking at the ad through the eyes of an American so I’m going to assume that every kid, no matter what color or race, is on that ad is going to be a foreigner. As it stands, I’m looking at her use of the V sign, an expression used to death by many Japanese I should add. If it were a Black kid, I would think he or she were an African or Caribbean penpal. If he or she were white, I would’ve guessed a Lithuanian or French penpal.
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@ Rycher *even though his/her post was made a while ago* i did live in China for 3 months and i loved it. i’m considering living there in the future. perfect, no. but i didn’t feel much different than in the US. For some reason i always have the sense i am being stared at even here. so, when they stare at me there it isn’t such a big deal.
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Even though most British people assumed I was 100% East Asian, I never felt I was treated like a perpetual foreigner there. Perhaps by children and racist teenagers, but not so much by adults.
I’ve never lived in the US, but in Canada it seemed to be of far more importance for people to know what exactly my racial make-up was. So I got many more questions along the lines of, ‘Where are you from?’ from adults.
I haven’t had anyone compliment me on my English, but I have had people act as if they don’t understand me in Canada, as if I’m speaking another language. Then someone with me (who was white) would repeat what I had said with the exact same accent and the person would magically get it.
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My dad is West Indian, and while I was in middle school he got the “Oh, I just LOVE your accent!” thing all the time. He hated it (of course), but he would just smile and say, “I was just about to say the same thing to you!” It always cracked me up.
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I learned to think everyone was born here, even those with accents. Why? Because I have met people who are born here, never even been to their parents homeland but speak with a thick accent. LOL! “Foreign” accents mean nothing.
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Nigerians will always be perpetual foreigners.
They work together and play together. Pray together in “churches” with fold up chairs in a strip mall and a pastor with a mail order PhD in theology.
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@ Everett
“Nigerians will always be perpetual foreigners.”
Not in Nigeria.
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[…] it’s referred to as the perpetual foreigner syndrome to outsiders–for us, it’s something a bit different as we make a bid to assimilate (or […]
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I grew up with so many Asian Americans I assume the Asians I see are native born. However, I am familiar with this perpetual foreigner stereotype as it applies to them, and its strange. It isn’t surprising though, that many whites think that they are the one and true Americans and POC and especially Asians, are foreigners.
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this article is so true. i myself am bi racial, korean and italian descent.
i look asian, not of european descent at all.
i sometimes get mistaken as being chinese, or filipino.
its now 2011, and in America this is still a big problem, overall.
people who look foreign are perceived to not be american.
i am american. i was born here, raised here etc. but many people have this ignorant belief that to be american, you have to have blue eyes and brown hair. this belief is uneducated at best, but the underlying reason is pure and simple prejudice and racism. in the minds of americans especially white america, many not all, think that you have to be white to be truly american.
si have experienced this covert racism many, many times. not like in the 80’s when i was a teenager (worse back then), but since 9/11 this phenomenon seems to have gotten worse. in the era of globalization and increased competition in the world, this perpetual foreignor syndrome is only getting worse in my opinion. until the races are more equally distributed, will this problem cease to exist.
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A great example of the perpetual foreigner stereotype:
I told a white woman about the Japanese American internment during the Second World War. She pointed out that the Union army during the Civil War ran prison camps too. Harry Truman’s grandmother, for example, was put in one. Then she said: “So you see, Americans are put in prison camps too!” This was in 2012. Out of the mouth of a white liberal Obama voter.
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[…] from?” question and the fact is, he’s from HERE. Let’s not perpetuate the perpetual foreigner stereotype because we know a white couple or two who adopted a baby from […]
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:::sighs::: I hear where you’re coming from and I hurt with everyone ever suffering under baseless racism.
Growing up in Detroit I was subjected to it in public schools, not allowed to “belong”, laughed at as “stupid”, punched and pinched, threatened, and lied about that nearly resulted in a race riot – about 200 of each “white: and “black” ready to “throw down” after school.
This was between the ages of 8 and 12. I am allegedly “white” and of Polish descent.
Later in life I worked with a brilliant woman who some might call “black”.
She related what happened in supermarket line. She got in line and was waiting patiently when a child in the basket in front of her peeked around his mother and said, Mama, Look! A N—-r!” The mother grabbed his arm and jerked him saying, “Watch your mouth!”. My friend spoke to the woman, “No, YOU watch YOUR mouth. Children aren’t born with prejudice, they learn it at home.”
I was picked on as an allegedly “white” child whose “ancestors” were responsible for the “black’s” condition in America.
Which was a lie. I am only 3rd generation American. MY people were have a very long history of oppression that includes being captured and sold as slaves. I really resent being lumped together with the assholes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland
My point? That all this looking into the past to explain the present will NEVER bring about a bright future.
Reverse racism is just as bad as racism itself. Realize that there are many “whites” that despise the “whites” that claim to represent us.
Realize that many of “those type of whites” are currently Congressmen and Senators – oh yes, they are – they wrangle the subject any way they can to make a buck. (And there are many of ALL races who play the races against each other for gain)
Realize that despising ALL WHITES and just saying “by whites” or “whites did it” etc., is just as bad, just as evil as the “whites” that ever said “all [race/religion/ethnicity] are …”
The cure is to speak specifically, and find ANY racism reprehensible. Otherwise you allow others to manipulate your thoughts, and use you to continue this evil.
