Marry Me Because I'm "Asian"

Thanks to Racialicious and to Angry Asian Man for a heads up on this article about how children of immigrants are "looking closer for love," according to the Washington Post who says that there is a surprising trend occurring for the second generations (children who are born in the United States and their parents are immigrants) and 1.5 generation (immigrants who enter the country at a very young age) who are choosing to marry someone from their own racial background.

The research findings are confounding social scientists who predicted that the most open-minded, Obama-witnessing generation would be increasing the number of interracial marriages. What they're finding (gasp) is the opposite - that as the number of Asians increase in the classrooms, workplace, campus, and bar lounges, the more second gens are looking for someone who understands the split identity crisis, "As children, they felt divided loyalties, growing up with one foot in their parents' home country, the other in the United States. Now, as adults, they wonder: Would I be happy with someone as American as I am, or a recent immigrant?"

At first glance, the numbers make sense and the case for same-race marriage solidifies with research: as the immigrant pool increases, so should the pride and yearning for one's cultural background be reinforced as they decide to match their race with their future spouse.

Was this research done in 1995 when nearly all Asians were swept under the same rug? Has everyone forgotten the wonderful lessons of reality television? Does no one remember the 2006 Survivor "social experiment" where teams were grouped according to race? Grouping Latinos together was fine, grouping African Americans together seemed logical, throwing the Caucasians together never rocked any boats, but throwing all the Asians together was like throwing cats in a bag.

The point wasn't that Asians don't get along. The point was showing how ignorant ABC producers were in thinking that people with Asian backgrounds were relatively the same. I guess it's a hard concept to grasp. Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, and Filipinos (just to name a handful of Asian races) are all tremendously diverse cultures whose heritages spells out extremely different experiences, even if they are "American."

When any one project, research article, or person groups Asian cultures together, it erases the rich lines of difference between them. Growing up, the erasure came from merging all Asians under one roof ("Whenver I see an Asian, I just assume they're Chinese," to "Should I take off my shoes when I come to your house?" to "I bet you'll be a doctor, right?"). But the erasure also came by class. As long as I was a well-educated middle class Asian womyn, I was similar enough to my White friends that they, "...never see race, just the person underneath." My mother's accent was "cute," and my Brown skin was "a tan."

One mentality erased me by piling on stereotypes all over my actual life so it was kept hidden. The other valued sameness and ignored the rest. Both practices made me invisible. Both practices infuriated me.

I know nothing of holistic medicine or herbal teas. Geishas are as foreign to me as speaking German. "Asian sounding" last names became identifiable only as I built relationships with people from Japan and Korea and China, not because I was born with black hair. I ate rice with a spoon and fork, not chopsticks, and wondered why "gook" and "chink" were thrown at my wide-set brown eyes, Filipino features written across the ocean of my face. I slowly understood growing up that racist comments weren't hoping for accuracy, they were meant to categorize and control.

Returning to my parents' homeland reinforced the unique existence of second gens. There is a component of belonging in the Philippines. Physically, I blended in easily and the roots of my culture are born there, but the moment I opened my mouth or talked politics, the differences shine brightly. The westernized tongue was thick in the Philippines and I stood out in my opinions of social action, negotiating personal space, and measuring "progress." Here in the United States, I physically stand out in most areas of the country (excluding NYC or CA), but my values are a mixture of eastern and western.

To be a second generation citizen in this country is not to straddle two worlds, it means to have a multi-divided intellect that can perceive and think on several different levels of intuition, cognition, and emotive signals. Surviving in schools and in social settings always depended on my ability to quickly perceive and act; to measure and weigh each step before deciding how to proceed accordingly. It was exhausting living that way, but that was the way.

The article does not break down how the research is analyzed, but just say for the sake of argument that the researchers take on the 2006 Survivor mentality that groups all Asian cultures together. Likely, then, it would consider, say, a Chinese-Japanese marriage as same "asian" race, and Filipino-Caucasian as interracial. For that, I only have three words: how utterly lazy.

The author also throws this classic line near the end as well: "Their forebears often met spouses through family introductions or arranged marriages."

