(part 1 at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2011/03/stuff-amy-chua-doesnt-want-you-to-know.html )
As mentioned earlier Amy Chua had caused a major controversy over her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom", in which she wrote about her "traditional Chinese parenting style". (Never mind that she was born in the USA, and her parents, while of Chinese ancestry, actually came from the Philippines, a country with more Spanish influence than Chinese.) Some of the more controversial parts of the book include descriptions of her using vicious insults on her kids, just because they didn't get an A+ or not playing musical notes right.
While I already wrote about why her parental tactics can backfire on children in general, I now want to write about why people like Amy Chua are DANGEROUS to the Asian-American community! I mention why this "Model Minority" stereotype (promoted by Chua and her defenders) is a lame attempt to cover-up serious problems within the Asian-American community!
But I first I want to go over the excuses Chua and her defenders kept making!
1) Cultural Excuses
While Chua and her fans claim that those who favor a less harsher parenting style as being "politically correct", what is truly political correctness run amok is Chua's fans saying stuff like "it's a Chinese cultural thing, you wouldn't understand" as if being Chinese means avoiding legit criticism from non-Asians!
The most idiotic example of "it's a Chinese cultural thing, you wouldn't understand" BS came from this editorial by Yu-Wen Ying
http://www.staradvertiser.com/editorials/20110206_Tiger_Mom_prompts_cross-cultural_look.html
Ying:
However, the appropriateness of cultural practices is largely contextually determined. While calling a child "garbage" may cause no harm in an environment where the child understands its true intent, it may be quite harmful when the child is expecting to be told that she is loved in spite of her failures, as is the practice in the predominant middle class European- American culture.
Ying's statements are Politically Correct Nonsense at it's worst! She is basically saying "it's ok for Asian parents to be verbally abusive"! And Ying is implying that "disagreeing with verbal abuse is an European-American thing"!
This is so stupid! Ying would probably be the first to scream "racism" if an Asian child is verbally humiliated by her non-Asian peers. But she expects us to be silent if the same Asian child is verbally humiliated by her parents?
It's like how hate crimes get more publicity than crimes in which the victim and predator are the same race! There just seems to be more outraged if someone was victimized by someone of another race instead of their own. Even though most crimes involves the victim and predator of the same race!
But that's not all
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Ying:
Instead of resorting to quick judgment, taking time to reflect and examine our own assumptions and beliefs, and informing ourselves of other cultural perspectives garner the innumerable benefits of living in a multicultural society and world.
So, we're not supposed to criticize abusive parents if they're from a different culture, otherwise we would be "resorting to quick judgements" and not "informing ourselves of other cultural perspectives"?
What else are we going make excuses for?
There already has been controversies over immigrant Muslim families in Europe and North American who force their daughters to face a brutal procedure called "female circumcision". When other people protest such actions, those Muslim families are like "hey, stop criticizing our culture!"
(learn more at http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/fgm/fgm.htm)
Yet if the KKK or the Neo-Nazis was to take a Muslim girl and cut part of her genital areas, people would be screaming "hate crime". Yet some Muslim families expect us to be silent when they torture their own daughters like that?
This is not an attack on Islam, since there's already a movement within the Muslim world to end female circumcision! (An example at http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/1/state4576.htm)
But I'm tired of people abusing the Race Card to deflect criticisms of torture, humiliation and abuse!
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2) Why the Amy Chua's style of parenting is Dangerous to Asian-Americans
African-American actor Bill Cosby caused some controversy a few years back, expressing the thought that there's too many negligent families within the African-American community. He then says those families have caused a lot more harm to the African-American community than all the white racism in the world!
Why do I rarely hear people mention that abusive Asian-American parents do more harm to their families than white racists or black/brown rioters? Avoiding that discussion is truly political correctness run amok!
Well, no political correctness run amok here! I may not be of Asian ancestry but, I'm around them more than any other race. Most of my friends are Asian, most of my teachers were Asian, most of my co-workers are Asian, and my high school (McKinley) was the center of Asian immigrant culture in Hawaii. And I know many Asian-Americans who have been harmed by parents with Amy Chua's attitudes.
