Reading Min Jin Lee’s “Free Food for Millionaires” had me thinking about class and how it factors into the Asian American experience. I thought of all the Asian Americans I know, correlating their socioeconomic class with how they behave today and from all that speculation, grappled with the following question: When will we realize the grass isn’t greener on the other side?
Inner-city bred Asians who have the brains and ambition to get out of their ghettos pull out all the stops to get themselves into ivy leagues or notable institutions of higher education, even if it means exploiting affirmative action. Once there, they bend over backwards to climb the social ladder. To present a case study, I cite the archetypal fellow who grows up in the back alleys of Chinatown, goes to M.I.T. by taking out exorbitant private loans, then tries desperately to appear “white-washed,” like the suburbanite Asians he met in college, because that in his mind somehow correlates with upper middle class status. Such a fellow becomes fixated on the way he speaks–taking pains to enunciate the way a blue-blooded American would, and lose that inner-city slang or even accent he spoke with in his youth. He is obsessed with “sounding white,” “appearing white,” and if you ever casually tell him he in fact “sounds Asian,” he will begin to hyperventilate with paranoia. If they can, they will move to white suburbia where they may live out the rest of their lives denying their humble beginnings. If they could, they would dissociate from the Asian community altogether.
On the other hand, you have the upper-middle class suburbanite Asians who spent their childhoods and adolescence pampered with every material comfort your mind can think of, who went to a private all-white prep school, and who now, in their young adulthoods, have moved from their suburban permanent addresses to a run-down studio in the heart of a big city where the Asian population is 99.9%. They’ve become the hipsters and emo kids who shun wealth, shun the academy, glorify all things Asian, and who may even become an activist in a non-profit organization to help the indigent yellow plebeians. (Ever notice how almost every grassroots Asian-interest organization is run by whitebread Asians who are otherwise completely detached from the life experiences of those Asians they claim to represent?) They rant ad nauseum on marginalization, racial inequality, lack of voter turnout from the APA community, but never take the time to understand the existential struggles of working class Asians and why, maybe, these people don’t have the privilege of ranting on marginalization, racial inequality, or voting blocks.
i’m posting about this primarily because i don’t think i can make it to the show myself, so i’m hoping to live vicariously through some other people who can actually check it out.
Hats off once again to BBC for delivering fantastic programming. I stumbled upon “Goodness Gracious Me” at random and love it! I can’t get enough. Per 
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! (Remember, I’m Canadian.) Your requests played on this all-new, all request, Thanksgiving Special. ENHANCED with more juice!
I got to hand it to Chinese companies: they sure have the art of imitation down. Movies, music, software, clothes, 