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When I first started reading I was interested because I’m in an Ethnic Studies class. Someone says I’m a minority, but who is saying that? Maybe the one saying it could be perceived as a minority. I think it would depend on whose eyes you’re seeing it through. I’m a Mexican American (born and raised in the US). Hey Mexican’s had a claim here at one point and time and weren’t treated to good and forced to leave this land and then asked to please come back to be laborers because our soldiers were at war…Ok, go figure.. So that is one reason why the Government has a relationship with Mexico, Anyway, I can say that this was our land at one point and time (check history – Mexican – American War)? I’m not bitter about it. what happened, happened and anyway, I’m a native of this country.We need to acknowledge what happened and learn our roots. It’s part of history and people should know and not be ignorant to things. If people were educated on the history and not tunnel vision maybe there would be more compassion, respect, and understanding. Ironically, it seems as if many of the posts are saying the same thing, “hey, what about what happened to us?” It’s sad about what happened to a lot of people in the internment camps. To me, I think it’s intertersting who, what, and when, but I feel that all this “they” , “you”, and “we” is what divides everyone. What is the the superior race? We are created equal. We have blood, bodies, and souls. There is no one superior to another. We all eat, drink, sleep, and everything else. We wake up and go to sleep. I keep seeing white, black, Japanese, German, etc in these posts..etc but seriously if we’re going to talk about what happened to one, why don’t we talk about what happened to everyone in the world? I could bet that there is something that happened to each and every country.. why don’t we research..?, We are all unique and everyone is an individual. Who cares who came here first or last? Not who cares, because it is interesting to know, but what difference does it make? It seems like a little kids saying, “it’s mine – I got it first!”This is God’s earth it doesn’t “belong” to anyone. We rent or mortgage where we live. Really if we didn’t pay for land maybe everyone would get along better. People should respect eachother no matter what and not be so greedy with the world..We don’t own it, we live here and remember to quit saying, “them, you, they” It’s funny but when someone is trying to say “I’m not prejudice and then the next sentence is “they….” Right there the statement is you’re different and yes, we are different but that is what we should be proud of because we are unique, if everyone was the same what a boring world this would be and we are so lucky to have a diversity of people. I would not want to live where I would just see my own race every day… God made the rainbow and it’s colorful and that’s how He made us. guess it’s the way it’s said, and we don’t even realize our own words.
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Same thing with Latinos, aka “Mexicans”, since Latinos aren’t really US citizens or from anywhere else other than Mexico. Apparently. No Brazilians (who DO NOT speak Spanish, mind you), Cubans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Peruvians, etc. are actually present or represent different cultures of origin. Even in Mexico people appear, speak, and carry themselves differently depending on where they are from.
But my biggest frustration is how white people are always complaining about how you need to speak Spanish and English to get jobs here, since most business people aren’t stupid and want to exploit every possible market. And they force students to take classes in ESL, or “English as a Second Language” to make all the “real Americans” more comfortable. And pass state exams written only in English, even in subjects like math. And it still doesn’t work. Still doesn’t stick. Language is not a sufficient benchmark for cultural assimilation.
But even third-, fourth-, fifth-generation kids are asked if they speak Spanish and called beaners and wetbacks. Even though we speak English perfectly fine, thank you very much. Always the jokes about Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol. They’re really not funny. Please.
In other words, taking ESL may be useful, but anyone with brown skin and a surname like Rodriguez, Garcia, Gonzalez or Sanchez is going to be questioned by stupid white people about their citizenship. Asked if they espeakee English. It will be assumed we speak Spanish, even though our parents and abuelitos want us to speak English so we can grow up big and strong in the “land of opportunity”, and our language is repressed. But sometimes we have trouble speaking English, but our Spanish is also terrible because we’ve been forced to ignore it, despite the language being an important part of our cultural identity.
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The funniest line from this video:
Man: Where are YOU .. FROM?
Woman: Well, I was born in Orange County, but I never actually lived there.
Man: Uh, I mean before that.
Woman: Before I was born? . . .
LOL
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@ Jefe
Thanks. At last someone showed how utterly brainless it is by doing it to a “regular” American.
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but abagond, as in the video, it is the white person who thinks the other person is weird. They are still clueless about their own behavior.
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@ jefe
Yes, it went over the heads of some as the comments proved, here made into a follow-up video:
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@jefe:
Oh man, I can totally relate. Having grown up in a nearly all white town, I heard “what are you?” all the time. It’s not easy being mixed.
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[…] That means seeing Asian, Black, Latino, Native and Muslim Americans as Real Americans. […]
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White people who think like that should just drop down and die!
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White people who think like that should just drop down and die! I have a friend that is a third generation lebonese American. She is not Muslim, she’s christian and some white people joke about her being a perpetual foreigner… So it happens to middle eastern Americans too not just the Muslim middle eastern Americans.
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Over the course of my life I’ve frequently been questioned as to where I am from, even though my ancestry here (outside of indigenous lineages) goes back to the colonial era. Mostly I am asked that question by people who’ve assumed that I’m either Latina, Pacific Islander or Asian. It’s kind of strange really, especially for someone such as myself who has origins going back at least several centuries (my native ancestry, of course, goes back millennia) in the Deep South.
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This was informative a most informative and enlightening post. In the words of one of my favorite bloggers and commenters Brotha Wolf “Whiteness is one hell of a drug”.
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I have always heard it’s rude to ask people who are perceived as foreigners where they are from. Maybe it’s just human curiosity. If it’s offensive people should just except that it’s offensive and mind their business.
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I come to this blog to learn, in a quote from Maya Angelou, “When you learn better,you do better”. I would behoove all of us myself included to be reflective and do introspection, to learn about others that are different from us culturally and ethnically. My desire is to learn better and do better.
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@MB
Maybe we should ask, why are they perceived as foreigners in the first place?
If you are born and raised in a place, ie, NATIVE to a place, can you understand why it can be annoying, or even offensive to listen to someone asking such a question?
And it gets worse.
I mentioned before that when I was looking for apartments in Queens, New York City, real estate agents all asked me what my nationality was. I told them that I was a native born American, born and raised in Washington, DC, my father was from New York, my mom from Alabama. My Dad was of XXX descent and my mom was of YYY and ZZZ descent, etc. etc. etc.
Then they would ask, “But what country are you from?”. I replied “I just told you.” Then they would say, “But if you don’t tell me what country you are from, what will I tell the landlord?” Some real estate agents refused to show me apartments even after answering all their questions.