No reasonable person would use the race card against me here. But there's always those who say "only we can criticize our own".
But reality is reality, and Asian-American crazies like Amy Chua are NOT exempt from legit criticisms.
http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/foreign-view/2011-01/612640_2.html
But I also know many who are miserable, one-dimensional people who have had their personalities permanently warped and damaged by such terrified conformity and obedience to hierarchical demands. The suicide rate among Asian-American women between 15 and 24 is three times the national average in the US. Is there no possibility of a happy medium?
That suicide statistic has been explained more here
http://articles.cnn.com/2007-05-16/health/asian.suicides_1_asian-american-families-asian-women-asian-american-parents?_s=PM:HEALTH
Moved by that tragedy, Noh has spent much of her professional life studying depression and suicide among Asian-American women. An assistant professor of Asian-American studies at California State University at Fullerton, Noh has read the sobering statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services: Asian-American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women in that age range
Depression starts even younger than age 15. Noh says one study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they've contemplated suicide.
As Noh and others have searched for the reasons, a complex answer has emerged.
First and foremost, they say "model minority" pressure -- the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally -- helps explain the problem.
"In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor," says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who'd attempted or contemplated suicide. "Sometimes it's very overt -- parents say, 'You must choose this major or this type of job' or 'You should not bring home As and Bs, only As," she says. "And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well."
Family pressure often affects girls more than boys, according to Dr. Dung Ngo, a psychologist at Baylor University in Texas. "When I go talk to high school students and ask them if they experience pressure, the majority who raised their hands were the girls," he said.
Asian-American parents, he says, are stricter with girls than with boys. "The cultural expectations are that Asian women don't have that kind of freedom to hang out, to go out with friends, to do the kinds of things most teenagers growing up want to do."
And in Asian cultures, he added, you don't question parents. "The line of communication in Asian culture one way. It's communicated from the parents downward," he says. "If you can't express your anger, it turns to helplessness. It turns inward into depression for girls. For boys it's more likely to turn outwards into rebellious behavior and behavioral problems like drinking and fighting."
more here
http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/asian/family_lifestyle_traditions/pns_pressure_depression_0805.asp
In the worse cases, Asian youths see no way out. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 24, but second among young Asian and Pacific Islanders (unintentional injuries rank first), according to the Centers for Disease Control in 2000. Asian American girls have the highest rates of depressive symptoms of all racial groups and the highest rate of suicide among all women age 15 to 24, according to an American Psychological Association study in 2003.
Coleman Wong says pressures facing Asian kids have changed little in the 30 years he has counseled students in San Francisco schools. "For the bulk of Asian parents it is all about succeeding, and there is no middle ground."
Wong mentions two recent suicide attempts, one successful, by Chinese students in San Francisco as examples of how the enormous pressure to succeed may contribute to suicide. An American-born Chinese captain of Lowell High School's football team, who maintained a high GPA in the district's most competitive high school, killed himself in 2002. "A bad grade on a test or a fight with a girlfriend or boyfriend can be devastating to a kid if they don't know how to reach out," Wong says. In 2004, a student was from Balboa High who ranked high in student government survived a suicide attempt.
Wong says oftentimes Asian immigrant parents don't know how to give positive reinforcement or show their kids that it is OK to make mistakes. "In Chinese there is a word for making a mistake, 'chuo,' and a word for being bad, 'huai.' Parents confuse them both. It is a shame-based society. You do well for your family's sake, not your own."
Asian girls are especially at risk. When he walks into a classroom and asks how many students are depressed and how many have thought about suicide, Wong says it is consistently Asian girls, often the oldest in their families, who raise their hands. "They often have the most pressure because they also have to look after the other kids." He thinks more bilingual counselors are needed to communicate with parents.
Read those italicized paragraphs again people. If this was going on in the African-American community, there would NOT be silence on this issue! There would be people like Bill Cosby and Larry Elder saying stuff like "what's wrong with our people? You can't blame the white man for that!" There would tons of articles in African-American magazines asking "where have we gone wrong?" Well, that's been the common reaction for decades when it comes to gang violence and deadbeat dads within the African-American communities.
