Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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> As second or third generation Americans, they aren’t quite homogenized enough to be Americans.

They are as homogenized as they choose to be. I enjoy M. Night Shyamalan‘s cameos, where there will be a random brown guy in a town full of white people and nobody will comment on it. Because that’s what life is like as an Asian in America 99% of the time.

> But as not born in China/India/etc, they are obviously soft decadent Americans.

But they are though. Which is why “Asian” American content is usually so awful to watch as an immigrant. So often it’s about rejecting Asian culture and values in favor of European ones, while complaining about people sometimes making fun of your school lunch or noticing that you look like your parents didn’t fight in the American Revolution. (I’m looking at you Mindy Kaling.)

> It’s like saying the Godfather isn’t valid art because Fellini made movies in Italy.

I’ve never met an Italian American that purports to have some special affinity for The Godfather. They don’t care whether Coppola was Italian nor do they care Brando wasn’t the least bit Italian. It would be silly for a second or third generation Italian American to hold out the distinctiveness of their identity the way you see similarly assimilated Asian Americans do.

The Godfather is famously popular with Italian Americans, to a degree that was newsworthy in 1972 and people still write think pieces about it today. My cousin on the Italian side of the family started a Godfather-themed sandwich shop in Saugus, where he was out-competed by the existing Goodfellas-themed sandwich shop in Saugus. Italian Americans love The Godfather like Irish Americans love the Dropkick Murphys.

Everyone’s different. My neighbor is Greek and 90, she doesn’t speak fluent English. Her kids and grandkids are still Greek to the core but are regular Americans too. Great people.

I’m a second generation Irish American. I grew up in a NYC neighborhood that was heavily Irish and Italian. My grandparents and parents were into Irish orgs. My grandparents were in a fraternal society for the county they were from, we had a lot of extended family within a few minutes of where we lived.

That affinity faded, for good and for bad. My uncle dating an Italian girl was mildly scandalous in the 80s. (“My son, getting married at St Anthony’s parish? Gasp!”) Thats not a thing for our generation.

We’re fortunate to live in a society where it’s ok to do you. Art is an expression of how we think and feel, and these expressions are a good thing. How awesome is it the the mass culture of Indians has evolved from some version of Apu from the Simpsons to some level of actual representation of the cultures of the subcontinent?

> We’re fortunate to live in a society where it’s ok to do you. Art is an expression of how we think and feel, and these expressions are a good thing

That sentiment is an example of white American individualism. It would be out of place in say India or China, but similar sentiment is widely embraced in “Asian” American identity and media. Oftentimes it will be in the form of conflict between whitewashed children and their Asian parents. Which highlights my point—it’s brown/yellow-face over white American culture. It’s a fabricated cultural identity worn as “pieces of flair.”

> That affinity faded, for good and for bad. My uncle dating an Italian girl was mildly scandalous in the 80s. (“My son, getting married at St Anthony’s parish? Gasp!”) Thats not a thing for our generation.

Because they’re not meaningfully Irish or Italian at this point. If there were real cultural differences, then there would be conflict.

> How awesome is it the the mass culture of Indians has evolved from some version of Apu from the Simpsons to some level of actual representation of the cultures of the subcontinent?

To the contrary, it’s a farce. The “representation” of Indians in media these days is mostly just brown people acting like white people. Apu is much more realistic.

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