wizdUUm Blogs on Multiculturalism
Between Two Worlds
As an Asian American, I am always torn between two worlds. As a UU of color, I feel the same way. And at no time do I feel it more than when I am with my family.
Amongst my UU friends, most are highly educated, listen to NPR, disdain popular culture, shop at places like Whole Foods and local farmers markets, and eat at fine restaurants. My folks and my brother are reasonably well-educated, but that's about where the similarity ends. They watch popular television, love professional football, shop at Safeway, buy what is on sale, and happily eat at fast-food and the other cheap restaurants that saturate the San Francisco bay area. They would not know on which side of a place setting the bread plate goes, nor would they care.
This week, my family has been visiting me and my new home. There were any number of rich historical and cultural sights we could have seen or nice restaurants we could have eaten at. Yet, what were the highlights of my family's visit to DC and the East Coast? CiCi's Pizza Buffet and Walmart.
Knowing my brother's penchant for pizza and for cheap food, I had planned the trip to CiCi's, where you can get all the pizza, pasta, and salad that you can eat for five bucks a person. Even my parents were impressed by this deal. But I was surprised by the request to go to Walmart. You see, in San Francisco, where land is expensive and the population very liberal, there are no Walmarts. So I looked up the nearest Walmart on the internet and loaded the family into the car. It turned out to be a "Super" Walmart. Gigantic. And for the next couple of hours my parents poured over ridiculously cheap dvds.
The irony is that my family in SF lives amongst people who could be UUs. Educated, wealthy, liberal, and disdainful of things like Walmart. Yes, I know that there are valid social justice reasons to despise Walmart. (I don't shop at them myself, which is why I had to look up the location.) But social justice isn't the only reason why UUs dislike Walmart. From Disney to Las Vegas to L.A. to McDonald's to the NFL, there are good reasons to object to all of these things. But are there good reasons to look down on them?
When does social conscience become classism and elitism?
Yes, I know that McDonald's is harmful to my health and destroys the environment, but every time I walk into one, it reminds me of my family. When UUs put down mainstream American culture, they remind me that my family would not feel comfortable amongst them, my Chinese family and me who have yearned to be mainstream. And it reminds me that I am not always comfortable with many UUs either.
Mainstream and Counter-Culture
Every now an then I run up against the sense that a lot of white, well-educated, liberal people (which describes most UUs) really relish the idea of being non-conformists. Counter-culture. Free-thinkers. "Out there." Eccentric. Weird.
I've heard many a one say with a sigh that they've always been "different," but I have the impression that this is something that they actually take considerable pride in. And this always bugs me a little.
It's not that I don't also take pride in my ability to think independently - I do. But as an Asian American, who has grown up feeling weird and different, there is also part of me that really just wants to belong. As a kid, the things I desperately wanted were McDonalds, tv dinners, Barbie dolls, and Disneyland, where "Main Street" white-culture America was held up as the idealized norm.
As a person of color, I do not have the luxury of being able to reject what is main-stream. "Counter-culture" is not a choice for me; it's an inescapable reality. And multiculturalism is not just a cool sounding ideal, it's a necessity.
I come to UU to be part of something greater, to have the power to make the world better, not just to be "different." I can be different all on my own.
Model Diversity
The Asian/Pacific Islander "group" of All Souls (in other words, a group of us who are of A/PI descent) had a potluck this evening and our senior minister was kind enough to accept an invitation to join us. It was billed as a purely social event, a space where A/PIs can get to know each other, but this is Washington, DC with the movers and shakers, and some stereotypes of Asians have basis, so eventually people could not resist the opportunity to get down to business. Talk turned to diversity and how to build more of it at our church. What the group was specifically interested in was how to build true multi-culturalism in our congregation as opposed to the bi-culturalism that people often mean by "diversity."
At times, being Asian in a black and white culture is like being... nothing. Persona non grata. I don't mean to play the violin of self-pity tho. I know that lots of other people are in the same boat - Latino/a/Hispanics obviously, Native Americans, a growing population of Arab-Americans, and also, something that I had not thought about until discussions within UU made me aware, people of African descent who are not "African-American." In a country that is so used to framing the discussion around the legacy of slavery and its dynamics, where do the rest of us fit in to this?
UU has many of the same problems that society has, magnified. Not because we are worse about them but because we actually talk about them. And within UU it seems to me that All Souls magnifies these problems even more. Not because we are worse about them but because we actually talk about them. So of course the A/PI community here, myself included, has not always been happy with how "diversity" has been framed. Even at All Souls, the view can become "black and white."
Yet we also recognize that this is a place that is sincerely trying, and is much better about it than most other places. So when the question came to how to increase our diversity, I was a little surprised when Rob refrained from tooting a horn he had every right to toot. He didn't talk about how great All Souls is, which it is. Nor did he point to other UU congregations, of which there are a few that are struggling with similar issues. He stated that if we really want to build diversity, we had to look outside of Unitarian Universalism. It was a statement of humility that both surprised and impressed me.
