From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Clarifying Marraige Statistics (Re: ...or purple)
Keywords: whining again
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 22:19:45 GMT

In article <BzA9wu.AM6@cs.uiuc.edu> watanabe@cs.uiuc.edu (Larry Watanabe)
writes:
>ajh@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Hu) writes:
>>The simple fact, though, is that AAF/WM relationships outnumber
>>AAM/WF relationships by a huge margin.  (From marriage records,
>>4:1 in San Francisco, 8:1 in Sacramento)  It doesn't take a statistical
>>genius to surmise that something very strange is going on.
>What I'm curious about is, are there 4 or 8 times as married
>AAF as AAM? If not, who are all the AAM marrying? (unless it's
>each other :)

I, for one, am tired of seeing 3rd and 4th generation Oriental-Americans
lumped in with 1st and 2nd generation and seeing Japanese-Americans lumped
in with Chinese-Americans.

I am also tired of seeing the word "Asian" being used to refer to "Orientals".
Mr. Hu claims that "Asian" is a "better" word for "Oriental" and goes
on to say that "Asian" refers to those from South Asia as well.  Fine.
So, "Asian" refers to Indians as well.  Fine.  Yet, Mr. Hu uses Asian
in the above statistic to refer only to Oriental women.

I say that we should use Oriental to refer to Oriental to avoid confusion.
Furthermore, the statistics that he sights refers PREDOMINANTLY TO CHINESE-GE
WOMEN AND CHINESE-GE MEN, not other Orientals.

Let's restate his statistics in that light.

   The simple fact, though, is that CF/WM relationships outnumber
   CM/WF relationships by a huge margin.  (From marriage records,
   4:1 in San Francisco, 8:1 in Sacramento)  It doesn't take a statistical
   genius to surmise that something very strange is going on.

Note that CF = Chinese-ge female and that CM = Chinese-ge male.  Now, how
do we explain this?  Here's how.  From a statistic that appeared in the
San Francisco Chronicle about 4 months ago, we fine that

     68% of Chinese-(ge-)Americans are 1st generation (i.e. born overseas)

Let's think about what this means.  Mr. Hu has consistently argued that
Oriental-Americans are as openminded as Caucasian-Americans.  Yes, that's
true for American-cu Oriental-Americans and American-cu Caucasian-Americans.

Note that Mr. Hu has refrained from making comments about Chinese-cu
Oriental-Americans.  Specifically, he refrains from making comments about
the treatment and attitude towards women in Chinese-cu culture.  Well, the
fact is that women are treated poorly in Chinese-cu culture, by American-cu
standards.

But what kind of attitudes do Chinese-(ge-)American men have?  Think about
the question.  If 68% of them are 1st generation, then it's likely that
say, 85% or more, are 2nd generation or prior.  We all know that Chinese-cu
culture tends to be propagate more readily from 1st generation to 2nd
generation than from nth generation to (n+1)th generation, where n >= 2.
Just look at the hordes of Chinese-Americans taking Chinese-cu language
classes; almost all of them are 2nd generation, not 3rd generation or later.

(Now, let's answer the original question.)  That means that (>85 %) the
vast majority of Chinese-Americans retain Chinese-cu cultural attitudes
toward Chinese-ge women.  Remember that those attitudes are sub-standard
by American-cu standards.  I am not referring to just "wife abuse" but
also to simple expectations of what is expected from a wife or a girl-friend
and to simple expectations of the minimal amount of effort that "I
as a Chinese-cu Chinese-ge man" should put into this relationship!!

Given that situation, it is natural for a Chinese-ge women to prefer
American-cu men (whether they be Japanese-American or Irish-American),
and most of them are Caucasian.  You can verify what I'm saying by looking
at the statistics for

             JF/WM and WF/JM relationships,

where JF = Japanese-American female and JM = Japanese-American male.
You will find that these relationships are much closer to parity than
CF/WM and WF/CM.  (Note that, unlike Chinese-Americans,
     only a mere 28% of Japanese(-ge)-Americans are 1st generation.)

My discourse also explains why the vast majority of people who bitch
and whine about the "imbalance" in Oriental-Caucasian relationships are
Chinese-(ge-)Americans.  They are affected more severely.  However,
it is THEIR FAULT.

They chose the values in Chinese-cu culture.  They assumed the bigotry in
Chinese-cu culture.  It is their right to do so.  It is also their right
to play verbal games (like those on s.c.a.a.) by saying that Chinese-cu
culture is just as good as Western-cu (American-cu, for example) culture.
They take this lone healthy tree (which I don't think even exists) in
a burned-out forest (of Chinese-cu culture) and try to verbally trick the
audience (and Chinese-ge women) into thinking that the lone tree is comparable
to the vibrant _ACRES_ of Evergreen trees in the forest of Western-cu culture.

Sure, you can say all you want.

But people aren't fooled.  Chinese-ge women voted with their feet.
They prefer the generosity of American-cu men, most being Caucasian, to
the narrowmindedness of Chinese-cu men, most being Chinese-(ge-)Americans.

By the way, Mr. Hu is right.  "It doesn't take a statistical genius to surmise
that something very strange is going on."

(I spent more than 15 minutes on this post, but it was well worth it.
 I had some time today, and I had to destroy some whining.  Mr. James
 Pak (jpak@oakhill.manute.mot.com) is well adivsed to save this shining
 example of Western-cu logic.)

Have a nice day!

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