Should I have been offended? Please tell me what the appropriate action should have been.
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@Jefe: I feel your frustration. You are AMERICAN. I guess many are just thick headed. “Whiteness is one hell of a drug”. You told them XYZ. That means you are American. I guess it the Archie Bunker syndrome. I am learning from you. Thanks for your commentary in discussions on this blog. I can feel your frustration.
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@MB
“Whiteness is one hell of a drug”.
Black people do that too. Even Latinos and Asians and Middle Easterners. It is not just a white thing.
Once I took a train from New York to DC, and a black woman, who was on her way to Philadelphia, sat next to me. She stared at me for over an hour, and just before we got to Trenton she blurted out, “Are you a foreigner?” I replied, “No.” She stared at me for another 10 mins. and then asked, “Well then, are you an American Indian?” I said, “No.”. She stared for another 2-3 minutes, and then asked again, “Well, then are you Hispanic?” Again I replied, “No”. Then she got extremely flustered and frustrated and finally asked, “Well, well, well the hell are you then?” I told her and then she said, “NO WAY, NO WAY, I don’t believe it.”
Can you tell me, how am I supposed to react to that? I am not really offended. I just chalk it up to people having some uneasiness with the way I look. But it does get tiring and annoying. Only when the ambiguity that people feel leads to actual discrimination that I get beyond annoyed.
By the time we got to the north Philadelphia, we finally started to have a normal conversation, but that was only minutes before the train pulled into Philadelphia.
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@Jefe: Wow! Just Wow! That is really rude. The ignorance and rudeness of people is astounding. That’s rude as hell. I don’t know what to say. Yes, black people are guilty of rudeness and ignorance as well. Ignorance comes in all colors shapes and sizes. To coin a country western song, “The Beer is Good, People Are Crazy”. It’s a mad world.
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@ Jefe: I admire you for always taking the high road. I am sure this is annoying and offensive. I was getting annoyed just reading your comment. You are a world traveler, so you have lots of experiences with people. You should blog about this.
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@ Jefe: All of us non white Americans have experienced some type of microaggresion of some kind.
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We are all guilty of doing micro-aggressions to each other. It is not just a white on non-white thing.
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@jefe: Agreed.
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“Black people do that too. Even Latinos and Asians and Middle Easterners. It is not just a white thing.”
– – –
Yes, that’s true. In fact I find it almost surreal when it is done to me by other Blacks.
On one occasion while I was waiting on an order at a deli counter serviced by 2 Black countermen, I and my (for them) apparently indecipherable ethnicity became the subject of the chitchat between them. Both made a point of looking straight into my eyes as they discussed all the “strange-looking folks” they had come across since their arrival from the South to NYC. I just stood there smiling wickedly as they stared at me and discussed how in the South the only people they came across were either white, Black or Native American. I have all 3 of those groups in my background, so, at the time, I thought it was a bit far-fetched that they seemingly could not figure out my mixture for themselves.
Oddly enough, though, I have come to realize since that occurrence that – according to several autosomal DNA calculators, anyway – I have various degrees of East Asian, Southeast Asian and North Asian (Mongol-Turk / Tatar / Tartar) ancestries, as well as North Amerindian and South Amerindian ancestries.
(Also, my African ancestry is not restricted to West Africa, but derives from all four directions: North, South, East and West.)
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At Jefe, it is not just Asians who get that you must be a foreigner. I have to a degree gotten it all my life. Now having come back from a foreign country it is worst. However when I was young, I would get you don’t sound like you are from here, what country are you from, are your Mom and Dad American.
My favorite or lets saying embarrassing incident was during a debate contest in high school the speaker actually said, that I’d come from an African country that was worn torn and how with American opportunities I could come here and win in something like this. Big round of applause to K.O.T. I had to shake his hand and accept the award and there was even a little write up the district paper.
Which was the joke for the rest of the year with my Asian friends. I personally think it made their year. Still, I didn’t correct the guy so it was my fault also. Most people think I sound white however because I use certain words I must not be from this country. I’ve gotten are you from England, Jamaica, Nigeria, South Africa, were your parents from the Bahamas or something. (Then it comes those words that have punctuated my entire life, well you aren’t like black people from here.)All because I opened my mouth. If I am quiet I can usually escape the barrage of questions. Even today will out thrift hunting I got the where are you from question. Like the world cannot sit right until my parentage has been confirmed. However, by now I am just use to it. I do wonder about how my son will deal with it. I already get asked if we adopted or am I his step-father by some. This line of questioning however I have very little patience with.
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Oh, this pouring rain of microaggressions — what do we do?
I get the same thing overseas as well. Last year, taking a car from Dalian to Yingkou in Liaoning province in northeast China, the driver and passenger asked me where I was from. Their first guess was Malaysia or Singapore, if not, then middle-eastern or Arab (I have actually had Asians in the USA ask me if I was Arab too). In Paris, an Arab asked me if I learned my French in Japan. In Japan, someone put me on the phone so that I could converse with his friend and explain what I wanted in Portuguese (he thought I was from Brazil). In the Philippines, they tell me that they cannot tell if I am Filipino or American. I had someone on the plane from Hong Kong to San Francisco ask me if I was from the same country as him (not knowing where he was from, I really couldn’t tell either). He then told me he was from Kazakhistan. In Hong Kong, I had someone come up to me in a large shopping arcade, and speak to me in Spanish asking me if I was from Venezuela (his country), and then proceeded to ask me to help him so I had to try my best translating his Spanish to Cantonese at the information desk. Then I have most Americans flatly reject that I could be from the USA. I get this “NO WAY” from them. I got that in Belgium too.
You tell people the truth and they refuse to believe – what do you do?
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All prejudice can be traced back to how we entertain ourselves, and these days most tv channels are racist. Asians need to have a hold of the entertainment industry to have a say.
http://www.aznville.com the very 1st Asian Social Media Network.