He pointed to Middle Collegiate Church, in the heart of New York City. I've heard great things about this congregation from others as well, including Taquiena. So for anyone interested in what true multi-culturalism done with intent looks like, I lift up Middle Church. It may be too Christian for many UUs, but man does it look beautiful and alive. I'm definitely going the next time I'm in NYC on a Sunday.
What Makes an Asian American?
Greetings from Portland OR, home of GA 2007 starting tomorrow.
Today I want to point out that twenty five years ago today a young man named Vincent Chin was murdered. I remember Vincent's murder the way that others remember Kennedy being shot. While I didn't know it immediately, it's the day I became Asian American.
Murders are a common occurrence, unfortunately. What made Vincent Chin's murder so remarkable was that he was killed for being "Asian" and his killers served no jail time. None.
On the evening of his bachelor party, Vincent, a Chinese American, got into an argument with two auto-workers - Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz - who accused him of being the reason why Nitz had lost his job (due to strong Japanese car sales). Both parties were thrown out of the club. Ebens and Nitz drove around the neighborhood for 20-30 minutes, looking for Chin. They found him in the parking lot of a McDonalds and then beat him to death with a baseball bat.
The two men were convicted of manslaughter, given three years probation and ordered to pay a fine of $3,000. According to Judge Charles Kaufman, "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail... You don't make the punishment fit the crime; you make the punishment fit the criminal." Apparently murdering an Asian man doesn't make you the kind of person one sends to jail.
People have on occasion wanted to know why I "insist" on putting a "hyphen" before American. Why am I Asian American and not just plain American? It's divisive, they say. I tell them, I'm not the one who put the hyphen there. It was put there by others.
I was not born Asian American. I was born an American of Chinese ancestry, believing in the American dream. My parents taught me that there was discrimination against Chinese, but if we studied harder, worked harder, and never complained, never made trouble, we would be alright.
When Vincent was murdered, and especially when his murder was judged to be worth only $6,000 total, I and other Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc realized that we were seen as one race by others, even if we viewed ourselves as many different ethnicities. We also realized that never causing trouble ourselves was not going to keep us out of trouble. It was Vincent's murder and the perversion of justice afterwards that created the Asian American community.
Black and Yellow
After service today, I attended the second "Gathering" of people of color at All Souls. It was intended, or so I thought, to bring all different kinds of people of color together to intentionally discuss the issues that face us, both what we share in common and the differences between us. The problem is that the room was predominantly African American, and thus the conversation was centered around the African American experience. This isn't anyone's fault. It's just what happens when a room is skewed.
While we share commonalities, there are differences between the Asian American experience(s) and the African American experience(s). There's no denying that some differences work to our "advantage," but not all. Being Asian isn't just being "color-lite." After some time I spoke up, and the issue that I chose was that of community.
As UUs we like diversity. Yet someone had been speaking about going home to the hood, where everyone was the same (ie - all black), and pointed out that this is not a bad thing. I agree. This particular Asian American envies the black community. I envy having a place where one could go when tired of being a minority, even if just for a bit. I tried to explain how as an ABC (american born chinese) there is no such place for me.
Everyone tried to be open and accepting and some got it, but the questions I encountered made it clear to me that others did not. At the end of the meeting, a woman stopped me and asked "Where are you from?" For a moment, I thought she was asking what country I was from, and my mind reeled. But she clarified, "Which state are you from?" California, I answered. "Aren't there a lot of Asians in California?" she asked. I knew what she was getting at - there are a lot of Asians in California, so how can I say I have no community?
Community is not just about being able to see the same colored and shaped faces reflected back at you. Community in this context is people who share a common heritage and cultural expectations. A place where you can be you, without having to think about it. As an American-born child of immigrants, my culture overlaps with but is not the same as my parents' culture. In this interface of cultures, there has rarely been a time when I have not been judged lacking. As was demonstrated immediately after I left the church. (God apparently likes to rub salt in ones wounds.)
I had left hurt and frustrated, all the more so because there was no one at fault, and stopped by the corner store to get a drink. The East Asian man behind the plexi-glass smiled at me as I came in. He smiled again as I paid, and then asked the question that I knew was coming, having been through this a thousand times. "You Chinese?" Yes, I nodded grimly. "Ni tsung Da Rue lai ma?" (Did you come from mainland China?) "No," I said, "I was born here," tapping the counter with my index finger. A look of disappointment flashed across his eyes but he persevered. "Do you speak Chinese?" he asked. "Yi dien dien," I answered, meaning "just a little." He grunted and let me go on my way.
My younger self would have lashed out in anger at this man, for the expectations that he placed on me that I couldn't fulfill. Now I understand that he is just looking for the same thing that I want in this country full of diversity. Someone like himself. Community. I am sorry we could not be that for each other.
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