Asian, the other white meat....sorta

This was written a while back but seems worth a reprint…


Last spring my wife attended a Race summit for the company she works for. She has attended many of these in the past because it seems always-good practice to parade out your ‘double whammy’ employees. I say that because she is an Asian female. It would seem that there is still no real change in the company’s behavior, as opposed to the policy on dealing with diversity; but I guess it just feels good to have meetings to discuss it.

I’m not clear who it makes feel better.

I had lunch with a friend here while my wife was out of town and he expressed real surprise that they would invite her since in his view “Orientals” (a term we will discuss a bit later) were not really considered a minority. When I pressed ‘Mr. Progressive’ on the statement, it became clear that Asians were just like white people, well almost.

It made me wonder about the things I have seen and heard since I have had the good fortune to have my wife as my best friend in my life.

The most common thing I hear regarding my wife is, "You just don’t think of her as Asian." I have heard this statement from more co-workers and friends than I could believe possible. I truly believe that in their minds they mean ‘it’ in the most positive way and truly feel it is a good thing. It makes me wonder what kind of chance you would have if they actually did think of you as Asian.

A few years back while golfing with her boss in South Carolina and he uttered that line, I responded with "Well, Tim, she does deal with it."

Ok, I give up. What do you think of her as… Irish?

Are you Asian if you own a liquor store, run a laundry, a nail salon or maybe work as an engineer? Clearly, if you are Asian, you are really good at math and can play the ‘hell’ out of certain types of music on the grand piano.

When first dating, I had the opportunity to take my ‘now wife’ over to meet my parents. I should add that at the time, my father, who was a contractor at the plant where both Daisy and I worked, reported to my future wife. Unlike Daisy, who was born and raised in Mississippi, our family (including myself) were born overseas and moved to this country in 1969. Both my parents speak with very heavy accents and have also endured some backlash because of this over the years.

Regardless, the meeting went well, and all seemed comfortable. A few days later, I had the occasion to speak to my mother and ask her thoughts. After saying how much she enjoyed meeting my new "friend" and so on, she concluded her comments by saying how much she admired the Japanese because they were such hard workers. I then pointed out that my “friend’s” name was a Chinese name, with which my mother asked, "What’s the Difference?"

Then there were the other terms of endearment tossed about from family members, “Chinaman”, “Oriental”, “Chink” and of course, the ever-popular “Gook”. A Korean comic, I once saw, pointed out that “Gook” is actually a reference to the Vietnamese, so please at least get your racial slurs correct. Probably though the best line would be from my best man at our wedding, asking shortly before the wedding, if anyone wanted to go out for “Chink” food later. That was truly a Master Card moment.

Ok, I know what some of you are saying, "Why not Oriental?" Washington State was actually the first state to ban the use of the word in all government documents. The term Oriental, which was popular when the Chinese and Japanese were cheap and expendable labor for railroad construction, is viewed as the term Negro or “Colored.” Put simply, my oldest daughter said it best when she told one of her friend’s, "My step-mom is Chinese, she is not a rug."

Now we move on to the job front…just a brief listing: .

While standing waiting for the vanpool to pick her up the Purchasing Manager begins to speak to Daisy in broken Japanese. Daisy explains she is Chinese, he responds with "So?"

A Supervisor asks me which part of France was Daisy’s father from. She had heard Daisy’s dad was French and it only made sense, because her eyes weren’t really all that slanted. I, of course, said, “Yes… that her father was in fact named Pierre Wong.” (Idiot.)

Then there was the Engineer explaining to me that Asians aren’t ‘really’ minorities because there are so many of them in Los Angeles. I must have missed that memo.

Oh yes, then there are the men, who have apparently seen the Susie Wong movie one too many times, insisting on calling her Susie.

When she explained to a Plant Manager that she was frustrated at not being promoted, he pointed out that management in Whatcom County mirrored the community’s population profile, and she should transfer to California.

Apparently, he was not aware of the ‘way too many Asians in California’ memo either.

I was working on a project about a year later in Seattle when I ran into the same Plant Manager who expressed his dismay that my wife had not been promoted in California since she was clearly very talented and should not be overlooked. (Putz.)

The list goes on, even today(Fries with your dog burger?), but why belabor the point.

My wife taught me the term "acceptable minority". And she is right.
It would seem as a rule, we view the Asian community as no real threat. We don’t really mind if they buy the house next door or if our sons date Asian girls. ..

Now marrying them could be a different story.

I have never really had to deal with racism, I’m pretty white and I’m male. Most limits for me are self-imposed. Rarely does someone look at me and think I’m probably a great cook and probably a wiz at math.

Which of course, I am neither, that’s why I married an Asian.