Chinese migrants risking it all for the American dream

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPxBR1btHvk

I feel bad for the Asians living here in the US in general who are caught in between the CCP's BS and the BS of the MAGAs who can't even tell a Chinese person apart from every other East Asian ethnicity.

This very old political comic of Lady Columbia defending a wheeping Chinese immigrant from a white lynch mob I think sums up the situation quite well, and it's tragic that we are still dealing with this over a century later.

https://thomasnastcartoons.files.wordpr ... 2-1871.jpg

Yes, politics. Demonizing minorities for political gain.
The railroads needed highly skilled Chinese labor to blast holes through mountains with explosives.

It often wasn't so bad on a personal level, one on one.

I would to that list woke people who view them as "white adjacent " and thus close enough to white to glom off of "white privilege"

Indeed. It's very ironic how they think they get to decide who is "privileged" and who isn't, and to be honest I'm starting to understand how many Jewish people must feel too given the way they're dealing with not only racist white people on both sides of the left and right but also ignorant black celebrities like Kanye West and even Whoopi Goldberg who I used to admire until she described the Holocaust as "White on White violence" ...

Gotta love these divide and conquer tactics used to keep any oppressed groups from banning together.

They vote for whoever gives them most $$

That is why both Jews and Asians are described as model minorities.

If Jews are a religion, an ethnic group, or a race, or some combination has always been a matter of debate but which view predominated has changed over the years. Obviously, Hitler thought of Jews as a separate race and that is how most Americans and Jewish-Americans viewed them during that era. During the 1930s and 1940s while not Nazi Germany Jews in America faced institutional discrimination and street violence.

Fast forward to the 1960s and 70s and by far the greatest diaspora was underway Both me and Whoopi grew up in the New York area during that time. Jews were considered a white ethnic group because skin color defined race and the vast majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi. What I am saying is that I understood where Whoppi was coming from. She is not coming from Jew hate her stage name is Goldberg. The "white on white" comment was not as dismissive as it sounded. The frustrating part that was she was told why that comment was ignorant, seemed to get it then would say it again.

The greatest diaspora ever that lasted into this century was not perfect, there was schoolyard bullying as I can personally attest growing up in a non-Jewish neighborhood, even into the 21st century you occasionally would overhear "Jew You down", there would occasionally be a one-off incidence of violence. But I never had to give a thought to being discriminated against while applying for a job or worry about driving while Jewish and if I found out a celebrity was Jewish it was not a thing, it was so common.

Back in the 60s, the Holocaust was recent enough that in Hebrew school we were taught something along the lines of the original definition of woke. Specifically do not take for granted the relative peace in America after all the Jews were in a similar position in Germany before the Nazis took power. Be aware of the small things that could turn big. MAGA's antisemitism was obvious. With "Woke", "Critical Race Theory", "DEI" or whatever you want to call it not so much.

By the late 2010s, I realized that the "woke" combination of re-racializing Jews, especially racializing Jews into the privileged category was bad because it was a variation of the greedy rich Jews stereotype. Adding the perception of Israel as white oppressor, and Palestinians as oppressed people of color was a prescription for big-time trouble. When I wrote about my concerns then it was implied my true racism was coming to the fore or I was fooled by right-wing talking points. In fairness, at the time cops were not murdering Jews because they looked suspicious, nor were wokes shooting up synagogues, and Jews had been doing great for at least six decades.

In this decade even before October 7th, there were plenty of signs my fears were coming true. The problem was anti wokeness had lost credibility because it had gone beyond cancel culture to passing laws that both messed with people's most personal choices and banned teaching and displaying in schools of material deemed "woke".

The above is a very long way of saying I understand and emphasize with what Chinese and Asians, in general, are feeling in America now. When the Chinese point out the parallels between wokeism in America and the authoritarianism they left behind it is dismissed as privileged racism.

You do realise the Chinese community don't buy into the whole "wokeism" movement thing. They make decisions based purely on self-interest as per Confucious.

Lately there has been a huge increase in anti-Chinese propaganda, as well as anti-Jewish propaganda. I don't know whether it equates to wokeism. I'm inclined to think it's a thing unto itself. Plenty of people who have no truck with wokeism are perfectly fine with being antisemitic or anti-Chinese.

They don't buy into wokeism because they see parallels with the CCP they fled so of course they believe wokeism is not in their interest. It was the opposite with liberal Jews who saw parallels with black experience(slavery/holocaust) and parallels with the right wingers(Trump/Hitler) the wokes were fighting. Since they believed the wokes were the righteous ones they missed why the re-racializing of Jews was not in their self-interest if they realized it was happening at all. I would also add that 6 decades of for the most part being accepted and thriving, and the Holocaust receding into history led to a complacency that because of my background, I did not share to a certain extent. I am not saying liberal Jews always agreed with the wokes, but any disagreement could be chalked up to youthful enthusiasm that they will grow out of as their experience told them would happen.


The whole wokeism rant was a reaction to RedDeathFlower13's post stating that the Chinese were caught in between the CCP and the MAGA's. I added the wokes were another group they were caught in between and went on from there.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 23 Mar 2024, 8:04 am, edited 3 times in total.

My daughter-in-law is the child of Chinese immigrants, and it's been my impression that she's fairly "woke", or at least my wife seems to think so. I also don't assume that all Chinese-Americans are necessarily nursing a grudge against the CCP.

In general young people of all backgrounds are more progressive.

I think I'm beginning to understand the situation for both Chinese and Jewish immigrants in the US. Thank you for sharing this with me.

It does bother me that they get the worst of both worlds. It really shouldn't be that way and I guess it makes sense why they shouldn't be trusting of the US system even when it pretends to sympathize with them...

As I've said before my sibilings (who have a different dad than I do) have a bit of Jewish ancestry but I never knew this until recently because their whole family converted to Christianity many ages ago and I'm sure that many of them aren't even aware of their Jewish ancestry.

But it makes me think that their ancestors probably converted out of a kind of fear for their safety? I mean this IS the deep south we're talking about. They don't call it "the bible belt" for nothing.

Some I can differentiate between with reasonable accuracy, others not so much - it'd be a guess and a I may be wrong. Just depends person to person and how distinctively they Look like the ethnicity/nationality I associate them with. Some simply look too similar to others.

Can Chinese people differentiate between the appearances of each European ethnicity/nationality? Can they differentiate between all of the different Indian ethnicities across India that are more ethnically diverse than Europeans? How about Africans? (Rhetorical; I really doubt they can. Same for most people.)

I think it's a kind of lame double standard that North Americans are supposed to be able to consistently be able to tell what country someone is from by looking at them but the same standard isn't expected of Asians when applied to other geographic areas.

Last edited by goldfish21 on 23 Mar 2024, 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think what I really meant to say is that so many Americans don't even bother to learn the differences when an Asian individual tries to explain them. They're the same way towards people in the Latin Ametican cultures too.

There's a big difference between not knowing the difference and refusing to learn the difference when the opportunity to learn has been repeatedly presented to you.

I think this is how most people would understand it, although living in an area with a great many Koreans, I can often recognize them as such, especially when in groups, or when they are drinking in public (something Chinese aren't known for doing). Also the sound of the Korean language is quite different from Chinese or Vietnamese.