A guest post by Jefe:
“Y’all can go back. We can’t.” is a common refrain expressed by Anglos and Blacks to other Americans perceived to have ongoing ties to a foreign sovereignty with an open door policy to welcome them in. Whites use this when they bemoan the loss of their ethnic heritage or become displeased with the current state of politics. Blacks use it to frame their plight of racist oppression in contrast to Asians who are perceived to have a permanent back door.
It is a vacuous broken record argument and a corollary to the perpetual foreigner stereotype.
Asians arrived to post-Columbian North America in the 1500s and began arriving in large numbers in the 1800s, the same time as the Germans and Irish. They are just as much a part of the fabric of American history, culture and people as Africans and Europeans. Even the descendants of post-1965 immigrant stock are now passing into their 3rd and 4th generations.
The greater majority of Asians in the US are citizens. Most Asian American citizens were born in the US and received the same whitewashed education as blacks and whites.
Unlike the USA, most countries in Asia (eg, China, Japan) disallow dual citizenship. US citizens born in those countries lose their prior nationality upon naturalization. They would reenter their birth country as foreigners. US-born citizens are foreigners from birth.
Some Asian Americans have close ties, family, money or otherwise to foreign countries. So do some white and black Americans. Some immigrants (eg, refugees) had to cut off ties with their birth country; so did some whites and blacks.
By the 3rd generation, most Asian Americans are as cut off from their “ancestral homelands” as whites or blacks. Multiracial or multiethnic Asian Americans may lose this connection in a single generation.
Asian Americans hold the same US passport as white and black Americans. All are free to go to the same countries and require the same visas.
Some Asian Americans, even those in the 3rd or 4th generation, decide to leave the US to try their luck abroad, perhaps in response to racist oppression in the USA. If they settle in an Asian country, this leads to fallacious confirmation bias of the broken record argument. Most, however, stay home.
Blacks and white Americans are free to leave the USA to try settling elsewhere. They can and do establish cultural, financial and kinship connections abroad. If some Asian Americans feel compelled to do this, it may be more reflective of the nature of racism back home in the USA rather than ties to a foreign country.
Some of the belief that Asians can “go back home” is a projection of American racism to whitewash the expulsion of Asians during the Exclusion eras.
Asians face a threat rarely encountered by whites or blacks. They can be simultaneously viewed as disloyal to the USA and traitors to their ancestral countries, targeted with hostility by both. No example illustrates that better than the Japanese American internment experience or the case of Wen Ho Lee.
See also:
- Welcome to Asian American History Month
- rootedness
- Broken Record Department
- perpetual foreigner stereotype
- Asian Americans
- growing up Asian American
- The Japanese American internment
- Wen Ho Lee
- Filipino Americans
- Manila galleons
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Fresh Off the Boat – White Hollywood take on Asian Americans
- Black Americans
- multiracial frame – another way of looking at US society
- External:
- Shanghai Calling – U.S. film written, directed and produced by New York-born Chinese Americans with Michigan born Eurasian in leading role. White Hollywood and Mainland Chinese actors play supporting roles.
- trailer
- full movie – blocked in the US
- Shanghai Calling – U.S. film written, directed and produced by New York-born Chinese Americans with Michigan born Eurasian in leading role. White Hollywood and Mainland Chinese actors play supporting roles.
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I feel that the black experience and the white experience are too dissimilar to lump into one category. Trying to put Asians on one side and blacks and whites on the other has forced you to make statements that just aren’t true for most black people.
Most black people who view themselves as the descendants of Africans don’t see ourselves as immigrants. We get told to “Go back to Africa” all the time. “All American” doesn’t refer to us.
I work with Asian americans. I’ve seen the perpetual foreigner stereotype in play. So I’m not saying your are wrong about that, but you are wrong about the experience of black people in America.
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I’m enjoying your posts discussing Asian-American heritage and history. This one brought to mind an incident that happened many years ago and made me laugh. You say whites and blacks “think” the door is always open so Asians have the option to live in one country or the other.
My friend was from Hong Kong. This was during the years before HK was returned to China. He said he and his Asian-American friends would get annoyed and even angry with their Asian relatives or friends who would come to visit them and ask “So how do like the States?” To which he would respond defiantly “What do you mean? I’m an American! I live here!” He and his friends interpreted the question from their visiting friends as if to say “You’re not really one of them. You’re just trying to blend. Right?”
So when I read the first few lines of this post, I thought:
– ‘Good grief! My Asian-American friends get the crap thrown at them from both directions.
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Donald Trump Doesn´t Believe People Of Color Are Real Americans
Mike Malloy
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L-IXjSPjnE)
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So, what’s so special about Asian Americans? They face discrimination? So do Blacks. They are treated as foreigners at home? So are Blacks. You’ve given us a superficial look at Asian Americans, since your post was all about how others see them, not how they see themselves. You need to do better than that. Why did you eschew Kiwi’s bugbear, i.e. Asian female, White male relationship? Is he just being his racist, stupid self, or is he on to something crucial about Asian Americans? So many questions, so few answers!
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@Solesearch,
Where are blacks and whites lumped into one category in this post?
The only thing that the post says is that both whites and blacks can sometimes be heard uttering this phrase (in fact, both black and white commenters on this blog have done that or something similar), although the reasons may be different.
Most Asian American people who view themselves as the descendants of Asians also do not see themselves as immigrants.
