What Asian American Kids Bring for Lunch
September 10, 2016 3:05 PM   Subscribe

Have You Ever Had a ‘Lunch Box Moment’? NBC Asian America has a video project called Jubilee Project: Voices in which Asian Americans are asked a single question about the Asian American experience. In the first video, Asian American adults recall what it was like to bring their family's tradition foods to the school lunchroom when everyone else had packed peanut butter and jelly.
posted by zutalors! (66 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
Somen and kamaboko, man. I had people asking if I was eating Playdoh and straight up gagging when I said it was fish cake. Sucked so much, because my mom doesn't really cook, and this was a super-special treat. Ugh, or the time I brought in Spam musubi. From the reactions I got, you would've thought I'd just opened up a can of cat food and started eating it at the lunch table.
posted by Diagonalize at 3:46 PM on September 10, 2016 [18 favorites]


The whole series is worth a watch, it won't take much time. I'm white and live in Vancouver but even so this educated me a bit especially on tiger moms.
posted by Tad Naff at 3:59 PM on September 10, 2016


Diagonalize, grownup me thinks that your school lunch sounds miles better than anything I ever took to the cafeteria with me. I'm sorry the other kids gave you crap for it.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:17 PM on September 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


My friend's kid got totally shat on by a bunch of fellow kindergarteners for bringing a grilled cheese sandwich to school here in Seoul.

Kids are mean as shit
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:22 PM on September 10, 2016 [43 favorites]


I grew up in an Asian (specifically, Chinese) enclave so this never happened to me. It wasn't until I was 16? 17? before I encountered overt racism directed at me in person. As a kid, I was kind of disappointed I wasn't getting to experience Canada's famed ~multiculturalism~ because 99% of everyone I knew was Chinese like me, but looking back, it meant I wasn't held hostage by the single story.

There was one year I insisted on bringing a cheese and egg sandwich for lunch every single day just to see how long I could tolerate it. I think I lasted three months.
posted by airmail at 4:25 PM on September 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


Diagonalize, my daughter has grown up loving all of those foods. She would've been all over your lunches if you were at school with her - I had to learn how to make spam musubi so she could take it for lunch.
posted by mogget at 5:07 PM on September 10, 2016


Thankfully there are places now where this isn't an issue, my kids' school for one. It's very diverse and my daughter (16) regularly comes home and tells me longingly of the food some of her classmates bring in. I just asked her if anyone ever gets shit for what they bring and she was horrified at the suggestion. The upper school kids take shifts helping the lower school kids at lunch (opening juice boxes, etc.) and she assures me it doesn't happen with them, either.

I'm so sorry it happened to people, and probably still is happening to some kids. It makes me so sad.
posted by cooker girl at 5:24 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


One of the best things about growing up in Hawaii was never having to pretend that delicious food was actually gross just because it was "ethnic". I feel bad for Asian kids who have to grow up surrounded by mayo-eaters.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:24 PM on September 10, 2016 [9 favorites]


1)
I remember eating some Jajangmyeon in the US during second grade at home. My (white American) best friend at the time came over and teased me that it looked like brown worms. 'Koreans eat worms!', he joked. That was probably the first time I ever seriously understood what it was like for someone to not eat something and think that it was weird.

2)
Joseph Gurl:
When I lived in Korea in sixth grade, my class somehow got to go visit a US battleship on a random field trip. At the end of the tour, all the kids (all Korean, of course) filed into the battleship's cafeteria/mess hall where they were excitedly serving us... grilled cheese sandwiches.

I remember how excited the US soldiers/chefs were that they were giving us grilled cheese sandwiches. I also remember the collective confusion amongst the kids:

"This is just.. a melted piece of cheese? Between two pieces of bread?"
"Are we sure that there's nothing else in there?"
"Maybe they tried to make a sandwich and removed the meat, lettuce, and tomatoes because they ran out of ingredients?"
"Maybe you have a pretty strict diet when you're in the US Navy, like you have to shave your head and keep in shape and eat only meals with two ingredients?"

All in all, a few friends and I decided that we felt bad for the soldiers because they had to eat such bare-bones meals...
posted by suedehead at 5:38 PM on September 10, 2016 [66 favorites]


I don't know how Brian Lee felt about bringing a bulgogi sandwich for lunch every day but I know I felt great about eating one every day after trading him my PB&J for it.
posted by escabeche at 5:38 PM on September 10, 2016 [35 favorites]


Somen and kamaboko, man.

OMG, Diagonalize, you had gefilte fish for lunch!
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:38 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've had this happen a few times.

1. I was eating snow pea crisps, a common snack food that you'll find in basically every East Asian market. All the other kids were like "eww GREEN CHEETOS?!" Well fuck you, kids from 1st grade! I bet you're all eating them now that they're being marketed to Americans as some kind of overpriced "health snack" alongside your nacho kale chips.

