The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment
February 8, 2021 9:49 AM Subscribe
“Belonging” doesn’t mean one thing. Jaya Saxena writes about realizing how she actually never had that "lunchbox moment", so often described in immigration/integration stories, where other kids made fun of her parents' food, and making space for other narratives about immigrant upbringings and belonging.
It's certainly something that can cross a lot of different experiences. I didn't come from an immigrant household, but my food was made fun of a lot as a kid because it was my mom's cooking and not like lunchables or whatever. I ended up eating alone a lot and keeping to myself. It makes sense though that not every story has the same beats or in the same moments. As with a lot of the culture even personal moments and approaches get commoditized sadly.
posted by Carillon at 10:40 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 10:40 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I never ate lunch at school (home was deemed to be close enough to go home for lunch) but I was made fun of because of my "accent". Which baffled me because no one at my previous school had ever mentioned me having an accent.
posted by Gwynarra at 11:20 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Gwynarra at 11:20 AM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Coming back to Chile from the US at 8, I was made fun of not for my food but for my complete lack of table manners. I'm still self-conscious about this at age 50.
posted by signal at 11:31 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 11:31 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Thank you to this essay for articulating all my problems with Asian immigrant narratives in the US and Canada
These kinds of stories are an easy sell to mainstream readers because they reinforce the Asian = Weird and Tragic, West = Default paradigm of the world. Even when not named, "Westernness" is central to these stories. There are lots of stories about being an Asian immigrant that have nothing to do with "fitting in", but they don't get the same airtime.
posted by airmail at 11:32 AM on February 8, 2021 [17 favorites]
These kinds of stories are an easy sell to mainstream readers because they reinforce the Asian = Weird and Tragic, West = Default paradigm of the world. Even when not named, "Westernness" is central to these stories. There are lots of stories about being an Asian immigrant that have nothing to do with "fitting in", but they don't get the same airtime.
posted by airmail at 11:32 AM on February 8, 2021 [17 favorites]
Thanks for posting this essay because it articulates something really well that I've had a hard time doing myself.
I'm reminded, as I often am, of the brilliant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Danger of a Single Story.
The US tends to flatten immigrant narratives, and yes, some amount of suffering seems to be expected by mainstream (read: white) audiences, particularly if the immigrants are brown. There seems to be little room for stories like mine, where I came to the US for grad school, not because my country was inhospitable or I couldn't make a living there (in fact, my family was more than comfortable and my parents continue to do well there) but because I was hoping to get a really good education. And then I ended up meeting a guy, as once does, himself from yet another country, and we settled in the US as a reasonable compromise between either of our home countries. There was remarkably little suffering involved - we've both always made at least middle class incomes, even in grad school, and now we make more.
We have two little children, who will likely grow up to be Americans, and if they at some point go to school and talk about the "sacrifices" their parents made to allow them to be American, or about how lucky they are to be American as opposed to from one of their parents' home countries... I wouldn't feel very good about that, because I think that would be an erasure of how gradual and imperceptible the decision to live here was, not a momentous one but the gradual accumulation of many small decisions that didn't seem that big at the time.
posted by peacheater at 11:51 AM on February 8, 2021 [25 favorites]
I'm reminded, as I often am, of the brilliant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Danger of a Single Story.
The US tends to flatten immigrant narratives, and yes, some amount of suffering seems to be expected by mainstream (read: white) audiences, particularly if the immigrants are brown. There seems to be little room for stories like mine, where I came to the US for grad school, not because my country was inhospitable or I couldn't make a living there (in fact, my family was more than comfortable and my parents continue to do well there) but because I was hoping to get a really good education. And then I ended up meeting a guy, as once does, himself from yet another country, and we settled in the US as a reasonable compromise between either of our home countries. There was remarkably little suffering involved - we've both always made at least middle class incomes, even in grad school, and now we make more.
