Portrayals of Asian Guys with Latino, Black, White, & Mixed Girls

Asian men are rarely in interracial marriages, according to the US Census. And they're often stereotyped as unmanly, sexually undesirable, or emasculated.

But the media still depicts them in interracial relations. Here are some examples.

Guide:

E - East Asian

SE - Southeast Asian

S - South Asian

"South Asian" means countries like India, Pakistani, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

Movies

All My Life - E

American Beauty - E
Anna and the King - SE
As Long As We're Together - SE
Battle Creek Brawl - E
Bel Canto - E

Blue Bayou - E
Bridge to the Sun - E
Broken Blossoms - E
Bullet to the Head - E
Cavite - SE
Cinderella - SE
Cities of Last Things - E
Columbus - E
Combination Platter - E
Cosmopolitan - S
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story - E
Earthquake Bird - E
Fakin' Da Funk - SE
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - E
Fast & Furious - E
Fast Five - E
Fast & Furious 6 - E
Game of Death - E
Harold & Kumar (all 3 movies) - E
Hiroshima Mon Amour - E
In Another Country - E
Japanese Story - E
Johnny Tsunami - E
Just a Kiss - S
Kites - S
Lagaan - S

La Nuit Venue ("Night Comes") - E
Leonie - E
Lion - S

Lost Girls and Love Hotels - E
A Majority of One - E
Mao's Last Dancer - E
Man Up - E
Never Forever - E
Ode to My Father - E
Romeo Must Die - E
Seventh Moon - E
Shanghai Kiss - E
Sophie and the Rising Sun - E

Spider-Man: Far From Home - SE
Stratosphere Girl - E
Subject: I Love You - SE
The Bitter Tea of General Yen - E
The Cheetah Girls: One World - S
The Crimson Kimono - E
The Edge of Seventeen - E
The Hedgehog - E
The Hundred-Foot Journey - S
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness - E
The Jungle Book - S
The Kids Are All Alright - S
The King and I - SE
The Last Godfather - E
The Lover - SE

The Medallion - E
The Night Train to Kathmandu - S
The Ramen Girl - E

The Spy Next Door - E
The Sun is Also a Star - E
Tokyo Fiancée - E
We Were Soldiers - E

TV Series

21 Thunder - SE
2 Broke Girls - E
Alexa & Katie - E
Amber - E
American Vandal (Season 2) - E
Black Mirror - E
Black Mirror: White Christmas - E
Community - E
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - SE
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders - mixed E
CSI: Cyber - E
Degrassi: Next Class - E
Dramaworld - E
FlashForward - E
Fresh Off the Boat - E
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - SE
Giri/Haji - E
Hawaii Five-0 (multiple) - E
Heroes - E
Homeland - S
Into the Badlands
iZombie - S
Last Tango in Halifax - S
Living with Models
Martial Law - E

Massan
Selfie - E
Skins
Supernatural
The Man in the High Castle - E

The Nine Lives of Chloe King - E
The Simpsons (3 times) - E, S
The O.C. (2 times)
The Walking Dead - E
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - SE
Video Game High School - E
White Teeth - S

Theater
Allegiance - E
A Majority of One - E
Soft Power - E
The King and I - SE
The North China Lover - E

Books

A Long Way Home
America Is In the Heart
Anna and the King of Siam
Bel Canto
Bridge to the Sun
China Blues
Everything I Never Told You

Lost Girls and Love Hotels
Mao's Last Dancer
On Gold Mountain
State of Wonder
Station Eleven
The Earthquake Bird
The Girl From Junchow
The Japanese Lover
The Lola Quartet
The Lotus Eaters
The Lover
The North China Lover
The Russian Concubine
The Sun is Also a Star
Tokyo Fiancée
White Teeth

You've Reached Sam

Do you know others? Please mention them in the comments.

French Native Americans

This is my English translation of this French article.

Those American Indians who speak French

by Jean-Michel Selva

Father Roch Naquin, Houma Catholic priest

The Houma tribe of Louisiana speak French the way it was used in the 18th century. But the destruction of their environment by oil companies threatens the harmony of this ethnolinguistic community.

