Cultural Differences: Between Friends

Recently, I was waxing nostalgic with a childhood friend about the moment she realized I wasn't white. We were in eighth grade, monopolizing the phone as tweens do, when she had her epiphany. "You never noticed even when I don't speak English to my parents?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "Well, I guess I never thought about it," she said. "Vietnamese just sounds like quack quack quack to me." Those were really old, good days, pre-race consciousness, when we just talked about Animaniacs and laughed all the time.

Now, friendships are fraught with complications like dating, wealth-consciousness, and race. The race landmines can be awkward and mostly harmless as this Facebook message from an acquaintance:

“you'd be so proud of my current asianness. i just made authentic pho soup.”

(She’d also declared herself an “honorary Asian” over spring rolls when I saw her last month. It’s awkward, because it sounds like a lunch special could stand in for all refugee, assimilation, and minority experiences.) The landmines can also be as scathing as someone (our generation, my race, and just last week) suggesting that my dating someone who isn't Asian is a failure of character and a personal betrayal. That person and I may never speak again.

It’s common for majority-folks to disclaim, “It's impossible for me to put myself in your shoes, and experience what you must feel every day.” I disagree. Most people have had at least one searing experience with alienation - perhaps as a woman in a male-dominated field or as the fat kid in a skinny school. Many people, though, use it as a card to win some unspoken victimization contest, rather than as a foundation for understanding.

Once, a girlfriend and I got into a serious email exchange after two nights out: one where I’d gotten us on the list at Verve (she was one of the few white people there and decided to leave) and the other when she’d invited me to East Andrews (I was one of the few people of color, and didn't enjoy the 80s rock cover band). We both said some things after drinking some things, I think. Sober, she wrote, “It makes me angry that people of other races assume that I’ve never been discriminated against when they discriminate more against me than I ever have or will against them. Since I’m white, that’s what they expect from me.” There are two kinds of discrimination here, and both must exist simultaneously to exist at all. Conversely, if one goes, the other evaporates, too.

It can be done. First, minorities have to acknowledge that white friends are trying and missteps don’t constitute racism; this way, we can all get on the same team. (That’s one of the two twin racisms.)

Second, majorities have to stop being defensive to the point of killing discussion before it starts. Out of frustration, some people refuse to discuss cultural or racial differences at all, because they feel that acknowledging them gives prejudice power. But like anger or addiction, we can't get rid of something we don't acknowledge.

Thirdly, never argue against each other. Argue for understanding. Trust that you want to understand your friend as much as she wants to understand you, even –especially- when the conversation starts out uncomfortably. These exchanges rarely come up casually, and when they do, no one wants to lose a friend over it. About these landmines, she wrote, “It makes me angry that I can cause pain and pour salt into this wound every time I open my mouth without even knowing it.” When any of us don’t know, it’s because we're all reluctant to educate each other. I wrote her, “I know your heart enough to refuse to believe that you would choose to continue to cause pain unknowingly.”

We grew closer in these days of emails than we had in years of nights out. Difference is often where the beauty of friendship lies.

My Countrymen

Usually, my poetry performances are debaucherous affairs, but I took a more serious tack this last reading at Java Monkey. These poems are from my recent feature, and together, they describe how I have experienced this country: the beauty and energy as well as the violence and xenophobia. To truly love a place, like America, I think one needs to see clearly its virtues as well as its faults.

This one's about the beauty:


This one's about some violence:


This is about my grandmother, and by extension, me:


This is a crowd favorite, but it's angry, or at least loudly disappointed:


This is about hip hop. What is more American than hip hop?


Thanks to everyone who came out! Sorry it took so long for me to post the vids! All the books I cited during the reading are in the Amazon box in the sidebar
Peace and poetry,
Ivy

Cultural Differences: The Part That Sucks

A few years ago, I was at J. Strom Thurmond Lake on Memorial Day with a boyfriend's family, white Americans who had been here for several generations. There, because I speak Spanish, his mother asked me to talk to a Mexican family that had just arrived. They were unpacking at our tables and had a bag of coal to use the grills.

I explained as respectfully as possible (the father was my father's age) that our family had rented this space for the day. They didn't buy it at first, so I showed them the sign posted with our reservation. I said we'd be glad to share some picnic tables, but our group was so big that we really did need both grills to cook. I apologized but of course, they said it was no problem and collected their kids -already dripping from jumping in the lake- to find another picnic area. About 20 minutes later, I remembered the parking attendant had told us that all of the areas had been reserved. I felt horrible that I hadn't thought to warn that family. I imagined them going around the whole lake being asked to leave, sometimes politely, sometimes not.

I could imagine what they were thinking, because my family came to America in 1980, and we had been in similar situations before I was old enough to handle things like reservations. We were thankful for a holiday we didn't understand, often the first day in months when the whole family could be together, sometimes the first day in weeks either parent had had off. So the parents think, "What's something affordable that will be fun for our children today?" It seems so simple to go pick up some food, a bag of coal, and floaties for the kids to go to the lake, but it never turns out to be that easy. How are people who don't own boats supposed to know that public spaces at the lake need to be reserved weeks ahead of time?

But that's not the part that sucks about cultural differences. That was the part that sucks about being new immigrants.

A couple weeks later, that boyfriend and I went out to dinner with his uncle. He told us that his sister, my boyfriend's mother, had been telling the story of how "Ivy 'took care' of the Mexicans" with brio to anyone who would listen. I was horrified that she saw me as this bully (and was proud of it!), and even more horrified that her brother and my boyfriend thought it was a great story. My boyfriend thought it was good news that his mom was so fond of me. After dinner, we got into an unusually emotional argument that led nowhere. It took me days to articulate myself.

Ultimately, I was upset, because I felt that if his mother really understood that my family is like that Mexican family and that I am not at all like her, she'd want to get rid of me like she wanted to get rid of "them." That's probably the only time I've ever felt something close to shame about where I come from. We eventually broke up, not because of this situation but not for reasons completely unrelated to it either.

The part that sucks about cultural differences is that you can't entertain the fantasy of loving in a vacuum. There is no final "We made it!" or "happily ever after." Walls between all of us, rooted from the time of Babel, long before you fell in love or met or were even born, can rear up between you any day of the week. Those days, differences dwarf love, and one feels hollow inside like watching your father cry for the first time or learning about death after seeing your dog run over by a car. Love is precious, but it doesn't trump everything, so when you have the chance to root for love, please, shut up and do it.