Did you & your parents live within communities of immigrants from Asia while you were growing up? Most of my family did/does and, the times I lived in the states, I did as well. It informed and shaped my perspective on both culture and gender from an early age -- namely, that transmutative potential/reality. Watching some folks straight out assimilate and others adapt (but hold true to) our culture, it said to me I could be however I felt - there are countless ways of being.
On the exotified sexual object tip, the beat goes on... I've found it's no less gross on this side of their binary. Whereas before it was usually (older) Black men & white lesbians/queer women, now it comes from (older) gay white men.
hi, nice t'meetcha tooluckyspunkJanuary 23 2006, 05:31:07 UTC
and no, i wouldn't say i was raised in any kind of filipino-american community in the sense that there weren't like enough of us to, say, fill a certain part of town or neighborhood...
...but on the other hand, the fil-am families who *were* in the area *did* tend to find each other, and so i guess i did kinda grow up with *those* families as my "extended family," in place of my blood-related extended family, who were mostly in the philippines...
and you're right, i guess if i think about it, i still get objectified now, only differently... like i happen to personally like older guys, but i *DON'T* really dig the ones who are interested in me b/c they have some fetish for "smooth asian boys"...
Re: hi, nice t'meetcha toomeat_cookiesJanuary 24 2006, 02:04:14 UTC
Yeah, that was my experience for the most part - I guess that's what I meant by 'community' - I had more non-blood aunties, uncles, ates & kuyas than I could shake a stick at. Although it would've been cool, we didn't have a pinoy version of a chinatown, either - we simply had each other's kitchens and a few filipina-owned establishments
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Did you & your parents live within communities of immigrants from Asia while you were growing up?
Most of my family did/does and, the times I lived in the states, I did as well. It informed and shaped my perspective on both culture and gender from an early age -- namely, that transmutative potential/reality. Watching some folks straight out assimilate and others adapt (but hold true to) our culture, it said to me I could be however I felt - there are countless ways of being.
On the exotified sexual object tip, the beat goes on... I've found it's no less gross on this side of their binary. Whereas before it was usually (older) Black men & white lesbians/queer women, now it comes from (older) gay white men.
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...but on the other hand, the fil-am families who *were* in the area *did* tend to find each other, and so i guess i did kinda grow up with *those* families as my "extended family," in place of my blood-related extended family, who were mostly in the philippines...
and you're right, i guess if i think about it, i still get objectified now, only differently... like i happen to personally like older guys, but i *DON'T* really dig the ones who are interested in me b/c they have some fetish for "smooth asian boys"...
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