1.5 Gen

People are typically stuck in their ways by the time they hit their 20s. They know what they like. They know what comforts them. They know what they have disdain towards. They're starting to have a good idea of self.

So imagine being in your 20's or late teens and thrown into an unfamiliar environment that represents no form of comfort. From language, to food, to social norms, everything is foreign.

That's how Refugee enclaves in the United States form. No matter how far apart people of the same ethnicity or Refugee cycle are dispersed, they will inevitably pull together to build community and find comfort in "familiar" people who understand their experiences.

And with the comfort and friendships formed within Refugee and Immigrant communities, over time, people thrive. This has certainly been the case in my household and dozens (if not hundreds) of Vietnamese-Amerasian households throughout Southern Maine.

My father is probably the most outgoing Amerasian person Ever, with a HUGE community presence, and a larger than life personality, and my younger sibling seems to be taking up right after him.

But, with the exception of this blog, I am crazy private and usually pretty quiet. You would think I would be pulled into the clique of Amerasian babies from the early 90s too--- but NO.

My mother and brother were scratching their heads in the car about it one day, seeming perplexed about HOW I emerged from a family of extroverts and people's people. Nice people who love people and love to converse and share stories with people. Trusting people who are very proud of their heritage. Optimists.

But when a baby is one, or two, she doesn't have a well-formed understanding of different communities, thus she doesn't have fear of different communities or feels any loyalty or necessity to stick with one community versus another.

Race and ethnicity aren't a thing at that age. With being exposed to different ethnicities and languages starting from preschool, that loyalty or need to be part of the Vietnamese-American community never came.Viet Nam was a place of birth.

When I saw people's desire to pull me into it at barbecues and parties and gatherings and weddings with no different hues or divergent conversations, I always felt a little claustrophobic about it, because I always had choice about what I am and wanted to be and I never gained that loyalty. So as opposed to comfort, all the Vietnamese/ village-ness was overwhelming, and unsettling. And it seems to be that way with most minorities and races.

As an American child, one wants to be American, whatever that may mean.

But the curiosity of White folks from Maine who don't really understand Ethnicity or Privilege, and are always guessing at what someone "is"---> (Human Being, what kind of question is that?), wasn't, still isn't, and likely never will work for me either.

So, I think along the way, I couldn't find the ability to navigate to many individuals or people OF COLOR (let's be clear) without being submerged into enclaves, with enclave stories/enclave culture/enclave relateability, which always make me feel a little bit... claustrophobic and lost. The Vietnamese community here is very tight-knit and that's not easy for a girl trying to write her own history and create her own story, as her own person. A girl who does what she wants without informing or asking permission from the "Community", and thus doesn't really care to hear what they have to say.

I'm not naive to the near impossibility of privacy in enclave communities. People gain their survival and happiness by understanding and navigating norms. As opposed to, "white culture, aka American culture, aka non-culture, communities of color are usually stronger, more vibrant, more proud, they raise children as a community and when children grow, they instill community values and community opinions to ensure the continuation of something special that will inevitably die over time in the U.S. No brainer.

I think what's unsettling with me is that I aim to only make myself, and by extension, my family happy. And fam wants to share their/my joy and experiences while I, selfishly would prefer it be kept my story. Like a celebrity, I share what I want when I want and no one, including my family, gets a say when I don't want them to. 

What I call the: 1.5/ first generation struggle. The part American/ Independent/ Private yet part loyalty to family generation. The idea of selecting one's own friends without any buy-in to the idea of family friends. Like-minded people with like minded interests on equality, sexism, education, race, and relationships, that's what most in the 1.5 generation looks for. Just like what our parents sought, but now it's in a different Nation and what's important today is mindset over Nationality.

My life-long, I don't want to say "battle", has consistently been to be seen and related to for my values, interests, and political believes rather than my mixed ethnicity. That's something a white person can NEVER understand. Having to fight to be seen as a person outside of your skin tone. Not being a representative of everyone in your community to the greater masses. That's why I relate to people of different colors who reside in primarily White spaces: whether they feel entwined to the Nation of their ancestors, whether they go on "Jamaican or Chinese or Indian or Mexican or Somali" marches and events, or they don't, they're still stripped of a choice of how people relate to them, how people view them via a first impression, and how those relationships are extended and impacted moving forward.

I relate because, We, as 1.5 Gen and Immigrants, no matter where from, share that. Never because a certain person was born in a certain place. It's not something to overlook, and color blindness is delusional, but a Nation, "it's food" or "dress" doesn't play into who I see a person as. I feel people out and take a considerable amount of time thinking about WHY they like me or WHY I feel they're genuine before I jump into personal friendships.