But those high-rate of suicides aren't occurring among African-Americans, they're occurring among Asian-Americans. Why so much silence on that issue? Why isn't Amy Chua being confronted by journalists on this issue? You can't just blame all those Asian-American suicides on "racist white society" since African-Americans don't commit as much suicides, even though their ancestors didn't chose to be a part of "white society".
Many of those Asian-American suicides are a result of being alienated by abusive relatives who have a tradition of unrealistic expectations, mean-spiritedness and unwilling to learn how it is for their children to fit into mainstream American society.
While we encourage people to "tough it out" during hard times, there's only so much crap a person can realistically take! And when someone has no compassionate support system, the chances of suicide increase. And when that young person has parents like Amy Chua, then that person understandably doesn't see a compassionate support system around him/her. How can you trust someone who calls you "garbage" for making minor mistakes on your homework or a musical piece? You can't! Where do you turn to help?
Some would turn to gangs. Despite this "model minority" stereotype, there are violent Asian-American gangs. They exist here in Hawaii (especially my alma mater McKinley High School) and all throughout the US. The gangs are seen as a support systems for Asian kids who are not only harassed by their non-Asian peers, but also bullied by their parents who express their unrealistic expectations in cruel and vicious ways. They don't see an adult support system, and rely on their peers, who are still too immature to deal with problems with real wisdom. The gang life, while seeming glamorous, comes with dangers like prison, murder, and losing out on educational and career opportunities.
However, the kids who are too un-agressive and too fearful to be in a gang would likely to commit suicide. They feel they have nowhere to turn for help, and would want to end it all! This is a serious problem that shouldn't be overlooked! This is a waste of potential, all because some parents don't know how to chill, relax and let kids work through their failures without excessive stigma.
This is something the Asian-American community seriously needs to do some soul-searching. Playing the race-card against Amy Chua's critics will do NOTHING to save those Asian-American kids from suicide. This change will have to come from within.
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3) "Model Minorities" shouldn't be immune from criticisms that other groups receive!
I want to start off this section with The Most Accurate Thing Said About Amy Chua EVER!
From Salon's comment thread's
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/feature/2011/01/26/tiger_mom_colbert_report/view/index3.html?show=all
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 04:29 PM ET
Amy Chua is not a role model
She is a psychopath, who is getting away with it because she's affluent and very attractive. My guess her milquetoast husband is so terrified of her that he needs heavy duty meds just to get through each day. Her daughters don't "love her" -- for gods sake, they have Stockholm syndrome! They've coached and drilled to say they love her, because otherwise the truth (she's a psychopathic monster) would undo all the publicity and all the money Ms. Chua is raking in, pandering to the paranoia and insecurity of American moms (which she IS - she's about as Chinese as I am Hungarian).
One day soon, we may learn that one of her daughters goes psycho at Harvard or Yale or Stanford (as a girl named Elizabeth Chin did about 10 years) -- sets herself on fire, or burns down the dorm, or slits her wrist. Would YOU want to go home on fall break your freshman year with a "B" in some subject and have to explain that to Amy Chua? My only wish is whatever daughter cracks (looks like Lulu but Sophia could be a dark horse) manages to slit her mother's throat before she burns their "magnificent Tudor house" down.
I'm all in favor of high standards for children, and encouraging independence and confidence. I think music lessons are terrific; I think SOME repetition and rote learning are valuable to confidence and skill in math or grammar. I don't think children need every little electronic doodad or gewgaw that comes on the market, and most kids waste far too much of their time playing video games or Facebooking.
But none of that translates to " never permit your children to play with other children" Do any of you endorsing this human monstrosity realize she is saying Chua raised two teenage daughters and NEVER PERMITTED THEM TO PLAY WITH OTHER CHILDREN? That's right -- never. Not just "no sleepovers" (and how exactly do sleepovers prevent you from learning, or excelling, from having music lessons or doing well in math?) But no playdates period, which means NO FRIENDS were ever permitted to enter the Chua's "magnificent Tudor home" and neither Chua girls were ever permitted to play at another child's house. Never. Not once in 18 years.