Please point out which sentences are wrong and I am sure Abagond would be happy to correct them. He would not knowingly want to keep any inaccurate information in any post.
The issue is probably more related to perceived “rootedness” on which Abagond did a post on previously and the link for which is provided at the end of the post.
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So, what’s so special about Asian Americans?
Daniel Henny.
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Jefe,
Your post lumps black people and white people into the same category by acting like black people are accepted as Americans.
It isn’t like Asians are naming themselves Keisha and Deshawn in an effort to be seen as American.
It also whitewashes the fact that the mass majority of African Americans are in the country due to slavery. Not immigration. Not willingly leaving their home country to start a life in the new world.
Maybe it that the “y’all can go back and we can’t” theme sounds contrived to me.
I think for most black people it’s not that we can’t go back which we obviously can is that our ancestors didn’t choose to come.
I feel like the perpetual foreigner stereotype is something between Asians and white folks. Not that black people dont participate in it. I dont think Asian people really care what black people think since we aren’t real Americans to them either.
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@solesearch
but that is not what the post does. Nowhere does it say anywhere in the post that all black people or all white people are simply accepted as Americans.
The post does state:
– Both blacks and whites do utter that phrase. Both have done it myriad times throughout this blog. I have heard it many times from both, but more from blacks than whites.
– Whites, Blacks and Asians in the USA share the same citizenship and carry the same passport.
please point out exactly where that was done in this post. There is nothing in this post that denies or covers up or misrepresents the fact that the majority of black Americans in the USA are descendant from slaves or that their presence in the USA is largely due to slavery.
It does to me too. That is why I would like to understand why so many people resort to that phrase.
So are you saying that blacks in the USA do not employ the perpetual foreigner stereotype? I see blacks employ that stereotype at least as much as white people do, both in real life and in this blog.
is that how you really see Asians in the USA? Or is that how you see the next one you meet?
To me, personally, where I grew up in the USA is majority black (now overwhelmingly so), so I always perceived “black” to be integrally part of America. If I met or saw any Asian saying or thinking anything to the contrary, I will promptly correct them.
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The one true aspect of America, if you know where to look, is the culmination of superior knowledge to good tech, health, training, and others. If you can access youtube that might be changing.
The thing about Asian Culture, is the abundance of outdated everything. I love Asian peoples and share in their social experiences to a certain degree.
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Good article.
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Jefe,
It also whitewashes the fact that the mass majority of African Americans are in the country due to slavery.
“please point out exactly where that was done in this post. There is nothing in this post that denies or covers up or misrepresents the fact that the majority of black Americans in the USA are descendant from slaves or that their presence in the USA is largely due to slavery”
You don’t mention it all. You can’t make accurate comparisons to black people’s relationship to our ancestral land without mentioning it.
I work in an office where I am the only black person. My co-workers all white and Asian frequently talk about visiting their homelands. You know England, Vietnam, Pakistan, Saudi, Ireland. These are all Americans. You know what I say in these convos? Absolutely nothing. Where am I gonna go? Just say the first African country that comes to mind, I guess. Maybe that is what black people mean when they say y’all can go back, we can’t.
”
So are you saying that blacks in the USA do not employ the perpetual foreigner stereotype? I see blacks employ that stereotype at least as much as white people do, both in real life and in this blog.”
No. I was saying the exact opposite. I just don’t think the opinions of black folks matter very much to Asian people.
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@Solesearch
I agree.
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I used to think that Asians were never conquered then I think about the Opium Epidemic of Hong Kong or the Soviet Union installing communist dictators that caused genocide and civil war from North Korea, China and most of South East Asia and there you have it. Thoroughly conquered…
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@Solesearch,
If you, Abagond, and other commenters feel that mentioning this would help to clarify any misrepresentation in this post, then by all means we should do it, as long as it does not violate his word count.
However, the links to the “Go Back to Africa” arguments are also provided, arguments also very vacuous. The inclusion here of those links can lead people to learn about those concerns you raised which are more fully addressed there.
However, there is no mention of the Asians brought to the USA involuntarily also. Even during the Exclusion eras, most could not go back. That idea was pushed during that period, and the concept of it lingers today. If we mention slavery, we may need to bring other information as well, which would make this post too long. Maybe that idea should be addressed in another post (but it was “sort of” in “Oppression Olympics”).
In any case, the post was not lumping whites and blacks together, or said they exhibited similar behaviour for similar reasons. The “inaccurate” comparisons that you allege were made in the post were not made. The only point is that the title of the post is a vacuous argument, and something that all Americans use, white and black and others as well.
In my opinion, the main issue is “rootedness”, which Abagond addresses in another post (linked above). The “rooted” and the “uprooted” might see the “transplants” as retaining a connection to their “homeland” something that the other 2 categories do not, a connection that allows them to “go back”, whatever that means. For Asians and Muslims, or other people perceived as being associated with countries or regimes that are “enemies” to the USA, this is no small matter. I argue that if they do go somewhere, they are simply going somewhere, not going back. And regardless of “rooted”, “uprooted” or “transplant’, they can all decide to “go somewhere” if they want.
Do you think you can be a good spokesperson for what matters to Asian people? I would be interested in learning what you know about what matters to them. And conversely, do you think the opinions of Asians in the USA matter very much to black people?
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@ Jefe
I wonder if part of the problem stems from this sentence:
“Some immigrants (eg, refugees) had to cut off ties with their birth country; so did some whites and blacks.”
