Your non-Asian parent

[kimpossible]

How do they/did they deal with issues like interracial marriage, your Asian heritage and racism you or your Asian parent faced?

Though my dad handled it terribly when I was a kid, he's actually showing quite a bit of understanding these days. God he had such screwed up ideas about me 'getting in touch with my heritage' - he made me watch every last stupid American movie about Japan. Especially WWII movies. Yeah, that was great.

The funniest thing he ever said was a comment about my feet. I'm 5'6" but wear a 5 1/2 - 6 shoe.

Dad: "Your feet are small because your ancestors bound their feet."
me: "Uh... dad, that was the Chinese. I'm Japanese."

When I was getting beat up for being a chink/gook/jap in school and being told to go back to China, his advice was to inform the schoolkids that I was Irish. Ah, my poor clueless, honkey dad.

[Hiroshi2]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Nov 8 2002, 01:28 PM
he made me watch every last stupid American movie about Japan. Especially WWII movies. Yeah, that was great.

I would've had some serious issues with my dad if he did that (he's black). I do remember my dad reminding me as a kid that I was both black and Japanese, but I don't think either of my parents have the slightest idea what it was like for me to grow up hapa.

Sometimes I think that even my younger sister doesn't understand it. (same parents).

[BeTheReds]

My mom and dad met in Korea when my mom was in the peace corps. My dad had a newspaper assignment about the peacecorps and that where he met my mom and they fell in love. My Dad's rich aunt was totally not cool with it, but the rest of his family were just like whatever. My Mom's dad didn't like it too much, but reluctantly accepted him.

My mom had lived in Korea so she was pretty culturally sensitive, and we went to her parents house on thanksgiving and christmas, so the thought that I was asian in any respect at all didn't dawn on me until I was a teen probably.

My dad on the other hand was not very open minded I have to say. Many times I have heard him criticize Whites and talk about their inferiority in front of me. H'd also talk negatively about interracial dating and marriage and black people in general. He told me to keep my blood pure and marry a korean woman. WTF???

[blkazngirl]

My mom's Black, she and my dad had their up's and down but they managed to give us both cultures. My siblings and I know attended Chinese cultural events. While my dad was big on going to my mom's family re-unions, so we learned about my mom's side. (watch out Chinese guy on the BBQ)

:lol:

[ChinaLama]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Nov 8 2002, 09:28 PM


When I was getting beat up for being a chink/gook/jap in school and being told to go back to China, his advice was to inform the schoolkids that I was Irish. Ah, my poor clueless, honkey dad.
you guys aren't called the fightin' irish for nothing. :)

[YuheiCarreau]

My mom is a potter (and the non-Asian). She met my dad 'cause she was studying Japanese so she could go to Japan and study with the potters there - she was a Stanford undergrad, and he was a B-school student on exchange from Japan. I have to say I've learned more about being an Asian American from her than from my father (who will always consider himself an Asian living in America... The US government had to threaten to deport him before he would get a greencard) because she teaches me how to incorporate the two cultures together - I mean, my father is fluent in English and loves American culture and all, but he's never really tried to bridge the two worlds IMO.

There was sort of a cold reception from my father's brothers at first (he is much younger than them - they were teenagers during WW2 and were almost draft age when the war ended) although his parents never seemed to care. Once they showed they were serious (got married) no one minded.

It's tough for my mother sometimes because although all of us kids have features from both parents people in the US are just trained to look for any sign of Asian features and assume that person is wholly Asian. So when we were little people always asked her if we were adopted and things like that. My father being Asian means that he is the one who is stereotyped (in the US) but it's usually my mother who's affected by it because my father doesn't care about being accepted by Americans. An example would be when my parents first moved to our town, my mom was talking to a woman who was well educated and intelligent - but when she heard that my mother was married to a Japanese man, blurted out "But isn't he horribly sexist? Does he beat you?" (or something along those lines). Of course this hurt my mom's feelings (both because it was an insult to her intelligence and because it was an insult to her husband); but what I really wonder about is this - would the woman even have asked that question if my mother was Asian too? Would she have just assumed that my father beat my mother and assumed that it was OK because they were both from a foreign culture? Was she more concerned that a White woman was married to a (supposedly) 'backwards / mysoginist' Asian man?