Everyone should spread the word, and be apart of this movement. no BS
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IzzyBell, interesting site. I do wonder how well Asians are portrayed in media. I once had a friend who said well we can get Asian TV. I think she meant the Korean dramas and Chinese dramas that came in rather sketchy near the downtown Asian hub. There are a few shows I would love to see done with Asian American actors in the lead. No, I do not mean any Jet Li show where he is the action star and doesn’t get the girl. Yet, I would love to see something done on the life of Anna May Wong. Historical fiction on the making of China Town in California.(I say historical fiction because Hollywood can’t help itself.)
Now if I could only have “The Last Airbender” redone the right way.
It is strange how the media show’s other minorities also. I haven’t been in America for a long time but if you were do a heavily Asian cast show who would be the power hitting actors?
I was once doing a co-recruiting for a picture shoot for toy with another recruiter who was trying to find an actor. He claimed that it was hard to find Asian actors (Why am I always surprised when I hear something like this.). I really wonder if that was true the same company but different person told me it was hard to find Native American actors. I am still in disbelief of those statements.
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@ Jefe, humor it to death, speak it to death, and write it to death. I grew up with a guy name Eboo Patel. He had it hard growing up but he has done very well for himself now. He has his Interfaith thing going now but growing up I saw how hard it was to be Asian, Other, and different. He was so lost as a teenager I really had worried about him. You could see the frontal attacks by people from the making fun of his name to the verbal and sometimes physical confrontations. You could see those side ways attack also speech seems to have given him his very own brand of confidence. I don’t always agree with him but I have seen where he came from.
We are also the same age so it is nice to have seen a friend that I have known since I was 11 make it as high as he has. Then again he is full of himself but I think he deserve to have the feeling. He worked very hard to get to where he has now. Many of our so called friends don’t seem to get it but I think I do and I say he should run with it as long as possible and be great not average.
I also get it when I hear people saying, oh well Asian they are naturally smart. It is akin to, oh he must be one of those affirmative action people.
I always think when hearing someone say that, well you must be one of those people who got here just because you know someone or how else would you have this position you aren’t very qualified for. A little of the wink, wink, nod, nod we know you must have gotten you in.
Crazy this system that would make an insane asylum look homey.
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@ King of trouble
“Now if I could only have “The Last Airbender” redone the right way”—You would not even believe how angry my husband was with this movie. We could barely stomach it to finish it.
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@KOT
That sounds good. Something about Asian-American history or contemporary life with an Asian-American cast and story.
I guess the closest thing in living memory to that was the Joy Luck Club (1993), Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989) (and other things by Wayne Wang), A Great Wall (1986) or Chan is Missing (1982) and before that, the Flower Drum Song (late 50s / early 60s). All of those were completely fictional though, and the latter was directed and produced by white people.
“Eat a Bowl of Tea” was a good film depicting the Bachelor society of Chinese-Americans in the 1940s that resulted from the Chinese Exclusion era. But it was not popular with US audiences. “A Great Wall” introduced the concept of Bamboo Ceiling, already well known by the 1980s.
I think quite a few Asian-Americans do independent films (eg, hapa Eric Byler), but seriously, I don’t think Hollywood would get any closer to that besides Harold and Kumar. Otherwise, Asian-Americans are just props to central white characters.
Those independent film makers manage to find actors for their roles. And they don’t have the money to look for them. So there must be a way.
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@KOT
Eboo Patel, the one hired by Obama for advisory council?
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The same one we are both YMCA rats.
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Sharina, he had ever right to be. Here was something that could have propel many young Asian actors. Not only was it done horribly but it had to be whitewashed also. I can’t describe it more than if Hollywood decided to do an 80’s remix of Fat Albert but turned everyone white and somehow missed the entire point of the show.
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@ Jefe, when I first met Eboo we were in a group together that had nothing but talks on current events. Our group was the youngest group there. They thought we were going to be docile and easy and nervous. They got lions instead of kittens. The six of us were all very politically active, all from very middle income families who valued education and discussion. After one day they thought we were going to tear each others heads off. Yet, we all came out friends which was good because it was the first time that I could let out steam like that without having to worry about getting beaten. If I could have recorded those discussions. Ah youth.
Eboo was a very good speaker but knowing him since he started I can see his improvements but I also see the 11 year old in him. He has some of the same gestures from back then. However, I was a little bit shock to find out he was Muslim. I mean we all were, he never once brought it up when we were kids, teens, or young adults. It must have been hard there are some things I kept from the group. I think he must have kept it very close or it was a confusing time in his life. I am glad to see him with stability. I love his brother who is very cool and well balanced. I think more than anything I miss those discussions we all had. I miss getting together and hedging out our opinions.
Eboo did have his share of hardships and I saw and heard them. That is why even though some of our friends think his fame has gone to his head I do not. I think he has got to keep his confidence in order to steer his ship.
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Kiwi,
Sometimes when the rain of microaggressions pour on you, sometimes you just have to use an umbrella. You have to pick your battles. There is a time when you will have to pick your battle and I encourage you to do it when the time comes.
BTW, is your family a member of that club? Maybe you could retort with a semi-sarcastic but friendly, honest remark such as “No, it is we who should be welcoming YOU here! Are you a new member or a guest?”.
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^ wrong thread, sorry. That was meant for “Spotlight History”.
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@ Randy
Copy and paste it into the right thread and I will delete it here.
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@ Jefe: You tell people the truth and they refuse to believe – what do you do?
That’s an easy solution Jefe! What I learned to do recently is deflect or turn the questions back on the interrogator.
Instead of answering/obliging the interrogator’s question, such as “Where are you from” or “What are you” (the latter -highly annoying -which I always get a lot from whites and non-whites alike). It’s priceless to see their shell-shocked/dumbfounded reactions when their nationality/ethnic background is now in question.