2. My mom included some Botan Rice Candy in my lunch. The candy has 2 wrappers--a plastic outer wrapper, and an inner "wrapper" made of rice. The rice paper is edible and melts in your mouth. Other kids saw me eating this, told the teacher, and the teacher scolded me for eating paper. I tried explaining to the teacher that it was edible rice paper but she wouldn't believe me. Went home and complained to my parents. I forget if they ever talked to my teacher about it, but regardless I did not eat the candy at school ever again. Now I just laugh when I give the candy to non-Asians and they make a futile attempt at peeling off the rice paper.

3. Was eating gimbap. No filling, literally just seaweed and rice.

Other 4th graders were like "You're eating sushi?"

"It's gimbap."

"No it's not, that's sushi!"

Wtf you little shits, I don't care if you mistake it for sushi but don't tell me it's NOT gimbap! I don't go around asserting that your bologna sandwich is ACTUALLY a burger.
posted by picklenickle at 6:05 PM on September 10, 2016 [21 favorites]


I was teased a lot for lunches that were a bit hippyish but were. otherwise totally Anglo. I'm sure it was much worse for others. Kids can be cruel sometimes.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:07 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Admittedly, I've only had gefilte fish a few times, but I think the texture and flavor profiles are pretty distinct. Kamaboko is almost...bouncy? But delicious, I swear!

The funny thing is, I'm fourth-generation and pretty damn American, so I'm pretty sure my mom sent me off to school fully aware that bright pink fish cake might weird some of the kids out, but figured I would deal. I survived, but kids are brutal. They coldly reject the unfamiliar, preferring to eat their victims alive.
posted by Diagonalize at 6:12 PM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't remember experiencing this, thankfully, but I think my mom generally packed me sandwiches for lunch. I do remember begging my mom to buy me Lunchables like my friend had; it must not have lived up to my expectations.

Kids sure can be awful to one another.
posted by Standard Orange at 6:16 PM on September 10, 2016


Mod note: A few comments deleted. Intentions aside, this thread is probably not a great place to get into stories of how (a) you made fun of Asian American kids for whatever reason, or (b) how lots of non-Asian-American people have lunch stories from childhood.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:23 PM on September 10, 2016 [7 favorites]


The origin of one of LA's more unique burgers.

(mystery meat but a propos)
posted by mzurer at 7:34 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


My daughter asked for tuna and egg kimbap for her very first kindergarten lunch last week. So that's what she got. No one made fun of her, no one said jack shit, although her teacher asked her about the "sushi" that daddy made for lunch which was pretty much OK with me as long as it wasn't mocking. No one said jack about the curry and rice she brought the next day either. I'm very pleased that in some places at least this stuff is dead and gone. You don't make fun of other peoples' food. End of line.

I live in a heavily Jewish and Asian rich suburb where I'm pretty sure the other kids are too hip and the teachers too intimidated to ever say anything like this. But I'm pretty sure that if my mother found out back in the 1980s that the other kids or - heaven help us - a teacher EVER made fun of what I brought for lunch, she would've filled their guts with molten lava.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:34 PM on September 10, 2016 [7 favorites]


II feel bad for Asian kids who have to grow up surrounded by mayo-eaters.

You mean Japan?
posted by benzenedream at 8:41 PM on September 10, 2016 [11 favorites]


One of the best things about growing up in Hawaii was never having to pretend that delicious food was actually gross just because it was "ethnic". I feel bad for Asian kids who have to grow up surrounded by mayo-eaters.


I grew up in Hawaii with a white mom and so there were tuna sandwiches for lunch and like that but also as soon as I was old enough (6?) I was going to the market next door for my Saturday snack: sushi and chocolate milk. (Kids are so weird.)
posted by rtha at 8:58 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


That was really sweet and gave me a wider perspective. thanks for posting.

I did once do the "eeeeew fish heads!" to a friend at lunch in junior high. She totally laid the smack down. "Yup. It's a fish head. Deal with it." So awesome.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:04 PM on September 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


Where I grew up (Monterey, California) most of us ate school-provided lunches rather than bringing lunch to school. Those lunches were mostly "American" foods such as pizza, fried chicken, burgers, tater tots, spaghetti with meat sauce, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc.

However, my school district was very ethnically diverse so we never goggled at traditional Asian foods because that's what we all at home. Kimbap, spam sandwiches, kimchi, sweet rice cake, and more were treats for the non-Asian kids lucky enough to be invited over.

