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Old Posted Jun 8, 2022, 10:54 PM
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Asian Latinos: These mixed families represent California’s future

From the Los Angeles Times:

Asian Latinos: These mixed families represent California’s future



Mexican Chinese couple Beatriz Ortega, left, and Ivan Liu with their children at their home in Rosemead, Calif.(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

BY BRITTNY MEJIA, ANH DO, SANDHYA KAMBHAMPATI
MAY 31, 2022 6:53 AM PT

Emily Liu’s life is a series of balancing acts.

She speaks Chinese with her father and Spanish with her mother. Visiting her parents’ homelands takes her to Harbin in northern China and a small town in the Mexican state of Zacatecas.

Perhaps most of all, it’s how she’s perceived by others, as if she were a living Rorschach test — Asian to some and Latina to others.

“Some friends say they see Asian features. I don’t see any,” the soft-spoken teenager said. “I also don’t see any Latina. I don’t see any of it.”

Asians and Latinos are the two fastest-growing ethnic groups in the country, making up about a quarter of the U.S. population, according to 2019 Census data.

But even in places like the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 80% of residents are either Asian or Latino, few people are both. To belong to both groups simultaneously can be a study in loneliness and confusion.

California is home to more Asian Latinos than any other state in the U.S. — at least 250,000, most of whom live in Los Angeles County. But that’s still a tiny slice of the nearly 40 million people who reside in the Golden State, 15% of whom are Asian and 39% Latino.

As the Asian and Latino populations continue to grow, fueled by both immigration and birthrates, mixed offspring will become increasingly common.

People like Liu may offer a glimpse of California and the nation’s future, with all its complexities of language, culture and identity.

Being Asian Latino can spark pride, especially for young people who spend much of their lives online. There are profiles, listicles and TikTok videos. Self-described “Lasians” can eat dim sum in the morning and enchiladas that night.

In a TikTok video with more than 1 million views, Nicole Ngo, an Angeleno, asks what you get when you mix a Chinese father with a Mexican mother: “2 kids with an identity crisis.”

It’s a joke, 24-year-old Ngo said, that’s rooted in truth.

Many young Asian Latinos are grappling with who they are, struggling with the stereotypes, judgments and expectations of the world, dealing with confusion that even their parents — one solely Asian, the other solely Latino — can be hard pressed to comprehend.

They’re also witnesses to a cultural identity shaped by each side, sometimes resulting in a unique blend.

Ngo’s Mexican mother told her kids to kiss and hug their Chinese grandmother, which is not customary in Asian culture.

“Because my mom was doing that, my cousins were told to do the same thing. As time went on, the next 10 years, now that’s how we greet each other,” Ngo said. “We go down the line and hug every single aunt and uncle, hug every single cousin, just like we do with our Mexican side. It somehow bled into my Chinese culture, because of my mom’s impact.”

Liu’s parents met nearly two decades ago while attending English as a second language classes in Alhambra — a city that is 52% Asian and 35% Latino, according to census data.

In their engagement photos, Beatriz Ortega and Ivan Liu wore Chinese-style jackets, hers red, his blue.

Five kids later, sometimes their communication is still muddled. Liu doesn’t speak any Spanish and Ortega knows only a little Chinese. Their English is still a work in progress.

“I think that in love, language is not an issue,” Liu said. (And, as Ortega jokes, it helps prevent arguments.)

For other couples, the challenge was not a language barrier but a cultural one.

Grace Lee-Navarrete, who is Chinese American and grew up in Monterey Park, met her now-husband, Agustin, who is Mexican, through a mutual friend.

Although her parents wanted her to date someone Chinese, Lee-Navarrete never did. When it came time to tell her family about her serious relationship with Agustin, she said, “everything blew up.”

Her father flew to China to speak with his pastor, who “talked some sense” into him, according to Lee-Navarrete.

Her father walked her down the aisle, and she and Agustin have been married for more than 20 years.

Lee-Navarrete, 51, says that for her three kids, “nothing is forbidden. Nothing is hidden.” They “don’t have to sneak around.”