Or even better, just deadpanned and say that you’re “Caucasian” or some other exaggerated race.
Or like some of the posters here have already advised –just give a perfunctory response that you’re “from your mother’s womb” and don’t engage in any further conversations with them.
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@ jefe
I have personally found myself looking into more independent films. I watched the joy luck club and liked it, but I think some things hurt me as I watch how some of those women allowed men to treat them.
I watch I am slave a while back and I really liked it.
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Reblogged this on newoozs.
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@sharina
I did enjoy The Joy Luck Club to a limited extent because it presented Asian-Americans as something other than cardboard figures and foreigners.
Asian-American WOMEN I should say. It did not develop any of the male characters and basically bashed them in the whole movie. So, I didn’t see it as how women allowed men to treat them, but how an Asian-American female writer depicted Asian men — NOT GOOD.
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@ Jefe, I liked that film, too. But found the men characters one-dimensional. I remember feeling distaste about that although the film really moved me.
I haven’t read any Amy Tan books, so I don’t know if that was her intention to portray the Asian men in the story like that. Perhaps it was skewed to appeal to expectations?
Was it an accommodation to tap into the (white) female audience who “identified” with the Oprah-like confessional of female suffering and finding-a-voice style of day-time talk tv?
Joy Luck was different in the sense that I’d probably never seen Asian women relating to each other as part of mainstream cinema, because the stereotyped portrayal of Asian women in popular cinema had always show the Asian woman only in relation to white men. As erotic exotics, dangerous or victims — stereotypes.
I am always hesitant about films which show Asian family-life that are geared to the Western audience. I remember wincing through “East is East”, funny and revealing as it was, because it showed the Asian man (this time a Pakistani) “typically” using battery, bullying and chauvinism to get his way against his white wife and their sons:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x14OlebWSCQ)
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@jefe
I see where you are coming from. I guess I should have elaborated more so in how one of the Asian females allowed her white husband to treat her and magically when she gets a backbone he treated her better.
I admit of the Asian males characters I wanted to know more about them, but I guess it centered around women and not the men.
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Jefe, comment to you in moderation.
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And yes I will admit. It bothered me that the women had white husbands. I was hoping for them to have Asian husbands.
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The younger ones not the older women.
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This happens to a good friend of mine all the time. He is lauded as the ‘Asian guy’ all the time, despite the fact that his family has been in this country as long as mine has!
It’s almost as if they can’t accept that people the world over are human beings just like them, with the same moral, intellectual and linguistic capabilities.
I remember reading an article about scientists being ‘shocked’ when rural congolese children learnt how to navigate an iPod with ease in just a few minutes. Um, hello? I’m fairly sure most people on the planet – children especially – learn how to pick up the gisto of technology fairly easily. What’s so ‘shocking’ about it in this case? Could they not believe that – shock horror! – them darkies were just as capable as their kids were?
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Kiwi:
Also, many of my non-Chinese descent Asian friends have complained to me how white people tend to think all Asians are Chinese.
This is something that my mother in law said happened when she encountered Americans – there seems to be little known about the Caribbean by some individuals and the assumption is that all black british/afro caribbeans are from Jamaica.
years ago (not sure about now) the assumptions by the British whites was that all blacks were from Africa.
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After reading so many white readers commenting something like “Well, what do expect if white people suddenly found themselves in China or Japan, do you expect them to treat them as local citizens”.
Well, I think the analogy is inherently flawed. My answer would be YES, if they were born and raised there, locally educated, full-fledged citizens and especially if they were there for generations, then I definitely expect them to be treated as local citizen nationals.
Then I ran across this video of Caucasians who were born, raised and educated in Japan. They consider themselves to be Japanese (albeit not of Japanese descent). So, should they be considered as, and treated as Japanese (despite that the overwhelming majority of “hakujin” (Whites) in Japan are indeed “gaijin” (foreigners) and not “nihonjin” (Japanese).
(http://youtu.be/cG5sqVE2J5I)
The guy interviewed expressed that he thinks that multiracial “hafu” Japanese and foreigners of Japanese descent (Nikkei, eg, Japanese-Americans / Japanese-Brazilians) would likely encounter more social problems in Japan than Caucasian Japanese, which is corroborated with anecdotal evidence that I have received from many people I have discussed this with. For example, I had several discussions with a guy 9-10 years ago who had a Japanese father and a Danish mother and grew up in Japan. He told me that the police harassed his family often, and he was often mistreated by local people and low rank authority figures – immigration always gave him a hassle when he returned to Japan with a Japanese passport. He told me that he felt just as alienated when visiting his mother’s family in Denmark, so he was trying to immigrate to the USA (which was interesting to me, as it was a place I always felt so alienated from – US immigration officials often gave me a hassle). He told me people never hassled him in the USA.
But, I think that it might be because he WAS an immigrant to the USA with neither of his parents in the USA. That is very different from being an American born to American parents as many Asian-Americans are.
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^ Actually, I know that this Ken Tanaka is a comedian (David Ury), but I brought this up for discussion purposes.
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[…] The perpetual foreigner stereotype […]
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US congressman, Curt Clawson, made a fool of himself recently. He confused two US officials from India. The look on the faces of the officials said it all.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMFFVKaa0GY)
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[…] conversation, as it stands, continues as if we don’t exist or belong. We are, predictably, perpetual foreigners to the conversation. E.g., this great article: 10 Ways White Christians Can Respond to […]
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– Nicholas Kristof, “Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-is-everyone-a-little-bit-racist.html?_r=1
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^ You’ve underutilized the article. It is broader than the Lucy Lui thing. “I am racist” seems a good post to place the article.
All that aside, the author is being dishonest. People being what they are, obviously some discrimination is unconscious. But again, people being what they are, some of the discrimination is totally conscious but is done with a social mask. It does not take special insight to know this which is why I claim he is being dishonest. People are dying, showing up in the worst social and economic indicators, being judged before having a fair chance, being more severely penalized than whites for the same infraction; and people like this Kristof still want to be “polite” about the causes.