I really wish everyone could have the experience of growing up with people different from themselves so they could learn tolerance. Barring that, I wish adults could cultivate the active acceptance of different cultures and cuisines in their children.
posted by mistersquid at 9:29 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


My father is white American and my mother is Korean, so I remember having to explain many a lunch to my classmates. Fortunately, Vancouver is very ethnically diverse so I almost never was made fun of for what I ate. Except for Japanese style curry, which is apparently very off-putting to a very wide demographic of kids. Even when making "white people's food" my mother would improve things by adding tons of extra garlic to almost any recipe. So even my "normal" lunches never smelled quite the same.
Wtf you little shits, I don't care if you mistake it for sushi but don't tell me it's NOT gimbap!
I don't know why such a simple concept was so hard to explain.
posted by Willow Jane at 10:58 PM on September 10, 2016


V8, spam, wonton and 'carpet' :P

> I remember eating some Jajangmyeon in the US during second grade at home.

i actually didn't know my favorite ramen was really jajangmyeon until pretty recently!
posted by kliuless at 11:42 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


My brother and I bought school lunch, so we had the same (American-esque) thing as everyone else in our Southern US school. However, there were sometimes special activities or field trips where we had to bring a packed breakfast or lunch. For the most part, I remember my parents going to the grocery store to buy American food (rice crispies cereal, bread, lunchmeat) for these occasions, because we didn't really keep any at home. I can't remember if this was by explicit request of my brother and me, but I think it probably was; we were starkly aware and bothered that we were different from the other kids in many ways. Our family owned and operated a Chinese restaurant, so that kind of thing was nothing like what I ate when I was home (for that matter, since it was an Americanized Chinese buffet, what I ate wasn't that much like what we offered in the restaurant, either). I remember one time when either they must have not had time to go shopping or I was beginning to be less bothered by/used to the contrast between myself and my classmates as I got older, and I had a container of fried rice. Most of my friends knew what this was, but I remember a guy who said "Is that rice? Why is it brown?"

I think I probably could have dealt with bringing different food from the others if I had done so earlier, because my mom was and is an excellent cook. I wish I hadn't had to field so many "Do you eat pet dogs and cats?" or even "Why do Chinese people eat dogs and cats?" questions. My brother still lives in our state of origin and still gets these questions. He's over 30 and a professional nurse, and some of the people who ask them are his coworkers.
posted by spelunkingplato at 11:45 PM on September 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


I remember eating some Jajangmyeon in the US during second grade at home. My (white American) best friend at the time came over and teased me that it looked like brown worms. 'Koreans eat worms!', he joked. That was probably the first time I ever seriously understood what it was like for someone to not eat something and think that it was weird.

I'll be honest, that stuff was a little intimidating to me even as an adult (very white) when I first got to Korea. I consider myself moderately adventurous and the look of it was enough for me to reject it the first time. Of course, then I tried it, and it was an explosion of wonderful flavor that I was addicted for my entire 3 years there after that. It's still one of my favorite foods now. But I can totally see how a white American second-grader would have about 0% chance of accepting it as food at first glance.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 12:26 AM on September 11, 2016


Huh. My kids won Australian lunchbox wars when we sent them to school with momos. Filled with Nutella. Traditional Tibetan Nutella, of course.
posted by taff at 1:24 AM on September 11, 2016 [9 favorites]


Oh my, the video brought tears to my eyes - maybe because I'm a mum whose kids stuck to my strange lunch-boxes regardless of peer pressure. Since then, our city has introduced a new lunch organization which goes out of its way to make sure the kids are introduced to all sorts of foods - and it's 90% organic, too.
Just yesterday, I had an assortment of kids for dinner, and one was a daughter of the head of that organization: it was such a thrill to see how the other kids were impressed and proud to meet her. Happily, things are changing.
posted by mumimor at 2:34 AM on September 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


My story about Asian Lunches:

One of my best friends, Leo, is Chinese-American. He came for a visit at the same time my Nephew was staying with me while his parents were away. The kid needed a packed lunch for school every day because there was no food service at his school, other than beverages. Leo and the kid spent hours one evening making these wonderful lunch things, beautiful things made out of rice etc(I think the term is Bento Box?). I had no idea Leo was so talented.

The kid couldn't wait to show and share with his friends this wonderful lunch that he and his friend Leo made. At lunch time he opened his lunch and almost immediately a teacher took it away from him citing that it was "terrorist food" and she dumped it in the garbage. You can imagine how the poor little boy felt.

I never came so close to committing murder in my life. I wanted to strangle the life out of that ignorant POS. She got a reprimand but was fired the next school year for being an racist ass.

My Nephew still makes those lunches. People ask him to make them. They're wonderful and delicious. It's an art form and it's almost a sin to eat them.
posted by james33 at 3:52 AM on September 11, 2016 [33 favorites]


I feel like there's a shift that happens around.... high school? In elementary school, kids were like "ew what is that weird stuff"? And then sometime in high school, it shifts to "I wish I was Asian". ok that could be just the community I grew up in.
posted by Xere at 4:49 AM on September 11, 2016


The kid couldn't wait to show and share with his friends this wonderful lunch that he and his friend Leo made. At lunch time he opened his lunch and almost immediately a teacher took it away from him citing that it was "terrorist food" and she dumped it in the garbage.

