Race and ethnicity, NYC 2006

[oyceter]

My experiences of California are such that most of the people of color I run into are either Asian or Hispanic. There is a very clear class divide. The places I go to around here tend to be upper-middle class, which is almost exclusively Asian and white in the very gentrified Silicon Valley (excluding Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose proper, etc.). Many of the Hispanics I see tend to be in the service industry, and I very rarely see black people. It is very easy for me to avoid seeing other non-Asian people of color, much less talk to them. I would like to pretend that I'm not consciously avoiding them, but since I'm also not actively seeking them out and since I do avoid neighborhoods are "bad," that's really not saying much.

In New York, it was more difficult to avoid other people of color. I don't live there, so I can't say why, though a) less of a class divide, b) neighborhoods closer together, and c) more people of color overall are my uneducated guesses. People in the service industry still tended to be people of color. On the other hand, there were many more POC on the subways and the streets, at least in the parts of Manhattan that I was going around. It felt like there were much fewer Asians, though, with the obvious exception of Chinatown.

I tended to notice and count POC more on the subway than anywhere else, for reasons that may be purely idiosyncratic.

Personal experiences:

• My sister and I were the only two Asian women in Sam Ash, a music store. There were several black men, both customers and salespeople. I felt extremely awkward and unsure and ashamed of my instinctive action to be frightened. Naturally, the salesguy (black) who ended up helping us was immensely polite and nice.



• I saw a "Jews for Jesus" poster in the subway and mentally shook my fist at it for coffeeandink.



• There was one subway ad for occupational education that featured an Indian, a black person, and a Hispanic person in the pictures (I don't remember if there was an Asian), with explanations of how each of them entered the program, earned their college degrees and got higher-paying jobs. I cannot decide if the specifically targeted marketing is merely practical from a business standpoint or annoying from a moral standpoint.



• There were many Jewish bookstores and shops with Hebrew in the windows; I am not sure if I thought there were many simply because I don't see a lot in CA, or because I have only started to notice.



• I noticed many more POC around lower Manhattan than upper, particularly when we were trooping around Upper East Side for the Met.



• While my sister, her friend and I were walking up Upper East Side to go to Le Pain Quotidian, a man on the street (I think he was white, though I am not sure) yelled, "Get out of America!" I tried to ignore him and unobtrusively look around at the same time to see if he was yelling at anyone else. There was a middle-aged white couple behind us, but other than that, it was just us (three Asian women) walking by the guy. The man from the middle-aged white couple started arguing back with the man on the street, though his wife pulled him away. I thanked him for trying. It took about half the meal to shake off the fear. My sister and her friend said that it had never happened to them before.



• I saw even more ads for the new NBC drama Heroes, along with a magazine spread. I've decided to Tivo the pilot at least, if only because the cast is multiracial (4 out of the 9 are visibly minorities, and I am guessing the two brothers are supposed to be Italian-American). I am particularly happy because while two of the minorities are black and Hispanic, the other two are Indian and Japanese. On the other hand, I am very irked that all the white people, the Italian-Americans (duh), the black woman and the Hispanic man are the Americans, while the Indian lives in India and the Japanese guy lives in Japan. I appreciate the attempt to be international, as cursory as it is (and it is very cursory!), but I am pissed off because it feels like the Japanese guy and the Indian guy were only cast because of their characters' nationalities. Like there aren't Japanese and Indian people in America!

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The Bay Area equivalent of Manhattan would be central parts of San Francisco, rather than Silicon Valley, I would think.

I gather that these days, recent immigrants (including Asians) are much more likely to live in Queens than in Manhattan.

[oyceter]

Ah, apologies, I didn't mean to draw a parallel between Silicon Valley and Manhattan except in my own personal experience, as they have very different dynamics (city vs. suburbs, just for starters).

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I appreciate it when you talk about experiences as an Asian and/or experiences thinking about race in other ways is that you're upfront about your own fear and your own uncertainties. A lot of people are bad at that.

(Personally, I'm not so much afraid when talking to specifically African-American people; I'm much more afraid when there's even the hint of a language barrier and that's when I start getting awkward and ashamed. That's class, race, and ethnicity all mixing up in my brain to present a lovely "I am stupid and awkward" picture.)

Heh. Jews for Jesus. Makes me think of High School. (Where they kept trying to flyer me at the subway stop.)

[oyceter]

Thank you! I am trying to own up to my privilege, but there's still a ton of discomfort and defensiveness to struggle through as well.

Ah, I think I'm just the opposite! I haven't had very much exposure to black people, art or... really much of anything, and to make it less passive on my side, I really haven't bothered going out to educate myself about black issues until recently. The language barrier thing is one that I've had to grow up with and confront all the time, so while it still bugs me, it's a much more familiar discomfort, if that makes any sense.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Oh, yah, I'm defensive all over the place. And often, I notice like hours or days or minutes later. It's kind of annoying. I want to be perfect! (Well, actually, I don't. But anyway.)

