8 Asians

For those of us growing up in the U.S. with immigrant parents in the seventies and eighties, there was no getting around the fact that the term F.O.B. (Fresh Off the Boat – pronounced letter “F”, letter “O”, letter “B”) was meant to be derogatory, when applied to ourselves, or to our parents. I had no idea, the term has changed in recent times to “fob” (rhymes with rob) and used affectionately as “fobby”. Jeff Yang tackles this topic in a recent article for SFGate. Specifically he writes about two websites, that have gotten a lot of attention in Asian circles, mymomisafob.com and mydadisafob.com. I’ve actually seen the first site, and read through many funny entries.

Yang calls our attention to these sites, not only because they are funny, but because there’s something endearing about them for those of us that have immigrant parents. We love our parents and all their funny quips and sayings. As I said earlier, for those of us of certain age, we’d never actually call them F.O.B., so Yang wanted to know why Teresa Wu and Serena Wu (not related, but creators of the two respective sites), included the “fob” in the title of their websites. It turns out they used the term as “fob”, not “F.O.B.” and referred to their parents as “fobby” in the most endearing way possible. Yang gets some help from another Yang, Gene Yang, to get the explanation for this cultural shift:

[Gene] Yang, who now resides in Fremont, notes that Mission San Jose, the high school Teresa and Serena attended, has one of the most Asian student populations in the nation. “It’s like 80 percent Asian,” he says. “The average SAT scores there are through the roof, and they have no football team, but an absolutely killer badminton team.”

It makes sense that kids growing up in an environment where being Asian is the norm would have a different view of being an immigrant than one where they’re in the minority. “If everyone has immigrant parents, it’s easy to go, ‘Oh, my parents are such fobs’ and feel affectionate toward them, even proud of them,” he says.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around calling my own parents “fobby”, but they definitely had their share of “fobby” moments. When my parents bought their first new car ever in 1973, they bought vinyl seat covers to go over the vinyl factory seats. They finally took the seat covers off 13 years later to sell the car. By then the rest of the car was rusted out from too many New York winters, but the seats still looked brand new. I was able to convince my parents in later life that should enjoy the velour in their new car in 1997, rather than wrap the car seats with seat covers, so the next owner could enjoy the seats. I’m curious if anyone else actually uses “fob” and “fobby” endearingly, or do you also think of “F.O.B.” as a derogatory term?

So I got this email, and saw the tweet:

Being Asian can prevent you from ascending the corporate ladder. Our seminar, presented with EMC Asian Circle, can tell you what to do about it.

You’ve done all the right things, top marks from perhaps a top school and top job performance. Why haven’t you reached the top as an executive? Learn from a renowned Asian exec who has been there and done that.

Business Professor David Lum will explore the fundamental reasons for why Asians/Asian-Americans have such difficulty in reaching those coveted positions. In addition to exploring the root causes, this seminar will also give clear and practical guidance on what you can do to prepare your career now for the long-term.

I read that and thought, “Wow.”

And that was the end of it. Total jaw drop. I’m not even sure what to say to this considering some facts, but more to that in a second. Let’s backtrack a little bit: I belong to a chapter of NAAAP, the National Association of Asian American Professionals. And obviously with any business organization, there is favoritism and so on, but seriously? We’re going to play the “we don’t get promoted because we’re Asian” card?

While I don’t know where this business professor came from, he apparently used to work for the same corporation as myself, and I never saw any inkling of Asians not being able to get promoted. Perhaps we didn’t work in the same division, but I never saw it within my corporate culture at least. And in my circle of friends and family, there are people that are in middle management all the way to senior management of their respective corporations; I never heard any complaints about promotions being blocked because of being Asian.

Maybe it’s just me, but this type of promotional email doesn’t exactly make me want to hear this speaker ever. Call me crazy, but I just can’t help but shake my head with this one.