I assumed by “some…blacks” you were referring to more recent arrivals, refugees from places like Rwanda. But considering that the majority of African Americans had those ties forcibly severed by slavery, perhaps the wording could have been clearer?
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@Solitaire,
Immigrants are immigrants whether they are white, black, yellow, brown, etc., whether they come from Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, or some other continent or island outside of US territories. Likewise, refugees could come from any of those countries or regimes also.
Nothing in that sentence implies that all or most or majority fall in that category. Neither is there any implication that most Asians fall into that category either. The word “some” was used.
The point was … even if a US resident or citizen is an immigrant, it does not automatically imply that they have retained ties to an existing overseas sovereign country, regardless of their racial background.
That particular statement is not making any statement about slave descendant blacks. It is also not a statement about Asian Americans descendant from coolies or others who arrived in involuntary indentured servitude. And it is neither a statement about the majority of white people either.
The point was that we cannot make any generalization about anyone, including immigrants. Even Native Americans, living geographically close to their ancestral homelands, were often forced to cut ties from their original sovereign nation. We cannot assume ties are automatically there when they may not be.
If you were to make a wording change suggestion, what would it be?
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@ Jefe
“If you were to make a wording change suggestion, what would it be?”
Some Asian immigrants (eg, refugees) have had to cut off ties with their birth country; so have some white and black immigrants.
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Jefe,
I think you are right. Maybe you should narrow the topic more. Maybe limit your comparison to African Americans. Or don’t do a comparison at all. Just talk about the Asian perspective. Or if you are going to do a comparison bring in metrics to prove your point. Saying some blacks and some whites and some Asians doesn’t really mean anything. Which blacks? How many? Which Asians? How many?
I don’t really think your post addresses the issues/differences black people are bringing up.
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@Solitaire and Solesearch,
How would you feel about this change?
After
make an insertion
Maybe that would help.
We cannot reduce the post scope to cover only the perception that persons perceived as neither black nor white nor native American (eg, Asians, Muslims, many Latinos) hold without mentioning where the perceptions of people uttering the phrase may stem from.
@Solitaire,
I understand why you may feel that that sentence may be initially misleading (however correct it may be), but I think it is still important to mention it as I really want to stress how wrong it is to apply that reasoning to justify that the post title phrase can be applied to some people and not others. It should never be applied.
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@ Jefe
I never suggested eliminating that sentence, just a minor edit along the lines of the example I gave. If you and Abagond think it’s fine as is, then that’s y’all’s decision.
I’m not arguing with your thesis. You may remember, I delurked a few months ago to defend this very point: that Asian Americans do not have a handy escape hatch to some other country. Same holds true for Hispanics/Latin@s, people of Middle Eastern descent, etc.
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@ Jefe
Nice article. The idea that citizens of East and Southeast Asian descent can always `go back’ to another country is a widely held one.
It’s funny how, being a western-born Chinese/white person has led people to act like I am `returning home’ now that I live in East Asia. Okay, maybe with Taiwan there were some similarities to Hong Kong culture/food, but Japan is very different. Plus, since I was not born in either place it is far from being my `home’.
There is definitely more of a collective idea that East and Southeast Asian people’s one and only home is in Asia. This does not mean it never happens for Black people, but at least where I come from (UK), none of my Black or mixed Black friends were ever told to go back to some place nor did they frequently receive questions about `your country/culture/food’. Nor were they treated like they had to be taught about Britain and the local way of doing things. I experienced this, along with my friends of similar background and of South Asian descent. Didn’t even matter that some of them were half white British or that their PoC parents were also British… as far as most white Brits were concerned, they would never truly be British citizens.
What is also very funny for me is how some white ex-pats in East Asia will whine and moan about `anti-white racism’, when they can and often do return to their home countries where they are accepted. They will still get their knickers in a twist if anyone suggests they can go home, even when it’s perfectly within the realm of possibility. Yet they stubbornly refuse to recognise the problem with telling PoC born in majority-white countries to `go home’ if they don’t like racism. In Taiwan and Japan, Taiwanese and Japanese born and raised abroad are not welcomed with open arms. Several friends have complained to me that they are treated like outsiders. It’s worse if they aren’t fluent in the local language: then they’re frequently excluded, denied their heritage and treated like deficient failures.
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@Solitaire,
OK, sorry, I misunderstood that you might have suggested eliminating that sentence.
Maybe if we make those two corrections, we can address the issue of distinguishing those with more recent black immigrant ancestors from the ones who have identify as being of slave descent. Even in the 1600s and afterwards, however, certainly not all Africans who came to the colonies came as slaves. It is a “narrative” rather than an actual “fact” for all individuals.
Unless there are other recommendations, maybe I will send a suggestion to Abagond to revise appropriately.
Yes, I remember you delurked after people started remarking about how some US residents with certain racial / ethnic backgrounds have bridges back to somewhere where others don’t. They have been doing it here off and on for years. Yet you and I know that that is a bridge back to nowhere.
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@Iris
Actually, telling black Americans to go back to Africa if they don’t like it in the USA IS a common refrain in the USA, and a vacuous one at that. That is why the links to those posts are relevant.
At first it might sound funny if someone treats, say, someone of European and HK Chinese descent as “returning home” to a place like Japan. Funny, that is, until you have heard it a thousand times.