What? That doesn't even...
posted by leotrotsky at 4:57 AM on September 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Leo and the kid spent hours one evening making these wonderful lunch things, beautiful things made out of rice etc(I think the term is Bento Box?).

Bento boxes are great - they're an art form in their own right.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 5:05 AM on September 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


This is the plot of Rosemary Wells' Yoko.
posted by brujita at 5:19 AM on September 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


The guys who made this film are my friends! Their organization,Jubilee Project, has made a bunch of short films in addition to this type of interview or PSA. It is worth checking out. In addition to all their charity and non-profit work, they are committed to Asian American representation in the arts, and most of their short films feature a diverse cast.
posted by alligatorpear at 7:51 AM on September 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Folks who are commenting about how you or your kid brought "weird Asian food" to school and no one said anything about it....

If you or your child are white, consider the impact that may have had on said lunch's reception. And that the experience of "When I ate this as a child of Asian immigrants, everyone made fun of me, but now that it's a White People thing it's suddenly okay" is a big part of the particular conversation.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 8:42 AM on September 11, 2016 [19 favorites]


Narrative Priorities, my kid is half Jewish and 1/4 Vietnamese and 1/4 Chinese. I think most of us are clued in enough to know about Columbusing other people's culture.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:50 AM on September 11, 2016


Oh how extreme the emotions over something as simple bringing lunch. First my shame in bringing such disgusting food when the one child yelled "Ewww, what is that?" with the rest of the children piling on, followed by intense hatred of my mother and my heritage as only an ashamed 10-year old could because she did something so horrible to me as packing my delicious lunch. This was followed by my bulling of the other children that had weird food, just as soon as my mother acquiesced to buying me Kraft Lunchables™ to bring to school. All of that was followed by even more intense shame for doing all of the above a few years later when I realized what I'd done.

Asian Americans fit the mold of model minority so my complains of racism sometimes fall on deaf ears, but my experience years ago with bag lunch in elementary school only serves to highlight that racism is shitty, no matter how unintentional. The other mundane food thing that hits my unintentional racism button that comes up in conversation is being negatively judged for owning a rice cooker machine because stove top rice isn't that hard.
posted by fragmede at 2:08 PM on September 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


I suppose it depends on who you mean by "most of us." Until recently I worked at a wealthy, elite university with lots of international staff, students, and alumni, but I still had multiple coworkers who would comment with great interest on my "exotic" lunches (aka leftover stir fry). It was never overtly negative, but it was definitely othering as hell, and these were people who theoretically know better and are actually trying their hardest not to be racist. I even had one instance where one totally well-intentioned but clueless woman earnestly sought out my advice on tea apropos of nothing and another specifically got me and my Asian coworker together so she could gush to us about a newborn panda she had read about.

I think it just gets weird when cultural contact is limited, and some minority is forced to play ambassador. So long as everybody is saying "nice" things, there doesn't seem to be a problem, but I think it is worthwhile to consider that tension may still be there.

For example, I'm genuinely glad so many folks have chimed in to say they think the lunches described sound tasty, but another part of me thinks "Well, yeah, obviously they're tasty! Did people think our parents intended to send us off with gross lunches?" It's...a complicated set of emotions.
posted by Diagonalize at 2:26 PM on September 11, 2016 [12 favorites]


Diagonalize, grownup me thinks that your school lunch sounds miles better than anything I ever took to the cafeteria with me.

You must have had some rough school lunches if cheap rice topped with salted meat product from Hormel sounds better!

I had spicy shrimp katsu musubi for breakfast this morning, so I fully understand the appeal - but this is still Hawaiian junk food. It's cheap and filling and satisfying and totally unhealthy.
posted by kanewai at 2:29 PM on September 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yo, do you know why spam musubi is A Thing?

It's because spam is motherfucking delicious.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:17 PM on September 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


The other mundane food thing that hits my unintentional racism button that comes up in conversation is being negatively judged for owning a rice cooker machine because stove top rice isn't that hard.

Yes it fucking well IS "that hard"! I don't know who invented the modern rice cooker, but they are a hero.
posted by MissySedai at 9:44 PM on September 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Sort of opposite memories for me although stemming from a similar place. Even though my breakfasts growing up was usually rice porridge and kimchee, my mom made me 'western' sandwiches (ham, lettuce, tomato on white bread) for my brown bag, complete with an apple and a juice pouch. More often than not, I actually threw these lunches away because the bread got completely soggy from the tomato and mayo and had a huge dents in it because of the apple, which was usually a Red Delicious (which is the most undelicious type of apple). So most of the time I just had a Capri Sun for lunch. I suppose my parents were just trying to help me fit in but I kind of wish I just had a box of rice and banchan. But maybe I didn't even think to ask for a change because I subliminally internalised feelings of shame?