People have called that snobbish on occasion. I don't feel a need to explain myself but, to keep it simple, the effort to make friends for the sake of making friends (integrating into community for the sake of integrating into community) doesn't result in true camaraderie, and because the intention is not admirable, it comes back to bite you in the ass. But when a true and genuine investment is made, relationships evolve and they're beautiful.

And yes, 23 years in the U.S. probably informs the way I think, just as 20 plus years in Vietnam informs my parents' generation. Being back in Southern Maine, as a grown ass woman, after 6 years of doing my own thing, I'm really navigating how to co-exist with my morals and personality, as a very idealistic, individualistic, liberal, strong-headed, and private, private, private woman while not being disrespectful or coming off as dismissive, ((though, I think there are differences in the way generations view the idea of communities, family, and especially being a woman within the community, that rightly, or wrongly, has a lot (maybe too much), of outside influence from said community)), although I may, in fact, innately dismiss those ideas.

I Am Entitled

Because my ancestors paid their dues for their Asian and African descent
Because women from generations past paid their dues
Because I work my ass off, I am entitled
To my own intelligence, worth, well-being.
I am entitled to wealth,
to health, to respect, to dignity...

and not to live oppression

The word oppression frustrates me because it is dis-empowering. I get annoyed with the Ivory tower professors who use it as if they KNOW it as a LIVED experience. It's ridiculous and it's much more complex than they make it seem.

It is a word that feels helpless and solutionless. It makes me skin crawl.
As an educated, young, hard working person from an elite college, in the wealthiest  nation in the world; I shouldn't know that word. That word is the kind of word that, when I was a student facilitator for Campus Conversations on Race, we discussed in order to enhance campus rapport amongst different groups, so that when we get out in the world, we as educated people won't perpetuate things so much.

But now that I'm in the world, rather than my bubble of "people who care about things," I question how much of that is bullshit. How much of that was just student enthusiasm, and student movements, that are not translating into how people treat each other in the world.

My dream was to come out in 2011 and get a masters or PhD or make 70 grand off the bat with ample opportunity for growth and advancement from doing what I want to do and helping people because that's what I deserve. That's what I'm capable of. That's what my parents paid their dues for. That's what I went to school from 3 to 22 for. That's what my hard work should bring me. And I didn't suck at school so I should have been there. But I was not there, didn't get those career success stories off the bat, and still am not remotely close.

And in the real world, every now and again I have the kind of interactions with folks, which forces me to go straight to the gym and sweat out the dirtyness and scent of degradation and oppression that I feel penetrated by from those conversations. And they, as (I'm just gonna say it) White folks, have no damn idea.  It's hard to be a grown up and to realize I have to pick and choose my battles in order to progressively get to where I deserve to be but also to understand that I need to hold onto to my sense of self.

In college and high school, it's easy and ok to dislike White people for the terrible history of "oppression" they've created and obliviously perpetuated. It was ok to be annoyed at them for their sense of superiority and entitlement because they believe they were innately more capable and intelligent simply because of where they stand in society. And it was ok to laugh at them because of their lack of understanding of how history has played a role in that and is continuing to play a role in it. Because we were college students, and that was our role to be informed and to fight that ignorance.

I should have fought it harder. Because it feels like a reality now. The answering to folks who all look the same who hold certain positions of power frustrates me. The randomly having to prove myself to those people. Their complete oblivion to that, their belief that it was all their hard work that got them there frustrates me. Those interactions are poisonous. The fact that I pick and choose my battles and tip toe around that sometimes, frustrates me most of all.

I suppose it serves as motivation to be so much more than this because I deserve so much more than this.
And incrementally one day I will be way beyond them.
But at this moment, I'm frustrated because this is not where I'm supposed to be. I don't believe in that word, oppression, so I get disgusted every time it touches me.

I expect a lot from me and I expect a lot from people who look like me as far as education and career are concerned. Everything from who I date, to the expectations I set from people who I love, because I believe those things are to be reality, and people who don't believe big things can be reality don't exist in my circle. I had this conversation with family last night. But at the same time, I stated that I don't blame some people for feeling a little depleted by how society interacts with them and disrespects them AND simultaneously expects them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps after that.
It is hard to erase all that and step above it, when as people of color it's an everyday reality that white people are privileged enough not to even acknowledge.

If I don't get to where I think I deserve to get by my 25th birthday, it will be time for starting over and finding something that feels right. That feels like I can dream and reach for the stars without settling. Sometimes I write my blog because it is like a big F you. It's a form of expression. I love this thing. And I am aware of everything I'm writing. Sometimes that's good. To be in touch with your true self. 

Colorism

Every corner of the world that has been affected by colonialism has been affected by colorism, which is to say every corner of the world has been affected by it. And yet, outside of the academic realm where students are forced to delve deeply into how the history of dictatorship and colonization has shaped each of us and our relationships, we tend to not talk about it in a way that's constructive if we decide to talk about it at all.