Thing with me is, I grew up as Ms. White Chick in White Land (sheltered suburban Boston) and was like, "Diversity? What?" (I've posted about my kindergarten "Mom, I've decided I don't like black people" remark.) And then I went to HS in the middle of Boston, where I had a bunch of black schoolmates, but not, in general, folks from other countries. And, later on, I've done facilitation and dialogue work, a lot of which focused on African-American/Caucasian interactions. So that, I'm used to.

But I didn't grow up with the language barrier, and I still have a lot of embarrassment around it. There's all kinds of judgemental thoughts about other people's language skills (or lack thereof), guilt for those thoughts, judgemental thoughts about my /own/ language skills (or lack thereof), and... so on. I'm /almost/ positive there's no "why are they here in 'my' country, bothering me," because, well, basically, I didn't get that message when I was a kid, but I can't guarantee it.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

The nurses we represent are primarily in the downstate area of NY, about 30 of the 34,000 and although we do not collect this type of data I am aware from my work with them that the majority are PoC(?) and also a fair number first generation Americans. That is a abit the nature of the profession with its cycles and lags and overseas recruitments.

One of the worries I ahve about the serious multifront crises we are battling right now is that our programs both on multiculturalism and also on (I don't have a good catch all for this next) building or enabling women's voice/leadership have gone abit by the wayside. Some of this is going to come out in the current crises of course but it troubles me this dropping of important programs.

The other thing I noticed and this is really small but we do a Convention every October in various places usually across the state and now New Jersey where we advocate at two hospitals and are in process at a third (we've got to get a contract setlled but it is hopefully imminent.) Anyway, one year in an attempt to try something different we held it in Montreal, and it was real eye opener both for staff and for the members who are as I've said. The welcome and the concern for individual was quite unexceptional.

I am not sure what differentiates here and I am sure there's a lot I do not know about Montreal but the possibility for a melting pot? and civility and other things.. that experienece was very heartening.

[oyceter]

Oh, cool! What was Montreal like?

It's so difficult when programs like increasing multiculturalism and women in leadership are dropped. I am going to make a wild assumption on something I know nothing about, but I figure it may have something to do with budgetary reasons or resource constraints?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

"Get out of America" guy-- Gah! How awful!

I too am very curious about Heroes. I see potential for the Japanese and Indian settings to be incredibly cliched, but also potential for them to be very interesting. (When has an American TV show ever had scenes in India? Unless they really hash it up, I'm pretty excited about that.) The Japanese and Indian settings do mean that the central Japanese and Indian characters will not be the only ones on the show. Of course, this could have been accomplished in American settings as well, but that definitely forces it.

Although I don't know if the show will continue to keep the characters separated from each other, as that would be difficult to structure, so they might not all stay where they started out.

[oyceter]

Ugh, yeah, that experience was really not fun, and I think the three of us felt shaky for a while after that.

I'm really, really, really hoping that the Japanese and Indian settings and characters aren't too cliched, though I was incredibly disappointed when I read some brief character bios and found out the Japanese character, who is dressed in a somewhat nerdy sweater vest with glasses, is a salaryman. I am hoping that there won't be the standard "Japanese salarymen are like emotionless robots being pushed through the system by a society that tries to make everyone fit in the same mold" type thing.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. In that case, I can guarantee you that his story in the pilot will be about how his new powers either help him rebel against crushing conformity, or how they give him a happy outlet from said cc.

On the other hand, if the series succeeds, it may run through that and then go on to a different and more interesting story. That's why I'm so obsessed with TV casting: shows change. Small or stereotyped roles sometimes become larger and less stereotyped with time. (This can go in the opposite direction too, alas.) But if people aren't cast at all, there is no hope.

Is the Indian a computer programmer?

[oyceter]

The Indian is apparently a genetics professor who is going to NYC in search of his father's murderer (actually, that sounds rather cool).

And for further "yay marketing" moments, the character description for Hiro Nakamura (the Japanese character) is:

"A cubicle jockey for Yamagata Industries in Tokyo, Hiro is a worker bee in a sea of worker bees, but there's the hint of the nonconformist in him."

Hope is fading by the second...

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I am mildly amused by Hiro's name (shades of Neal Stephenson's Hiro Protagonist) but otherwise that sounds awfully cliched. Also, hello, mixed metaphor! Are those mutant marine worker bees?

Agreed that the Indian's storyline sounds pretty cool.

[oyceter]

Hee, yes! A mutant marine worker bee that rides horses!