Despite not marrying someone Chinese, Lee-Navarrete made it a point to incorporate her culture into her children’s lives.

Her maternal grandfather chose her daughters’ middle names: Lauren’s is Yu-Lan, meaning “jade flower,” while Alyssa’s is Yu-Tzeng, meaning “precious jade.”

“I want them to understand their heritage and where they come from,” Lee-Navarrete said.

Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra is 70% Asian and 22% Latino. But students who are both are relatively rare.

At The Times’ request, a group of four — including Liu — gathered in the cafeteria last fall to talk about navigating their identity.


From left, Mark Keppel High School students Matthew Sy, Emiko Luna Hernandez, Emily Liu and Isaac Guo Meyer. All have both Asian and Latino heritage. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)


Emiko Luna Hernandez’s mother is Japanese Mexican and her father Mexican; Isaac Guo Meyer’s father is Mexican and his mother Chinese; Matthew Sy’s mother is Chinese and his father Salvadoran.

The two girls and two boys, seated in a semi-circle, were quiet at first but quickly found common ground.

They described the Asian side of their families as more “formal,” whereas on the Latino side their relatives were more easygoing.

They pushed back on stereotypes of Asian parents being stricter about school. Liu said her Mexican mom is more disciplined when it comes to academics.

“When I usually tell people that my mom cares about my grades, they say, ‘I thought your dad would,’” Liu, now 18, who recently graduated, said later.

They shared the food fusions in their households, such as eating tamales and Mexican fried rice while making dumplings at the same table.

That, however, is where the similarities ended.

While Liu speaks Mandarin and Spanish, her classmates tended to have a firm grasp on only one of their parents’ languages. And how they’re perceived by others varies.

“I think I kind of look Filipino to some people,” said 10th-grader Luna Hernandez.

Just the day before, Sy said, someone in class had also asked him if he was Filipino.

“If I’m hanging out with my entire group of Asian friends, in that moment I feel like an Asian,” said 18-year-old Isaac Guo Meyer. “And sometimes I might just see my reflection and then I see, of everyone in the group, I just look different from other people.

“My friends don’t treat me any differently because of it,” Guo Meyer added, “but it makes me view myself differently, where I feel like, ‘Am I Asian enough to be with my group of friends?’”

Cristina Ruiz, 21, captured the experience of being Asian Latino in a series of profiles she wrote last year for UnidosUS, a Washington-based advocacy and civil rights group where she worked as a summer education policy intern.

Ruiz, who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, is Mexican and Chinese. Her grandpa, who is Mexican, met her grandma, who is Chinese, while the two worked in the Sears building in Boyle Heights.

Her identity is something she’s discussed often with her twin sister, “the only one who really understands what it’s like to grow up in an Asian community, right next to a Mexican one, and being both but not really being either.”

For one profile, Ruiz connected with her friend Arie Lea Kuo, who is Taiwanese and Mexican.

“When Arie Lea was younger, kids in the Asian community where she grew up in Monterey Park only seemed to believe the part of her identity that was obvious,” Ruiz wrote.

“I definitely look more Latino than Asian,” Kuo told Ruiz, noting that even with her last name, kids often said, “No way you’re Asian.”

During their conversation, Ruiz and Kuo commiserated about their hesitation to join cultural clubs in high school, “because we wondered, ‘Are we going to appropriate our own culture?’”

“I think just talking about these issues with other people that I knew for a while just really showed me how common my experiences were,” Ruiz said. “Hopefully, other people realize that there’s others like them. I didn’t realize that for a long time.”

The signs outside the San Gabriel Valley church touted services in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

Before Beatriz Ortega sent her children off to their youth groups, she instructed her youngest son, “Pórtate bien.” Behave.

When Ortega married Liu, she was Catholic, and he was an evangelical Christian.

Now, Ortega has been attending Liu’s evangelical church for more than a decade. She sits in the English service, the only Latina in the room, while her husband goes to the Mandarin service.

After the service, Ortega and daughter Emily walked arm in arm at Fiesta Alhambra, an event celebrating Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month.