And those who think it's somehow difference once you've grown up or that "ethnic" food is more tolerated now, it was only a couple of years ago my sister in law made gagging noises when I told her that during a recent trip home my mom had made ggoli gomtang. Even after my husband tried to explain how it's basically amazing fall apart meat and not unlike a beef stew she proclaimed it gross and didn't understand how someone could eat "stuff like that" (even though oxtail is also totally a thing in british cuisine and not even that foreign).

Hearing such a blanket statement that my mom's cooking was "disgusting" - and by extension my consumption of it made me weird - made me pissed off at first (and again ashamed), but now I just feel really sorry for people who have such limited experiences with the world. Their tastebuds are really missing out.
posted by like_neon at 2:44 AM on September 12, 2016 [6 favorites]


owning a rice cooker machine because stove top rice isn't that hard

Stove top rice isn't that hard but it's not very good. I really miss my old rice cooker. You measured some rice, put in water to the marked out levels, press the button for white or brown rice and voila, perfect rice every time. Mine even had a timer so you can set it in advance 12 hours and it also kept the rice warm without drying out. Rice cookers are the upside of technology!
posted by like_neon at 2:48 AM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm sure they exist, but I don't happen to know any Asian people who have electricity (or even just gas) who don't own a rice cooker! Some of the people in the village where my grandmother lived didn't have running water and they had rice cookers. Rice cookers do one thing (actually, many of them do many things), and they do it really well. When it's the staple of your diet, it just makes sense and saves time and energy to have a device dedicated to making it perfectly, if you can swing it.

I know exactly what you mean, fragmede, about the weirdly kind of race-unaware negative judgement about rice cookers. I tried to explain it to someone who said something about it as analogous to them having a toaster--don't you know it's possible to toast bread in a pan / under the broiler / using a fork and an open fire? Why does this entire culture normalize this weird unitasker machine like they can't cook? But if it's something you eat a lot, and not just once in awhile on rare occasions, it's not so strange to have a device that does it well without any attention from you, isn't it? I don't know if it sank in, but one may hope.
posted by spelunkingplato at 4:49 PM on September 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Living in a Tibetan household, we don't have a rice cooker. No one in our family does. I think it's just not been a priority for refugees and displaced people although there certainly are some Tibetans with them. The pressure cooker though, we couldn't live without. My mother in law has about four of them.

I think that at times my husband would quite like a rice cooker, as I don't even try to cook rice. (Sometimes in the microwave, but just for the kids.) But it's a pretty loaded thing for him. A friend who survived Auschwitz once said to me that if she ate leavened bread during Passover it would feel as if the Nazis had won. I think that's kind of where my husband's head is coming from with the rice cooker thing. Another part of life the Chinese occupation changed irrevocably and his small act of resistance feels good.

It's a bugbear of mine, but when people use the word Asian, the monolith gets legitimacy. Don't know if that happens in the States, but it certainly does in Australia. I note that Tibetans don't use it very often. Apart from the predictable racist stereotypes and unhelpful generalisations- there is nothing more devastating than to be lumped in with a country that murdered millions of your people and continues to occupy and torture. It causes my husband and kids pain when that happens. And me too.
posted by taff at 5:13 PM on September 12, 2016 [4 favorites]



It's a bugbear of mine, but when people use the word Asian, the monolith gets legitimacy. Don't know if that happens in the States, but it certainly does in Australia.


The context here is Asian America...
posted by zutalors! at 7:07 AM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


This was a great post. I wasn't a kid with "weird" lunches (though the amount of smoked meat & pork we ate would likely be weird for the Canadian Anglo kids I knew). The Italians I knew growing up would tease the Anglo kids with the term "mangaicake" because of their white bread lunches, so I'd eat my Vachon cakes in secret to avoid their scorn (usually I'd eat them on the way to school).

However, I am a father who gives his son "weird" lunches. I'm the main cook so I make what I like which tends to be more eclectic then the meat & potatoes I grew up with (Chole bhature is a favorite for instance). So, always looking for new ideas, I regularly grill my son about what his classmates bring for lunch. Sadly it is pretty dull - the wealthier ones bring Lunchables and the poorer ones eat nothing and everybody else eats sandwiches. Since he's not a big fan of sandwiches his lunches are different. He gets teased about a few things I put in there - green tea Kit Kats, seaweed, radishes, samosas, French cheese... but he seems to weather the teasing fine. The only thing he's asked me not to give him were the multi coloured carrots. I suspect that has to do with not liking them rather than any bullying though!
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:14 AM on September 13, 2016


Hey Zutalors, I realise that. I'm suggesting it's not unproblematic. It's kinda like when feminism is actually white women saying they're speaking for all women but actually pulling the ladder up after themselves.