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine downloaded a copy of the pilot of Heroes last week and several of us watched it together. The Japanese guy was kind of a nerd, and cute in a nerdly way. And definitely not emotionless. I was amused that all of the scenes he was in had dialog in Japanese with subtitles since so many movies and TV shows have everyone speaking English when you're supposed to assume that they're actually speaking their native language. On the other hand, the people in India were all speaking English, which seemed unlikely.

I'll definitely watch the first couple of episodes, but there were a lot of cliches, and I'm not very hopeful. It seems like one of those shows where you have to spend the entire time mocking the writers.

[racyli.livejournal.com]

Actually, numberwise, India is the largest English-speaking country in the world.

[fresne.livejournal.com]

As I recall his power somewhat indicates that they're going for the conformity thing. As his abilities are escape oriented.

Although, it makes me curious about the Indian. Well, other than wondering if there won't be many other people with powers, but these are the ones they're focusing on. Given the size of the population in India. And for that matter, the rest of the world that isn't the US.

[oyceter]

Yeah, his character write-up on the website sounds a lot like that as well.

The Indian character is apparently a genetics professor.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

On note of "Get out of America":

Sometime last year, I was riding the BART train, and some Native guy gets up to leave, and says loudly, "I hope all you foreigners have a safe trip!", to which I could only laugh, because he had the absolute right to say that.

Sadly, the train was a third full of asian folks, so I think the concept was lost on them.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

The Upper East Side is probably Manhattan's whitest neighborhood. North of it is (East) Harlem, which is still predominantly black, although it's seen a lot of gentrification in the past ten years, which means more white people moving in. And also I think other ethnicities -- especially East Asian and Southeast Asian -- but mostly white people.

[oyceter]

*nods* I sort of figured it would be a very white neighborhood, given how it reeked of upper-class-ness.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

1) I love the diversity in New York. One of my stand-out memories of last time was on my last full day (unfortunately), when this cute young black girl (very early twenties at a guess) handed me a lier and tried to invite me to a rock gig (I was in my black leather coat and feeling very Spike), before complimenting me on my Liza Minnelli look. That just summed up the whole 10 days for me.

2) smtfhw and I are currently rooting for Lewis Hamilton to make it into Formula One next year and be the first black driver at that level of the sport. In spite of that I was strangely surprised that we had two black guys at the Porsche Club meet on Tuesday night. Then again I get a lot of attention from the other members for being female and owning my own Porsche. I think car clubs are generally expected to be straight white guys with a few of their women tagging along -- certainly two of the girls that came with their menfolk had been worried about having no one to talk to.

Sorry, just babbling about my own observations again. I keep trying to compare and contrast when you post about race in the US, but I'm never sure exactly where to start.

[(Anonymous)]

Re: the "get out of America" guy.

I'm sorry that guy was such a jerk and I completely understand how frightening and embarrassing it must have been. I'm originally from Hong Kong but have lived in Vancouver ever since I was 5 years old, and I live in a suburb that is almost 40-45% (East) Asian. In the fifteen years I've lived here, I haven't really encountered any direct form of racism until earlier this year, when my mom and I were leaving the doctor's office, talking to each other in Chinese, and this Caucasian man came up to us and yelled at us to start speaking in English or go back to where we came from. We were more startled than offended, I think, because no one had really accosted us that way before. Even before this happened, I didn't think I could ever feel entirely comfortable living in North America, in a society where I will always been a visible minority, and now I'm definitely sure that I'm going back to Hong Kong after I graduate this year. (I have this theory that Asian-Americans feel more strongly connected to America than Asian-Canadians do to Canada. For starters, no one even USES the word Asian-Canadian. But this might be due to my experience as not only an immigrant, but an immigrant in a generation of immigrants that almost all leave Canada to return to Hong Kong for work. I could go into detail, but I don't want to bore you.)

I really enjoyed this post of yours, because I feel uncomfortable about other people of color sometimes (for the same reason as you --- limited exposure), but I never dare to say anything, so you go, girl.

[oyceter]

Yeah... those types of comments don't happen very often, but when they do, they're so memorable that they really taint things. I felt so unsafe after that, like it could happen any time, even though it usually didn't.

And thank you. I've been trying to own up to my own aversive racism in an attempt to get past it; but there is a long way to go still.

huh?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get it.Why do you oyceter feel uncomfortable with other minorities (particullaly black people) Did you have bad experiences?Where the minorities in question very racist?What?Do you get the same feelings with white people?While I as a black pereson have somewhat limited exposure to asians, when I'm around them I never really felt that uncomfortable, even if I'm in the minority.Maybe it's because I'm use to being in situations where I'm the only black person in an area.I don't normally see this same level of fear(is it fear?I don't want to jump to conclusions) towards asians in general.Resentment, and racist views towards them yeah, but not really fear.Nice journal by the way.

-black guy