When she’s out with her mom, Emily Liu said, people comment that she looks more Latina.


Emily Liu and her mother, Beatriz Ortega, shop during Fiesta Alhambra, which celebrates Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month.(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Mother and daughter bought strawberries and kale and browsed the handmade Mexican blankets. When the vendors spoke in Spanish, Emily Liu had no difficulty understanding.

In the Liu household, “Happy Birthday” is sung in Chinese, English and Spanish.

When she has kids, Emily Liu said, she plans to speak with them in Mandarin and Spanish — the languages bequeathed by her mother and father.


Link: https://www.latimes.com/california/s...ifornia-future
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 12:46 AM
jd3189 jd3189 is offline
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I believe it. It's already true where I live. I play ball with a lot of Mexicans, Koreans, Filipinos, and other Latinos and Asians more so than guys who are African American or European American.

There isn't a lot of mixing yet between Asians and Latinos, as the article states. Still see a lot of white and Asian mixed couples. But it's possibly inevitable as more white middle class Californians leave the state. And Black Californians were never that big relatively population wise. So for the future of this state, it will be Latinos and Asians running things more and more.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 12:52 AM
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Here we go with more Americans being obsessed with every fraction of DNA in every single person.

California is diverse, duh. Its a good thing. We don't need to be obsessed with genetics, though.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 12:52 AM
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 1:19 AM
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Originally Posted by bossabreezes View Post
Here we go with more Americans being obsessed with every fraction of DNA in every single person.

California is diverse, duh. Its a good thing. We don't need to be obsessed with genetics, though.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 1:57 AM
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This subject reminds me of another article from a couple months ago:

How did a Thai restaurant chain become so beloved by immigrants from Mexico and Central America?

Frank Shyong
Los Angeles Times
April 8, 2022

When two Nicaraguan Uber drivers told me that a Thai place in Koreatown was their favorite restaurant in Los Angeles, I grew curious.

Then a Salvadoran driver emphatically recommended the same restaurant. Next, a driver from Guatemala told me the same thing.

This is how I found out about Ocha Classic, a Thai restaurant beloved by Central Americans, Mexicans and Latinos familiar with Koreatown. Since it opened in 1985 in Koreatown, the restaurant has expanded to seven locations on the strength of a highly loyal, and almost entirely Latino, clientele — though three locations were forced to close during the pandemic.

Although they have never advertised or done any marketing, most locations feature long lines and wait times of up to an hour. The restaurant is so successful that it has spawned dozens of copycats with various spellings of “Ocha,” a Thai word that means delicious.

Ocha also caters quinceañeras and weddings. The two busiest days of the year are Mother’s Day and Mexican Mother’s Day, El Dia de la Madre. You can tell which Central American soccer teams are doing well by counting the jerseys in the dining room. And for many of its customers, Ocha Classic is the only Thai food they’ve ever had.

Among customers and restaurant staff, theories abound as to how the connection was forged.

Dolly Porsawatdee, 30, who runs the restaurant with her family, thinks it’s probably a culinary happenstance.

Poh Tak, a spicy, sour Thai seafood soup prepared with lemongrass, chicken broth and basil, tastes somewhat similar to caldo de siete mares, a seafood soup flavored with chicken broth, lime and epazote served all over Mexico, Central and South America.

One soup uses Thai chilis, and the other chile de árbol, but no one seems to care about the difference.

At Ocha Classic, most customers order the soup with its Spanish name. It’s the most popular dish at the restaurant, thanks in no small part to the camera-ready flames flaring from the center of each hot pot dish.

Stanley Cruz, 35, dining with his family on a recent weekday, says the restaurant’s seafood soup is a popular hangover cure among Salvadorans.

“It’s like a rite of passage — that’s why I came for the first time,” Cruz said.

His wife, Sylvia, says it’s fast, efficient and affordable. People with busy schedules, especially immigrants, she said, like that the food comes out within a few minutes, and always steaming hot. The large portion sizes help, too.