We have two little children, who will likely grow up to be Americans, and if they at some point go to school and talk about the "sacrifices" their parents made to allow them to be American, or about how lucky they are to be American as opposed to from one of their parents' home countries... I wouldn't feel very good about that, because I think that would be an erasure of how gradual and imperceptible the decision to live here was, not a momentous one but the gradual accumulation of many small decisions that didn't seem that big at the time.
posted by peacheater at 11:51 AM on February 8, 2021 [25 favorites]
All of my schooling was in majority-minority schools so there wasn't much/any shaming of others lunches but we did quickly find out which things tasted good so that we could trade stuff. I still remember trying things like seaweed, haw flakes and kimbap for the first time through lunchtime trades, which I guess doesn't happen so much now due to people being more aware of allergies. But I can also believe that the lunch shaming has happened to a lot of people as well.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:53 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:53 AM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
From the essay:
There is a big generational shift, though, that is making the lunchbox moment less salient now, but still very resonant for Asian Americans of a certain generation. Because even if you grew up in parts of North America that have large Asian communities NOW (for example, Fairfax County VA) that wasn't true in the 1980s.
And people's own reactions can vary widely even to the same general situation/generation. I have Asian American friends in their 40s who grew up in white towns who are still grappling with trauma from their childhood experiences of othering and exclusion, and others who are baffled as to why some people would be so hurt by obvious jerks: "They were assholes! I ignored them!"
I had the lunchbox moment in the 1980s (eating gim, aka roasted seaweed, which is now a favored snack of parents). I ate PB&J sandwiches every day for lunch for 7 straight years. I also was always certain that Korean food was awesome, and mildly baffled as to what non-immigrant families ate at home.... "wait, you have taco night and then get chinese takeout, and then lasagna?"
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:58 AM on February 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
Being bullied for your lunch only to grow up and find white people putting chile crisp on everything is a trajectory that’s easy to understand — and easy to sell to a white editor. What’s more, it often operates on a personal scale that makes these issues manageable. The lunchbox moment doesn’t require the reader to think about how class, religion, or caste could all change an immigrant’s experience. It doesn’t point out all the invisible ways immigrants and people of color are made to feel unwelcome. It doesn’t allow for muted or shifting feelings, or the complications of systemic racism.I had a bit of internal grumbling while I read the essay, until I got to that bit. The tyranny of a single story is indeed flattening and frustrating.
There is a big generational shift, though, that is making the lunchbox moment less salient now, but still very resonant for Asian Americans of a certain generation. Because even if you grew up in parts of North America that have large Asian communities NOW (for example, Fairfax County VA) that wasn't true in the 1980s.
And people's own reactions can vary widely even to the same general situation/generation. I have Asian American friends in their 40s who grew up in white towns who are still grappling with trauma from their childhood experiences of othering and exclusion, and others who are baffled as to why some people would be so hurt by obvious jerks: "They were assholes! I ignored them!"
I had the lunchbox moment in the 1980s (eating gim, aka roasted seaweed, which is now a favored snack of parents). I ate PB&J sandwiches every day for lunch for 7 straight years. I also was always certain that Korean food was awesome, and mildly baffled as to what non-immigrant families ate at home.... "wait, you have taco night and then get chinese takeout, and then lasagna?"
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:58 AM on February 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
Also my mom's lunchbox moment was coming back to the office after having eaten Korean food for lunch and feeling self-conscious about the smell of garlic and then deciding that some coworkers smelled like butter and weren't self-conscious about that, so really, everyone smelled a bit like what they ate for lunch and that was fine.
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:01 PM on February 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 12:01 PM on February 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
I find the whole argument pretty offensive in a specific way, because many people of color already tend to argue that microaggressions aren't real but made up by (always) a minority of self-victimizing PoC and encouraged by White liberals on the internet/media. This essay, by making the comparison between nonmicroggression and microaggressions and assuming the space of narrative is equal between the two, is a very common way of putting forth another subtle narrative which conservative PoC use to dismiss progressive PoC. If the author wanted to talk about their non-microggressive experiences, by all means. But painting it as if the narrative sphere is dominated by discourse is absurd and offensive, the next thing they will say is White fragility is not real, etc. So people putting forth a counternarrative risk not checking their survival bias privilege here.
The idea that microaggressions, told by other PoC, invalidate positive stories and a supposed focus on them is ultimately the doing again by Whites is an absurd, problematic reversal of social and psychological support for implicit bias and microaggressions.
posted by polymodus at 12:45 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
The idea that microaggressions, told by other PoC, invalidate positive stories and a supposed focus on them is ultimately the doing again by Whites is an absurd, problematic reversal of social and psychological support for implicit bias and microaggressions.
posted by polymodus at 12:45 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
This is an issue with the publishing world, hiding inside a story about food.
