Hi good humans! My name is Ragini and I'm the director of this episode of Spectrum.
We're very excited to be partnering with AARP again, especially during the special month of May
which is also the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
We're celebrating this month-long celebration with AARP the nation's largest nonprofit
organization working to improve the lives of 50+ and their families.
We absolutely love AARP and their mission to empower people to choose how they live as they age
In fact, we previously partnered with them for another episode of Spectrum, "Do all Asian American Parents Think the Same?".
So if we haven't seen that make sure to check it out, but for now enjoy this episode!
Hi everyone, my name is Michelle. I'm studying chemical engineering right now. I'm a Cambodian American woman.
My name is Julie. I was born in Korea.
And I've been in the States ever since I was four. I teach Asian American Studies at Cal State Long Beach
My name is Ayesha. I was born in Pakistan and I run a used car dealership.
My name is Marjana. I was born in Bangladesh and I currently work as an associate at a financial services firm
My name is Luguma I am an undergraduate student and I am Tibetan American.
My name is Lillian
I'm going to be graduating with my undergrad in neuroscience pre-medicine. My ethnicity is Hmong American.
3, 2 ,1, go.
Yeah, I think people look at me and expect me to have soft opinions in my kind of assertion
I can tell that they did expect me to play into that stereotype and they're surprised that I didn't and then they quickly then
Shift from "okay she's not a lotus flower. She's a dragon lady, got it."
Yeah
I actually had the same experience being kind of viewed as a weak character and that consequently made me more
Hot-headed because I felt like I had to prove the opposite. So in middle school like late middle school early high school
I was really rowdy and I would, you know, like argue with people all the time
But I'm fortunate that within my own family
especially with my father, he really stood up for me.
I remember one time when I was sitting at the dinner table and
We had guests over for dinner and one older man was like, okay like you're dismissed
You can go now and my dad was like no
I want her to stay like we're having a conversation and he let me kind of contribute and debate with them and I think
That's always been a really important experience for me.
My cousin in Pakistan
She is the perfect
docile woman and she is very quiet and sweet and it almost sounds like she's whispering all the time and
Everyone in my family praises her and says that she's the perfect girl
I would sit with my legs far apart on purpose just to like piss off family members because I
hated to being told to be
Soft-spoken and bring out the chai and serve and be submissive.
From my experience,
I think I've kind of like played into it a little bit but like in the home rather or like with people of
authority and I think a lot of the way I act is
like in striving for acceptance, but like in society like I'm
Kind of I like put on my other hat and kind of headstrong
I don't want to conform to whatever you're putting me in but then for my family like I want you to love me
So I'm going to like be that daughter for you.
Three, two, one, go.
I was very fortunate to have a mom who was very lenient and
respectful, and I think that actually allowed for me to to kind of like open up more and
actually explore things that I liked and didn't like and
Naturally allowed me to create boundaries for myself.
I think that there's kind of like degrees to the tiger mom. With my mom, personally, when I was younger growing up
I remember her being pretty strict
Which I've grown to appreciate now that I'm older.
Once I start to be able to form my own opinions and be more mature, she became more lenient and kind of like a friend
I think Tiger mom's kind of get a bad rap. I also think there's a lot of misunderstanding
around them. I think Tiger moms come from
This kind of like Asian collective idea that our lives are all linked together, right?
So if you fail, we all fail. Personally, I was like a latchkey kid
So my parents were always working so I didn't have people telling me like you need to do your homework
You shouldn't be meeting these kids
I had to learn that all on my own and then eventually I was like a high school dropout
So I think Tiger moms like their biggest strength is presence, there's there
I actually completely agree with that and my parents were definitely tiger parents. That's what I grew up with
You know there there is undue pressure on the child
I still feel that today because I live with my parents. That being said I do appreciate it
I feel like I am the person that I am and I like who I am because of them
yeah.
3, 2, 1, go.
Two years ago
My mom was driving me back up to college
and like helping me move in that year and for like maybe ten minutes away from campus and she goes,
"Lilian have you found any nice, like Hmong boys there at school?" and I was like, "no mom
I haven't found any," and she's like, "oh, what about any good Christian boys," and I was like "no
I haven't found any of those either" and she's like, "uh, you know, why?"
"It's because you're so bossy. You're so impatient"
Yada, yada yada
like these are the reasons why you're still single and like you need to be a good like
You need to prepare yourself to become a good future wife
And she just continued this conversation about like how she didn't want to be the mom back at
Like back at home, at our church, but then our families in our communities to be like, yeah
My daughter's the last one out of everyone to get married.
