From: russil@idacom.hp.com (Russil Wvong)
Subject: FAQ for soc.culture.asian.american
Reply-To: russil@idacom.hp.com (Russil Wvong)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, IDACOM Telecommunications Division
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 93 00:52:17 GMT

Here's a somewhat revised version of the draft FAQ I posted two or three
weeks ago.  As before, comments and questions are welcome.

--
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:  appearance,
mostly.  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, or 6 million.
From the 1990 census, there's 1.5 million Chinese-Americans, 1.5 million
Filipino-Americans, and 1 million Japanese-Americans.

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

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

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

5.  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.  It does not include
South Asians (Indian, Pakistani).

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 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.

8.  What does "Chinese-cu" mean?

It's a term invented by Dwight Joe (or was it Jeong-Gyun Shin?) to
differentiate American-born Chinese from other Chinese.  Most Chinese
are "Chinese-cu"; fully assimilated American-born Chinese are "Chinese-ge,
but not Chinese-cu".  The "-cu" suffix refers to "culture".  "-ge" refers
to "genetics", and "-ci" to "citizenship".

However, Dwight's use of "Chinese-cu" is inconsistent.  Although he
defines it to mean culturally Chinese, which should exclude American-born
Chinese (who are culturally American), he often says that American-born
Chinese who disagree with his opinions are being "typically Chinese-cu".
It's not clear what this means.

Many of the participants in this newsgroup dislike Dwight, and would prefer
to ignore him, because of his frequent attacks on Chinese culture and on
other people.  See George Wu's FAQ on the topic.

9.  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.

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

Why do you think?

11.  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.

12.  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), and several more I can't think of right now.

13.  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.

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

Probably not -- another thing which irritates second-generation
Asian-Americans is people assuming they're interested in martial arts.
There's a newsgroup for it, which I forget the name of.  Under rec.sport,
I think.

15.  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-indian.

16.  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.  They're
just trying to be helpful.

17.  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.

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

There's lots, but I haven't read any.  "Sons of the Yellow Emperor", by
Lynn Pan, discusses the history of the overseas Chinese, including
Chinese-Americans.

19.  Why is your name spelled so weird?

Don't ask.

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