I thought Daniel Henney was a good example – white father and Korean Adoptee mother, born and raised in Michigan – all four of his grandparents that he could have possibly known would have been white. Yet it is still viewed somehow, that he went back to his “home country” to develop his career.
The premise of the movie “Shanghai Calling” involves the idea of someone going back to a country to which they have absolutely no connection.
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“Actually, telling black Americans to go back to Africa if they don’t like it in the USA IS a common refrain in the USA, and a vacuous one at that. ”
.
Perhaps even more vacuous than you think or know!
http://stewartsynopsis.com/washitaw.htm
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I have seen a different experience than Iris’ comments suggests. I grew up in the UK in the 70’s and 80’s and often heard the ‘why don’t you go back to where you came from’ or ‘go back to Africa ‘ being tossed about the place. I even had a friend of Afro Caribbean descent who had to firmly tell an individual that there were black people born in the UK in the late 60’s onwards when he tried to convince her she couldn’t be affected by the sun because she should be used to it cos no PoC is born outside if Caribbean or Africa!
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@Fan
I’ve read similar articles about the Washitaw before.
It seems several groups lived in the Americas long before Leif Erikson or Columbus.
Thanks for the link.
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An additional aspect of this topic is that some (not all) Asian Americans are actually a bit afraid to go back to their country of origin even for a visit. Sometimes this has to do with the circumstances under which their family left (e.g., refugees), but sometimes it is simply because they are worried about being a target for crime in their country of origin. For example, there have been several cases in the Philippines in recent years where visiting Filipino Americans were kidnapped and held for ransom. I know several people who when visiting the PI as teenagers were constantly warned by their parents to keep their mouths shut so no one would hear their American accent. I’ve also heard similar stories and fears regarding some other Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American countries. To some extent their concern may be exaggerated beyond the actual amount of danger, but it still is something they experience and adds to the feeling that they can’t really “go back” to their country of origin because it isn’t truly their home.
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“I’ve read similar articles about the Washitaw before.
It seems several groups lived in the Americas long before Leif Erikson or Columbus.”
@ Afrofem
Yes. Olmecs, Washitaws, Blackfoots and many other BLACK native Amerikan tribes may have appeared here even before those we believed were the original indigenous people. The author at that link makes many compelling arguments. His work is supported by better known Black scholars. I’m still scratching these surfaces! There is so much that is still hidden!
I’m beginning to understand that if anything falls under the heading of “conventional wisdom” it’s likely to be false.
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Not sure if this has been already asked, but what is meant by no ties? Do we mean as in no family ties at home at all or no immediate family?
Also considering black Americans were born here, there is no outside tie to anything. All they know is the United States. Going to another country, say Africa, would be basically starting over. No friends. No family. No cultural ties.
When it says:
However,
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/05/21/113690/asian-immigrants-in-the-unites-states-today/
Overall the post comes off as a means to say “we have it bad too” instead of more so focusing on Asians and why this saying effects them. Adding whites and blacks took away from the point for me. Focus should have simply been on why it is erroneous for Asians.
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@Sharina
Good point.
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@Sharina,
The point is not at all anything to do with “We have had it bad too”. I don’t see how that appears anywhere in the post, other than possibly the last paragraph, which is more a side note than anything. Can you point out where it points out anything of “we have had it bad too.”?
The point does however, focus on the effect that it would have on Asians (and probably also Muslims and Latinos).
When I hear it from whites or blacks, the first thing I think is
– I was born and raised and educated in the USA, even grew up and went to school with the people saying those things.
– My parents did too.
– I have ancestors from Europe (and also likely Africans) who arrived in the USA before the revolutionary war in the 1700s, as well as native Americans who were here 11,000 years ago.
– I have ancestors who arrived to the USA from China by the 1870s and Germany in the 1880s.
– I have no ties to any foreign sovereign.
How is it that I have any permanent door open to go back to anywhere?
I have gone and settled in Asia, but it has nothing to do with any previous ties. I went and learned languages that none of my grandparents spoke. But, over time, I can forge my own ties.
There is no way to tell the effect on Asians or others without bringing up blacks and whites, because that is exactly why the effect of that saying is so painful.
Exactly. So how is that any different? Look at Daniel Henney.
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@Sharina,
There is absolutely no conflict between
and your quote
To borrow the statistics from your quote:
Assume that
2/3 of Asians in the USA are foreign born.
2/3 of Asians in the USA are US citizens (split between foreign born and US born, with the latter being higher)
Of the US citizens of Asian descent, over 60% were born in the USA.
So, it is simultaneously true that the majority of Asians in the USA are foreign born and the majority of US citizens of Asian descent were born in the USA.
Your quote’s use of “Asian American” in the next sentence must mean both US citizens and residents, not strictly US citizens.
Anyhow, the phrase has nothing to do with this anyhow. In the 1960s, the vast majority of Asians in the USA were born, raised and educated in the USA. The reason that 2/3 of Japanese Americans in the internment camps were US citizens was because they were born in the USA. Their immigrant ancestors were not allowed to become naturalized citizens.
This started to reverse in the late 1960s after the change in the immigration laws. It took until the mid 1980s before the numbers of foreign born Asians in the US started to catch up with and eventually surpass US born. Yet, I heard this phrase uttered extensively in the 1960s-1980s, and again, more by blacks than by whites. It has nothing to do with where they were born.
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@jefe
” Can you point out where it points out anything of “we have had it bad too.”?”—I didn’t say it was in the post, but that is the overall theme I get from the post.
