Proud of Your Culture?

I hate it when young Asian Americans go around boasting “asian pride.” It’s understandable to want to congregate with fellow minorities in America, maybe to feel a sense of belonging in America’s moshpit of cultures. As a whole, though, Asians don’t feel the mutual closeness that these kids in this niche feel.

Just because we have black hair and brown eyes does not mean we are the same. Just because some non-Asians can’t tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Fillipinos, and Indians does not mean we have to fall and associate in the category we have been put in. In many ways, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Fillipinos are as different from each other as they are from any European, Latin, Arabic, or African nationalities.

So when these Asian American youngters start boasting “Asian Pride,” what exactly are they proud of? It is as if Italians and Russians and the French all start boasting “European Pride.” What they’re proud of must be something they have in common. But as I’ve just said, Asian cultures are as different from each other as they are from the rest of the world. What Asians have in common are pretty much what the average redneck sees- black hair, brown eyes, and yellowish-brown skin. In other words, the similarities are skin deep- so the pride these young Asian Americans feel are pretty much only skin deep too*.

There’s actually a lot of national and cultural tension between Asian groups so it’s great to see these kids leave the problems of their ancestors behind and become friends with other asians. The problem I have with the association that these kids make is that they don’t know when to stop. What I mean by this is that they take other people’s cultures and say it’s their own. It’s like going around and just randomly picking someone to be your parent. It’s just wrong and it’s not true. It’s ok to be proud of your culture, but make sure it is YOUR culture. Some Chinese kids go around associating themselves with Sushi while some Japanese kids go around associating themselves with boba. Why not just go out and associate yourself with Mozzarella Cheese or Tacos? Is it because your people don’t eat Tacos or Mozzarella Cheese? Chinese people don’t eat Sushi unless they’re in Japan or in the U.S., and Japanese people don’t have boba (actually most of China doesn’t have boba either.)

Each culture has a lot to be proud of. Why go around being proud of something that has nothing to do with you? The reason for pride itself is because you are related to these traditions, behaviors, food, and items by the history of your family and thereby your people. Not only that, to be proud of something you should understand why your people have such traditions, behaviors, food, and items and what distinguishes them from other people’s culture. And to do so, first and foremost you can’t confuse your culture with someone else’s.

Other than the culture and history mentioned in the previous paragraph, the third important aspect of someone’s heritage is “language.” I believe culture, history, and language are intertwined and one must truly understand each in order to know who they are.

It seems like a daunting task and some would ask why should they learn about the people they barely relate to and are half a world away? For one, only when you understand yourself and where you come from can you truly appreciate other people’s culture. For those of us in the U.S., we’re given a great opportunity to learn about people of the world just from everyday life, but we can’t recognize what makes their culture unique unless we have our own culture to compare it to. Secondly, even though Asia is half a world away, the rest of the world still sees us as Asians and in one way or another, treat us as Asians because that’s who we are. If the world thinks that’s who we are, we should probably know who we are.