Recently I met some friends at a bar called Park, located in downtown Manhattan. Park is one of these trendy, well decorated bar/lounges that have sprung up all across NYC and cater mostly to a young professional/hipster crowd. Like other such places, Park contains its share of unusual artistic flourishes (a bamboo grove sits in the center of the space), overpriced drinks, and attractive people. It would be an utterly generic bar but for one thing: Park is an “Asian bar”.
By this I do not mean that Park serves Tsingtao, or that people go there to karaoke. As I have described, Park is like most other New York bars in its design and function. What makes Park different is that it caters to a mostly (but not exclusively) Asian clientele. This raises an obvious question of why Asian people choose to congregate there. I do not know the answer to this, but would like to hear other people’s thoughts. It also raises a subtle question (and this is what I am interested in exploring) of whether it is bad, in some social sense, for Asian people to congregate this way.
At first glance this question may seem ridiculous, even insulting. After all, people should be able to choose who they hang out with, and there’s nothing wrong (and many things right) about having an Asian American community. And at the end of the day there are many organizations still run primarily by and for white people (by which I don’t just mean WASPy country clubs; try going to a Foo Fighters concert), but no one is up in arms telling them to branch out more.
That said, I think there’s something to the notion of communal responsibility – I am a representative of the Asian American community, and my actions will impact perceptions not only of myself but also of my communal group. I also think there is some difference in communal responsibility between members of the dominant culture and various minority groups. One key difference between whites and all minority groups is that white people do not have to assimilate. Now technically we don’t have to assimilate either, and there’s nothing actually wrong with the idea of an Asian America that both exists within and outside of mainstream American culture.
Except, perhaps, for one thing: the Asian community seems to want it both ways. That is to say, Asians want the freedom to exclusively associate with other Asian people (and therefore not assimilate), but are also bothered by racism, glass ceilings, media stereotypes, and the like. Fair or not, these things go hand in hand. For example, I often hear complaints that Asians are portrayed in the media as geeky and uncool, and that as a result, other people stereotype and form preconceived notions of us in this light. But how quickly would those preconceived notions shatter if every time anyone walked into any bar the loudest, most fun guy who was the life of the party and had all the girls gravitating towards him was also Asian? It’s a shallow example, I know, but it gets at something important. People form their views based on what’s around them, and if what’s around them are lots of interesting and unique Asian people doing their thing, then inevitably Asians stop being viewed as a homogenized cultural blob with a set of stereotypical characteristics, and more as the individual people that we are. Unfortunately, that isn’t happening right now, not because there aren’t fun and charismatic Asian guys out there, but because they all go to Park.
Fixing the problems of racism and stereotyping requires engagement, not self segregation. This, to me, is what assimilation really means: not a way for us to adopt the broader culture and ‘act white’ (whatever that even means), but a way for the broader culture to connect to us and come to appreciate who we are as individuals. As far as I can tell, that’s the only way that perceptions begin to change, and if we as a community view that as being important then we need to put ourselves out there.
What next?
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10 Comments to “On Stereotypes, Assimilation and a Manhattan Bar called Park”
Confuse-us wrote:
Ironically, “white” culture has already appropriated (and assimilated) many practices and customs not native to it whilst managing to not accept the people from whom these cultural practices and customs derive. Your example of the geeky and uncool stereotype is a good illustration of this. It’s considered extremely cool for white people to practice Asian martial arts, cultivate spiritual discipline through Tibetan and Thai meditation techniques, study, practice, and receive acupuncture, appreciate Japanese animation styles, enjoy trendy sushi restaurants, eat with chopsticks and sing karaoke! Yet, despite possessing all of these cool cultural practices and customs, Asians are still stereotyped negatively.
How can we have cool cultural practices yet be stereotyped as uncool? Well, because white people “don’t have to assimilate” i.e they can adopt “your” culture but they don’t have to accept “you”. I find that to be problematic. Equally problematic is acceptance of that paradigm. Since American culture borrows so heavily from such diverse sources, it’s unreasonable to believe that white people can be exempt from having to assimilate into it or even that it’s “their” culture to begin with and others have to work harder to belong to it.