The wonderful Broadway revival “South Pacific“, directed by the brilliant Bartlett Sher, is on tour right now in San Francisco. Written in 1949 by Rodgers and Hammerstein, most people remember this musical as a lovely romance during World War II with memorable songs such as “Some Enchanted Evening“, “There’s Nothing like a Dame” and “Wonderful Guy”.

The setting of this musical is in the islands of the South Pacific, where the Americans are stationed during wartime to protect their allies from the “Japs”. This story of war and prejudice holds such relevance today, which I found refreshing.

One of the main love stories in the musical is between Lt. Joe Cable, the American military man played by Anderson Davis, who falls in love with Liat, a Tonkinese native girl, portrayed by Sumie Maeda. Fighting racial prejudices he grew up with, he is conflicted between his love for Liat while realizing he can never really take her home to meet Mom and Dad in Philadelphia. He sings a compelling song, “You’ve got be carefully taught,” about racism. Joe Cable starts the song by saying “[Racism] isn’t born in you, it happens after you’re born!”:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to Year
It’s got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
To be Afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught

You’ve got to be taught
Before it’s too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught

In the original production 1949, Rodgers and Hammerstein were continually advised to take this song out of the show, claiming as the song was too controversial for a show. Against pressure, the song remained. During a touring production in 1953 in Atlanta, South Pacific created a frenzy among local legislators, as they introduced a state bill banning entertainment that supports “philosophy inspired by Moscow.” During this time, Sen. David C. Jones of Georgia stated that this song justified interracial marriage, which was an implicit threat to the American way of life.

Pretty heavy stuff for a retro Broadway musical, but I highly recommend this show, with its humanity and optimism — but it makes me wonder, have we come that much further in racial relations than this 1949 musical, a show created ahead of its time? I can only hope!

PS: For those Glee fans out there; Matt Morrison (Will Schuester) played the Lt. Joe Cable in the Broadway production of South Pacific in 2008, here is a video of him singing “Younger than Springtime,” which his character sings to Liat in the show.

A recent news item that has been gaining in momentum is the story of a Louisiana justice of peace Keith Bardwell who refuses to marry interracial couples for the sake of the children as he insists that interracial marriages tend not to last as long as other marriages.

This news story has drawn nearly universal indignation as even the most knuckle dragging traditionalists among us mostly agrees that the 1967 Supreme Court decision that recognizing multiracial marriage was a good idea. Many would even consider it silly that in 2009 the nation should be debating the benefits and costs of interracial marriage.

Asian Americans have one of the lowest divorce rates – a measly 20% as compared to the 25% national rate. To top it off, being a college graduate also lowers one’s divorce rates (to 22%). Considering that the rate interracial of interracial marriage for Asians is among the highest of any group – a whopping 33%, I would say that we’re probably out forming strong interracial marriages.

It is true that interracial marriages tend to encounter more difficulties than same race marriages but so does marriages between those of different education levels, between people who marry in their early twenties and teens, and also among people who smoke. If one wishes to eliminate interracial marriage on the grounds that those marriages tend not to last then one should also deny marriage to those who haven’t received a college education, haven’t reached 25 and those who haven’t yet quit smoking. Otherwise, one would be in danger of being hypocritical.

As the couple in question themselves have stated, interracial marriage already suffers from covert discrimination, any attempt at open discrimination needs to be dealt with mercilessly. As Asian Americans, I feel evidence of covert discrimination in interracial relationships is well known to us all. From our friends who whisper “I don’t like it when I see white people dating Asians” upon seeing an interracial couple visiting a Bubble Tea house to websites — and comments from our own site –  committed to bring a greater stigma to Asians who want to explore relationships outside their own ethnicity, covert discrimination is in many cases tolerated, even encouraged. Although I do not believe that believe that such discrimination will lead to unfair laws or wanton physical harm, it is important for us to recognize and eradicate veiled discrimination in ourselves.

