From: rw@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Russil Wvong)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: FAQ for soc.culture.asian.american
Date: 26 Jan 1993 11:22:50 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Here's the latest FAQ.  There's a couple more references, courtesy of
Cynthia Liu.

--
Frequently Asked Questions for soc.culture.asian.american


1.  What's an Asian-American?

An American of Asian ancestry (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Pakistani,
Korean, Vietnamese, etc.).

Immigrants are "first-generation"; their children are "second-generation";
their grandchildren are "third-generation"; etc.

There's often a big cultural difference between the first generation
(who grew up overseas) and the second and later generations (who grew
up in America).  Sometimes "Asian-American" is used to refer only to
the second and later generations.

2.  What's the difference between Asian-Americans and other Americans?

As far as the second and later generations are concerned:  not much.
Public school and television between them do a very effective job of
assimilation.

Children of immigrants are often bilingual, using English at school and
their "ancestral" language at home, but this is not always the case:
many second-generation Asian-Americans can understand their ancestral
language, but not speak it.

Because of their appearance, Asian-Americans are often mistaken for
foreigners.  This tends to irritate second-generation Asian-Americans
especially.

Asian immigrants generally place high value on education, hard work,
family, and social status, and to some extent they pass these values
on to their children.

Asian-Americans often have relatives in Asia, and often have visited
Asia, but not always.

3.  How many Asian-Americans are there?

Asian-Americans make up about 3% of the American population.  Numbers
from the 1990 census, courtesy of John Ho:

    1,645,472       Chinese-American
    1,406,770       Filipino-American
      847,562       Japanese-American
      815,447       Indian-American
      798,849       Korean-American
      614,547       Vietnamese-American
      147,411       Cambodian-American
      149,014       Laotian-American
       90,082       Hmong-American
       91,275       Thai-American
    -------------------------------
    6,908,638       Asian-American

About 60% of Asian-Americans are foreign-born.

4.  Are Americans of partly Asian descent (e.g. one Asian parent, one
    non-Asian parent) considered Asian-Americans?

Depends.  Ohio State includes people of bi-racial descent in its definition
of "Asian American", and I imagine other universities and institutions
would also, but I don't think it's universal.  Also, I'm not sure all
Americans of partly Asian descent think of themselves as Asian-American;
it depends on the individual.

5.  What's the difference between "Asian" and "Asian-American"?

"Asian" refers to anyone of Asian ancestry.  "Asian-American" refers
to Americans of Asian ancestry.

6.  Does the concept of an "Asian-American community" make sense?

Maybe, maybe not.  It's true that different Asian-Americans may have
very different cultural backgrounds and experiences.  On the other hand,
all Asian-Americans have a common interest in improving harmony between
Asians and other ethnic groups and minimizing racial tension and violence
against Asians, if only because it's difficult for non-Asian Americans to
distinguish between some of the different Asian groups (e.g. Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese).

7.  What's the difference between "Oriental" and "Asian"?

"Oriental" is an older term, which some people feel has negative
connotations, but is still widely used.  As currently used, it does
not include South Asians (Indian, Pakistani, etc.).

8.  Is it "Asian-American" or "Asian American"?

"Asian-American" is still more commonly used, I think.  However, the
hyphen isn't needed ("Asian" is an adjective modifying "American"),
and more recent usage omits it.

9.  What does "Pacific Islander" mean?

Don't know.  "Asian or Pacific Islander" is sometimes used as a racial
classification, probably to include Hawaiians, Samoans, etc.

10.  What does calling someone a "banana" mean?

It means they're yellow on the outside and white on the inside (usually
applied to second- or later-generation Asian-Americans).  It's somewhat
derogatory.

Other labels:

"Twinkie" means the same, but has somewhat less negative connotations.

"ABC" stands for "American-born Chinese", i.e. second or later generation
Chinese-Americans.  Somewhat negative connotations.

"ABCD" stands for "American-born confused desi" (Indian or Pakistani).
Somewhat derogatory.

"FOB" stands for "fresh off the boat" (an immigrant).  Derogatory.

11.  Why is Dwight Joe constantly attacking Chinese people?  And what
     does "Chinese-cu" mean?

Don't know.  Dwight's Chinese himself.  Andy Shaw suggests that Dwight
may be unconsciously trying to provoke Chinese netters into flaming him,
in order to justify his low opinion of Chinese people.  Many people here
would prefer to ignore him; see George Wu's Dwight Joe FAQ.

"Chinese-cu" means "culturally Chinese".  (Dwight says he's not being
racist because he's attacking only people who are "Chinese-cu", not Chinese
in general.)  There's a couple other suffixes:  "-ge" means "genetically",
"-ci" means "citizenship".

12.  Why do interracial relationships more commonly involve Asian females
     than Asian males?

There's a million theories.  See Alan Hu's FAQ on the topic.

13. Why do Asian males complain about it, when Asian females don't?

Why do you think?

14.  Who participates in this newsgroup?

It seems to be mostly American-born Chinese, with some Japanese- and
Korean-Americans, and some non-Asian Americans interested in the
Asian-American community.  Anyone is welcome to participate, however.

15.  Why isn't Asian culture ever discussed in this newsgroup?

This newsgroup is supposed to be for Asian-American culture, not Asian
culture.  There's a number of newsgroups devoted to various Asian cultures,
including soc.culture.japan, hongkong, indian, china, taiwan, asean (for
the ASEAN nations), thai, filipino, and several more I can't think of right
now.  There's also soc.culture.usa, which discusses American culture.