Often when I write these blogs, or have the feelings I feel, I think about how the friends I have who are White and well-meaning must wonder why this is so prevalent or feel attacked, and perhaps a little awkward by never being able to fully understand that experience.

Or I think about my black friends who may be a little perplexed by the ongoing "people of color" ordeal. Or the Vietnamese family who are a little more hu-ra about Vietnamese culture than I would ever be.

It can get quite divisive and so often people choose to attend to their everyday lives rather than to explore it. And to be fair, if your looks suggests that you're authentically one race--- if you look like what "black person looks like", or what a white person looks like, or an Asian person outside of the middle east, Thailand, and India looks like--- there is an option to suppress those questions in order to attend to daily obligations.

But it's 2013 which means America (including the islands and South America) is increasingly filled with mixed, light-skin, or racially ambiguous people like myself. And that inbetweenness, though not new, creates a lot of questions for parents, society, and "racially ambiguous" people to incrementally answer.

1. Do we still, in theory, have the paper bag rule?

2. Do we still, in theory, have the one-drop law?

3. What type of hair qualifies a person as Black? And what type of hair dismisses them?

For me, and for millions of other kids who have an Asian, White, Middle-Eastern or Hispanic (non-black identified) parent, it may be about the space we keep in our identities for the parent who is not Black. Or in my case, the 1.5 parents. There are questions about that, too. Because even more of us will have to talk to our racially ambiguous children one day about the history of their ancestors and allow them that room to explore who they are.

And maybe in a few generations the majority of people will be racially ambiguous but until then, if there is a system of mimicking than people still need to face that reality. People in the U.S. from all minority races mimic how a certain dominant race speaks and writes. People lightening themselves throughout the world to incrementally approach a certain ideal-- because subconsciously they know that not only is that ideal for beauty but that those people who they are vying to imitate hold the power, resources, respect AND admiration.

It's different for everyone but for me, my mother knows I identify more with my father's dominant race and ancestry, because whether in Vietnam or the U.S., the paper bag, one drop, mimicking realities are the ones that he, and as a direct result, I face more often than she or my brother (who resembles her racially and ethnically) does.

People say Barack Obama or Tiger Woods or Hallie Berry or Alicia Keys aren't Black because they have a non-Black parent and therefore, they must identify as mixed. Which they may. I do. There are many black experiences, mixed being one, first generation being another, immigrants from the African Diaspora being another; Latino yet another, but if they have to navigate their world, their society, their lives experiencing the experiences that their non Black parent does not experience based on their Black genetics than, they are justified to own their own experience as a Black person. Simple. Who is anyone to tell Barack Obama he is not the first Black president because his mother is white?

But I think racial ambiguity also brings up the fierce contradictions of how you view yourself versus how society views you. Not everyone will get 20 minutes to explain their racial identity to everyone else. And the way society perceives you is powerful. If my hair were thicker, I may be more likely to be considered Black, but currently, I am, as crude men would say, "exotic." And regardless of self identification, a lot of the time, how we look defines our challenges and experiences. I don't experience things Vietnamese women experience but I certainly don't experience or face many of the challenges that the average phonotypical Black woman faces either. I have some experiences, mostly derived from the Asian or liberal (confused) White community, but certainly not all. That's a fact. Self identification has NO bearing on that, whatsoever. My skin is olive-brown and my hair is naturally straight and my 3-year-old students adore the hair almost as much as they adore me.

Perception matters because it shapes a large part of the experience. It is why a white person is not a black person no matter what neighborhood they grew up in, what rallies they went to, what non profit they started, and what friends they had. It's why a man doesn't understand a woman's experience. It is why anthropology, education, and sociology are still so fucked up because they are filled with white people who study people and otherness, albeit for a long time and possibly a lot of hard work, who are well meaning and intrigued, and would like to create discourse, and spread the knowledge and experiences they think they know through those years of hard work. But while the numbers and facts are there, and the experiences are captured second hand, the authenticity may not be. The way the story is told, what is left in, what is left out, what order the chapters are arranged... is the choice of, an outsider.

I relate to my blackness, to my one dropness, to my experiences but I don't claim it when sharing spaces where I did not need to navigate through certain experiences the way certain others would have. That's where colorism comes back in.

This is why the discourse is difficult. Because if you don't come authentic, you don't come at all. Where does that leave white friends?

Where does that leave Vietnamese people, including my father, who are perplexed that I don't relate to, identify as, and live that particular experience?

Where does that leave my black friends who question why this dark skin, yet biologically majority-Asian girl dedicates so much of herself to understanding race, white supremacy, colorism, and blackness?

But it's discourse that needs to be had because the world is more free and more inbetweenness and boxes exist to check. And whether more boxes is necessary or not (boxes inform the allocation of resources and the reality of white domination in every sector of society, so more seems unnecessary),  we still need to talk.