A mother called up the admissions officer of a local private high school.
“How can I best position my daughter to get into your high school?” she asked.
“What grade is she in?” replied the admissions officer.
“Fourth grade,” said the mother.
“Too late,” said the admissions officer.

That admissions officer recounting this story at a high school information night said with a grin that the mother went nuts.  We knew that he was joking, but in the same room were an Asian family who dragged along what looked to be a fourth grade girl and fifth grade boy. Why were the Wife and I were at the high school information night?  Number One Son will be applying to the local private high schools in about a year, and some of the best known private high schools in Silicon Valley were giving presentations and other information.

It may seem both extreme and crazy, but that Asian family might have the right idea.  According to this US News and World Report article, Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade calculated that for students with similar grades, test scores, athletic ability, and family background, whites were three times as likely as Asian students to get in an elite college.  When I first read that, I got pretty angry.  Do I have to push my kids three times harder than white kids just to keep up?  I calmed down when I realized that there are a number of caveats to this study.  The study did not factor in extracurricular activities other than athletics.  Mitchell Chang, a professor of higher education at UCLA, says in the article that Asian students might be less likely to participate in certain kinds of extracurricular activities and that Asian parents push their children to apply to big name schools.  Also, Espenshade’s data from the 80’s and 90’s deals with elite colleges – what about the next tier of schools?  I wish there was data about those.

Still, I have to admit that I am a bit spooked by all of this.  I don’t think that those mitigating factors I mentioned explain away all of that three to one advantage.  The Daughter will be applying to colleges next year, and I feel pangs of guilt that I let her drop out of Kumon a couple of years ago and didn’t make her to do club sports back when she was younger.  Remembering her experience applying to the local private high schools (there are entrance exams and of course, test prep courses for that exam), it’s going to be a stressful time next year for Number One Son.  On top of that, The Daughter will be going to waiting for college acceptance letters at the same time.  Spring of 2011 will not be a happy time.  Before then, I’ll probably end up reading Espenade’s forthcoming book Not Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, that has more details from his study.
(Hat tip to John)

Folks at Asian Pacific Americans for Progress (APAP) are reporting that a bunch of APA activists are upset at the Oakland Planning Commission for approving a permit for a new bar in Chinatown to be titled “Geisha”, stating that the name invokes violent and derogatory stereotypes against Asian women. The campaign is headed by Diana Pei Wu, Jenn Pae, Angelica Jongco, Xiaojing Wang, and Jen Mei Wu.

No, I’m not kidding you. Aside from the heavy cultural significance of the word, the leaders of this protest also cite that giving the bar with such a name would help support sexual harassment, mental illness, and a negative economic impact with its indirect support for the sex trade and/or pornography. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that rapist in the area who was targeting Asian women. Wait, what? These are all related?

I hate to be the one to say this, but I can’t help think these folks are overreacting in this situation, and wrongly defining the history of Japanese geisha. They were dancing and musical entertainers, and nowhere did violence and overt sexuality come to play in their formal occupation. No, geishas aren’t prostitutes. Maybe some of them were but hey, it’s the oldest job in the world.  If anything, they should be focusing their outrage on two Asian American businessmen with a tired and unoriginal idea for a new bar, or at least ask why someone would want to go to a Geisha bar in the heart of Chinatown. Wrong culture, people.

Also, what does the NorCal rapist have to do with this? Did he have a geisha fetish or something and this bar is his one chance to finally hang out in the open? I don’t see the connection.

It’s good to see politically active Asian Americans keeping an eye out for their community but I’m finding it hard to support a group who base their protests on a narrow, sensational definition of a single word, especially when it directly affects two men bringing more business to Chinatown.

PS. And I will say that I used to live down the street from the Geisha House in Hollywood; while I disliked the name, never once did I experience a down turn in the civic quality of life. All of that was caused by the Hummer driving douchebags who would congregate in the neighborhood.

(h/t: spamfriedrice)