Like Asian Americans in general, young Asian Americans frequently find themselves admired, reviled, misunderstood, and/or the subject of curiosity, all at the same time. Nationally-renowned performance artist Kate Rigg and SnapDragon consultants want to change that and, as published by Yahoo News, has come up with a list of Ten Things Every Brand Should Know About Asian-American Youth:
- Many Asian-American youth feel excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It’s made worse by the fact that they see advertisers actively wooing the African-American and Hispanic markets.
- Mixed race kids are proudly identifying as Hapa, a once derogatory word in Hawaiian to mean “half.” Hapa is also slang for marijuana in Japanese (spelled Happa). Hapa is supplanting terms like Amerasian, biracial, and blasian.
- Asian-American youth are secret fans of “easy listening” adult contemporary music. Lite FM is a hidden passion.
- There’s a “hero gap” among Asian-American kids, which is being filled for many by activists from other cultures. Martin Luther King is a role model and hero to many young Asian-Americans.
- Most Asian-American kids refer to white people as “white people” the same way African-Americans do.
- Underage gambling is huge. The “new” American poker obsession is nothing new to Asian-American kids. Gambling has a long history in Asian culture. Many students Rigg spoke with are avid online gamblers and card players. Some organize private online poker tournaments.
- Asian-American kids want an end to the hyper-nerdy images of themselves on TV and want to see more punked-out skater and graffiti DJ images which reflect a different energy. The feeling is: Enough with the math geeks, future doctors and violinists. Asian-American kids crave street credibility -- not just academic accolades.
- Asian-American kids universally hate the question: Where are you from -- especially since the answers are usually something like “Westchester” or “Boston.”
- All things Korean are hot and getting hotter. Fashion. Foods. DJs. Online communities. Korea is the new Japan.
- The 15 minutes of seemingly benign American Idol fame for William Hung had a surprisingly negative effect on Asian-American students. There’s a feeling that Hung perpetuated the worst stereotypes about Asian people and gave non-Asians permission to indulge in two years of racial stereotyping and mocking.
The list makes pretty good sense to me,
although I was not aware of #3, the passion of Asian American youth for
easy listening contemporary music. Who knew that someone like Kenny G
would be able to rock the Asian American world?
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Like the blog author, I did not know about #3. Easy listening contemporary music? Really?
#8, however, is one I particularly agree with. I was at a conference a couple weeks ago here's a conversation that transpired:
Guy: Where are you from?
Me: Seattle U
Guy: No, before that.
Me: Oh! California. Northern.
Guy: And before that?
Me: Um.. California. I was born there [in a tone of voice that clearly said I knew what he was asking but was chagrined at the line of question]
Guy: [Not getting it or just being obnoxious on purpose] Where are your parents from?
I finally gave in and told him I was Chinese, which served to inspire a round of, "Oh I'm Thai and we're Asian and isn't that AWESOME, we must have tons to talk about because you're Chinese and I'm Thai." I finally extracted myself from the conversation with a distinct feeling of disgust.
Why is that people can't just accept that I'm from California? Oh, that's right. Asians, unlike their European counterparts, can't just "blend in" to what an "American" should look like. This comes out in a series of assimilation and complex integration issues that Asian Americans (and especially American-born Asians) must deal with.