The people who make the decisions about what gets published are not just mostly white, they are a specific kind of rich, high-proximity-to-wealth coastal person, full of neuroses, with an oversized sense of their own importance. They have successfully made SO many outlets into meta-conversations about anxiety, which the immigrant experience can solve, or not solve, as long as the West is at fault -- then they can publically change and cannily reframe the focus to that absolution arc.
The homogeneity of publishing is staggering. Not just in the obvious way (something like 85 percent of publishing editors, heads of publishers, et are white), but even INSIDE OF THAT WHITE GROUP there is no diversity, they have the same preoccupations, the same mentalities, the same worldviews, and the same friends, and they hire from within, they socialize from within, they live inside a little tunnel from which nothing but ukulele and pain can emerge.
posted by justinethanmathews at 12:45 PM on February 8, 2021 [20 favorites]
The people who make the decisions about what gets published are not just mostly white, they are a specific kind of rich, high-proximity-to-wealth coastal person, full of neuroses, with an oversized sense of their own importance. They have successfully made SO many outlets into meta-conversations about anxiety, which the immigrant experience can solve, or not solve, as long as the West is at fault -- then they can publically change and cannily reframe the focus to that absolution arc.
The homogeneity of publishing is staggering. Not just in the obvious way (something like 85 percent of publishing editors, heads of publishers, et are white), but even INSIDE OF THAT WHITE GROUP there is no diversity, they have the same preoccupations, the same mentalities, the same worldviews, and the same friends, and they hire from within, they socialize from within, they live inside a little tunnel from which nothing but ukulele and pain can emerge.
posted by justinethanmathews at 12:45 PM on February 8, 2021 [20 favorites]
There are lots of stories about being an Asian immigrant that have nothing to do with "fitting in", but they don't get the same airtime.
One of the reasons why I preferred Searching in 2018 over Crazy Rich Asians. Hollywood prefers to heighten cultural differences to polarization territory, and it often ends up as simple exoticizing.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:47 PM on February 8, 2021
One of the reasons why I preferred Searching in 2018 over Crazy Rich Asians. Hollywood prefers to heighten cultural differences to polarization territory, and it often ends up as simple exoticizing.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:47 PM on February 8, 2021
It's interesting to read the responses to the article. I posted this because 1. I related to it, as in...I just never had that lunchbox moment because 1. I grew up surrounded by other ESL/Asian immigrant kids in the Bay Area so my food was also everyone else's food, 2. growing up, I found most Asian American narratives that were available to me (Laurence Yep being the one major exception) not something I could really relate to, and oftentimes, kind of annoying, given how much of it was about being "the only one" in a classroom of only white people, 3. working class/poor Asian American people have different concerns about success/survival than do higher-educated, upper-class Asian Americans, 4. so much focus on white approval kind of takes away from all the narratives that we do have about living/working alongside other non-white cultures but just aren't part of the mainstream discussions.
posted by toastyk at 1:06 PM on February 8, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 1:06 PM on February 8, 2021 [17 favorites]
Also wanted to add...I think things are a lot different now, but I see things like Crazy Rich Asians leading to stuff like House of Ho and Bling Empire, and it just makes me think that there always seem to be this desire to flatten things out into an easy narrative, and I wish that it were easier to resist.
posted by toastyk at 1:15 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by toastyk at 1:15 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I am glad to have read this article for sure.
To just add a small facet - as an immigrant to Canada in the mid-70s, I was made fun of for my accent, and my family was assumed to have immigrated so that my dad could escape forced military service, even though we immigrated after the war that he would have been serving in had he not received a medical discharge - the Vietnam War.
But since we immigrated from the US, and since we're white, that was kind of the end of it and I sometimes encounter the flip, weird side of the equation where I say something like "when we immigrated" or "as an immigrant myself, I support -" and I get the weird "wait, you're an immigrant?" or the really awful "Well I wasn't talking about people like you!" Although Pax Americana has been a thing all my life I've never been held in suspicion anything like my Muslim neighbours have where it comes to say, Sharia law.