When the word Asian is used, which nationalities does it benefit? How does it benefit them? Who is erased?

(And other than in weather maps, maybe, how actually useful is it?)
posted by taff at 1:12 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


I am an Asian American and I would like to use i to identify myself. Along with South Asian American, which includes several regions which in fact have been at war with each other! Along with with Indian American, which again has lots of sub groups that have had conflicts. That doesn't change my feelings about how I and many others, including the people who created this series, would like to identify ourselves.

I find your line of questioning very offensive.


It's kinda like when feminism is actually white women saying they're speaking for all women but actually pulling the ladder up after themselves.


No, no it really is not like that.
posted by zutalors! at 1:17 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think it's good to ask whether using a blanket term "Asian" or "Asian American" is erasing identities under the blanket, and I think taff was sufficiently clear in their reasons for posing the question.

In this particular case, I think the term is acceptable, only because the experiences at hand are not specific to any particular culture but instead are common to almost all immigrants to America whose cultural cuisine differs from Anglo-American cuisine. By the same token, though, "Asian" here might actually be serving as erasure in the other direction, because I'm sure that many Latin American, Middle Eastern (which could technically be "Asian" but usually isn't...), and African immigrants have similar experiences.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:09 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


By the same token, though, "Asian" here might actually be serving as erasure in the other direction, because I'm sure that many Latin American, Middle Eastern (which could technically be "Asian" but usually isn't...), and African immigrants have similar experiences.

Again, the post is about Asian American experience, not immigrant experience. And actually, Asian Americans might not be immigrants.

Also, it's generally understood within American discussions of identity that people who identify with a term are the best placed to determine use, "problematicness" and otherwise of that word, rather than outsiders. It's a problem for someone who is not an Asian American to compare using the term to abuse and people pulling the ladder behind them (also only useful on maps? I think the video itself makes the idea of an Asian identity clear).

And lest it be claimed I am defending my own post, I actually find it a form of erasure to make a topic about Asian American experience to be about Asian Australian experience or imagined other immigrant experience.
posted by zutalors! at 4:25 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Deleted a couple of comments. If you need to critique someone else's word choice at length, please take it to MeTa. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:02 PM on September 13, 2016


Super late to this thread, but mid 80's, brand new immigrants to Canada (Vancouver) from Hong Kong, first grade lunches:

So much teasing about my mostly Chinese-ish lunches, even the ones made from mostly Anglo ingredients (one time, chopped hotdog fried rice; "Is that your dad's penis? porpoise is eating his dad's penis! porpoise eats penises!"). There was a ton of blatant racism, too, people actually pulled their eyes up and "ching chong ching chong" at me with regularity.

Even adults.

Eventually, I convinced my mom to make me sandwiches to bring, so she obliged.

With headcheese sandwiches - which I love. Still the teasing and "ewww, headcheese."

Eventually, I convinced my mom to buy brown paper bags to bring my lunches in - the other kids would tease me for saving the paper bag to re-use; they'd just toss theirs along with their tetrapack/foilpouch drinks containers (whereas I had a thermos).

Eventually, my mom started packing grilled cheese sandwiches or cheap bologna (I still despise bologna, and am still squicked out by peanutbutter+jelly sandwiches) and a thermos of soup. In a plastic lunchbox.

By then I had made some friends who, although a lot richer than my family, where cool. By the time I moved schools around grade 3/4, my parents were doing a bit better and I was able to buy school lunches or pack sandwiches with "proper" deli meat.

So, it wasn't all xenophobia/kids being terrible; there was definitely an (economic) class component as well. A lot of kid-racism - I don't feel - wasn't innate, it was behaviour taught by adults. Kids being awful to kids aside, is just kids being awful to kids.

Anyway, boy have things changed around here.
posted by porpoise at 4:31 PM on September 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I actually find it really interesting how this video, ostensibly about Asian-American experiences, is triggering reminices from other people of colour or people in Asian communities in other majority-white Anglophone countries.

It's a nice illustration of some of the commonalities of experience about minority experiences, and the dynamics of the subtle (and not so subtle) racism kids in majority white communities have to deal with.

My friend's kid got totally shat on by a bunch of fellow kindergarteners for bringing a grilled cheese sandwich to school here in Seoul.

And how it works in reverse, too.

It's all a heady mix of racism, tribalism and kids just being uncontrollable sacks of sugar and growth hormones, just flailing around trying to figure things out.

