I hail from the Los Angeles megalopolis, a region renowned for its Californian sunshine and super-sized East Asian population. While in high school, I used to detest this sad fact. No, I did not have yellow fever, and the Asian-American youth scene was rather despicable. Case in point: A few years ago, some friends and I decided to hit up the local arcade?a shabby, sterile environment featuring the latest hits such as Marvel vs. Capcom?The Clash of Superheroes and various Tekken permutations. This hangout in Walnut, Calif. was the gem of this particular Asian shopping center, which was complete with restaurants, small variety stores, and a “caf?” selling boba, an excruciatingly trendy milk tea drink with large tapioca balls that would leave any pure-bred Asian longing for home. As such, it was frequented by your run-of-the-mill Asian gangsters sporting souped-up Lexus GS300s and slicked-back hair. Not a pretty sight, even in the imagination. Entering this ethnic microcosm, my “crew” found three separate pairs of GQ Asians with their respective heavily-made-up girlfriends. The boyfriends kicked butt and talked trash to the computers while the girlfriends held their yellow Tommy Hilfiger windbreakers and bobas, earnestly cheering on their significant others as they whooped on Venom/Ryu with Strider Hiryu and Spider Man.
While for most this may be an excellent deal, I am proud to say that I am not of the “subjugate my woman while I play video games and drive fast cars” ilk. I couldn’t give less of a damn about knowing how to “drift,” although I probably should, since from what I hear, girls find this extremely sexy and it’s a surefire way of getting laid. Oh well, my loss. I refuse to accept that skanky girls, rice rockets and cells have come to dominate the image of Asian-American youth, which is arguably much more pernicious than the “you must be good at math and science” brand. Granted, all of this could be a strictly Left Coast phenomenon and the Asian-American population on the Eastern Seaboard (I refuse to accept that there are any of us in the South) may not have any idea of what I’m talking about, but this is the context out of which I escaped to Georgetown hounded by trails of “twinkie” and “banana.”
At first, I thought it was a nice refreshing environment at Georgetown. Even as a Jesuit school, we didn’t have as many of the Asian evangelical groups that I had grown to be desperately afraid of, maybe even more than the GQ Asian gangsters. It was relieving to not have to defend myself for not believing that Christ died on the cross for me or engage in an argument about why I thought becoming a Christian as an Asian-American was fundamentally selling out everything being Asian entailed (not like it matters, though; I mean, No Doubt did it and seemed to become even more popular). Most of the Asian-American kids I met were whiter than I was (which I did not think was possible, but it’s true) and the diffusive nature of the Asian-American groups on campus kept us well out of the limelight. All of this was fine and dandy.
But, in the end, the lack of diversity and extra white people wasn’t all that it was cut out to be. I thought I was fleeing from the banality of baggy pants and poorly applied eyeliner and entering a more sophisticated crowd with a higher percentage of avant-garde and counter-culture college students. I didn’t want to be limited by the 40-60 percent Asian-American populations of California state schools. Boy, was I wrong. Identity crisis ensued. I actually did enjoy my Asian-American brethren, even if only by pointing fingers and laughing. Hence, I was faced with two options: 1) start getting in touch with my roots, as they say or 2) live up to my “twinkie” and “banana” status. I chose the former, but even then there was a fork in the road. Would I become a regular of AASA and CSA so I could fully initiate myself into the Asian clique and participate in the reverse discrimination and social exclusion that I so abhorred in high school? God help me if I ever did. Rather, I chose to plunge myself more and more into the Chinese language classes that I hated as a child and only took to keep my mother from hassling me. I would find out what it really means to be ethnically Asian.
Which brings us to a very critical juncture?what does being Asian-American involve anyway? I used to think that it was the Supras, Acuras and fly girls who press their breasts against the windshields. I’m a fan of fly girls, breasts and windshields, but not so much in that combination. So I rebelled against all of that. I’d rather not be Asian-American if I have to own a cell phone?or two, which I have seen several Asian gangsters use?and simultaneously, no less. At the same time, I wanted to prove that I could be even more Asian than them by knowing how to read Chinese and being in touch with “real” Asian culture. But after some hard (read: half-hearted) soul-searching I guess it doesn’t really matter. If Asian-Americans find solidarity in their mini-culture, then more power to them. Right? Maybe for my next birthday gift, I’ll ask for a Beamer with a phat exhaust pipe.
Andrew Lin is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. He wishes he had been in The Fast And The Furious.