My outsiderness is very small and I have so many of the same blindspots as other white people, but even that makes it clear how pervasive the immigrant narratives are. To have come from a middle class American family to a middle class Canadian lifestyle doesn't fit in and I often get that weird pause.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
To just add a small facet - as an immigrant to Canada in the mid-70s, I was made fun of for my accent, and my family was assumed to have immigrated so that my dad could escape forced military service, even though we immigrated after the war that he would have been serving in had he not received a medical discharge - the Vietnam War.
But since we immigrated from the US, and since we're white, that was kind of the end of it and I sometimes encounter the flip, weird side of the equation where I say something like "when we immigrated" or "as an immigrant myself, I support -" and I get the weird "wait, you're an immigrant?" or the really awful "Well I wasn't talking about people like you!" Although Pax Americana has been a thing all my life I've never been held in suspicion anything like my Muslim neighbours have where it comes to say, Sharia law.
My outsiderness is very small and I have so many of the same blindspots as other white people, but even that makes it clear how pervasive the immigrant narratives are. To have come from a middle class American family to a middle class Canadian lifestyle doesn't fit in and I often get that weird pause.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:20 PM on February 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
This essay, by making the comparison between nonmicroggression and microaggressions and assuming the space of narrative is equal between the two, is a very common way of putting forth another subtle narrative which conservative PoC use to dismiss progressive PoC.
I think the way you read this really depends on your experiences. If you've had a lot of experiences with conservative PoC dismissing racism, then this essay will read in bad faith. If you've experienced a lot of microaggressions from people who assume that all Asian immigrants have the same experiences, then this essay is really validating (like it is for me).
posted by airmail at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think the way you read this really depends on your experiences. If you've had a lot of experiences with conservative PoC dismissing racism, then this essay will read in bad faith. If you've experienced a lot of microaggressions from people who assume that all Asian immigrants have the same experiences, then this essay is really validating (like it is for me).
posted by airmail at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think the way you read this really depends on your experiences. If you've had a lot of experiences with conservative PoC dismissing racism, then this essay will read in bad faith. If you've experienced a lot of microaggressions from people who assume that all Asian immigrants have the same experiences, then this essay is really validating (like it is for me).
I don't read the essay as being in bad faith, but I do read it with a creeping dread that it will be used that way by others, through no fault of its author or others who didn't face these moments.
posted by pykrete jungle at 2:43 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't read the essay as being in bad faith, but I do read it with a creeping dread that it will be used that way by others, through no fault of its author or others who didn't face these moments.
posted by pykrete jungle at 2:43 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is an issue with the publishing world, hiding inside a story about food.
Yeah, from my anecdotal experiences, this issue is prevalent in, say, longform essays in prestige old media. AsAm content on new media (e.g. Youtube) is much more diverse - there are people talking about traumatic childhood experiences with racism, people making hyper-specific injokes about intra-Asian community stereotypes, and Asians just doing whatever. Every single Netflix special I've seen with an Asian comedian has jokes about being Asian, whereas on Twitch, most Asian streamers barely even mention it, because there are already so many popular Asian streamers. One of the classic dilemmas of being an Asian artist in the US is, how do I make art that won't only be seen through the lens of my identity without erasing my identity? And I think Internet media gives us a hopeful glimpse of the future.
posted by airmail at 3:05 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
Yeah, from my anecdotal experiences, this issue is prevalent in, say, longform essays in prestige old media. AsAm content on new media (e.g. Youtube) is much more diverse - there are people talking about traumatic childhood experiences with racism, people making hyper-specific injokes about intra-Asian community stereotypes, and Asians just doing whatever. Every single Netflix special I've seen with an Asian comedian has jokes about being Asian, whereas on Twitch, most Asian streamers barely even mention it, because there are already so many popular Asian streamers. One of the classic dilemmas of being an Asian artist in the US is, how do I make art that won't only be seen through the lens of my identity without erasing my identity? And I think Internet media gives us a hopeful glimpse of the future.
posted by airmail at 3:05 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
Under another username and a looooong time ago I went to a Metafilter meetup, expecting the same welcoming environment in person as I had online.
I was a recent (6 weeks) and pretty provincial Mexican immigrant to the US, but with a job in tech.
I had a couple of beers and left without talking much.