Or maybe it's just interesting to me, because I don't have kids and have no skin in this game.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:44 PM on September 14, 2016 [3 favorites]




It's all a heady mix of racism, tribalism and kids just being uncontrollable sacks of sugar and growth hormones, just flailing around trying to figure things out.


No I think it's just the racism and xenophobia.
posted by zutalors! at 9:33 AM on September 15, 2016


As a parent I can attest that the very young children who abused my daughter for the stinky sausage in her lunchbox weren't aware she was racially different to them. At that age they saw behavioural differences but race/colour wasn't there. Racially motivated stuff is only just coming now, almost five years later.

They were just scared of new foods back then. But my kids were too. And sometimes still reject foods without trying them. I think there's an evolutionary advantage in this for the very young. Eventually it comes from a racist place. But a kindergarten child would be unlikely to be purely racially motivated unless they were fed kkk level explicit propaganda from their elders. I'm sure that does happen sometimes. But in many cases in the very young, there's other reasons kids freak out about food. By eight to ten years old though, it can get pure racist fast.
posted by taff at 2:49 PM on September 15, 2016


But a kindergarten child would be unlikely to be purely racially motivated unless they were fed kkk level explicit propaganda from their elders.

This is simply not true. Young kids pick up all sorts of racial cues at very young ages. Statistically very few people are "kkk-level racist" and we are all soaking in a supremacist culture so it doesn't make sense that only extremely racist people have five year olds who have picked up xenophobic othering behavior.
posted by zutalors! at 4:40 PM on September 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


*purely
posted by taff at 5:43 PM on September 15, 2016


"Purely racist" five year olds (whatever that even means) is an even tinier subset than "kkk level racists" so this whole line of investigation is rather silly.
posted by zutalors! at 6:15 PM on September 15, 2016


I can't help but agree with zutalors- kids pick up racial cues at all ages, and American society has so many racial cues everywhere (for a quick and easy example, what is the racial distribution of protagonists on American tv shows?).

Moreover, I think that 'new foods' is not the issue, it's that the cuisine of Asian-Americans has historically been a site of racism. As a result, talking about a person's food at school becomes a conduit through which kids express their prejudices about the person.

This is why "my white kid / white-looking kid / kid that doesn't noticeably look different to her peers brought X food to school and none of her friends cared / thought it was school" is different. It's a nice example, but not at all related to the experience that I or other Asian-Americans may have felt growing up.

If you want an example of Asian-American food being a site of racism, I'd point to concepts such as "Koreans eat dogs / Chinese people eat anything and everything / Chinese food is low quality or uses fake ingredients" that are pervasive.

Lastly, I do not think that "Asian-American" is a form of erasure either. One aspect of our social identity consists of a mix of 'what we think we are' and 'what others think you are'. Many of my experiences exist because (despite being a Korean-American) I was understood to be 'Chinese-American', or I was called an 'Asian-American' or 'an immigrant' -- and then laden with a set of shared prejudices by not very knowledgeable (white) people. I'm Korean-American, and there is also a group of people with which I share such experience -- and they identify as 'Asian-Americans', which is why I do, as well.

I'm very glad that zutalors made this post and I'm interested to read from everyone who that shared their experience (Asian-American or not), but sometimes it can be unhelpful depending on it's framing. It's like a discussion where a man says "Women and stalking is a serious issue? Oh yeah, I was stalked too, once!" vs. "I was stalked once, and while I'm sure it must have been a different experience than many women have, it made me realize how serious the issue is."
posted by suedehead at 7:26 PM on September 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


zutalrs!, taff. I think we're all just violently agreeing with each other.

Perhaps we've come a long way, that some places where "kkk level explicit propaganda" seems extreme.

My experience as a young Asian immigrant was that if a community is 90%+ racist and homogenous, racism is rampant but entirely normal. Oftentimes, even the well-meaning can be absolute bigots, and not always entirely out of ignorance.

I had an ultra-WASPy 4th grade teacher in Canada who grew up in the US, affected British mannerisms and accents, chased Asian women as sexual partners, and was a huge Japanophile. (In contrast, my 5th grade teacher was a second-gen Vietnamese Canadian who was gay but was rumoured [correctly] to have romantic ties with my best friend's substitute teacher-mother.)

It's only when there are enough people who deplore kkk-level racism that "kkk-level racism" is recognized. Otherwise it's completely a normal, accepted, and uninspected behaviour.

--

There's a ton of mental development between 5 year olds and 8 - 10s.

I'm actually not sure about racial cues in isolation. "Racial" - I'm assuming you mean ethnic phenotype - are just another subset of cues that children learn to respond to. I think that a lot of racial "cues" also intersect with economic class and some differential class signifiers contribute to the chaos.

