6 ms·
> their worst experiences of in-your-face, constant racial/ethnic discrimination and tension in the US are almost always in the Midwest i'm asian american. he
by taway20171214 9y ago
> their worst experiences of in-your-face, constant racial/ethnic discrimination and tension in the US are almost always in the Midwest
i'm asian american.
here's what life is like somewhere other than maybe 3 or 4 cities in the US:
1. constantly explaining to people why i am not white (where i'm from, where my parents are from, why my last name is what it is [it's anglo])
2. children are constantly getting the 'eyes pulled back' and other racist names/gestures at school, and all the adults (teachers/admins) think its hilarious too (it's just a joke! don't you love being the butt of jokes? why can't you just let everyone make fun of you all day and take it silently?)
3. name-calling 'chink', 'gook', etc are normal occurrences, not exceptional events.
4. the general feeling that nobody thinks you're really american. i.e. when discussing whichever asian country is in the news today they'll say "no offense".
5. oftentimes being ignored by people, even when you walk right up to them and ask them a question. for example when shopping in a store.
6. hyperawarneness of the hollywood situation (in tv and movies white people = gods, everyone else = a literal joke)
7. limited cuisine that you grew up with (although this one is changing)
basically it's just non-stop suffering. that's why everything is cheap in the midwest. it fucking sucks unless you are the 25% of the population that its designed for.
quite frankly if i had kids, i'd rather be STRUGGLING in california than outright RICH in the midwest, because i don't think you can be rich enough to actually buy your kids a good enough life to make up for racism. it's borderline child abuse.
the kicker of course is not only do i experience this kind of stuff in i.e. michigan, people visiting from the midwest do this to me in my own home city.
- SauciestGNU 9y agoOh my god yes. I grew up in a mixed race household in Michigan (still happy in my little corner here), but the absurdity of how non-white people are treated in the more rural areas of the state, and even the more conservative urban areas, is just shameful. That's not to say you can't find good places in the Midwest, you just have to shop around to find an educated cosmopolitan community. But the racism here is out of hand and I don't think white people are generally attuned to just how bad it is.
- rgscg 9y agoI am also Asian American. I spent the first 20 years of my life in an area of the US where I was the only Asian in the entire school. 2. I can count the times this happened in 20 years on one hand. 3. Same as #2. 5. Never experienced this at all.
- taway20171214 9y agowell then, how about you tell everyone where you grew up, so you can actually help someone out with some data? because that's certainly the exception, and not the rule.
- zzzzzzzza 9y ago"no offense" doesn't mean that they think you're not american, even though it could mean that, similar to "where are you from". I'll grant you tv/movies, though that is undeniably getting better. I grew up in a town literally called "white settlement", conservative suburban but semi rural texas, most of my friends were asian and while I don't think they NEVER heard the word chink, it was never in a threatening or even (as far as I observed) bullying (i.e. directed at them) way - alot of the kids in public school have an EXTREMELY rough way of speaking (they're barely able to communicate without expletives). All that said, there's some things you didn't mention - a lot (but not all) of my asian dude friends had a bad time with dating for instance, and sometimes some of the teachers would be unable to tell them apart, etc..
- kodablah 9y agoWhite Settlement is definitely not semi-rural IMO compared to how many towns in TX are rural and semi-rural. However, having also grown up in a similar style area just west of there, I concur with not hearing anything like GP mentioned. It's unfortunate that GP had bad stereotyping/racist experiences, but it's fortunate that they visited every single city and are able to make these claims about all but 3 or 4 without doing their own stereotyping.
- zzzzzzzza 9y agothe town itself is definitely suburban, there were horses outside the high school tho, and the way UIL lines were drawn we were grouped with a bunch of actually rural districts.
- SauciestGNU 9y agoFor my family it's not so much racial slurs as the constant question "what are you" because rural white people aren't used to seeing mixed race Asians. The question is dehumanizing, especially when you hear it your whole damn life.
- taway20171214 9y ago> a lot (but not all) of my asian dude friends had a bad time with dating for instance i was mainly talking about raising existing families, but yeah, this is true also. basically if you're not in the top 5-10% financially and physically as an asian guy, just forget about having a romantic life.
- jdtang13 9y agoIf you really feel this strongly, then I would suggest you raise your kids in Hong Kong or Singapore -- any sort of Anglophonic East Asian city would be good. The situation of Asian-Americans will likely not get better in the future.