For example, when you say:
Some Asian Americans have close ties, family, money or otherwise to foreign countries. So do some white and black Americans. Some immigrants (eg, refugees) had to cut off ties with their birth country; so did some whites and blacks.
Not only was it unnecessary to point out what whites and black Americans do (different dynamics and all), but it gives off the idea of you want to put focus on the “its the same” or “we have it bad to”. You are trying to showcase a similarity here.
Actually there is and If I had time I would be more than happy to reword several sentences to showcase how easy it is. Starting off by saying that blacks or whites use this term and why is one thing, but then the post starts to focus on black and white in the manner similar to what I posted above. In turn takes away the focus on Asians and presenting more of a “We have it bad too” stance.
“Exactly. So how is that any different? Look at Daniel Henney.”—-I have no idea who Daniel Henney is. I don’t disagree that many lose citizenship and multiracial have it tough going to those countries when it is not home, but let me be clear. Having some family in a place vs having none is a stark difference and when it comes to black Americans most if not all of them can safely say they have none. I get the feeling that you are trying to say because some Asians face that issue that it is a fair comparison or idea to claim that it is the same as black Americans.
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@jefe
Your second post is stretching a bit here. You can’t make a claim like that and then decided it is not relevant because of the date of the study. Your post does not specify 1960s or current. As far as I am concerned the phrase is current.
“So, it is simultaneously true that the majority of Asians in the USA are foreign born and the majority of US citizens of Asian descent were born in the USA.”—Personally I’d rather not assume and so far this data does paint the idea that most are foreign born.
“Your quote’s use of “Asian American” in the next sentence must mean both US citizens and residents, not strictly US citizens.”—Could be, but do residents eventually become citizens?
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As usual you manage to tweak my perspective with your relentless penchant for looking at various sides of issues and really thinking about them. Love reading your blog.
In about 1992 I was visiting a friend in Frankfurt. Among other things I tagged along with him as he shopped for a car. We went into the sole Lexus dealership there. It was owned by an African American man, a former US military guy who stayed in Germany after his tour of duty because he had married a German woman. He took a chance and opened a Lexus dealership. Business in the 90’s was very slow. Germans were still very loyal to their German luxury brands. But he hung on and gradually Lexus became more popular in Germany. Now he is a very wealthy man. The thought of his kids, though, is what leads me to the following.
I gather that in the 1980’s and 1990’s there was a significant number of African American military getting married to (Caucasian) German women. Notice that Jurgen Klinsman’s roster for the US team at the last men’s World Cup (soccer) had I think 6 players who were biracial — African American/German — who grew up playing club soccer in the German system. To achieve a roster spot in the World Cup, even on the US squad, a player has to be the crème de la crème. The absolute peak of the pyramid in terms of soccer ability. Maybe the top 0.5% (or less) of serious teenage youth soccer players, which itself (in a place like Germany where soccer is popular) probably represents about 10% of youth in general. If you consider that Klinsman found 6 of these guys, all biracial, that translates to a pool of about 1,200 serious biracial youth soccer players, or about 12,000 biracial male youth in Germany. Not staggering numbers as a function of the overall German population, but it’s still a number.
And now 6 of those guys are world class futbol players, playing in various pro soccer leagues in Europe and/or the US. To play for USMNT, they have to embrace their US citizenship, despite the fact that they are culturally more German than American. African American women playing b-ball in pro European leagues. Retired NBA guys playing pro in China. A black Miss Universe Japan. Our modern culture is blurring these national/ethnic distinctions at a rapid rate. Sydney Leroux. Oof. Now I forgot what I was talking about.
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@jefe
How are the life prospects (e.g. health, educational opportunities, employment and housing) of Americans of Asian descent affected by Black Americans?
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This is false, Asian Mongoloids were NOT the first people to migrate to North America, there were OTHER BEFORE THEM THAT DID! And yes there were Black looking Native American tribes that WERE IN NORTH AMERICA BEFORE THE MONGOLOIDS MIGRATED THERE!
And also the Asian migrants that are coming here, ARE TOO GENETICALLY DIFFERENT FROM MONGOLOID NATIVE AMERICANS, TO BE CONSIDERED OF THE SAME STOCK! The genes are too different for this sort of fallacious comparison.
And yes, it’s a particular issue that Asians are migrating here, BECAUSE THEY ARE COLONIZERS! THEY ARE COMING HERE TO COLONIZE AND TAKEOVER! NOT HELP ANYONE! They are exploiting and using the advancements MADE BY BLACK/COLORED’S people in the civil right’s movement, FOR THEIR OWN RACIAL/ETHNIC INTERESTS AT THE EXPENSE OF BLACK/COLORED’S! They are extremely racist and hostile to Black/colored people’s even in America, and there have been cases where they have refused to even work or study with Black/colored peoples in school settings IN AMERICA!
Asians DO NOT CARE ABOUT BLACK/COLORED PEOPLES IN AMERICA PERIOD! AND THEY ALSO LOOK DOWN ON THEM AS A NON-HUMAN INFERIOR PEOPLE! MANY MANY Black/colored Americans have reported and said about this treatment MADE BY ASIAN AMERICANS THAT MATCHED WITH THIS DESCRIPTION IN NEIGHBORHOODS IN AMERICA!