16.  So why isn't Asian-American culture discussed in this newsgroup?

Is there such a thing as Asian-American culture?  (Why are you looking
at me like that?)  Like most "soc.culture" newsgroups, this newsgroup
serves mostly as a place for people with related backgrounds to socialize
and exchange bits of information.  Racism and dating are the two big topics.

If you want to talk about languages, literature, theater, cooking,
movies, or whatever, feel free to post an article on the topic.

17.  I'd like to meet some Asian girls.  Is this the right place to post
     a personal ad?

Probably not.  A lot of people here get irritated by this kind of personal
ad.  There's a newsgroup for personal ads, called alt.personals.

18.  Is this the right place to discuss martial arts?

Again, probably not -- another thing which irritates second-generation
Asian-Americans is people assuming they're interested in martial arts.
There's a rec.martial-arts newsgroup.

19.  Why aren't there any Indian-Americans or Pakistani-Americans here?

Don't know, but probably because "Asian-American" is a somewhat artificial
category.  There's another newsgroup called alt.culture.us.asian-indian.

20.  Why do some of the non-Asian Americans here sound so damn condescending?

Who knows?  I suspect it's because they subconsciously think of us as
foreigners who need help adapting to the American way of life; I guess
they're just trying to be helpful.

21.  Are there any Asian-American magazines or periodicals?

There's a glossy magazine called "Transpacific" which is the Asian-American
equivalent of "GQ" or "Cosmopolitan", if I understand correctly.  (I've never
read it.)  Some people like it, others hate it.

There's a couple others -- "Asian Week", "A." -- which I don't know anything
about.

22.  How about some books on Asian-American history?

There's lots, but I haven't read any.  A few references, courtesy of
Alan Hu and Cynthia Liu:

    Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore.  A commonly used text.

    Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans:  An Interpretive History, Boston:  G. K.
    Hall & Co., 1991, 242 pps.  Part of the Twayne's Immigrant Heritage
    of America Series.  Provides a basic filmography of films about the
    Asian American experience in one appendix; a second appendix provides
    an overview of historical sources grouped by "general", "multigroup",
    and "surveys of single groups". Chan is a professor of Asian American
    history at UC Santa Barbara, and the head of the Asian American Studies
    Program there.

    Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor.  Discusses the history of the
    overseas Chinese, including Chinese-Americans.

Sociology:

    Yen Le Espiritu, Pan-Asian Americans (or something like that).
    A book-length study assessing and arguing for pan-Asian American
    identification.

23.  Why are Asian-Americans concerned about racial violence?

Well, here's an excerpt from a 233-page report by the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights, "Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s,"
courtesy of Wataru Ebihara.  It covers most of the commonly cited
incidents and causes of anti-Asian racism.  (It's been reformatted a
little to make it easier to read.)

    Bigotry and Violence Against Asian Americans

    In 1986 the Commission drew attention to the problem of bigotry
    and violence against Asian Americans [1].  Our investigation
    shows that bigotry and violence against Asian Americans remains a
    serious national problem today.

    This report has recounted numerous incidents of bigotry and violence
    against Asian Americans.  These incidents include the vicious
    bias-related murders of Vincent Chin, Jim Loo, Navroze Mody, and
    Hung Truong, and the recent massacre of Southeast Asian schoolchildren
    in Sacramento California; attacks on Asian American homes and places
    of worship; racially motivated boycotts against Asian-owned
    businesses; racial harassment of Asian Americans on college
    campuses; and racial slurs made by public figures, one of whom
    was a candidate for governor.

    The incidents reported here are by no means exhaustive: for every
    incident reported here, there are many more that have not been reported.

    The root causes of bigotry and violence against Asian Americans
    are complex.  Racial prejudice; misplaced anger caused by wars or
    economic competition with Asian countries; resentment of the real
    or perceived success of Asian Americans; and a lack of
    understanding of the histories, customs, and religions of Asian
    Americans all play a role in triggering incidents of bigotry and
    violence.

    The media have contributed to prejudice by promoting stereotypes of
    Asian Americans, especially the model minority stereotype; by sometimes
    highlighting the criminal activities of Asian gangs; and by failing to
    provide the indepth and balanced coverage that would help the public
    to understand the diverse Asian American population.

    Furthermore, the media give little attention to hate crimes against
    Asian Americans, thereby hindering the formation of a national sense
    of outrage about bigotry and violence against Asian Americans, a critical
    ingredient for social change.

    Schools contribute to the problem by not teaching students about the
    histories, cultures, experiences, and contributions of Asian Americans.

    Political leaders contribute to the problem when they unthinkingly lash
    out at Japan as the cause of United States economic difficulties.
    More important, political and government leaders have yet to make
    it a national priority to prevent and denounce anti-Asian
    prejudice and violence.

    [1] U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "Recent Activities Against
	Citizens and Residents of Asian Descent" (Clearinghouse
	Publication 88, 1986).

(Personal opinion:  I disagree that anti-Asian prejudice and violence should
be a "national priority," given the seriousness of the other problems facing
the United States.  I also disagree somewhat with the analysis of the
causes of anti-Asian prejudice.)

--
Russil Wvong
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
russil@idacom.hp.com