How old were you again, Lillian?
So it's just two years ago, so I was 20.
Oh my god, you have so much time. You're still so young. It's okay
In my family, marriage is a very big thing and it also comes from just cultural
Aspects but also because my parents are Muslim. I live in a Muslim family
and so when I was younger they stressed education and they stressed like doing well and all of these other things but
Outside of that like the entire Bengali community would come up to me
they're like oh but don't work too hard because you have to be
Marketable for marriage or things like that and my parents would never say that but there was also the lingering thought that like at
21 that I would get an arranged marriage.
Asian women, growing up for me, were pure innocent virgins and
I never had a boyfriend in high school never kissed a boy. So I was very oppressed in that way
so when I was 18, I eloped and got married and
I blame a lot of that on my
hormones because I just couldn't wait any longer and the only way for me to get it was to get married and
I look back, and I think did I marry too young? I chose well because we're still married today
it's just those pressures of being an Asian woman where if I was allowed to
Be myself, then. I don't think I would have gotten married that young. We would have waited.
My mom married my dad at a very young age. Growing up, they've really instilled values of
Establishing yourself first, like getting an education, making sure that you go after what you want in life
And in fact, like they actually want me to delay it they're like don't even think about boys yet
You know you want to be a successful engineer
go get your job and go, you know, like establish yourself in a professional sense and
personal well-being
Three, two, one, go.
I think my parents' expectations
Versus what's gonna happen is a little different
They always tell me, you know, once you're married and you have a family they are your priority
You can't be taking care of us, but I I already know that there is still
This unstated expectation, this more universal expectation beyond my parents for me to take care of my parents financially,
physically when the time comes but I think my parents as individuals they don't they don't expect that from me
My parents have shared that with me too that like when I get married I'm, you know, I shouldn't be worrying about them
But I'm in a new family now and I think my answer to this question would be entirely different if I was a man
Because what the Hmong culture it's that when you get married you leave your family and you join your husband's side of the family
I see that with my older sister who recently got married, you know my mom
So it's just pushing her to like do things for her new family
But that's not going to be the case right because you know, obviously when a girl gets married she doesn't forego her old family
It's still family
Well, my parents speak English
But they have slight accents and they don't understand when somebody's being sarcastic with them or there's like a racial
microaggression. Growing up
I used to read important
Documents for my parents and try to translate them just so that they don't get in trouble with the government
And so I feel this need to almost protect them also
Do you think I sell cars because I like cars. No, my dad started the family business
Just seeing them so vulnerable in this country. I just took it upon myself
I did it because I wanted to be a good daughter
On both sides of my family on my mom's and my dad's side all of the children are very much involved in taking care of
the aging parents lives
It's really about just collectively coming together and taking care of someone who
dedicated their whole lives to taking care of you and just giving back but with my parents at least they
Don't want me to take care of them. Their only rule is that I don't put them in a nursing home
They said if anything find a really good caretaker
But just like don't kick us
You know, away and forget about us or like mistreat us
Three, two, one, go
Hell no
I never feel like I have the right to be sad or upset
I remember telling my dad for the first time that I was depressed and he just looked at me and laughed
just like, "what do you have to be depressed about?" And it's hard to explain to a man who
Literally started working when he was 12 years old
A man who had to say goodbye to his mom and dad and immigrated to this country and then like a few months later
They died. So it's like I
I just like sweep it under the rug
I think that there is such a stigma associated with mental health and
and that's why it's so difficult in my family to talk about it because I think in for Bengalis in general
mental illness
Equates to crazy like just being crazy and like for my parents
It's like you're either crazy or you're not, right?
But I remember the first time that I really realized that I was depressed
it was when I was in college and I attended Columbia and I remember just being very
Upset and I couldn't tell that to my parents, but I just told them like, you know
I really didn't want to feel this way or go to the school and I remember my mom saying
Well, at least you got to go and I was like, oh well
Now I can't feel bad because like you never had that opportunity
so like I think a lot of mental illness a lot of what we feel now is very different from our
parents'
Experiences and so they can't necessarily like relate to it
My story's a little different because I actually had depression when I was seven
And so I was a little kid and I was lucky enough to have parents who took me to a clinic to get help
I know within the Hmong community. We are very spiritual people
So if you do have a mental health illness. Oh, it's not like other factors. It's like your spirit
It's your soul. Something's wrong with your soul
um, you both talked about having guilts, like knowing that your parents went through so much and you know,
You're here living like a life better than they could, but you're still feeling down. You still feeling depressed
You still have anxiety and I think a big thing of that is like generational. There's such thing as like generational
Depression, mental health it impacts you all that.