You are talking about a woman so deranged she called her children "garbage" (and yes, garbage pretty much means garbage in EVERY language, and Amy Chua DOES NOT SPEAK MANDARIN)...who threw her children's loving birthday cards back in their faces (why? because they didn't utilize the expensive art supplies and stickers she had purchased for them)....who threatened to burn and destroy their toys, who refused to let them use the bathroom.
If a poor black or hispanic woman, living in a trailer park on welfare, did the things Amy Chua did, she would have long ago had her children removed from her custody -- for obvious abuse, even torture and her own very obvious psychological problems. But Chua is wealthy, Asian (and married to a wealthy white professional) and lives in a fancy neighborhood, so the abuse could continue unabated. Heck, she could write a best seller about it! Plenty of people here and in places like Time magazine have written to defend her -- after all, if your child gets a scholarship, or goes to an Ivy League school, or plays piano at Carnegie Hall, then YOU MUST BE A GOOD MOTHER.
I'm praying for Lulu and Sophia that their father grows a pair of balls, divorces this repugnant monster and takes custody of the girls. Maybe there is still time to repair SOME of the trust and love that should exist between a child and parent.
—Laure1962
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Thank you Laure1962 for saying it all!
I especially loved it when Laure1962 mentioned this
If a poor black or hispanic woman, living in a trailer park on welfare, did the things Amy Chua did, she would have long ago had her children removed from her custody -- for obvious abuse, even torture and her own very obvious psychological problems. But Chua is wealthy, Asian (and married to a wealthy white professional) and lives in a fancy neighborhood, so the abuse could continue unabated.
This is what pisses me off about this "model minority" crap! Amy Chua can get praise and wimpy criticisms for her remorseless descriptions of her verbal and emotional abuse. But if an African-American, Latino, Arab, Pakistani or a poor European-American parent DID THE EXACT SAME THING as Amy Chua, they would've been the subjects of extremely aggressive criticisms from multiple talk shows. It would've been a bigger scandal! Pundits would be YELLING at the cameras over this!
But because Amy Chua is an Asian (so-called model minority) people treat her with kid gloves. People are more reluctant to criticize Asians than they would other groups. Maybe it's because of collective guilt over FDR putting Japanese-Americans in prison camps during WW2, or collective guilt over anti-Asian immigration laws of the 1880's, or collective guilt over the looting and burning of Korean-owned stores during the 1992 LA riots! Maybe because Asians have a more "innocent" stereotype than other groups!
But this reluctance to criticize Asian-Americans with negative tendencies (like Amy Chua) is what is really "the soft bigotry of low expectations". It's this whole thing of "I feel sorry for them being mistreated, so I won't go harsh on them". Past injustices doesn't mean we should reluctant to use aggressive criticism of Amy Chua.
Let's put it this way - all of the mistreatment of African-Americans throughout history didn't mean people should be reluctant to criticize someone like Mike Tyson! So we shouldn't be guilt-tripped by past injustices, we should aggressively criticize the likes of Mike Tyson and Amy Chua! After all, Martin Luther King did say we should judge based on "content of character"
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Let's look at the looting of Korean-owned stores in the 1992 LA riots. It is sad to see a store you worked so hard to build get destroyed. But let's not pretend that everyone in the Korean-American community was innocent through all this!
I know, I know, Chua is Chinese and not Korean. But the 2 cultures are so similar. Chua proudly confesses to using insults to her kids, and proudly calls it "an Asian thing". If the kids get insulted at home, then they learn to be mean. They learn that "being respectful is not important".
Well, while you might get away with treating your family like crap, it definitely not a good idea to bring that mentality to South Central LA, a ghetto community with a mix of African-Americans and Latinos! But many Korean store owners did bring that mentality to South Central LA! Many had the Amy Chua style mentality of "being respectful is not important".
Well, that's the wrong crowd to be disrespecting!