What a palatable and self serving article that piece is. The discriminators who read it get to be relieved that “everyone” is racist and that their acts are “unconscious”. That is so nice.
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I agree that that was a dishonest article. It was trying to depict racist attitudes as normal and commonplace.
It does not challenge that there is something wrong with the behaviour, or if anything needs to be done.
The fact that some blacks believe racist black stereotypes or some Asians believe racist Asian stereotypes does not mean that whites are somehow off the hook for creating them and promoting them.
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^ Yes, how insidious: the way in which he presented that blacks can be prejudiced against blacks. It is a true thing, technically. But it’s a true thing that shouldn’t be used to exscuse or leave unexamined one’s own immorality or the historic immorality of another group. One day a white person told me that black people use the word ni@@er, so he should be able too as well. My mixture of anger at this white person and blacks (who use that word) was not insignificant, in that moment. However, you can call yourself every name under the sun, you can call your family every name under the sun; it does not follow that an outsider can pick up the name calling too, this is a simple truism. You have to be stupid or immoral not to see the truism.
The editors who approved that piece and tailored it are quite a disgusting bunch. The piece just drips with liberal self soothing over one’s possible and quite unintentioned peccadillos in the area of “soft?” racism and how it is brought about.
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@ Legion
I quoted just that one part because it was on topic. I agree that Kristof’s article as a whole is problematic.
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@ Kiwi
There was, for a time, a long line of disappointed white folks in my wake because I did not fulfill their sophisticated prejudgement of being from Jamaica. I am of course the only black person, on planet Earth, to not hail from Jamaica. Therefore, you can see how reasonable their “prejudgement” was.
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Kiwi said:
That’s the same in the UK. White Brits tend to think of all black people (African, Afro Caribbean, African American etc) as generic “blacks”. They think all people of south Asian descent (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan) are generic “Asians”. All people of south-east Asian descent (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai etc) are “Chinese”. Insulting racial terms are routinely substituted.
So, sushi, Kawasaki motorcycles and Shotokan karate are often “Chinese”. Daewoo cars and Tae Kwon Do are also usually “Chinese”. However, Lau Gar and Wing Chun martial arts and Ming vases may well be “Japanese”.
Some British men can mentally separate Thai people from the generic, homogenous “Chinese” lot. This is largely due to the popularity of sex tourism and exploitation in Thailand by white males. They are willing to learn a bit about a specific nationality if it makes it easier to f*** them.
In contrast, all white French people are French, white German people are German, white South Africans are South African, white English people are English (NEVER Scottish or Welsh).
The distinctions between whites of differing nationalities are so obvious that only an idiot could mix them up. On the other hand, any non-white culture is impenetrable and inexplicable to most whites so differences between POC are of no consequence. All non-whites of any given generic group (black, south Asian, south east Asian) look the same and it really doesn’t matter which is which.
*Sigh*.
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Hmm… I’m a little curious about what in my comment of a few moments ago triggered moderation.
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@ buddhuu
It was the word “idiot”.
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@ buddhuu:
Yes, story of my life. You don’t know how often when white people meet me for the first time, I am ALWAYS told, “You’re Chinese, right?” When I respond with a no then they go through a list of other Asians ethnicities.
I agree. Once I heard a known Asian fetishist WM where I’m from make distinctions of the Asian women he’s been intimate with. He said he found SE Asian women particularly Filipinas are easy compared to Chinese. He even compared their skin colours, breast sizes, eyes, and even their genitals. It was disgusting.
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@ leigh204:
I have a number of unavoidable acquaintances who make trips to Thailand. They shamelessly – in fact, proudly – relate their adventures in exploitation, including the extraordinary bargains that can be found. To my alarm, some of them have somehow managed to marry Thai ladies and bring them to the UK. One has to wonder what kind of lives these women experience in the company of men who have seen them or their compatriots as commodities to be had for the lowest price.
Presumably because I am a white, middle aged male, they assume that I will share their tastes and their enthusiasm for their sleazy lifestyles. Any expression of distaste causes significant offence. I seem to offend people fairly frequently.
In general, I find the company of groups of men (of any race) difficult. The whole crude, laddish thing with all its attendant misogyny and casual racism just depresses me.
@ abagond.
Thanks for the clarification.
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I would argue that these pars pro toto labels are also used between white people. For example in Germany everyone from Eastern Europe can be a “Russian” and everyone from the British Isles an “Englishman”. That in itself I don’t think is hamrful, it depends on with what stereotypes the label is charged.
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Come on, Kartoffel.
You get Germans who get bent out of shape if a South-Westerners like a Badenser, is mistaken for another Southener (a Schwab, for example) by someone from Saxony in the North…
Yet the same German might end up classing all Africans from the continent of Africa as one and the same. This conveniently forgets that that continent is made up of more than 50 countries, with 100s of regional and ethnic differences within the nations…
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@ Leigh204
There have been times that I had to work with a few white men who were Asian fetishists. I am hardly alone in that (lol!), because, in my experience, such white men are not exactly rare.
What surprised / amazed me about them, was with their lack of inhibition in expressing their “preferences” and experiences — something which became the topic of conversation more often than I thought appropriate or tasteful, since I wasn’t curious, at all, about this aspect of their lives.
It always seemed to come up when “Holidays” were mentioned!
…that they’d be going to Thailand AGAIN.
Would you like to see the photos of my last visit a few months ago.
Would it have been politer to say “No thanks, keep them to yourself”?
At least 2 of these men married a woman they met this way, yet there was no attitudinal change in these men as far as I could discern.
I found that this lack of taste / inhibition was also true of white men who were fetishistic about black women, too.