So as far as anyone is concerned, these Asian migrants and immigrants are an invasive hostile presence, hostile TO BOTH White and Black/Colored Americans. THEY DO NOT CARE AT ALL ABOUT THE SUFFERING THAT BLACK’S/COLORED’S HAVE GONE THROUGH IN AMERICA! What they are doing HERE IS PIGGYBACKING ON EVERYONE’S BACK HERE!
So I really don’t see why a person like Abagond would write a post like this, defending a people who would have no qualms with exterminating Black/colored people from the North American landmass, if they ever got the chance!
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I was on my timeline from a social media site i subscribe to there was a post of a Mexican family having a party or celebration of some sort and there was a Donald Trump pinata and the kids were smashing. The posts were horrible and racist, mostly from ignorant uneducated white people telling them to go back to Mexico. It’s always the uneducated and ignorant ones who use this phrase. White people like to tell black Americans to go back to Africa but it was the white man who kidnapped Africans and bought them here. Besides i am not an African i am an American who was born in this country. What i have learned about this exercise sociology and microaggressions is out of ignorance we assume people come from some where else and have another place to go to The thought never occurs to the one using this language that the person might be an American born and raised in this country.
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*In sociology *^^^^ typo
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Most descendants of the foreigners who entered after the Calamity of 1965 are not 3rd generation, virtually none, if any, are 4th.
The law was not effective until June 30, 1968.
If someone came that year, and the next year had a child, the child would be born in 1969.
If they, the second-generation “American” had a child at 20, the third-generation child would be born in 1989.
If the third-generation also had a child at 20 (this happening 2 generations in a row is highly improbable), the fourth-generation child would be born in 2009, and be in elementary school today.
Since most generations are much longer, there are probably very few fourth-generation “Americans” whose families came to this country as a results of the Calamity of 1965, and all of them are too young to really do anything outside of school and daycare.
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I did not say that it was not common in the USA. Merely sharing my own experience.
As for `returning home’ being funny, I’ve heard it enough to be sarcastic about it. Just as people thinking my heritage gives me an `advantage’ in learning Mandarin and Japanese because all East Asian languages must be `programmed into my tongue’, acting like Japan is automatically my home is ludicrous and ignorant.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. In addition, there were quite a lot of Black and mixed Black/white kids in the area and at my school. I’m sure these two things had an effect on what I have witnessed and experienced.
@ Sharina
I agree that having family is very different from not having any at all, but it really is all relative as to whether that has a large positive effect or not.
I have a lot of family members in Hong Kong and southern China whom I’ve never met and share no common language with. Mostly my grandmother’s siblings, of which there are many. I do not even know what they look like, so I could pass them on the street without realising. Their view of me would be very different from closer family members who also live in the west, meaning I would definitely not rely on familial connections if I ever went to live there.
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@Bobby M
Which year of “calamity” did your ancestors enter the US of A?
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@Iris
“I have a lot of family members in Hong Kong and southern China whom I’ve never met and share no common language with.”—I get what you are saying, but that really compares little to having no family. Even if you would not rely on them, you could if you needed to, you could if they offered, and you could if your family directed you to them.
That is why comparing it to black Americans who don’t even have that as an option is faulty.
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@ Sharina
My point was not so much an attempt to refute as it was an attempt to clarify that it’s not as cut and dry as having family versus not having family. I still agree with what you said originally.
Sadly, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. My cousins grew up in a country where there is a big Chinese community, were raised bilingual and were fortunate enough to have the money to visit these relatives regularly. In comparison, I grew up where there was no community because Chinese immigrants are far more scattered there. I was not taught Cantonese and grew up poor, so never visited Hong Kong until my late twenties.
Despite my cousins having also been raised in the west, the country my uncles and aunts chose for them enabled them to be culturally far more connected to Hong Kong than me. It’s common for `full-blooded’ people of the diaspora to get rejected in cases like mine. For myself in particular, it’s probably exacerbated by my being half white and white-passing in East Asia.
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@ Sharina
Some Asian Americans may have family in their country of origin that could help them, but not all do. It might be more accurate to compare them to someone like me rather than someone like you. Asian Americans who’ve been here for several generations usually don’t have any contact with or knowledge of their distant relations, and they are more likely to be ethnically mixed without one specific “homeland” — just like I wouldn’t begin to know where to look for my distant kin in at least six different European nations, nor would I expect them to have any sense of family obligation towards me. People generally don’t assume that I have those connections, but they generally assume someone who is of Asian background does.
It’s true that someone like me and someone like them, we at least have a starting point to search out our heritage that you unfairly do not. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they have any family overseas that they can rely on for help if need be.
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@Afrofem – my family came about 250 years before the Calamity of 1965
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@ Bobby M
So your family was part of the Great Calamity for the Native Americans.
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@Bobby M
To me, the beauty of America at it’s best is that whether your family followed food animals over the Bering Straits 40,000 years ago, were dragged (literally) kicking and screaming from Africa in the 1600s, sailed in from Europe in the 1700s, Asia in the 1800s, had the border cross them in 1846 or will be naturalized on July 4, 2016, we are all Americans.
We distrust each other. We fight and argue with one another. We build and contribute. We squabble about who has a “back door” to ancestral lands and who is rooted here.
Yet, it is all of us working together that built this dynamic, yet imperfect nation. In spite of it’s warts and craziness, I’m glad to call it home. I can only hope you feel the same.
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@ Iris
I did not think you were making anew attempt to refute it, but having an option vs having none is still faulty. Whether you take it or not is your business, but it being there still is a reality.