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/S21%20-%20Media%20Misrepresentations%20of%20the%20LA%20Riot.htm
There had always been hostility between the African Americans and Korean Americans that resulted from stereotypes that each group had of the other. The African Americans believed that the Koreans were exploitative and would not hire blacks, as well as viewing them as unfriendly and rude. Koreans, on the other hand, believed that the blacks were poor, violent, and lazy. It was these misconceptions that they had of each other that resulted in uneasy tensions between the two groups. The blacks failed to recognize that the Korean businesses were often a family business and that it was cultural customs that prevented them from being overtly friendly, while the Koreans failed to realize the economic and social problems that the blacks had to face living in inner city areas.
Back in the early 1990's, many African-Americans and Latinos in LA were getting tired of corrupt European-American police officers getting away with harassment, bullying and brutality! And they were tired of Korean store owners who treat them like shop-lifters the moment they enter the store!
When the infamous Rodney King verdict was announced, the streets of South Central LA were in chaos! The initial news footage focused on African-American mobs attacking European-Americans driving by the neighborhood. However, Latino mobs joined in the rioting too! And the majority of the victimized throughout the riots were Asians. The mobs, frustrated by rude white police and rude Korean store owners, took it out on anyone who looked Asian. Asians who were driving through the area received a brutal beatdown, some needing reconstructive surgery afterwards. Korean-owned stores were looted and burned down!
The rioters obviously over-reacted! However, some of those Korean store-owners gave them something to react to! Innocent Asians who happened to be in the area, unfortunately received the abuse!
This Amy Chua mentality of "being respectful is not important" has done serious harm to the Asian-American community! It encourages negative stereotypes of those of Asian descent! And like what happened in 1992, these negative stereotypes can put Asian-Americans in serious danger!
4) Model Minority? Not Always!
This whole "model minority" stuff gives us this message that "Asian-Americans are better than other minorities because they study hard, play classical music, have good jobs, and don't commit much crime". Amy Chua and her fans promote this "model minority" stuff by claiming Chua's abusive tactics is what made Asian-American kids to become such perfect beings.
But reality doesn't always follow that!
One issue this "model minority" nonsense ignores is "yellow-on-yellow" crime!
This model minority stereotypes goes along the lines of "at least the Asians don't commit violent crimes like other minorities". But while Asians are less likely to join a gang than African-Americans and Latinos, those Asians who do start and join gangs have been known to be be very vicious!
As I mentioned, some Asian gangs were started as self-defense group against bullies of other races. In California, there has been deadly gang violence between Latino and Asian gangs. Here in Hawaii, Filipino and Vietnamese gangs have been known to pull out knives when fighting with Polynesian and Micronesian gangs.
However, Asian gangs are more likely to victimize those of their own race. Asian gangs target Asian immigrants who are less likely to call the police! Asian immigrants are especially vulnerable due to language barriers, distrust of the larger society and fear of retaliation. Yellow-on-yellow crime has ranged from extortion, home invasions and drive by shootings.
http://www.kpho.com/news/13691091/detail.html
The victims were mostly members of the Valley's Asian-American community.
"This particular group was doing Asian-on-Asian crimes, said Lieutenant Steve Soha. "They were targeting Asian victims because there was a hesitancy to report these crimes to law enforcement."
The home invasions were characterized by their brutality, police said.
"They'd tie women, children, family up. There would be significant assaults on the entire family to instill a fear in the families. And, then they would rob them," said Soha
http://security-society.org/?q=node/130
In addition to these conventional gang activities, it's also common for Asian gangs to compete with Black and Latino gangs for turf. But their specialty, for which they've received a lot of media and law enforcement attention, is a type of robbery called a "home invasion." Home invasions occur when the gang breaks into family's home or small business, tie up all the family members, and terrorize them until the family produces valuables or money. Common tactics include beatings, torture, and the raping of female family members.
Asian youth gangs almost always target Asian families for home invasions because these families are less likely to report such crimes to the police. This is because many recent Asian immigrants come from countries where the police were seen either as completely corrupt, woefully ineffective, or even working in conjunction with gangs. Such publicity would also bring "shame" to their community, which goes against the families' social conditioning.