They are the cousins of the Apaches and the Sioux. Their skin is red and they speak our language, or rather, that of Montesquieu. Houma Indians are the forgotten ones in the history of Louisiana, where they had to seek refuge from advancing white settlers from England in 1765, following the Expulsion of the Acadians. Already 30 km (18.6 mi) out from Houma, a little town south of New Orleans, and still nothing in sight except a narrow strip of land jutting out into the water. The huge 4x4 Chevrolet Silverado of Thomas Dardar Jr (below), community leader of the Houma Indians, speeds ahead of us and guides us across Isle de Jean Charles. Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the road, which sinks into the bayous towards the Gulf of Mexico, has just been rebuilt.

Finally, rising in the distance are Pointe-aux-Chenes and breathtaking houses on pilotis, a sort of mobile homes erected on wooden stilts, overlooking the lagoon. "Watch Pipeline", warn signs stuck in the middle of the waters, extending out from either side of the road. A few dead trees, eaten away by salt, are the only ones accompanying us on this road. In this abandoned setting live the majority of the French-speaking Houma Indians.

Black pants, turquoise shirt, and a vest with Indian designs on which his braid sways back and forth, stretching down his back, the leader Dardar stops between the pilotis under a huge yellow dwelling. Father Roch Naquin comes to welcome him, they greet each other with open arms, very French indeed.

Allies of the French

"At the end of the 17th century, before the strained relations between French and English settlers, our community naturally formed an alliance with the former, because the explorers Cavelier de La Salle and Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville had always been supportive of it," explains Thomas Dardar. "As a result, our ancestors learned the French language, and passed it down to us orally. The vast majority of the Houma can neither read it nor write it, but they always speak it."

Banned from schools for being Indians, the Houma were eventually allowed to enroll in public education starting in 1964. But until 1975, they were punished whenever they dared to say a sentence in French. For this tribe of American Indians, a three-century-old form of French was able to endure, because of the cultural importance of oral tradition and their practice of it without contact with the outside world.

The Houma thus saved from oblivion expressions like: catin (harlot/whore/prostitute) for poupée (doll); char (chariot/tank/ wagon) for automobile (car); espérer (hoping) for attendre (waiting); s'épailler (removing dirt from badly forged gold) for s'étendre (stretching/spreading/expanding); and even "icitte" for "ici" (here), "au boutte" for "au bout" (at the end)...They mix as many words with Choctaw, their ancestors' language.

"The State of Louisiana granted us Indian nation status only in 1979," notes Thomas Dardar, "but we're still waiting for federal recognition, already rejected in 1994." "We here are the roughly 17,000 Houma Indians, divided into three clans, united by the use of the French tongue." Father Roch Naquin like to say he considers himself French and Indian. "My ancestor Charles came from the Bordeaux region and married an Indian. Here on Isle de Jean Charles, my father and those of his age spoke and wrote French. He then learned English, unlike my mother who never wanted to. Today only the eldest of my neighbors refuse to. The youngest became English speakers. It will be hard to preserve our language." At 55 years old, even the chief Thomas Dardar who's mastered French perfectly uses the American language more often. This generation of Houmas in their fifties may be the last to express themselves in the language of Molière. The last surviving link to a way of life that's already no more.

A Difficult Life

"Forests with tall trees used to grow here," recalls Chief Dardar. "Over there, my grandfather raised cattle in the meadows where muskrats would run," points Roch. "We had horses to plow the land, which produced enough to feed us. With the intensive oil drilling, salt water has leaked everywhere, it continues to eat our land and destroy all the vegetation."

To survive, the Houma community, scorned by everyone for centuries, turned to fishing. Some of them have managed to become lawyers and doctors, others have left to work in the shipyards. But for one year now, because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Houma can no longer fish like before. Skin diseases and respiratory problems have emerged. "They seem to be linked to BP spreading solvents to get rid of the oil slick floating in the gulf."

This fragile community is plagued and weakened even more: "very few among us have access to adequate social welfare," laments chief Dardar. "We've also suffered from the last four hurricanes. My house has been raised higher above ground on three occasions in twenty years, the roofing replaced a number of times. Leave and go elsewhere? No, no, this here is my house, this is the land of our ancestors," protests Father Roch Naquin.

