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

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