Of course I was welcome and my suffering was admirable and immigrants in the US deserve equality and so sorry about all the racist but tech workers are the worse driving up the rent and gentrifying everything and so privileged they should get out of my city and go back to where they came from.
But my favorite was when I flew business class and stayed at a very nice hotel to attend a wedding somewhere in the midwest and more than one guest on finding out I was Mexican congratulated me on making it to the US and assured me that they personally has nothing against illegals.
Fun times
posted by Dr. Curare at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2021 [16 favorites]
I was a recent (6 weeks) and pretty provincial Mexican immigrant to the US, but with a job in tech.
I had a couple of beers and left without talking much.
Of course I was welcome and my suffering was admirable and immigrants in the US deserve equality and so sorry about all the racist but tech workers are the worse driving up the rent and gentrifying everything and so privileged they should get out of my city and go back to where they came from.
But my favorite was when I flew business class and stayed at a very nice hotel to attend a wedding somewhere in the midwest and more than one guest on finding out I was Mexican congratulated me on making it to the US and assured me that they personally has nothing against illegals.
Fun times
posted by Dr. Curare at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2021 [16 favorites]
This reminds me of a thing I've been thinking about for a while. I was in American schools when I was 7-9, in 1970-72. These schools were not in America, one was built for the children of servicemen in Germany, the other was for international students from all nations. In both schools, any form of bullying was put down very rapidly and harshly. Differences were celebrated, and of course, our lunch boxes were part of that celebration. TBH, I have no recollection at all of what was in my lunchbox. I remember it wan't American, because I remember telling about it in class, but it was probably really boring, like salami on rye bread or something.
What I've been thinking about is how official American policy back then, during the Cold War, was to embrace diversity. And also, norms matter. When racism wasn't acceptable, it was truly limited. In hindsight I'm pretty sure some of the parents were racists, but given that racist speech was banned, I as a child didn't experience any racist speech or actions at school. I do remember my uncle coming back from his year abroad in the US with a confederate flag and my granddad being incensed with anger. My uncle was and is not very smart*. And at the time, our general impression of the US was that of a liberal counterpoint to Sovjet oppression. We knew there was racism, but like I just said, it felt like American institutions, like schools, were working against it.
I suppose then first Nixon and later Reaganism happened.
When we moved to Denmark, I was in a class where at least half were immigrants. I don't know if I counted as one. I was ethnically Danish but barely spoke Danish and felt English**. My mum went into a nationalistic overdrive and made the worst Danish open sandwiches anyone has ever suffered. I gave them to a girl with a French background who weirdly liked them. The first few years that class was very disfunctional, but no one was bullied for their food.
*serves him well that he now has Mexican grandchildren
**England is in many ways a strange place, but the population is very mixed because of colonialism, so I as a child was used to friends being from all continents, even more than at the American schools
posted by mumimor at 3:38 PM on February 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
What I've been thinking about is how official American policy back then, during the Cold War, was to embrace diversity. And also, norms matter. When racism wasn't acceptable, it was truly limited. In hindsight I'm pretty sure some of the parents were racists, but given that racist speech was banned, I as a child didn't experience any racist speech or actions at school. I do remember my uncle coming back from his year abroad in the US with a confederate flag and my granddad being incensed with anger. My uncle was and is not very smart*. And at the time, our general impression of the US was that of a liberal counterpoint to Sovjet oppression. We knew there was racism, but like I just said, it felt like American institutions, like schools, were working against it.
I suppose then first Nixon and later Reaganism happened.
When we moved to Denmark, I was in a class where at least half were immigrants. I don't know if I counted as one. I was ethnically Danish but barely spoke Danish and felt English**. My mum went into a nationalistic overdrive and made the worst Danish open sandwiches anyone has ever suffered. I gave them to a girl with a French background who weirdly liked them. The first few years that class was very disfunctional, but no one was bullied for their food.
*serves him well that he now has Mexican grandchildren
**England is in many ways a strange place, but the population is very mixed because of colonialism, so I as a child was used to friends being from all continents, even more than at the American schools
posted by mumimor at 3:38 PM on February 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
The "lunchbox moment" is a cliche for one reason, because it's an easy shorthand for being an outsider. Food = culture, and bullying around food is right up there with bullying around the pronunciation of one's name. Depending on what location/generation you are, the specifics of who is bullying whom can change, but it's a classic setup for the "How do you like me now" role reversal that happens when the immigrant's food becomes popular.