[digiaks]

my father (white) left when i was young, so I do not have many stories about him.

[Elizabeth A.]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Nov 8 2002, 01:28 PM
God he had such screwed up ideas about me 'getting in touch with my heritage' - he made me watch every last stupid American movie about Japan. Especially WWII movies. Yeah, that was great.


Oh, that's exactly what happened to me! My mother (Greek-American) used to love these really racist BBC miniseries about colonial India (my father is Indian) that portrayed the Indians as morally bankrupt savages while the Britons saved the day. (My mother has always been an Anglophile. I'm named after the queen!) She got all her ideas of Asia from movies like that. Even when I was little I knew, "There's something wrong here". (Thus began my rabidly liberal political stance :) )

I wish I had size six feet. I got my mother's size 10. :(

[Spike]

[1st off, i would like to say this (please don't get offended): I am much more closer with my father's heritage (German/Itailian), being his genes are dominant in me.]
You can't just look at my father. If you do, you eventually look in his family tree. I can trace back my roots as far as Roman times, which is funny. Also, my ancestors (from my fathers side, mind you) traveled all over Europe, and prograted all the way, so my aunts and uncles all look different. For example, my eldest uncle (my fathers younger brother) has blond hair and bright hazel eyes, and my dad has black hair and his hazel eyes has an iced look, making his eyes look very cold; fitting for his personality.
Though my dad has always been strict on me, i would not have it any other way. His parents migrated from Portugal, and he was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he met my mom, a Korean student, where he made a huge mistake and got married when she claimed to be pregnant with my older sister. So they moved to L.A., where he started a very successfull buisness, made large amounts of money. He was raised in a house of men, so he does not know how to treat his daughters (i am the middle child, and damn proud of it), so he spoiled them rotten, and in stark contrast, ruled with an iron fist over me. He is a great man (he weighs about 250 lbs, was shoot in a leg in that "war" in the persian gulf", so he beefed up a lot in muscle) and looks like he is a mob boss (which is very possible)

[amietron]

I want to see a picture of your father in his young age and old. =)

[thaite]

I don't think my parents handled their marriage very well -- I'm sure of it, in fact. When we moved to the states we lived in the mid-west, which was a terrible culture shock for me and my mom. Nobody who looked like us, nobody to understand our broken English. My dad was pretty much of the attitude that we'd adjust, without much concern for retaining our ethnic identity.

Even now, I know that my dad doesn't give much thought to me being Asian-American, he just considers me his son, but I constantly have to remind him that what affects Asian people affects me.

[BeTheReds]

Originally posted by buoywonder@Nov 17 2002, 08:43 PM

Even now, I know that my dad doesn't give much thought to me being Asian-American, he just considers me his son, but I constantly have to remind him that what affects Asian people affects me.
Intersting..

My Dad says so many bad things about Whites in front of me... But most of the time it's a direct result of racism he has experienced.

One time we were in this store and this country hick looking guy comes up in line behind us.

My dad, being the frugal guy he is decides he wants to pay for his purchase in change, using mostly quarters. Something I would be slightly annoyed at too if I were behind him waiting to make my purchase.

Next, the guy behind me starts saying things like.. We have dollars here in America, not yen, it's a great invention called paper, get used to it... Why don't you jump in an airplane and crash into a boat or something. Then the dude taps me on the shoulder thinking I am the next customer and has no relation to my dad and asks, what is it with these japs? Always trying to save money down to the last cent.

So the whole ride home my dad did nothing but rant and rave about how moronic white people are.

[Danny]

my big honkey daddy has been living in South Corea with my mom for about the last 33 yeraas, with the exception of a 13 year stint in Germany and Turkey.... He is really soft spoken and he tends to let me find otu things on my own in regards to my heritage. He can speak Corean and write it fairly well, but he is totally clueless when it comes to anything that is persay Corean.

He is almost 70 and still over there, he is about 6'4" with a long white beard. My mom tells me everytime that the chidlren in Corea like my dad becuase he reminds them of Santa Claus. She tells me that usually if walking around Seoul, he attracts like 4 or 5 children that follow him around.