Pardon me, who are "their forebears?"

Because I've never heard of any arranged marriages in my family line. The majority of the second gens in my family (20-30 of us) are pretty much in interracial long term relationships (including my gay and lesbian cousins who are not married), and our parents' marriages were hardly arranged. That might be true in another Asian culture, but not as much in Filipino culture. Here is my poetic dedication to stereotypes:

Asians
We don't speak English at all
We all eat dogs, cats, and rats
and can't drive to save our lives
We all run laundry mats.

Our women are fetishes
Our men are sexless and short
We're always number one
in any academic cohort.

We're super smart in science and math
and I'm quiet, shy, demure
and if I've got a colonized mind
a White man will be my cure!

Cuz I'm an Asian Asian Asian

There are no magic potions that trick your skin into feeling like you belong and I never looked to my primary relationship to fix that. I certainly wanted someone to understand, first hand, how it felt to walk into a room and be stared at or mocked, criticized, or discriminated. But that wasn't my litmus test. It wasn't one particular "thing" that I looked for, it was a combination of insight, gentleness, strength, and integrity that attracted me into intimacy.

There are times when I wish Adonis understood my lived experience beyond that of a cerebral reasoning. The smell of Different is incense that never leaves your clothes. Throughout my entire childhood, I felt others mentally burn a word on my forehead and while sometimes I forgot about it, something would and (still does) always happen that reminds me there's nowhere to hide from the world so long they can see the Brown of your skin or the shape of your eyes. I wish he could deeply absorb what that meant to me, to always be seen as a scary paradoxical mystery.

Our cultural differences have sparked some of the most intense fights and loving conversations and I'd be lying if I said it never bothered me that I feel quite alone in my racial identity. But that's the story of immigration and children of immigration in this country. Isolation is the birthmark of our parents, disguised isolation is the trademark of second gens.

I was open to loving anyone, but I never considered the notion that someone from a similar ethnic background would take that particular loneliness away. It's profundity is a part of my fabric and it's evolved with me as I learned how to be in significant relationships. Undeniably, yes, I wanted someone who could understand the longing that came with being racially different, but that wasn't the only kind of longing I was limited to. As a person who knows longing so well, I looked for someone who understood it on multiple levels - a longing for intellectual stimulation, a longing for God, a longing for sports and board games.

Each person - regardless of Asian race - will define "home" very differently. For many Filipinos, religion is of utmost priority. Walking into Adonis' home and hearing them make plans for mass, or tease each other about being late for church, or gripe about the length of Easter Sunday - THAT felt like home to me. The way their four siblings interacted reminded me of being in my four sibling family. The way family was centralized (oh, so very Filipino) and the loud talking, laughing, and efforts to connect as much as possible while everyone was home, that felt very familiar. And while the Sunday brunches' menu did not include pork adobo, rice, or longaniza, I felt a sense of home in his family. That "sense" of home never translated into Home, but I don't look for Home anywhere else than in my own reflections and memories.

The intensity and intricacy of our lived experiences is unpatterned. For me, it was not enough to look for someone who had a connection with culture, I was looking for someone who had a connection to their family, to their spiritual side. Among countless filters, temperament tests, and personality traits, I looked for someone who connected this world with the next, who loved to tackle mystery and faith, and trusted that the road would not be easy, but most certainly worth it. And corny jokes. Must love and tell corny jokes.

I guess that's the Filipino in me.

Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Raging About Deportation

My mother called me crying about this story. The Servanos are friends of my parents.

After 25 years of building their lives here in the United States, the Servanos are likely to be deported back to the Philippines. After an error in paperwork that led to a 17 year battle, the Servanos are left with little choices but to return "home" after they raised their four children in this country, two of which are still in grade school.

Now while most stories of immigration typically surround the Latin@ community, it's easy to forget that there are other populations affected by the letters from "homeland security."
After all, what's 25 years, 4 children, and roots compared to a piece of paper that indicated you were single and not married when you applied for a visa? These laws of immigration are so inhuman that I can't think right now. This family is going to be torn apart after nearly 3 decades of growing roots in the US soil. This country, a country of immigrants, a nation of "aliens" reserves the right to destroy any "illegals" because one question was inaccurate.