First White child

In Australia, the first baby with European ancestry was born on January 26, 1788. In the US, the first was in the 1560s, and in Canada, it was probably in the early 18th century. During colonial times, people in European colonies would often celebrate the birth of the "first White child" in their settlements. There was once an American postage stamp that celebrated the first European baby in North Carolina, USA (picture above).

When I learned about this, my first reaction was "that's racist!" If anyone celebrated something like that today, it would be the Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazis. And then I thought, "is it really racist?"

Celebrating White/Caucasian ethnic heritage is a lot more controversial these days because many people will think it's White supremacy or racism. A really good example of this is when Lisa McClelland (picture at left), a high school girl in California, tried to start a "Caucasian Club" 4 years ago, and it became a national controversy.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of your White/European heritage, but Whites/Europeans have been overrepresented throughout history and Eurocentrism has historically been a "normal" thing, so people might misunderstand you. Non-European heritages should definitely be celebrated because they've always been ignored, but celebrating Asian, Black, Latino, and indigenous cultures should never mean looking down upon European heritages. That's what Whites/Europeans have done to other people throughout history, and doing that to them would just reverse the hatred, when there should be no hatred in the first place.


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Polite racist people

Last week was Martin Luther King Day and next week is Black History Month. We're in the middle of African-American celebrations and many African-Americans themselves are in the middle of being Black and non-Black (which I explained last week). This gray area of Black identity can sometimes lead to interestingly racist situations. Like this African-American woman who was served at a White-only diner:

KANSAS SIT-IN GETS ITS DUE AT LAST

Carol Parks-Haun was doing a sit-in protest against racial segregation at a diner in Kansas, when, to her surprise, she wasn't discriminated against:

Parks-Haun remembers entering (the diner). She sat down on the center stool and ordered a coke, but didn't think the waitress would actually serve her. [...] "She gave it to me and I said, 'oh my,' and the others came in and they sat and she looked at them -- and she looked at me -- and she leaned forward and she said, 'You are not colored are you dear?'"

"You are not colored are you dear?"? I never knew people could be polite and racist at the same time.

Of course, it's possible that the waitress wasn't prejudiced herself; she could've been just following orders. But I thought the whole point of prejudice was to prejudge people? Not ask them about themselves and then judge them. Can you see why it's weird to ask someone what race they are, just so you can say something racist? If you're going to discriminate someone, at least be confident about it. (Of course, it's better to not discriminate at all).


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Muslims are not a race

In honor of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, the San Francisco Chronicle has a story about how Muslims are victims of racial stereotypes, even though Islam is a religion and not a race.

Middle Eastern people aren't the only ones suffering this kind of racism. Like the article says:

A new racial stereotype is emerging in America. Brown-skinned men with beards and women with head scarves are seen as "Muslims" -- regardless of their actual faith or nationality.

TYPECASTING MUSLIMS AS A RACE

Jim Crow in Japan

For a country where one ethnicity makes up over 99% of the population, it's understandable why racism isn't a such a big deal. But when I saw these signs, which are common in modern-day Japan, I couldn't help but feel shocked.



















































This kind of thing is accepted?! One of the most industrialized and developed countries in the world is actually fine with racial discrimination!? Don't they realize that there will ALWAYS be some sort of gray area about who is Japanese and who isn't? Not to mention, this kind of thing could damage foreign relations with other countries. And not everyone is going to be either 0% Japanese or 100% Japanese. Not only am I talking about mixed-race people, but also Japanese citizens who aren't ethnically Japanese.

The website where I got the pictures above from belongs to a Japanese citizen who isn't Japanese by blood. At one point, he tried entering a club that said "Japanese only," but they wouldn't let him in--even after he showed them his Japanese passport. Obviously, those "Japanese only" signs are referring to race and ethnicity rather than nationality.

It makes me wonder how they react to part-Japanese people. Most likely they would consider them to be non-Japanese.

Most people would agree that racism is outdated, but in no way is it gone. Even in the racially diverse United States, where Jim Crow laws for segregation no longer exist, ethnic bigotry lives on quietly among the few hate groups that still exist. Japan is an even more fertile ground for racism because it's not diverse. Even if Japan is one the most successful economies in the world, and one of the most advanced countries on Earth, its race relations are anything but successful and advanced.