Another theory posits that Central American immigrants found the restaurant because there was a popular Central American grocery, Liborio Market, located across the street.

Miguel, visiting his family from New Mexico, isn’t sure how he found out about the restaurant. But he used to eat there all the time when he was driving a truck in Los Angeles more than a decade ago and the food fills him with nostalgia. He and his family drove all the way from Downey and they had been waiting for 45 minutes.

“When he flew in, he was like, first thing, I want to go to the fire soup place,” said his niece, Lucy Cova.

Porsawatdee says the relationship between Ocha Classic and its customers really began after the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

When the looters came, homeless people stood in front of the windows to block bricks and bottles. People from the neighborhood helped stand watch and argued with protesters. It was the only building on the block that didn’t burn down, Porsawatdee said.

It seemed like their way to say thank you, Porsawatdee said. The restaurant has always fed homeless people and hungry locals with its leftovers, even after reprimands from city officials.

As the city burned, Ocha Classic stayed open at all hours of the night and day, serving as a kind of crisis cafeteria for anyone and everyone. Looters, protesters and homeless people dined shoulder to shoulder with the National Guard and police officers.

Having employees in the building helped protect it, said Pai, the owner, who asked to be known by her first name for privacy concerns. And they decided to feed everyone that would give them a chance.

“No one deserved to go without food, and my staff agreed that we had a responsibility to feed the community,” said Pai.

Since then, their customers became almost entirely Latino. The restaurant gradually took over four neighboring storefronts and now covers almost half a block. It’s not that they didn’t try to cater to Thai people, Porsawatdee said. It’s just that they were thrilled to have the customers that they did.

Some of the wait staff have worked there for more than 40 years. Porsawatdee grew up in the restaurant, and she’s watched generations of customers grow up too.

She wasn’t supposed to work here — her goal was to become a history teacher. But family is family, and eventually she was drawn into the business. She does payroll, acts as human resources and takes care of the finances and logistics.

“I’m trying to get us from old school to new school,” Porsawatdee said.

Over the years, Thai specialties like abalone with eggs and angel wings (chicken wings stuffed with a mixture of shrimp and spices) came off the menu. They added horchata, jamaica, Coronas and Modelos to the menu. Pickled jalapenos joined the soy sauce and chili garlic at each table. The mostly Thai wait staff learned enough Spanish so that people who couldn’t speak English had no problem ordering.

And because customers liked to have other kinds of Asian food with their seafood soup, they added Chinese American classics like chow mein, beef broccoli, orange chicken and egg rolls. There’s teriyaki, too, just in case.

Pai worked at an American diner and a Thai restaurant when she first came to America in the 1960s to attend college. She loved the family diner feel. The restaurant on Vermont features cozy booths and checkerboard floors in the familiar cheerful orange and rounded beige diner plateware.

But it’s obviously a Thai restaurant. Portraits of past and present kings of Thailand line the walls. There are altars with food offerings, Buddha statues and the booth in front is kept empty every morning until 11 a.m., reserved for the water spirit, a figure from Thai religious traditions. And I can personally attest that the larb at medium spicy will make your eyes water as much as any place in Thai Town.

All of these theories for Ocha Classic’s prominence in Latino Los Angeles seemed highly plausible to me, and perhaps they are all true.

But on a recent weekday, I looked around the dining room and saw birthday parties for babies and for grandmothers, teenagers on their phones and families ladling soup into bowls for others. I listened to the friendly commotion of Thai, Spanish and English mingling in the dining room. Not everything needs an explanation, I decided.

This is Los Angeles, and sometimes people from different cultures just find each other and hold on tight.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 12:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bossabreezes View Post
Here we go with more Americans being obsessed with every fraction of DNA in every single person.

California is diverse, duh. Its a good thing. We don't need to be obsessed with genetics, though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kingkirbythe.... View Post
I guess you guys missed the point of the article; it's not about what your DNA make up is, it's about being bi-cultural.