I'm so enraged, I can't blog straight. Read about it here.

US Immigration: Attitudes Survey

Via Blacklooks.

This is a survey that has been posted to solicit participation for US IMMIGRATION: ATTITUDES SURVEY. I just completed it and it doesn't take very long at all.

The survey was created by a PhD candidate, someone known by Blacklooks. You can read more about it here.

Important:
*Don't forget to hit the SUBMIT button at the end or your survey is not complete*

Here's the link.

Education, Immigration Issues

Out of School, Out of Luck: California's Immigrant Youth Face Uncertain Futures

Over a quarter of million immigrant youth are out of school. "Children are the future." If you believe this overused quote, which I personally do, what does this mean for our future, for their future? The cycle of poverty, racism, and unfulfilled potential of our young will surely continue.

Poor Migrant Workers At Risk

Asia's migrant workers need more state help to curb AIDS

Millions of migrant workers in Asia who lack sufficient access to health services are threatened be spread of AIDS, regional activists say.

"For a comprehensive approach to contain HIV/AIDS, the health of not only local populations but also migrant communities needs to be addressed," CARAM Asia, a Malaysian-based coalition of migrant and health groups from 15 countries, said in an open letter to Asian governments late Monday.

There are now about 53 million migrant workers in Asia who are vulnerable to HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, because of their relative lack of access to HIV-prevention programs, health counseling and medical tests, CARAM Asia said.

In many cases, migrants found to be HIV-positive are deported without any help or immediate treatment, it added. It did not give estimates of how many migrant workers in Asia are HIV-positive.

Many migrant workers come from poor areas in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They often find employment in more affluent Asian nations as housemaids and laborers in plantations, factories and construction sites.

According to recent U.N. statistics, about 8.6 million people in Asia are infected with HIV. About 500,000 people in the region die per year from AIDS and financial losses are estimated at US$10 billion (EUR7.5 billion) annually.

However, investment in HIV control in Asia remains extremely low at 10 percent of the required US$5 billion (EUR3.7 billion) per year, officials have said. The number of people in Asia infected with HIV could more than double to 20 million in the next five years without a better government response and more funding, they said.

Immigration

From New America Media

A trend of targeted violence is erupting.

When you hear "immigration," most people think of Mexico, or the Latino population. I can't disagree that even I tend to focus on the plight of our Latina/o sisters and brothers when I see their peaceful protests raided by police, or racist signs about immigrants needing to "go home," or when I witness billboards like the one I pass everyday that has a picture of a White man, arms folded staring into the camera, wearing a sheriff's outfit that reads, "NO ALIENS ALLOWED HERE. We do not support illegal immigration."

I am a child of immigrants. My parents came to this country from the Philippines over thirty years ago and have endured more stories of racism, shame, and forced assimilation than I can possible communicate or fathom. Their stories are real yet unbelievable. Most people wouldn't believe that my father lost his front tooth because a stranger threw a glass bottle at his face while he crossed the street. Most people wouldn't believe that my mother received a failing grade in her nursing clinical courses, not because of academic performance in which she was receiving good scores, but because her instructor wrote, "Language Difficulties" in the side margin and she was asked to leave the program after years of academic slaving. Never mind the lawyers who told her she'd never win a case in Ohio about racial and ethnic discrimination, "the jury would think exactly like the instructor," they advised. And they were right. My mother is perfectly bi-lingual and speaks English more frequently than Tagalog. Whose story would you believe?

When I think of immigration I think of my father's frequent fights he had with strangers who demanded he return to his own country. I think of my parents strength and how often even I have overlooked their stories of survival and bitterness. When I read stories like the one above, I think of my father's angry retort to that racist demand to go back to one's own country.

He replied, "I'll go back to mine if you go back to yours. This isn't your country. It was founded on stealing it from Native Americans. This is their country. So I'll go back, if you go back, that is, if you know your history. Do you?"

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!