BONUS Clip: Assimilating To Western Culture?

Published Oct 21, 2022, 7:00 AM

Tracy and Cara talk to Dr. Jenny about how the immigrant experience interacts with the Asian American experience, and how to handle multiculturalism in North America.

Learn more about Dr. Jenny: jennywangphd.com 

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Cara Pressley

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Tracy T. Rowe

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Hey, y'all, Hey, let's red table that bam. We had so much to talk about with Alison Dr Jenny that we couldn't fit it into one episode. Listening to a little more of our conversation right now, Dr Jenny. A large part of the Asian American experience centers around the immigrant experience. So how can Asian Americans balance the perceived need to assimilate while also preserving their heritage. I really am interested in knowing this, and I want us to make sure that we talk about the word immigrant in this process and how people perceive the word immigrant and what that means. Yeah. So when we think about immigrant though, when in the context of how all of that matters, right, Because there are Asian Americans here who are now in their fifth, sixth, seventh generation of being here, and then there are immigrants who are just coming here as international students moving here last year. So that experience is very wide and unique, and so we can't necessarily say these individuals have similar shared experiences in terms of migration and that story. However, there are some kind of through lines that I think do transcend space and time. One of those is there is migration in the story of your family right to be an immigrant. There was a migration, be it yesterday or decades and hundreds of years ago, right, So that migration is part of your story, whether or not you know of it or not. Sometimes some of that oral history and that knowledge is lost. It is and I think being an immigrant also means that you are subjected to the narratives that the society you've moved to places on you. So that includes racism, that includes different ways of viewing you in terms of if you have an accent when you speak English, right, that is part of all of the ways in which you are being kind of assessed, you know, by society at large. So that creates bias, that creates stigma inherently. And so even if you are a sixth generation as your American, people are going to view you and think of you a certain way. And then if you came recently and you open your mouth and you speak English, they're going to view you in a certain way. And so what happens is that we start getting put in these boxes. You're this kind of immigrant, your this generation, you have this type of assimilation and not this and so we start to get put into these caricatures. Yet again, And so I think there's something really important to kind of nam is that the idea of assimilation was a coping strategy. Say that again, so right, assimilation was coping because many Asian parents and parents from all different countries around the world, they sometimes did not teach their children their native languages for fear that they could not speak English fluently without an accent. So think about what that parent had to deny of their identity to not teach their native tongue because they wanted to protect their child. That is assimilation because of fear. Because if we don't what options do we have available to us? Will we be safe? Will we find the stability that we're looking for in coming here? So I think that over these last I don't know over my lifetime, and I'm almost forty, So in the last forty years, I've seen the idea of identity shift and change. And now people are saying no, no, no, no, no, I want all of it. I want my Asian nous, I want my American nous, I want all parts of the story. Whereas when I was growing up, my story was fragmented. I had my Asian friends, and then I had my non Asian friends, and I had my Asian circles and non Asian spaces, and that was kept distinct. And now people are saying, I'm bringing my lunch and I don't care if you have issue with it, and I'm going to wear my traditional attire because this makes me feel good. And I think people are now reclaiming those parts of themselves. And so instead of assimilation, which is denying ourselves and taking on what the dominant society is nick, we're moving towards acculturation, which is I think much more of a multifaceted let me take from all parts of that experience, which is what America initially thought it was going to be this phenomenal melting pot, right because they definitely use that word in the fourth grade. And I'm just seeing it. I mean, oh, are you saying I feel like I'm seeing it now? Like she said, you know, I'm almost I'm actually forty. But I'm happy to know that you're saying it. Do you feel like you're seeing Tracy? Well, I see the intention. I love Dr Jenny. I mean, she just gave us so much wisdom, and honestly, I just should have taken more notes. I don't know what you know what, No, Cara, you don't need to take notes. You can just read. Listen to this bonus clip. You are right, I mean, you are so right. You can listen to the full episode recapping Constance Woo's episode of Red Table Talk right now the next episode of Let's Red Table that comes out Monday. A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Ellen Racketson and Falon Jethrow. And thank you to our producer Kyla Knau and our associate producer Yolanda Chow. And finally, thank you to our sound engineer, Stephanie Aguilar

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