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@ Bulanik
True, but I think these people are ridiculous. My point is, to be grouped together with different people somehow aligned from the perspective of an outsider is not in itself offensive or harmful. If you correct the person and he insists on it or says anything like “Isn’t that all the same anyway”, that’s a different story.
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@ Kartoffel
Ridiculous, certainly. I agree with you.
But think about the level and frequency of “ridiculous”.
What is the import and impact of that day after day, the days turn into weeks, the weeks into months, years, generations, centuries?
That’s what the perpetual foreigner stereotype is.
Did you see the “Where are you really from thread” that laid out that some folks are simply seen as Outsiders and Foreign because of the centrality of white European-ness?
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/where-are-you-really-from/
And, how rare is the idea that Africa is a country?
Intellectually, I believe anyone has the georgraphical sense that Africa isn’t a country, but it’s not about “intellectually”, is it? It’s about perception. It’s about what and whom is marginalized, overlooked and generalized as “Other”, “Deviant” or not important — and this is what becomes becomes DEFINING.
****
Yes again, ridiculous, but look how it trickles into our understanding.
I was thinking of examples in popular culture, mainstream films in English language.
Did you see “Lost in Translation” and take notice the stereotyping the Japanese, because it shows Japan, the world, through the eyes of the Euro-American? The Japanese seems so foreign, even in Japan!
The Japanese characters pronouncing l’s and r’s similarly…
If you’ve seen the film, then you might remember the “Lip my stockings” scene, where the escort that visits Bill Murray and tells him to “rip” her stockings to act out a fantasy:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxDE6NmKl14)
Or, take these recent 2 romcom films that mention “Africa” in passing, places where the protagonists go, but it doesn’t actually count where in Africa exactly.
Both about 2 minutes long:
Drew Barrymore in “Blended”:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MuWt2X59fo)
Simon Pegg in “Hector and the search for happiness:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DELCgkntuvw)
This is just entertainment, and all good fun, of course. What is to be “corrected” about what is taken for granted in them…?
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@ Buanik
Just out of curiosity, is “Badenser” the official english term for an inhabitant of Baden? I can’t find anything in the dictionary.
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@ Kartoffel, there’s a comment in mod. to you.
No, I doubt if “Badenser” is the official English term for an inhabitant of Baden.
I don’t remember what the English-German dictionary says.
My use of “Badenser” is in keeping with the way people of the region refer to themselves informally — why do you ask?
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I just asked out of curiosity, because I couldn’t find anything. The inhabitants of Baden actually don’t refer to themself as Badenser, but think the term is offensive (or at least the few who take the whole local patriotism seriously).
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@ Kartoffel
Actually, informally some DO refer to themselves as Badenser, and others might find it pejorative and refer to themselves as Badener or otherwise..
It might depend on what part of region you are in.
It’s certainly not that unusual to hear it referred to the Black Forest — specifically the Freiburg area.
I looked up Badenser and Black Forest just now and found this:
http://www.the-black-forest.com/baden-wuerttemberg/
The second paragraph begins:
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Hm, I’m from exactly that area and I’ve never heard anybody to call himself “Badenser”. But let’s put the issue to rest, it’s a bit off-topic.
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I lived in and with people from the Offenburg area and “Badenser” is what they called themselves (when they weren’t speack High German).
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*speaking
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[…] well when the environmental sciences secretary explained to her that I was American. I guess the perpetual foreigner stereotype transcends national […]
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Racist though it and its causes (like no presence in American media) might be it still in some ways must be a blessing to not seem like a “regular” witless, self-centered, cold-hearted, in effect stereotypical American and to be assumed to possess traits opposite to those and grace.
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@Symphonic Zambophones
Are you saying that it is better to be stereotyped as a foreigner? 99% of the time that is not meant in a good way.
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Another classical mishap performed by a US congressmen towards senior US government officials
Freshman Congressman Mistakes Senior Government Officials for Foreigners
(http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/25/freshman-congressman-mistakes-senior-government-officials-for-foreigners/)
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Youtube commentary on the foregoing:
(http://youtu.be/dpYdapZUU1c)
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Interesting. Just the other day, one of my (white) neighbors, who hasn’t said a word to me before, walked her dog. I just started my car and she proceeded to ask me how I liked living here, as in, living in Canada. I replied, “I like it a lot since I was born here after all.” She smiled sheepishly and proceeded to go on her way. I guess she assumed I was an immigrant since there had been an influx of Filipino immigrants lately.
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@leigh204
“I guess she assumed I was an immigrant since there had been an influx of Filipino immigrants lately.”—Still she could have atleast not made it so extremely obvious.
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@ Leigh
Of course, anyone can make assumptions…
But ACTING on assumptions without flushing them out is the problem. The first thing that a person says to their neighbor shouldn’t be based on the unchecked notion that they must be a recent immigrant, if they are not.
It would be like me noticing that my neighbor is 50, slim, and unmarried and then introducing myself saying, “So how do you like being Gay?”
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@King,
That last one is a weird question to ask anyone whether they are 20,50 or 80, fat or slim ore whatever. it would be like asking a new androgynous looking neighbour how they like being a woman. (or asking Leigh how she likes being a foreigner).
Maybe a better example would be asking them how they like living next to straight neighbours or living in a state that has legalized same sex marriage (when you have no information about their status).
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@ Jefe
I remember seeing that on the news last summer
“Boy I do love your country”
I could only Lol at the ignorance.
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@Leigh:
Such seemingly innocuous questions such as ‘where are you from?’, despite having a Canadian accent are designed to remind you that you are not a ‘real’ Canadian. The default Canadian is white. They wouldn’t dare ask another white person where they are from unless they had an accent, even then they may not.
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@ Herneith
Maybe the adequate response to this question from White Canadians about accents, appearance & such should be
“Where are you from? Ontario, Really? You don’t seem to have any First Nations, Inuit, or Metis accent I’ve ever heard of?”