But I get it, many people don't relate, or think they have to choose one cultural identity over another to "fit in," whatever that means. But in my opinion, it's ok to be bi-cultural. FUCK complete assimilation.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 2:20 PM
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I grew up with a half Mexican/ half Taiwanese step brother and sister. My stepbrother and I (Italian) used to go around saying we were just brothers and we got a lot of blank looks. lol
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 2:52 PM
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I guess you guys missed the point of the article; it's not about what your DNA make up is, it's about being bi-cultural.

But I get it, many people don't relate, or think they have to choose one cultural identity over another to "fit in," whatever that means. But in my opinion, it's ok to be bi-cultural. FUCK complete assimilation.
I agree 100%. My wife is Asian (Korean descent) and I am Caucasian (Heinz-57 of Northern Europe) thus my kids are bicultural. We want to keep things this way. Korean school Saturday mornings, French-immersion weekdays, and really good Korean food.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 2:54 PM
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There are lots of interesting Carribean cultural crosscurrents, like the Chino-Latino restaurants you see in NY/NJ. In the 1950's and 60's, there were many Chinese Cuban immigrants to NY/NJ, and they opened restaurants with hybrid (Americanized) Chinese and Carribean cooking. Some are still around, especially in Upper Manhattan and Hudson River-adjacent parts of Jersey.

Even weirder, the patronage often isn't Chinese, or Latino, but Jewish. Ropa vieja with wonton soup. Very odd.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 3:08 PM
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Chifa food is everywhere in Peru. Chinese....with a Peruvian twist. Delicious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifa
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 5:21 PM
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Please ignore him, Molson. Not worth the time.

Regarding assimilation issues, the article I posted in the OP really caught my attention.

I have worked with many older Mexican-Americans, or ones of a different generation, who were never taught to speak Spanish, because it wasn't allowed. They were discouraged from speaking it at home, and at one time in southern California, it was banned in many schools. Children would even be punished, even corporally punished, for speaking Spanish with other Spanish-speaking kids. Talk about forced assimilation.

About a month ago, I heard part of this author's interview on NPR, who wrote this book:

Photo by me

She basically talks about assimilation being a lie, because she felt she had fully assimilated (and made it a point to), but no matter what, she was still treated differently, just based on how she looked. So, you might as well just embrace what makes you, you.

I relate. Again, FUCK assimilation.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 5:36 PM
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There have been a similar phenomenon over the decades regarding (mostly White) Brazilians and Japanese Brazilians.

Japanese immigration started in 1908 and today there are about 800,000 ethnic-Japanese in Brazil. Every single generation, there are more mixing between Japanese and mostly European Brazilians (as basically all Japanese live in São Paulo and Paraná, states with a White majority). Considering generation Y and Z, there are more Mixed European-Japanese than full-blooded Japanese. Obviously, cultural shocks are much smaller in Brazil than those happening in Los Angeles, as up there it involves recent arrivals that retain much of their native traditions.

BTW, when I was browsing census tracts and cities in Los Angeles area, I was quite surprised about how Asian population is a very majority over large swaths. I guess it won't take much longer for California, or at least SF and LA areas to have an Asian plurality.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 5:51 PM
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I relate. Again, FUCK assimilation.
Some amount of assimilation is a good thing, I think. No one should be forced to lose who they are in order to blend in, but if you move to a foreign country, you should try to assimilate a bit. Imagine an American moving to Shanghai and refusing to learn Mandarin, only eating American foods, asking for forks at restaurants, only socializing with other Americans, etc. That would be someone refusing to assimilate to Chinese culture, and would fit in with your all caps rejection of assimilation, no? Would you look favorably on someone like that, or say they need to make an effort to adapt to the customs and culture of their new home?
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 6:37 PM
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BTW, when I was browsing census tracts and cities in Los Angeles area, I was quite surprised about how Asian population is a very majority over large swaths. I guess it won't take much longer for California, or at least SF and LA areas to have an Asian plurality.
Much of the Bay Area and LA's SGV already have an Asian plurality.

