http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrbdXUWryXk
WTF? (Who’s That Female?)
Whether or not this TV commercial is “racist,” I am offended by it.
Whoever Pete Hoekstra was trying to reach with this ad, it wasn’t me (or the millions of other Asian Americans who watched the Super Bowl).
Dear Diary,
I’m so excited! My dream came true! I get to spend my junior year in Japan! The Japanese language is really tough, but I’m sure it’ll get way better once I start interacting with some real Japanese people. I can’t wait!
A.W.
Dear Diary,
What a relief! It turns out that there are a whole bunch of Americans at my university. But you know, it looks like some of the Japanese students are giving me dirty looks when my American friends and I talk to each other in English. Do they really expect us to speak Japanese to each other? More later.
A.W.
Dear Diary,
Mom and Dad are going to be spending this entire month in Tokyo! We’re going to have so much fun together! But you know, I could swear I saw some of the students roll their eyes (or the Japanese equivalent, anyway) when my parents came to visit my dorm…
A.W.
Dear Diary,
Can you believe it? One of the Japanese students at my school actually posted a video on YouTube complaining about Americans at her university! She said that we’re rude, and that we all smell bad! Plus, she said that it hurts her ears to hear us try to speak Japanese! The nerve!
What’s wrong with these people? (sniff)
A.W.
There’s a joke that I’ve heard both Caucasian and Asian people laugh at:
What does UCLA stand for?
The University of Caucasians Lost among Asians.
A quick internet search reveals that, in fact, something like 40% of the student body at UCLA is Asian.
So when you hear that a certain white UCLA female student is the star of a rant video on YouTube attacking Asian students, you might think one or more of the following:
I haven’t watched her video, nor do I intend to. In fact, I’m not even going to post a link, or mention her name.
I gather, from all the outrage, that the gist of the rant video is something like this:
Asian students are objectionable, because of all the obnoxious things that they do. They’re always talking in the library to each other or on their cell phones. A lot of them can’t speak English very well. Their parents are always showing up on weekends to do their laundry, clean and cook. Blah, blah, blah.
The subtext of the the video is something like this:
Hey, all you Asian students! Why can’t you learn how to act more like white people? You’re totally ruining my college experience with your non-white ways.
And, hey, all you white people out there! Don’t put up with these Asian students! If more of us speak our minds, maybe we can fight this thing!
I’m not going to call her a racist. That word gets thrown around so much, it’s losing its meaning. (Like when a Right Winger calls someone a Socialist.)
What I will say is that she’s wrong. Consider:
In case you’ve been visiting Mars for the past month or so, Penguin Press has just published a parenting book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, written by a Chinese American professor at Yale Law School.
Anyone in the ever-shrinking world of publishing will tell you that the key to making money is to publish “water cooler” books — books that people can’t wait to talk about at break time.
Well, Professor Chua, mission accomplished!
To be honest, I haven’t read the book, nor do I plan to. I’ve read bits and pieces in the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, but I’ll be the first to admit that my opinion is based on next to nothing. (Not that I’ve ever let that stand in my way…)
Here’s my Cliff Notes version of what I gather Professor Chua is saying:
Hey, all you lazy and overindulgent non-Asian parents out there! Look at me! I’m Chinese, and I’m a professor at Yale Law School! I’ve got two kids, and they’re awesomely successful. They get all A’s in school, and they play the piano really, really well! And what’s more, they’re both unbelievably well-behaved!
Why is my life so great? It’s because I was raised by “traditional” (i.e., batshit crazy disciplinarian) Chinese parents! How did I raise such great kids? You guessed it — by being a “traditional” Chinese parent!
But wait, there’s more!
Maybe it’s too late for you — but not for your kids!
You too can raise awesome children by becoming a “traditional” Chinese parent. For the low, low price of $25.95 (marked down to $14.27 on amazon.com), you can buy your own copy of my book and learn how to browbeat (I mean, motivate) your children to excellence!
Lord knows Professor Chua has received enough hate mail (including some death threats), so I’m going to cut her some slack. I read in an interview that she intended the book to be tongue-in-cheek — kind of a rueful and humorously exaggerated look back at how easily her “traditional” parenting techniques were thwarted by her children.
Maybe…
Anyway, what bugs me personally about the book is that it cashes in big time on Yellow Peril, White Fright, and the stereotyped characterizations of Asian children as overachieving automatons and Asian parents as goal-obsessed monsters.
Here’s a thought experiment: Would this book have gotten anywhere near the same traction if the ethnicity of the author had been concealed?
I guess you know my answer.
If I knew that I had only one year to live, I’d spend it on the phone helping my father-in-law with his computer.
First, it would make one year feel like five. Maybe ten.
And second, as the end of the year approached, I would be ecstatic.
Typical exchange:
Me: Okay, now hit the “Enter” key.
Father-in-Law: What key?
Me: The “Enter” key.
FIL: What?
Me: You know, the “Enter” key! The key with the bent arrow! I’m sure you have one on your keyboard!
FIL (after a pause): No, I don’t.
What makes it really sad is that my father-in-law is a retired engineer.
Sharron Angle, Nevada Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, says that she has been called “Nevada’s first Asian legislator.”
Ms. Angle is white. (She’s also nuts, if the “liberal” media is to be believed.)
I suppose that if, by claiming to be Asian, Ms. Angle meant that she is prone to saying weird, inappropriate things in a lame attempt to get people to like her, I might be willing to go along with her…
In the same video, Ms. Angle tells a group of Hispanic students that some of them look more Asian than Hispanic:
Multiple-choice question for male college students:
It’s your freshman year. It turns out that your roommate is gay. What’s more, he regularly asks you to vacate the room so that he can spend some alone time with other men. What would you do?
Would you:
The whole thing is so lurid and sad that I’m not going to post a link.
There’s an Asian angle to the story — the roommate with the camera has an Indian surname, and his female friend has a Chinese surname. They have each been charged with invasion of privacy, a felony with a prison term of up to five years.
If you’re born in the US, you’re a US citizen. (If you’re a trivia buff, there are exceptions — for example, the rule doesn’t apply to children of foreign diplomats or to children of soldiers in an occupying army.)
I’m a benefactor of this rule — my parents had not yet completed the naturalization process when I was born in New York City all those years ago. But thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment, I was a US citizen from Day One.
Lately, there has been talk of changing the Fourteenth Amendment to get rid of birthright citizenship. Those in favor of the change paint a dark picture of pregnant women from foreign countries making their way onto American soil for the express purpose of hitting the citizenship jackpot.
Here’s why I’m against changing the law:
There’s an Asian American angle to the story. Back in the 1890′s, a San Francisco resident named Wong Kim Ark, born in the US to Chinese parents, went to visit China. When he came back to the US, the authorities wouldn’t let him into the country because, in their view, Mr. Wong was “a subject of the emperor of China,” and not a US citizen.
One of the truly great things about America is that even a cook can have his day in the highest court in the land:
The Fourteenth Amendment rocks!
I have nothing but respect for this guy.
Lt. Dan Choi, West Point graduate, Iraq veteran (infantry), and son of a Korean American Southern Baptist minister, had the courage to tell the world that he’s gay — even though he knew that it might cost him his career and his relationship with his father.
Well, it did end up costing him his career, at least for the time being — the Army has just discharged him pursuant to the infamous Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy.
As for Lt. Choi’s relationship with his father — time will tell. (FWIW, seeing how he has conducted himself throughout his ordeal, I for one would be damned proud if he were my son.)
Here is Lt. Choi, being interviewed by Rachel Maddow:
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