Even then, to some people, the accent still isn't enough to classify me as such. To be "American" is still embedded in being white. You may protest here. I would protest myself in other circumstances. But at the reactive gut level for many people, it seems that to be American is to be white. If you look Asian, there is a disconnect if you classify yourself as American. I've gotten several double takes when I say I'm from the United States, not to mention several curious looks when my accent reveals itself, as if it's a perplexing thought that someone who looks like me is from the United States.
Jim, our bone carving teacher, said to me towards the end of our time together, "Your English is really good!" Oh, er, thanks. This was after at least 6 hours of meeting us, hearing our accents and hearing us say that we were from the United States. He asked something to the effect of how long I've spoken it or where I learned it or how it got to be so good. Well, it's actually my first language and I'm sorry to say, my one and only language.
No, I don't speak Chinese. Yes, I am Chinese. Yes, I speak English well. Yes, it was my first language. Yes, I did learn Chinese when I was younger, but lost it when I moved to Texas. Don't worry, I really do want to learn Chinese again. Yes, I am Chinese. But I am also American.
If I were, let's say, the third or fourth generation in the United States, I'd be pretty peeved about having to explain how it came to be that someone who looks like me ended up coming from the United States and ended up as the classic American monolingual. As it stands, my first memories are from Malaysia so even though I was born in the United States and am undeniably highly Americanized, I still have enough of a feeling of being part of an immigrant family that explaining myself isn't terribly odd. I still hold to the fact that I am Asian-American and specifically Malaysian-American-Chinese. But if my family's entrance into the United States had been generations and generations ago? I'd probably be greatly irked. We are perpetual foreigners in a land called home.
The article Bigots fuel myth of 'white' America by Andrew Sullivan from the Sunday Times appeared in Christchurch's local paper today. Interesting, considering all of the above that's been going through my head.
I'd like to be able to express my opinions on race and identity better someday. For now, it seems that race and identity is one subject I'm actually better at exploring in the visual arts rather than words.
This article did resonate with me, so click the image for the full article. (The quality is as good as I can get on the road.)
Bigots fuel myth of 'white' America
The Press, Christchurch, B8, October 28, 2009
The BNP's delusions mirror America's failures to grasp its deep cultural and racial mix, writes ANDREW SULLIVAN
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We find it easy to peddle myths of previous national purity, of some Edenic period when life was simpler, populations purer, race more easily marked and celebrated. In America, the myth endures as well. …
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Scratch below the white surface anywhere in America, and you will often find a hint of Africa. Take Huckleberry Finn, that classic white boy of Mark Twain's imagination. The character was actually modelled - and his speech patterns copied - from a fictional character Twain first called "sociable jimmy", a black kid he had met, as the scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin elaborated in her book Was Huck Black?. Of course, Huck was white; but like most white Americans, black as no European would ever be.
In human history, there is no purity, only change. There is no stability, only flux. The past always inhabits the present, even as the present tries to distort or co-opt the past in its own myths and dreams.
That many white Americans do not even acknowledge or realise how black they are - and that many African-Americans do not grasp how utterly different they have become from those Africans they were forced to leave behind centuries ago - does not alter this reality. In some ways, it deepens it. It is so deep it has become unconscious.
These varied roots, these mongrel evolutions, this hybrid inheritance makes us who we are. And it is this mixture that is authentically American, just as the wave after wave of immigration, ancient and modern, has made Britain Britain. It is a pied kind of beauty, this diversity.
And those who wish to simplify it, to reduce it to some biological or racial element that renders us something other than we actually are, are not in any way conservative. They are fantasists and bigots, deaf to the music true nations make, and the many variations that still make their melodies soar.
4 comments:
I felt like this ALL the time in England. not so much in London as in the smaller towns. and not so much when I was with other people on my group as when I was alone.
also, I noticed how walking past other asians when I saw them, most of them had very thick distinctly asian accents...so people would always give me double-takes when I would buy something at a store and speak.
so strange.
I guess it makes sense that it'd be more frequent in smaller towns and alone. Though I feel like if you were in a group of other asians you'd get a similar reaction.
The thing is, I'm trying to remember what my experience with this was like in Italy and I can't recall it at all.
Also, the double-takes I get are mainly from other Asian travelers who ARE from China, Japan, Korea, etc...