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Solitaire
I didn’t claim all did, but I don’t think claiming some is true either. See stats I presented upthread. I am not really comparing it to someone like me either. I”mean also not talking about Asians who have been here for severall generations either.
I get the point of the post. I am simply pointing out the faults in it to compare black Americans to a group who has a majority foreign born and a higher rate of homeland ties.
If it helps, I tend to assume any Asian I met comes from California.
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Excuse typos on phone.
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For a while now I have thought about the commonality between Asian American Adoptees and the African American experience. Not sure where I am going with this but I do see a lot of similarities.
Asian American adoptees did not ask to come to the United States and there have been circumstances of kidnapping and coercion.and also, huge sums of money in some cases changing hands for the procurement of the children. The Asian American Adoptee has lost all ties to their country, their family of origin, and the language and culture of their birth. This causes a tremendous amount of grief, sadness and alienation for many, who somewhat just live with those feelings and may look happy and live a productive life. However, both these groups live in a paradox of loss and connection to the United States. I think that African Americans and the Asian Adoptee experience can be very similar and both viewed as a diaspora. Hope this makes sense, 🙂
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@vanishingpoint
It does make sense.
Thank you for revealing similarities I hadn’t considered before.
This sentence was quite poignant:
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@vanishingpoint
It makes a lot of sense and I agree.
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@Afrofem – I don’t dispute that immigrants can become American – look at Arnold Schwarzenegger for example. But he is part of the rare few that completely assimilated to American culture. If you read what he has written, he always loved our culture and wanted to come here.
Compare that to Mexicans who feel they are entitled to Hispanicize the southwest, and always wave Mexican flags everywhere.
PS: the VAST majority of Mexicans came from south of the Rio Grande river in the past 50 years, and were not here before the Triumph of 1848
@vanishingpoint – How can you compare adoption, a loving act that gives an otherwise impoverished and unwanted child a much better life and a loving home with slavery? Just, how?
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@Bobby M, There are many adult adoptees who feel that way, here is a link to a very well written article by an adult adoptee from Germany, http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=sbg
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Which year of “calamity” did your ancestors enter the US of A?
my family came about 250 years before the Calamity of 1965
He’s lying, they came here last week.
Compare that to Mexicans who feel they are entitled to Hispanicize the southwest, and always wave Mexican flags everywhere.
Hold on now, the Southwest used to belong to Mexico!
PS: the VAST majority of Mexicans came from south of the Rio Grande river in the past 50 years, and were not here before the Triumph of 1848
What about the ones who were already here whom you and yours’ stole the land from?
How can you compare adoption, a loving act that gives an otherwise impoverished and unwanted child a much better life and a loving home with slavery? Just, how?
Very easily judging by their post. But I suppose the adoptee should be grateful as the slave should have been also.
Bobby M, the liquor store is still open. Carry on with your tirades they are comical!
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@Bobby M
“…the VAST majority of Mexicans came from south of the Rio Grande river in the past 50 years, and were not here before the Triumph of 1848.”
I’m not sure what you consider the “vast majority”. The US invasion of Mexico reached all the way to Mexico City in September, 1847. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo wrested 525,000 square miles of territory to the US. That territory was not empty land. In addition to numerous Native American tribes, there were also thousands of Mexican citizens living on the land.
This map shows the extent of Mexico’s northern territory. (Pastel colored areas denote Mexican states.)
According to History.com:
A major, but little known reason that millions of Mexicans came to the US is the nullification of Article 27 of the Mexican constitution in 1994. It was Mexican president, Carlos Salinas, offering to the altar of NAFTA. (North American Free Trade Agreement)
Journalist, Greg Campbell describes the importance of Article 27 in a piece called The NAFTA War:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~fayxx001/text/naftawar.html
Millions of American and Canadian workers lost good paying jobs and a middle class lifestyle with the creation of NAFTA. Millions of Mexican farmers lost access to land and their livelihoods. People who complain about an influx of Mexican workers into the US rarely think about how ordinary people in the US, Canada and Mexico were shafted so that a few people in each country could rake in more ducats.
Decades prior to NAFTA, millions of US and Mexican citizens crossed the border with ease. The Clinton Administration placed major restrictions on border traffic, driving undocumented migrants into hostile desert regions where many have died of thirst, hunger, heatstroke and exposure.
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@vanishingpoint – I have many friends and a few family members who are international adoptees. They are all happy, well-rounded people. They have nice lives, and people adopted into my family become my family members even if there is no blood relation. How dare you suggest otherwise!
PS: International adoptees are not forced to work for no pay!
@Herneith – Herneith, whose blog is a complete mess, calls me a liar. Pathetic!
We had every right to liberate the American Southwest.
PS: The Mexicans already there were allowed to stay and become citizens.
@Afrofem – just like that baby didn’t belong in the gorilla enclosure, the Mexicans don’t belong here.
PS: There may have been thousands of Mexicans there, but nothing like the 10s of millions that have come since then.
I would suggest a paper bag test for naturalization and immigration rights.
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@Bobby M
I disagree. Actions have consequences. Words have consequences. Attitudes have consequences.
If you destroy a persons livelihood for a few bucks then you shouldn’t complain when they move close to you to survive.
When NAFTA started, did you ever stop to think about the consequences for anyone besides yourself?
PS: Should there have been any test for your bedraggled ancestors when they came to these shores seeking opportunity like the immigrants of today?