And I believe the entire San Jose MSA has an Asian plurality, and will potentially have an Asian majority shortly. You don't see too many non-Asians in places like Cupertino, Sunnyvale or Fremont.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 6:54 PM
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I think Asian/Latino is still fairly rare, at least in NYC area. Although I do have a Filipino friend who is dating a Mexican chick.
Asian/White is by far the most common mix here.

Although I met a Chinese woman recently who didn't speak any Chinese, but spoke Spanish, because she was from northern Mexico.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 6:55 PM
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Much of the Bay Area and LA's SGV already have an Asian plurality.

And I believe the entire San Jose MSA has an Asian plurality, and will potentially have an Asian majority shortly. You don't see too many non-Asians in places like Cupertino, Sunnyvale or Fremont.
It's a major shift. Till the early 2000's, Asians were still relatively few and were often overlook in the US context. Hispanic immigration was at its peak and there was so many talks about Spanish rivalling English in the decades to come.

Now it's Asians the novelty, specially in California. It's a big shift.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 6:59 PM
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It's a major shift. Till the early 2000's, Asians were still relatively few and were often overlook in the US context. Hispanic immigration was at its peak and there was so many talks about Spanish rivalling English in the decades to come.

Now it's Asians the novelty, specially in California. It's a big shift.
What do you mean Asians are a "novelty"? Asians came to California pretty much at the same time as whites. They have long been in the US. I think US had majority Chinese neighborhoods in cities since like 1850s.
The only people who think Spanish will ever rival English in the US as a whole are just ignorant of demographics. In the long run everyone just speaks English.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 7:05 PM
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What do you mean Asians are a "novelty"? Asians came to California pretty much at the same time as whites. They have long been in the US. I think US had majority Chinese neighborhoods in cities since like 1850s.
The only people who think Spanish will ever rival English in the US as a whole are just ignorant of demographics. In the long run everyone just speaks English.
I meant in terms of getting more visibility on demographic discussions. They were overlooked till 20 years ago. They were 3% of the population now it's 6% whereas immigration from Latin America and TFR of US Hispanics fell a lot frustrating forecasts. Big jump for a relative short time span. I'm very aware Chinese were present during California's Gold Rush, building railways and stuff.

About Spanish becoming more prominent, I never believed that. Officials languages, English in the US, Portuguese in Brazil, Spanish in Argentina are incredibly good on killing immigrant languages very quickly. They've been doing that for centuries. Immigrants come and are readily assimilated.
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Old Posted Jun 9, 2022, 7:24 PM
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Please ignore him, Molson. Not worth the time.

Regarding assimilation issues, the article I posted in the OP really caught my attention.

I have worked with many older Mexican-Americans, or ones of a different generation, who were never taught to speak Spanish, because it wasn't allowed. They were discouraged from speaking it at home, and at one time in southern California, it was banned in many schools. Children would even be punished, even corporally punished, for speaking Spanish with other Spanish-speaking kids. Talk about forced assimilation.

She basically talks about assimilation being a lie, because she felt she had fully assimilated (and made it a point to), but no matter what, she was still treated differently, just based on how she looked. So, you might as well just embrace what makes you, you.
Except everyone who immigrated here from Continental Europe came here with every intention of assimilating in their public lives (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc. religious deviations were maintained). Their family names were often chopped down. They quickly abandoned the use of German, Polish, Italian, etc., and adopted the English of the upper classes who reside near London.

Meanwhile, those who came to the United States from northern England, who mostly settled in the southern states, kept speaking their low-class English. By the 1900s, we ended up with a situation where the descendants of Continental Europeans spoke proper English in the United States but the descendants of the English peasantry largely did not.

What's more, much of the African-American vernacular came from Northern England, not Africa. Post-WWII immigrants, especially Indians and East Asians, are all learning proper English rather than low-class Northern English. White Southerners, Appalachians, and African-Americans are being left behind in large part because of their speech patterns make it much more difficult for them to understand contracts, complete complex paperwork, etc.

Encouraging Mexicans or any other immigrant group to defiantly avoid the prevailing English dialect - indeed the gateway to professional employment - is self-sabotage.
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