nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 2, 2006

Photo by Amy Lu

Stanley Wong and Yolanda Eng

Being Asian is all about attitude
::Our annual youth issue

By Pat Nguyen
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

What is it like to grow up as an Asian American? I think every person has a different opinion on this. Some American-born Asians grow up knowing their roots and have a strong connection with the country their ancestors came from. Others have become so assimilated into the American culture that they no longer feel they have any connection with other Asians in their community. Then, there’s also the small percentage of American-born Asians like myself who have grown up with both Asian and American culture playing a major part in our lives. With the mixing of cultures, some American-born Asians have lost their identity. By today’s standards, being Asian isn’t just an ethnicity; it’s also an attitude.

My parents were part of the first wave of Vietnamese that came to the US in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Knowing that they had to assimilate as soon as possible into American culture or risk poverty, they Americanized themselves as much as they could. By the time I was born, they no longer had heavy Vietnamese accents and talked English as much as they could. In old videos documenting my first years in this world, many would be surprised to see my parents talk nothing but English to me. As a result, I am not able to speak Vietnamese at all. It doesn’t stop there though; I am also left-handed, which is rare since most Asian cultures require every person to be right-handed. When I was younger, I asked my mother why she didn’t teach me Vietnamese. Her reply was that I wouldn’t be using it much in the first place since my babysitter was a Filipino woman who spoke English and that I would soon start school where they would give us an American education.
Looking back, I realize that she didn’t want me to go through the same thing she did, being judged and looked down upon for speaking improper English. She didn’t want me to be discriminated against based on the way I talk. As a child growing up with all your classmates, you hang out with whoever you get along with, whoever is nice, not judging them by their skin color. However, as we get older, our attitudes change and we begin to look at others based on their skin color and ethnicity.

When I first started attending Bellevue Community College, I didn’t know anybody. However, I was quickly able to befriend people in the Vietnamese Student Association, being Vietnamese myself. It was there that I realized that being Vietnamese was also an attitude that I could not adopt. As a result, the students who were in the Vietnamese Student Association ridiculed me at times, since they were made up of either Vietnamese who came here later in their lives or American-born Vietnamese who had strong ties to their culture. They made fun of the fact that I couldn’t speak my own language. They thought it was odd that I had to teach myself how to use chopsticks when I was 13 or that my family ate with utensils on plates rather than with chopsticks and bowls. They even went as far as to say I wasn’t Vietnamese because I wasn’t raised as one. Being Asian is an attitude, there’s no changing this.

You might not agree with me at this point that being Asian is an attitude, especially when we are in Seattle with a fairly large Asian population.

I also attend Washington State University, which is a very different place compared to Seattle, not just in terms of weather and scenery, but also the attitudes of people. It was here that I encountered racism for the first time. I found that racism is as strong as ever.

My roommate turned out to be racist, causing me to move to another dorm. He was from La Center, Washington, which is a really small town. At first I figured he was just misinformed, but as the weeks wore on I learned his attitude was more hostile than that. He made many derogatory comments about the Asian music I listened to, saying is wasn’t music and it sounded dumb; thereafter he would begin to play his own rap music over my own just to drown it out. He even began to call me stereotypical names such as “Wong” and “Chang’” which are Chinese names. By that point I knew that it was more than his just being misinformed about Asian culture. I moved out.

Even though the attitude I presented in Seattle was seen as completely Americanized, in Pullman, it was presented as strongly Asian.

I realized in the end that even though my mom was able to spare me from the vocal discrimination that she faced every day, I could not be spared from the racial discrimination that plagues every person to this day. When you describe a person, skin color and/or ethnicity are the first things that come to mind. My encounter with racism has opened my eyes to the real world. People will continue to judge us on stereotypes that they have grown up with. However, I feel it is essential that we as Asians don’t judge each other based on racial stereotypes. We should try to become more unified so that we as a whole are able to break the stereotypes that have been made about us. Even though being an American-born Asian has its drawbacks, I am also left with so much more. In the end, I have the knowledge of two very different cultures in me. I hope one day that I, and others in similar situations, will be able to use this knowledge to inform and teach others to look past the stereotypes that we have all lived with for so long. Being Asian is an attitude, yes, but it’s the type of attitude that you project towards others that can make the difference.

Pat Nguyen can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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