I know this wasn’t the main point but some thoughts on this.
There is a secret game Asian-Americans play among ourselves called the “What kind of Asian are you?” game.
This is a topic that is much discussed (often labelled under the term “microaggression”) but I get the impression in contemporary American society, it’s increasingly seen as rude to ask in an unsolicited manner about someone’s ancestry in that way. Perhaps it’s different among familiars than strangers.
Whenever an Asian-American meets another Asian-American we try to guess each other’s nationality. If you guess right you gain charisma points. If you guess wrong you lose charisma points. Of course, you don’t literally say “I know you are a <whatever>.”
That’s easy. They’re American, by definition! Okay, I know what you mean, but in many settings commenting on someone’s ancestry at all unsolicited makes one lose charisma points. You have to know the context.
That is a faux pas. Instead you imply it by demonstrating common cultural understandings not shared by the wider Western world.
Is this really particular to Asian Americans though? Do Americans of European, Latin American, African or other continental ancestries differ in this way? Plenty of European-Americans go around discussing if someone’s Irish or German or Italian or whatever in origin because of some residual old-country cultural trait that is still perceived as distinctive (“Oh, my grandma’s Italian and also does so-and-so”).
And yes, I know obviously due to the history of slavery in the US, it would be seen as awkward to ask many Americans of African descent their particular old world ancestry (though there are still many who descend from voluntary African immigrants).
You have to read subtle cultural cues.
That’s assuming culture aligns with place-of-ancestry origin, an increasingly less accurate view as people in many societies become more mobile and culture spreads around even within a generation. An African American and Asian American born and raised in the same town attending the same high school, college and then working in the same industry, would likely share much more in common with one another—in fact it’d be surprising if this what not true—than an African immigrant or Asian immigrant who shares more of their genealogical ancestry but just stepped foot in their town last week.
When I want to look white I use words like “Manuchuria”
I don’t see what’s “white” about this. Yes, westerners use it, but anyone nonwhite socialized in American culture could pick it up from American pop culture (e.g. the Manchurian candidate), or another English-speaking social milieu just as well.
From the Wikipedia article on “Manchuria”, “First used in the 17th century by the Japanese, it remains a common term elsewhere but is deprecated within China, where it is associated with ethnic chauvinism and Japanese imperialism.”
So, it’s more about an insider view of China vs. outsider and says more about knowledge of or lack thereof of China that I don’t think follows racial lines or “whiteness”, unless your default person who knows enough about the topic but has an “outsider” view is white (yes, I realize many people will imagine the default person as “white” if they are living in an English-speaking white-majority society simply because they don’t have any indications of the person’s race otherwise).
I know this wasn’t the main point but some thoughts on this.
There is a secret game Asian-Americans play among ourselves called the “What kind of Asian are you?” game.
This is a topic that is much discussed (often labelled under the term “microaggression”) but I get the impression in contemporary American society, it’s increasingly seen as rude to ask in an unsolicited manner about someone’s ancestry in that way. Perhaps it’s different among familiars than strangers.
Whenever an Asian-American meets another Asian-American we try to guess each other’s nationality. If you guess right you gain charisma points. If you guess wrong you lose charisma points. Of course, you don’t literally say “I know you are a <whatever>.”
That’s easy. They’re American, by definition! Okay, I know what you mean, but in many settings commenting on someone’s ancestry at all unsolicited makes one lose charisma points. You have to know the context.
That is a faux pas. Instead you imply it by demonstrating common cultural understandings not shared by the wider Western world.
Is this really particular to Asian Americans though? Do Americans of European, Latin American, African or other continental ancestries differ in this way? Plenty of European-Americans go around discussing if someone’s Irish or German or Italian or whatever in origin because of some residual old-country cultural trait that is still perceived as distinctive (“Oh, my grandma’s Italian and also does so-and-so”).
And yes, I know obviously due to the history of slavery in the US, it would be seen as awkward to ask many Americans of African descent their particular old world ancestry (though there are still many who descend from voluntary African immigrants).
You have to read subtle cultural cues.
That’s assuming culture aligns with place-of-ancestry origin, an increasingly less accurate view as people in many societies become more mobile and culture spreads around even within a generation. An African American and Asian American born and raised in the same town attending the same high school, college and then working in the same industry, would likely share much more in common with one another—in fact it’d be surprising if this what not true—than an African immigrant or Asian immigrant who shares more of their genealogical ancestry but just stepped foot in their town last week.
When I want to look white I use words like “Manuchuria”
I don’t see what’s “white” about this. Yes, westerners use it, but anyone nonwhite socialized in American culture could pick it up from American pop culture (e.g. the Manchurian candidate), or another English-speaking social milieu just as well.
From the Wikipedia article on “Manchuria”, “First used in the 17th century by the Japanese, it remains a common term elsewhere but is deprecated within China, where it is associated with ethnic chauvinism and Japanese imperialism.”
So, it’s more about an insider view of China vs. outsider and says more about knowledge of or lack thereof of China that I don’t think follows racial lines or “whiteness”, unless your default person who knows enough about the topic but has an “outsider” view is white (yes, I realize many people will imagine the default person as “white” if they are living in an English-speaking white-majority society simply because they don’t have any indications of the person’s race otherwise).