If any of you have any artistic qualities please do me a favor & draw a picture of their faces in response to this question for all of us to see.
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@A:
I just tell them I’m from Uranus, or from my mother. I can’t be bothered.
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Reading these post comments on this topic brings to mind that adage about assuming. Folks are just not thinking and putting their foot in their mouths. You know what they say about assuming.
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@ Herneith:
I’ve been asked the “Where are you from?” question since grade school. To this day, I’ll have White Canadians asking me where I’m from and when I said I’m Canadian by birth, my answer is never satisfactory. They always want to delve deeper as if I’m not telling the truth or something. It’s annoying as fcuk.
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@leigh204,
It should be better in Canada than in the USA as the percentage of Asians there is almost double (despite much lower numbers).
Do you ever retort by asking them where they are from?
(eg, I am a native of Alberta. How about you? Where are you from? I have been trying to figure out your accent. Are you from another country?)
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@ Jefe:
In the past, I have done so. Now, I simply say to them “I was born in Canada so that makes me a Canadian citizen. That’s it.” Some White Canadians have taken my reply as rudeness, but honestly, I don’t care since they’re the ones who continue to question my answer and don’t leave it at that.
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Asian Americans definitely aren’t the only ones who get this. I’m Mexican American and have been asked tons of times where I am from, where my parents are from, where my grandparents are from, then get laughed at when I tell them the state where we were all born. I’ve also had ignorant people project on me that I am ashamed of my background for answering “American” when asked what my nationality is. Newsflash: “nationality” refers to the citizenship on your passport. It’s not a synonym for ethnicity. Most people in the U.S. who speak with an American accent are going to be Americans.
I’ve also been told I speak English so well when it’s my first language, and I’ve had people pretend to hear an accent and ask me about it as an indirect way of asking what ethnicity I am. I’ve also had people act visibly disappointed and/or uncomfortable when they find out I’m not the exotic foreigner they projected onto me. I’ve been asked by foreigners why I “don’t look American like the other Americans”. I’ve gone into the library to volunteer as an ESL tutor and had the different workers all mistake me for an ESL learner, and the old white woman be a bitch to me because her mistake made her feel stupid. I’ve had the white border patrol workers act like idiots, continue to question me in horribly accented Spanish while I reply in rapid accentless English and show my CA ID, then bring me in and fingerprint me while trying to cross back into the U.S. from Mexico.
There’s a lot of ignorant and mean-spirited people out there. We don’t have to answer their questions or even interact with them. They can wonder on their own why people don’t like them.
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Well someone born in Germany with 4 Turk grandparents isn’t really German.
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@ Kiwi
“By that logic, someone born in the US with two German parents isn’t really American.”
There is a difference. The idea of “becoming an American” has always existed. “Becoming a German” is a rather new concept. 15 to 20 years ago somebody born and raised in Germany and with a German citizenship with four Turkish grandparents would have been considered a Turk. Not only by open racists on the far-right, but by everybody.
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I’d say even more so. A guy with a german jewish name, whose ancestors lived for generations in Central Europe, speaks German as his native language etc etc., might be called a “german Jew” but never a “jewish German”. The jewish Russians who immigrated recently are considered “Russians” or “Jews”.
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That assimilation did happen, but it only replaced religious anti-semitism with race-based anti-semitism. In the pre-1945 defintion of Germanness Jews were most defintily excluded from being German. After that it gets a bit more complicated, but the german Jews generally don’t consider themselves german (very different from the era previous to the Third Reich, when they did). The top jewish orgaization is called Central Council of the Jews in Germany.
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Other than a couple of leftwingers, no one considers someone with 4 Turk Grandparents born in Germany a German today.
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The new ABC sitcom Fresh Off The Boat is inspired by Eddie Huang. I watched and i didn’t know how to feel about it. It made me kind of uncomfortable. I would like to hear some of our Asian commenters thoughts on this. They are touting it as a hit. But i thought it was filled with stereotypes. Like i said i didn’t know what to feel about it.
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[…] “The perpetual foreigner stereotype.” Abagond. com. N.p., 2 Oct. 2009. Web. 25 Mar. 2015. […]
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Re: WWI internment camps.
The U.S. Govt decided to put all “enemy” people into camps, regardless of whether they were U.S.citizens or legal residents.
They were going to put all “Japanese”, “German”and “Italian”people’s into camps. However, they soon realized that it would be impossible to put all the “German”and “Italian” peoples into camps, as it would have been almost half the U.S. population.
The “Japanese”were a small minority, so the government was able to illegally put all of them (most all) into camps.
Since there were so many “Germans” and “Italians”, the U.S. Government decided to only put the “leaders” in camps. There were many Americans from Chicago and Milwaukee who were put into camps, as that was where much of the U.S. “German/Italian” population lived.
I believe that the internment camps for the “German/Italian” “leaders” were much nicer than the “Japanese” camps.
It was illegal, immoral and wrong. It was one of the many sad chapters in U.S. history.
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@gj
More like the Germans and Italians were indistinguishable from the mainstream population while the Japanese and all other Asians were easy to pick out and thus confined and tortured……
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[…] – Colon Powell. (https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/the-perpetual-foreigner-stereotype/) […]
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[…] valorization, Asian Americans are pretty far in civic ostracism, meaning we are deemed pretty foreign and un-American. Until the Asian population in America quadruples with time and we are represented […]
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[…] the stereotyped role of the foreigner/immigrant. This type of role is often called the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype. It is characterized and personified in many different ways, through such things […]
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[…] which is often tied to Asian Americans. The stereotype is defined by the following, “The perpetual foreigner stereotype in America is applied mainly to Asian Americans. No matter how lo….” I was chasing after the hope of ‘belonging’ in Korea. As an Asian American, I […]
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Because dying in a war that only happened to make defense contractors rich is definitely an act of loyalty to Western Civilization.
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