Agh, identity!
Interesting article. I understand, somewhat, what you mean and where your coming from. Being as to how 'being American' has been stereotyped as the 'typical' or 'average' white individual who knows maybe at most two languages and is closed-off from the rest of the world, one forgets that North America is not one person, one being, but rather a culmination of different races, different cultures that have been mixed time and time again. Sure, maybe not always in the best situations, but their paths have crossed, some more than once. In North America there have been and still are Europeans (which include the French, German, British, Scottish etc. to name a few), Asians, Middle-Easterns, Pacific-Islanders, Mexicans, Latins and so forth. All these, and many others have moved here to call this place their home. Some have lived here for many a generation yet are still excluded from certain aspects of the 'North American' lifestyle. And why is that? What makes a person North American? Is it just enough to live there, to have been born there, to place your heart and soul into that community? Or is it that being of a certain skin color, having a certain culture, or even belonging to a wealthy family has more weight when being considered North American?
As you may have noticed, I use the term North American because I assume that you are referring to the United States. (Not forgetting Mexico or Canada, just... you know) However, don't forget, as many have, that the United States is not America. It is only but a part of two continents reffered to as America. Most think that being American means one came from the United States, but fail to realize, nay, remember, that Mexico, Canada, Peru, Cuba, Brazil etc. are also American. They too are also part of these continents, yet are forgotten because of the ego and perhaps insecurity of a nation that happened to adopt the name/term.
So what does it mean to be American? Who truly is an American? I understand what you mean, partly, because although I have lived here in the US, for the greater part of my life mind you, I never really felt American (in the sense of the US term). Nor even Mexican-American. The reason for this might be that I am not considered as such, I mean, look at me.... can't keep your eyes off huh? Lol, but seriously, even after I begin to talk, even after they get to know me, I'm still this Mexican person who happens to be living in the US. Although, I've actually gotten used to that. (Doesn't mean I don't still get mad, just that I'm not surprised anymore.) I am American, I am even North American, not quite United State of American, yet to the eyes of most, I am but a mere Mexican.
Interesting how one word, one term, can cause so much contempt, so much anger, so much confusion. How one word can have so many meanings, so many definitions, so many interpretations, yet when it comes down to it all, it is not the fault of this one word, but rather the fault of the individual.
I know that America (or the Americas?) refers to the entire north and south continents of America. It's just that between traveling around western Europe and around New Zealand and Australia, it's easy to revert back to saying American, because that's how people in those countries and most travelers around those countries say it. (I'm sure that demographic can also be analyzed more but I'll leave it be for now.) So my initial care in saying I'm from the USA fades.
The other reason is that there just isn't another way to say it. I can easily avoid saying "I'm from America" by saying "I'm from the USA," which is what I usually do. But there isn't another way to say "I am American." "I am North American" would have to be explained and isn't entirely accurate since I only stake claim in the USA section of North America. "I am United States of American" is awkward to say and isn't standard in the least, even if it is the most accurate. So, we're left with American for the time being. It's understood because other American countries have words (Nouns? Adjectives?) that apply specifically to them and makes perfect sense: Mexican, Peruvian, Nicaraguan, Canadian, and so on. Thus, I leave the post as "On Being American" because I don't know a better way to phrase it. (Whereas, the article headline could have said "Bigots fuel myth of a 'white' USA" and that would have worked just as well.)
The only time I got called out on my terminology on this trip is when I said I was from the "United States" and a woman laughed at me and said, "I assume you mean the United States of America? Because I'm also from the United States--the United States of ___!" My memory is such that I don't remember the detail of where she's from. Oh dear.
I don't know that it's the insecurity of a nation that results in it taking over the term American. I think ego would be more of it. Or just that the USA has been such a world power. So ego and power. The loudest ones stake claim in the world's terminology.
It isn't enough to live there, be born there and to place your heart and soul into the community. It's not enough for strangers at least. For the specific community, it can, if there are enough people who look like you there. If you are the only one who looks different, well, that makes it harder. I'm spouting all this, but really, I don't know.
So who is the individual at fault? Is it every single one of us? (In which case, can't we also say that it is a fault of a society or community or nation or world?) And what exactly are we at fault for? For our use of the word? For being ignorant? For what?
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