racist asian parents

I call my parents once a week, almost always on Sunday nights, but this past Sunday, I forgot. So I called last night, talked to them some about my upcoming thesis proposal, our trip to China, etc. etc. During the entire conversation, I was debating whether or not to tell them about RC. Finally, at the end, after my mom had nagged me enough about all sorts of random things, I blurted out, "mom, I'm seeing someone."

I think, for me, telling my parents about a guy is a definite sign that I am comfortable with how things are, where things are going, and I am ready to face the world with him being associated with me (though not a necessarily defined association). When I was younger, I was deathly afraid of telling my parents about guys because they were so against me dating. Even when Key and I started dating our third year in college, it took me a couple of months AFTER we had made things official to tell my mom and dad. I think all of this stemmed from their adamant disapproval of me dating at such a "young" age, "young" being the asian definition of young.

I am lucky that my parents now encourage me to date and whole-heartedly accept my dating. I know that sounds really weird since I am almost 24 now, but I definitely know of Asian friends my age whose parents still frown on their dating, which I think is absolutely ridiculous and close-minded. So anyways, my point here is that I think I am going along a comfortable path with RC, enough so that I told my parents about him.

I don't have a good track record of dating Asian guys (I generally don't), so one of the first things my parents always ask when I tell them I'm dating someone is "What's his race?" They don't care that much: white, asian, half asian, even Brazilian are okay (the Brazilian was okay because I assured my mother that he is very fair-skinned looks like he's white). I rarely ever stray outside of white, asian, half-asian, anyways.

Well, RC is half white, half American Indian. When I told my mom, she immediately became alarmed, and the ignorant questions poured in: "how dark is he?" "does he look black?" "Indians look black you know?" "I bet his mom is really dark" etc. etc. etc.

I tried to placate my mom by saying, "Well, Indians were once Asian; they came over across Alaska, so really RC has Asian roots." That didn't work so well. She insisted that I tell her how dark RC is, so I told her that RC is about the same color as I am when I am tan during the summer. That was probably not the right thing to say; I probably should have just left it at "he's about the same as me." My mom further freaked out when I compared RC to my summer tan, "oh my god, you are SO dark when you get tan in the summer. That is too dark. I don't approve."

She flat out said, "I don't approve." I was speechless. I kinda knew this conversation was coming, and had I given things more thought, I wouldn't have brought it up this early. The conversation then led to all the races I absolutely cannot date. "Well, at least half Native American is better than Black," my mom told me.

I decided to fight back a little because I was getting more and more angry the more she talked, "So what if I dated someone black? Would that really be the end of the world?" I asked.

My mother flipped. "Blacks are absolutely unacceptable. I will not allow it," she said. Then she added, "Indians, too. No Indians. You hear?"

I left the conversation at that because I knew this to be something my mother and I would never be able to see eye-to-eye on. It is times like this that I am glad I never told my mom about the Mozambique guy whom I dated in college. I actually really liked that guy, but I never told my parents about him because I knew the race issue would never fly. I didn't really see long-term potential with him, so I decided it was a battle better left un-fought.

The conversation with my mom yesterday ended with her highly encouraging me to send her a picture of RC. "When you get a chance, find a picture of him and send it to me. I need to see how dark he is." I have some pictures from our mutual friend's wedding (where RC and I met), but I don't really like those pictures of him, so I'm hesitant to send them. With certain people, you send the bad pictures of your friend/date so that their opinion of the person can only get better with time. With my mother, I have to absolutely send the best picture and try to win her over on the first try. If she decides that she does not like a person by his picture, his chances of ever getting on her good side would be forever slim-to-none.