Posted on 08-Mar-09 at 2:04 pm | Permalink
Pacific Islander wrote:
Ya, the whole white people not having to assimilate is described as “White Privilege”. I learned that in Sociology =)
As far as a “Asian” hang out, is it mostly East Asians like Chinese and Japanese? or is it all packed with Asian Indians and Filipinos?
Posted on 08-Mar-09 at 2:33 pm | Permalink
John wrote:
So when a bunch of white people hang out together, is that self segregation?
What if the owner of the restaurant is Asian and has a bunch of Asian friends, and that is how word-of-mouth of the place got started and because of this initial condition, this place is popular with Asians?
Or is the restaurant near where a lot of Asians live? There could be a multitude of reasons why Asians are choosing to hang out at this restaurant, mostly for non “racist” reasons.
People are free to hang out with whomever they want. If Asians want to hang out with Asians sometimes, and white & others other times, let it be.
Posted on 08-Mar-09 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
Tien Nguyen wrote:
I agree with all that John said, this article is much ado about nothing.
Posted on 08-Mar-09 at 5:51 pm | Permalink
Brian wrote:
A bar that caters to Asians is no more or less problematic than a website that caters to Asians (like the very site you just submitted an article to).
Posted on 08-Mar-09 at 10:15 pm | Permalink
Linda wrote:
Agreed w/ Brian and John.
Besides, I think it’s really neat to have a bar that Asians hang out at. Why not? It’s fun to socialize and meet other Asians, after spending our workdays socializing with white people at work!
Posted on 09-Mar-09 at 6:47 am | Permalink
Kim wrote:
White guy’s jealous of the Asians…… Park looks like a beautiful, comfortable place ~ ! (even if the prices are too high…)
Posted on 09-Mar-09 at 8:59 am | Permalink
Chris Wong wrote:
Yo I’m gonna hit up this bar next time i’m in New York fa sho! Haha. But seriously.
Posted on 09-Mar-09 at 12:58 pm | Permalink
8Asians.com » “Why am I the Coolest Asian You Know?” wrote:
[...] more importantly, how do we change this? I argued in a previous post that assimilation is important, and that we need to resist the urge to self segregate. I’ve always lived by that belief, in part because I see it as being my small way of [...]
Posted on 10-Mar-09 at 7:24 am | Permalink
Chris wrote:
I think Rob brings up some good points – the debate here over assimilation or segregation is essentially what we all struggle with in realizing our identity as Asians in America. I’d say to simply have a club/bar where Asians predominantly hang is neither intrinsically good or bad. Like some comments here – a bar that caters to asians – so what? They’re making good money on Asian yuppies.
However, I think Rob’s argument is why hang out here exclusively with other Asians, when it would be far more beneficial for the “Asian American image” if the asians chilling at Park were to be hanging out with a more diverse (or white?) crowd. The real question here, is how willing anyone is in exploring beyond their comfort zones.
I think its a hard call. To assimilate or segregate? Like I said, this is what all of us(minorities) struggle with. In an ideal world, we simply wouldn’t have to make this choice. Some might say that in an ideal world, we (asians) would have the white privilege and be able to accept and reject things from other cultures. But there are obvious pitfalls with this kind of thinking too.
At the end of the day, we’re back in the real world – a world of subtle grays. Where its not as easy as simply choosing to asimilate or segregate. Maybe one asian guy grew up in a predominantly asian community and has always just felt more comfortable associating with asians. Maybe another asian guy, growing up in the SAME asian community loved listening to foo fighters and made friends with people with similar tastes in music, and formed lasting friendships, which by chance turned out to be mostly white people (i know weak example). But that’s life.
Rob asked if it was wrong for asians to congregate like this. I don’t think its wrong, BUT i do think that if you find yourself hanging out with mostly asians, going mostly to “asian clubs” and yes, hitting on mostly asian girls, then maybe you should consider expanding your comfort zone. You might learn a thing or two about yourself or that “foreign other”…
On a side note – i’ve been to park a few times, lots of asians each time. More east asians than south asians, but u definitely see cute desi girls there too. And my best memory of park was seeing this asian guy roll up on a black girl dancing on top of the whirlpool on the 2nd floor…they grind for a bit, then he picks her up and grinds his face into her crotch, goes “whooo!” turns to me and asks if i wanna give that a go
Posted on 12-Mar-09 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
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