Because that's the payoff of the lunchbox moment; it's not "People made fun of my food when we were 10;" it's "People who made fun of my food when we were 10 are now paying $15.95 for three pieces of chicken swimming in an oily masala."
And people just really like that "How do you like me now" moment -- there are songs and novels all about it -- but you can't have that moment without the "lunchbox moment" first.
posted by basalganglia at 4:17 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Because that's the payoff of the lunchbox moment; it's not "People made fun of my food when we were 10;" it's "People who made fun of my food when we were 10 are now paying $15.95 for three pieces of chicken swimming in an oily masala."
And people just really like that "How do you like me now" moment -- there are songs and novels all about it -- but you can't have that moment without the "lunchbox moment" first.
posted by basalganglia at 4:17 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I didn't come from an immigrant household, but my food was made fun of a lot as a kid because it was my mom's cooking and not like lunchables or whatever.
That was me, too, and people were merciless about it.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
That was me, too, and people were merciless about it.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 PM on February 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
The people who make the decisions about what gets published are not just mostly white, they are a specific kind of rich, high-proximity-to-wealth coastal person, full of neuroses, with an oversized sense of their own importance.
The film 40 year old Version (Netflix) addresses this concept outside of publishing.
posted by grokus at 6:23 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
The film 40 year old Version (Netflix) addresses this concept outside of publishing.
posted by grokus at 6:23 PM on February 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
smelled like butter
I am really curious to know what foods make one smell like butter and what that even smells like...I don't really think of butter having much of a scent.
posted by bahama mama at 10:22 PM on February 8, 2021
I am really curious to know what foods make one smell like butter and what that even smells like...I don't really think of butter having much of a scent.
posted by bahama mama at 10:22 PM on February 8, 2021
This articulates something I've thought about for a long time now. There are hardly any immigrant or "third culture kid" narratives that really resonate with me. My Filipino mom made dinners... but my white father packed my lunches for school, so I ate a lot of PB&J. I mean, I still got called slurs of all sorts by friends who thought they were being funny, but no one ever made fun of my food.
posted by Maaik at 10:34 PM on February 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Maaik at 10:34 PM on February 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
My lunchbox moment never happened -- I ate the prepared school lunches because my mom was too exhausted from work to ever make lunch for me. The main lunchbox moment I remember was having a 2nd generation Indian American classmate complain about how she had to eat the same canned ravioli every single day for lunch, because fuck Silicon Valley and their overwork culture and how traumatizing that was for everyone involved every single day.
I went to a 99% Asian American elementary school, and I don't ever recall any one of us ever really eating home food for lunch that often, and no, it wouldn't have been a big deal...but that doesn't make for an interesting narrative for a white editor, so fraught and intent on trying to draw out whatever pain they want to consume for their entertainment. Blech. If I wanted that, I'd write a letter to my first therapist and chew her out for it.
posted by yueliang at 10:51 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
I went to a 99% Asian American elementary school, and I don't ever recall any one of us ever really eating home food for lunch that often, and no, it wouldn't have been a big deal...but that doesn't make for an interesting narrative for a white editor, so fraught and intent on trying to draw out whatever pain they want to consume for their entertainment. Blech. If I wanted that, I'd write a letter to my first therapist and chew her out for it.
posted by yueliang at 10:51 PM on February 8, 2021 [6 favorites]
Also wanted to add...I think things are a lot different now, but I see things like Crazy Rich Asians leading to stuff like House of Ho and Bling Empire, and it just makes me think that there always seem to be this desire to flatten things out into an easy narrative, and I wish that it were easier to resist.
It's very striking that in the US, the "inclusion narrative" is almost always either about profound suffering or about extreme wealth and inclusion in the 1%, or maybe the 5%. Our media is such that we are not allowed to have depictions of ordinary lives - it's either poverty porn or wealth porn, and we pat ourselves on the back for showing people from marginalized groups in scenes of great wealth. When of course the great wealth depends on the profound suffering.
posted by Frowner at 8:52 AM on February 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
It's very striking that in the US, the "inclusion narrative" is almost always either about profound suffering or about extreme wealth and inclusion in the 1%, or maybe the 5%. Our media is such that we are not allowed to have depictions of ordinary lives - it's either poverty porn or wealth porn, and we pat ourselves on the back for showing people from marginalized groups in scenes of great wealth. When of course the great wealth depends on the profound suffering.
posted by Frowner at 8:52 AM on February 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
"I am really curious to know what foods make one smell like butter and what that even smells like...I don't really think of butter having much of a scent."