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@Afrofem – my ancestors were literate and skilled in various trades. They were not the bedraggled garbage of Europe.
Right now America is getting the bedraggled garbage of the Third World, and it has to stop.
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@ Bobby M
“Right now America is getting the bedraggled garbage of the Third World, and it has to stop.”
I’m sure many an Iroquois, Susquehanaug, Chickasaw, Seminole, Mandan, Pauite, Hopi, Samish, Blackfoot and Lummi person felt the same way when their lands were overrun by European land thieves, murderers and rapists.
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“I’m sure many an Iroquois, Susquehanaug, Chickasaw, Seminole, Mandan, Pauite, Hopi, Samish, Blackfoot and Lummi person felt the same way when their lands were overrun by European land thieves, murderers and rapists.”
@ Afrofem
So true.. AND so SAD that these indigenous/native people did not find a way to end the influx of nasty (white) foreigners into their territories and lands.
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I read your post rather late as it was only brought to my attention this past week after the Steve Harvey comment about Asian men. This is my take as someone who is Asian American with a Chinese Malaysian father who doesn’t know much Mandarin and a bilingual Chinese Singaporean mother and lived in the US and 3 different countries in Southeast Asia.
My grandparents emigrated from China for one or both of the following reasons: better economic prospects or escape war/poverty. They did maintain a connection to the “motherland” and would send money and material things to support remaining family members. My cousins and I (who are mainly 1980s and 1990s babies) do not identify ourselves with the so-called “motherland” like our grandparents did. We are Malaysian, Singaporean or (in my case) American. Period.
So the “y’all can go back” rhethoric? There is no going back. Not for many us members of the diaspora. I’ve been to China 3 times, even spending 2 months out of my gap year there. While I have come to fully embrace my Chinese cultural heritage and even beefed up my reading and writing, I can say with the utmost certainty that I can never live in China. The same can be said of my equally well-traveled cousins and most of my Malaysian and Singaporean counterparts (according to a number of surveys).
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@M
Seems like you are saying you have a choice rather than the idea that “you can never go back.” Never going back refers to having no family or connections to go back to. If the decision was made that all non-whites have to leave America, you have established family in those areas to help you progress. Most blacks don’t.
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@sharinalr
That’s true but I guess it depends on how many generations there between the immigrant ancestor and you and also the family. If I traced my Chinese roots solely through my maternal grandmother then I would say I have zero connection to China because her family consciously chose to adopt the ways of the British colonial “masters”.
In Southeast Asia by now many ethnic Chinese have assimilated and customs have evolved to some extent so there’s no connection with the so-called motherland anymore. In fact there’s an interesting phenomenon in Singapore now: local ethnic Chinese (by that I mean 3rd gens and beyond) can’t get along with immigrant/expat Chinese from mainland China. Outsiders look on say to us “you are all Chinese, why can’t you all get along” but the cultural differences make it so difficult to bridge the divide.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/08/jimmy-aldaoud-iraq-deported-diabetic-detroit/
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@ Solitaire: I read about this on Politico. This is disturbing.
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@Solitaire,
Yeah, I read that this morning.
I have also read about many Korean and Vietnamese adoptees raised by White American families since they were babies who only find out decades later after being arrested for something that they never were US citizens. Some of them were deported and repatriated to countries where they have no family and no knowledge of the language, society and culture.
People who entered the country legally and have been living in the country legally for decades definitely should not be kicked out for this stuff. There is a good chance that you are sending them to their deaths.
I really hope that following this “Send them back” mantra permeating the country recently that most blacks and enlightened whites will finally realize that everyone cannot simply go back, that there is no “back” to go to and these others are just as American as they are.
Yes, these examples just happened not be US citizens by a fluke, but this mantra is obviously used towards native-born Americans in the same vein.
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Telling the Congresswomen to go back to where they they came from when they are Americans trying to work to repair the mess that is America. Telling black Americans to go back to Africa when it was white people, Europeans who kidnapped black folks from Africa.
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@ Mary Burrell
And add to that the irony of white Americans telling anyone else to go back where they came from when white people stole this land to begin with.
Donald Trump’s mother was an immigrant and his father was the child of immigrants. He is fresh off the boat compared to Ayanna Pressley — or compared to you and Jefe. He should be grateful his family was allowed to come here, not thinking he is the arbiter of who gets to stay and who should be forced to leave.
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@ Jefe
“Korean and Vietnamese adoptees raised by White American families since they were babies who only find out decades later after being arrested for something that they never were US citizens. Some of them were deported and repatriated to countries where they have no family and no knowledge of the language, society and culture.”
Yes, I believe the first time I read about a case like that was way back in the early 1990s, and there have been more cases since then.
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re: Solitaire
and AOC too.
Her father was born in the Bronx too, to Puerto Rican parents (AOC’s grandparents).
Her mother was born in Puerto Rico.
But Puerto Rico has been part of the US since 1898, so both her parents, her grandparents, and most likely her great-grandparents as well were native born US citizens.
and his mother was still a UK citizen until her death in 2000. Donald Trump had Jus sanguinis UK nationality at birth and he has never rescinded it. Which means that our president has foreign nationality. How could we permit this!
Especially since he put that birtherism sh!t on Obama. Obama was not born with Kenyan nationality (as Kenya was not yet a country), and he was ineligible to apply for it after age 23. So he had no eligibility for foreign citizenship since then. But Trump still does.
SEND HIM BACK!
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