I completely agree with you about the kind of the
Cultural gap and the generational gap. I think also in my parents language
They just grew up not even hearing about such a thing as mental health
I can talk to my family if I'm not feeling well. I can talk about the problem, but I think I do
Not directly use words like, "I don't feel mentally well" or, "I feel depressed"
because I think there is such a stigma attached to those words in the larger Asian community and in my community
3, 2, 1, go
It's kind of funny how like Asian people
Like can be used as kind of a prop to further like people's agendas
like we can be seen as a model minority and like, ok, why aren't other
Ethnicities or racial groups, you know like performing as well as them but now it's like ok
We're kind of cast in a light where we're like the reason for you know
This current issue that we're all facing globally like it's your fault and that's why a lot of people are being like physically
Like attacked it feels a little
isolating there's like
Not many people who are allies for us, but they're just like, okay. Yeah, don't target people because they're Asian
but like I still feel at home because I
Grew up here. I live here and this is home for me.
I actually feel very
differently. So I was born and raised in the US lived there for 20 years and
Just now in August, this past August, moved to Tokyo. I feel much more at home in Asia
Actually than I do in America. I think it's just been all my
experiences kind of
Accumulated growing up and I don't really miss America much surprisingly and that really surprised me because that's where I grew up
It's my native language, it's my native home
So I was raised both here in the United States and in South Asia
And I've never felt a hundred percent like when I'm in Pakistan, I'm the American
Then when I'm here I'm the Pakistani, and so neither place has treated me
as like, I'm a hundred percent I belong there and that's my home and I've come to terms, you know
It's never gonna be like that
But it's okay
This entire time that I've been here like South Asians Muslim Americans. We have been ostracized and
Now I'm saying there is this shift it's going to East Asians and my heart goes out to you guys
But it might never really go away
Once you get that hit, it kind of stays with your community
I was actually just going to say that I mean I am NOT personally affected like I'm not part of one of the ethnic groups
That's been harmed or targeted because of COVID-19
but speaking to
9/11 and the backlash from that I don't see that going away and I feel like
This may not go away either and it's unfortunate that
Minorities aren't allies
always and they should be because in times like these we need people to speak up for us when we
Don't have a voice or feel threatened
I think right now we kind of have this flourishing of Asian American storytelling, right?
There's affirmative action which by the way, absolutely
benefits Asian-Americans, too
So we see Asian-Americans in these different spaces that we hadn't seen them before
But I think the Yellow Peril idea never really went away that it is what Asian Americans still are
And it's just we can put as much paint over it as we want
But all it takes is one virus and then that comes right back up
You know a lot of Asian Americans are like we need other people to stand up with us
We need other people of color to condemn this but I'm like we didn't really step up for these other people either
I can't expect, we can't expect other people of color to care
When they remember when they were going through something similar and we were like, "Sorry, I'm the model minority"
I can help you. You know. I just I think there's such a trauma within each of our groups
and we don't realize that we'd be so much stronger if we could just see how similar we are
And also, despite 9/11, the reason why I selected agree
It's because I still feel like I'm entitled to share the same spaces of other people so I still consider the U.S.
My home, I feel like I belong here and no one could really take that away from me. Even if they try.
I wish I could give you all a hug right now. It's really nice to
Know that other people like share similar experiences and to like learn about your backgrounds as well. Yeah
This has been really enlightening just talking to people from all over with a lot of different backgrounds
So thank you for achieving such a diverse cohort. It's been really nice
Thanks again to AARP for sponsoring this episode of spectrum. For over sixty years AARP has been serving its people and their communities
They're also educating about frauds and scam and giving tips on how to lessen the stress and anxiety during this time
AARP also offers resources and tools to help us as we age
Like tips on how to make home safer for people to age in place and even a free online
Caregiving guide that can help us begin to prepare to care for our loved ones
After all all of us will either be a caregiver or need care and during this time of social distancing
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For more information on the many ways in which AARP is serving its community, please visit the website
Thank you for watching this episode and I'll see you next time and I think it feels really nice to be back on set
It's a bit different