More reasons why the Asian gang problem doesnt' get the publicity it deserves
http://www.gangsorus.com/asian_gangs.htm
They are not inclined to claim gang affiliation when questioned by law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies consider Asian gangs particularly difficult to investigate for reasons that include language barriers, a lack of Asian investigators, a limited understanding of Asian cultures and Asian gang formation, a poor or distant relationship with Asian communities in general, and the mobility of Asian gang members across State and national lines. At the most basic level of investigation, the many languages and dialects spoken by Asian gang members represent a formidable obstacle, making electronic surveillance more time consuming and costly. Infiltration by undercover officers is virtually impossible unless the officers thoroughly understand the nuances of the language, dialect, and culture.
5)Model Minority and Academic Difficulties
Also, this "model minority" stuff about Asians always getting good grades isn't always true! Asians aren't immune to learning disabilities that affects all races.
The Amy Chuas of the world think "learning disability is an excuse" and we can solve any academic struggles by using insults, tearing up papers with incorrect answers, breaking the kid's things and denying water and bathroom breaks.
But reality is, people have differing talents, even within the same family. One example has to do with one of my high school classmates of Chinese ancestry. He had difficulty with math (so much for this "Asians always good at math" BS). In 12th grade, he still couldn't calculate percentages. He also had difficulty with other classes, and was later diagnosed with ADD! While the Amy Chuas will blame his parents for that guy's academic struggles, then how do they explain that guy's sister? His sister graduated from a high-academic private high school and graduated from a private university in the East Coast! Remember, we're talking about brother and sister, growing up in the same home, with Chinese immigrant parents.
Being that I used to hang out with that same Chinese guy I just mentioned, I know for damn sure that Amy Chua's methods would NEVER work on him! I mean, I hear other kids call him "stupid" and other insults because of his academic struggles. I could easily write a whole book about the humiliations he received from relatives, teachers and peers. Amy Chua thinks humiliation is the way to get kids to be a success. Judging by what that classmate (same race as Chua) went through, it doesn't work! In fact, humiliation makes people more likely to give up, hate themselves and hate the world.
I wonder how many other Asian kids who go through childhood and adolescence without having their learning disabilities diagnosed! Remember, that Chinese classmate I mentioned didn't get diagnosed with ADD until adulthood. He went through all his school years without anyone officially diagnosing his learning disability! He can't be the only Asian guy with that issue! I know other Asians who struggle academically and drop out! There's got to be millions more that struggle with ADD and other learning disabilities, but their struggles are ignored by sadistic AmyChua-styled parents who think insults and humiliation will do the trick!
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6) Conclusions
Again, my critique of the "model minority" stereotype is NOT to humiliate Asian descendants! Again, most of my social circle (ie. friends, school, work, etc) is of Asian ancestry. A lot of my favorite foods is Asian, and I did take a few Asian martial art lesson in my high school days!
My critique of this "model minority" nonsense is to get the Amy Chua and her followers to stop thinking Asians are superior and immune from constructive criticism. The "model minority" nonsense and the Amy Chuas have done WAY MORE HARM to Asians than all the anti-Asian racists combined!
It is time for the Asian-American community to publicly stand up and aggressively denounce people like Amy Chua! If Bill Cosby can give aggressive criticisms of his fellow African-Americans who are negligent parents, than the Asian Americans should do the same to Amy Chua!
Yes, neither is my Latino community is immune from criticism. I will go over that in my next blog post.
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PS:
There's nothing worse than to be mean to someone who is still learning new skills!
To use vicious insults on someone learning a new skill is about as brave and horrible as someone who starts fights with the physically disabled!That person learning a new skill already feels bad, shy and insecure about not being good at that skill! This is the time you need to be the most calm and patient person in the world.
If you can be calm and patient with that person, that person will always love and honor you forever! That's how I feel about my favorite teachers and supervisors! And that's how I hope my students will feel about me too!