Hmm, might be interesting to see how highschool aged children are doing? When I was growing up, a sports hero of Asian descent was unbelievable. Paul Kariya's dad was my math teach from grades 7-10. Paul Kariya isn't "Asian" in the minds most "Asians" - right?

Bruce Lee doesn't count (nor does Jackie Chan - of whom I was pointed at and asked if I was him when I was in Iowa in the very late 90's - by a boy about 12-13 at a megastore cineplex while I was in line to buy popcorn and about a quarter century younger than said actor).[real]

All said, I recognize that my family was super racist against "gwai lo," too. But a lot of it, thinking about it more, was an anger response against the prejudice shown us. "Sai gwai po" is only casually racist, after all. The "that fucking white shit-bro/shit-bitch" was used in common conversation.

I remember examining my own at about the age of 6; had just learned to read (English) and was actually EXCITED!! about breakfast cereal contests. I asked my mom to buy 2 more boxes so I could cut the UPC out before eating the cereal and sending it in and WINNING the contest. My reasoning was that white kids were stupid and that cereal contests were actual things and that I only knew a couple of other kids who ate $brand cereal.

I can't remember exactly what she said - but I've got to thank her for her intervention; that was a really nucleating point where started thinking about what I was thnking.
posted by porpoise at 7:36 PM on September 15, 2016 [2 favorites]



I'm actually not sure about racial cues in isolation. "Racial" - I'm assuming you mean ethnic phenotype - are just another subset of cues that children learn to respond to. I think that a lot of racial "cues" also intersect with economic class and some differential class signifiers contribute to the chaos.


i'm not trying to simplify the discussion to be around only race. I also think "race" and "racial" are fine words to use in this context and most people understand the meaning.

It is just a very typical gaslighting or wishful thinking to say that five year olds are too young to notice race. It's also not true - a child would not allow my brother to go to his fifth birthday party at age five because the kid's mom said my brother's brown skin was dirty, and this was not deep South/these were not KKK members.

Also I don't know why this conversation is being directed to how child development affects racial resentment and xenophobia. The original post is quite vivid in its theme of Asian American adults and how their experience as children has shaped their identity and family connections.

The thing that is interesting, which you are also alluding to, is that racial resentment and othering is a pretty key part of the Asian American experience, definitely for adults but I don't think it is completely irrelevant for the current generation of kids, either.
posted by zutalors! at 7:54 PM on September 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


"race" and "racial" are fine words to use in this context and most people understand the meaning

I didn't and proposed what I thought was a neutral interpretation to which I replied. From your definition and tone, I don't expect that we will have a constructive conversation although we strongly agree on what this thread is discussing.
posted by porpoise at 8:14 PM on September 15, 2016


If you can get past my "tone" etc I explicitly agree with you.
posted by zutalors! at 8:34 PM on September 15, 2016


Of course young children notice race, and it's patently ridiculous to suggest otherwise. When I was five or possibly six years old (I'm in my early-30's now), my mom found me cheerfully singing "Ching chong China man, sitting on a fence, trying to make a buck out of sixteen cents!" Now, obviously I had no idea what the song meant, but my mom was understandably horrified and asked where I learned it. A kid from my class had been singing it at me on the playground, so I copied him because I liked the rhythms. I don't remember exactly which kid it was, but given the demographics of my school, he was almost certainly white, from a middle class background, and not a member of the KKK. I want to believe that little boy didn't realize how racist the song was either, since I don't think there was any particular malice behind it, but it was pretty obvious he knew it was supposed to apply to people who looked like me. And this was in the Los Angeles area, not some rural backwater. Kids pick up on things very early on.
posted by Diagonalize at 9:19 PM on September 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


Children can and do notice differences and samenesses at age five. To attribute their motivation to racism, unless they've been told racist theories like brown skin is dirty, is developmentally beyond them. The kkk example was perhaps hyperbole on my part. But in large parts of sociology (and where I situate myself)- race, like gender, is a construct. And it's "learned" in the stages appropriate to the childs development.

The racism my not-white kids experience daily is raw and distressing. Our country just re-elected a senator that argues we're swamped by Asians. And our city just re-elected a Lord Mayor that was hosting a chairman Mao tribute concert.

I'm not American (although I went to primary school there and experienced virukent xenophobia but not racism.) My kids are subject to racist people and systems daily- oh the micro aggressions!- and 1/4 of our family live in the States.

I genuinely felt I had an interesting and relevant contribution to make in this discussion but it's not happening.

I didn't mean to gaslight. It's all pretty current for us. Last week our kids came home and said all the kids in the o.c class (selective opportunity class) look the same so none can tell them apart because they're Asian. We couldn't even.

Anyhoo, best wishes all. Apologies for bringing Australian and Tibetan lunchboxes in to it. As you were.
posted by taff at 10:44 PM on September 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


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