Most of the smell of butter comes from diacetyl, which does have a very characteristic aroma, and from volatile fatty acids.
If the right stuff is present in sweat then skin bacteria can produce substances that mix with sebum and other stuff and create diacetyl. Diet affects this.
Sorry for lack of sources and hazy memory, but this is easy to look up.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:04 AM on February 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
Most of the smell of butter comes from diacetyl, which does have a very characteristic aroma, and from volatile fatty acids.
If the right stuff is present in sweat then skin bacteria can produce substances that mix with sebum and other stuff and create diacetyl. Diet affects this.
Sorry for lack of sources and hazy memory, but this is easy to look up.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:04 AM on February 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some of the stories we could be telling:
Why are there no Filipino nurses on medical TV shows?
Why Asian American women have had the highest jobless rates during COVID.
On the pressures of representation:
Tan France: Whereas for me the bigger the show got, the more pressure I got from my own community, to be perfect, to not bring shame onto the community. To not embarrass Pakistan. And that’s not easy, and it doesn’t get any easier.’ ‘The pressure I feel is less because I’ve stopped giving a sh*t, quite honestly, what ‘Uncle Bilal’ thinks of me – but – the bigger my star gets, the more pressure is put on me.’
Jay Kaspian Kang interviewing Steven Yeun: “I went through the same journey that I’m sure most Asian-American men go through,” Yeun said, referring to the typical rejections and emasculations that befall so many of us. “It’s just so paper-thin — you’re asking Asian men to be validated by whiteness, and you’re basically saying that I can only feel like a man if I’m with a white woman, which is just a terrible thing to think.”
posted by toastyk at 9:21 AM on February 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
Why are there no Filipino nurses on medical TV shows?
Why Asian American women have had the highest jobless rates during COVID.
On the pressures of representation:
Tan France: Whereas for me the bigger the show got, the more pressure I got from my own community, to be perfect, to not bring shame onto the community. To not embarrass Pakistan. And that’s not easy, and it doesn’t get any easier.’ ‘The pressure I feel is less because I’ve stopped giving a sh*t, quite honestly, what ‘Uncle Bilal’ thinks of me – but – the bigger my star gets, the more pressure is put on me.’
Jay Kaspian Kang interviewing Steven Yeun: “I went through the same journey that I’m sure most Asian-American men go through,” Yeun said, referring to the typical rejections and emasculations that befall so many of us. “It’s just so paper-thin — you’re asking Asian men to be validated by whiteness, and you’re basically saying that I can only feel like a man if I’m with a white woman, which is just a terrible thing to think.”
posted by toastyk at 9:21 AM on February 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's very striking that in the US, the "inclusion narrative" is almost always either about profound suffering or about extreme wealth and inclusion in the 1%, or maybe the 5%.
It's fascinating how a lot of the great works of art about immigrant communities are about organized crime, which is a way for excluded communities to amass wealth, power, and self-protection while maintaining their traditions. Maybe because violent criminality and capitalist acquisition are default modes in this country. So you have The Godfather as one of the greatest films ever made by Americans and a story about the immigrant experience, and many decades later the big breakout film for Asian Americans was Better Luck Tomorrow, which is about Asian-American kids breaking type and seizing their own agency by becoming criminals.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:45 PM on February 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's fascinating how a lot of the great works of art about immigrant communities are about organized crime, which is a way for excluded communities to amass wealth, power, and self-protection while maintaining their traditions. Maybe because violent criminality and capitalist acquisition are default modes in this country. So you have The Godfather as one of the greatest films ever made by Americans and a story about the immigrant experience, and many decades later the big breakout film for Asian Americans was Better Luck Tomorrow, which is about Asian-American kids breaking type and seizing their own agency by becoming criminals.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:45 PM on February 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:18 AM on February 8, 2021 [26 favorites]