How 1 in 5 Asians Hid Their Culture To Fit In

New research shows that one in five Asian-Americans have hid their cultural heritage in order to fit into America. Man, let's talk about it. Yeah, Pew Research has been dropping some bombs lately. Joining us to discuss today is comedian Alvin Kwai. Hello, everybody. Have you ever hid your heritage to, I guess, but just get ahead in life or avoid embarrassment? Absolutely. Dude, if you're playing online games, if you're gaming online, you got to hide your heritage. If you if you let people know you're Asian when gaming online, that you're your nonstop Asian judge, change, change. That's the only thing you'll hear for the rest of the century. Being chilling social credits, dude, if you're black, bro, you cannot reveal that shit. Yeah, I do. And I heard us hear many racial slurs. Yes. Hey, your name's Alvin, huh? Alvin, what? Yeah. Mike Williams, make sure you like, subscribe, turning your notifications. Andrew, let me just read this. It's off. Next chart, a recent Pew Research Center survey finds that many Asian-Americans choose to conceal elements of their cultural heritage due to the fear of ridicule and a desire to assimilate. Then they have a bunch of stats, a bunch of bar charts, as Pew Research often does, Andrew. And there is a quote, an anecdotal quote. I remember in elementary school, I don't even know what my mom brought me. It was just some Taiwanese dish. I guess it was just had a more pungent smell than the kids were used to. Kids would be like, what that smell you smell that? I'm just going to cover my lid and be like, OK, I'm not even going to eat my lunch. Dang, the stinky lunch story once again. Some main points of the study are Korean-Americans are more likely to hide parts of their heritage than other Asian groups. Kind of surprising. Shocking, to be honest. Surprising, honestly. Asian-Americans ages 18 to 29 are twice as likely as older Asian adults to have hidden their culture. I don't know if that's that you hide it more when you're young, if that's what that means. So I'm not really sure how to interpret that Asian adults who are Democrats or lean Democratic are more likely than those who lean Republican to have hidden their identity, which is also interesting. And then Asian-Americans who primarily speak English are more likely to hide their identity, which makes sense because that means you're more Americanized, more trying to fit in. So I guess the first three main points of the study would run counter to most people's quick reads that they make in their mind, right? Yeah, because you would think the Koreans are super proud, right? KP, that's always been a thing. And then you'd think that the younger kids, 18 to 29, are more proud, right? Because I guess it's better to be not white, I guess, in the younger generation. It's like cooler. It's cooler to be international. It's like cooler to be Asian. Yeah, you've got so many sides to you, man. You're like a way with that is that, though, with that said, I think younger people in general, they're trying to they're in that state where they're trying to find their identity more. So they are more concerned and more self-conscious at that age, period. So even though Gen Z, we can all say has it better than the generations before, I do think that they're the they're at the most self-conscious state. Do you think the Gen Z kids are also wanting to be more self deprecating? Like, yeah, dude, anything involving like shame or like anything emo? I did that just because, you know, everybody wants to be in the field. Do I actually feel like Gen Z doesn't understand shame anymore? You see all those TikToks of people like crying. You see that? Like, yeah, they just videotape themselves crying today. Someone addressed me by the wrong pronoun or whatever. Right. I guess before we get into the top comments, what is your initial reaction? Like, do you think one in five Asian-Americans hiding their cultural heritage at some point in their life is low or you thought it was more? I thought that it might even be more Asian-Americans, to be honest. I thought it was I thought it was super low. Dude, one in five white people aren't white anymore. You ever notice? Right, right, right. Dude, white people are like big white is out, bro. They're like there's a mass exodus. I know there's one guy. He used to be called Nathan. Now he's going by Natan, which is his Uzbekistan name or whatever. It's like, wow, wow. You really just drop this. He is Uzbek. But like before he was, I'm Nathan. You started seeing the MMA champions popping up. And he was like, yes, yes, yes. Let me turn back to the old days. There's some capital in this. I would say this immediately. I thought it was high because I thought it was just like a very Asian person looking across from a white person going, no, I'm not Asian. I'm just like you. But I realized after looking at the study, it could even be like within Asians, you know, like inter Asian. There's a hierarchy and you might be like four different types of Asians. But you lean into the one that's like more beneficial in that moment. Oh, I'm playing football. I want to be Pacific Islander. Oh, I'm doing math. I want to be Chinese. Oh, I'm doing dancing choreo. I want to be Korean. But I'm all three of those things. That's still actually technically under the metrics of this study denying part of your heritage. So then that made me go, oh, yeah, I guess the numbers make sense because it could be an inter Asian thing as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a story here by a Pakistani guy who said, man, I used to roll just as Asian or Hispanic because I didn't want to tell people I was Pakistani because after Osama bin Laden got killed in Pakistan, I really did not want to deal with all the jokes like, oh, my God, they killed your uncle, bro. They found him in your homeland. And he was in his 20s when he said this. Yeah, yeah. Dude, I can't being a brown guy after like 9-11. That was crazy. Now it's got to be so rough. You know, I'd rather get instead of like terrorist jokes, you get like a you can't drive joke. Yeah, I saw fights at my school erupt between Punjabi Sikhs that people misidentified them as like, like, you know what I mean? Like, just yeah, it was crazy at that time. That's how broad racism is. Like you got like people confusing like Indians for like Arabs. It's like they're so geographically, they're so far apart, too. Somebody just said many recent immigrants said they tried to fit into the image of the U.S. and fear that others may judge them negatively for sharing their heritage. So this may be somebody not denying their heritage and saying like, oh, no, I'm white, because obviously that might not work. But then not speaking up about it, that that could have counted as well. Somebody's like, oh, I could. I denied it. You know, like how what is it? Peter denied Jesus, right? Right. And I don't know. Somebody said U.S. born Asian-Americans with immigrant parents often said they hid their heritage when growing up to fit into a predominantly white society. Some multiracial Asian-Americans and those with distant immigrant roots, third generation or more, said they had hidden their heritage to pass as white. So these are people possibly white passing. You know what I mean? Genetic, like actually visually. Well, I thought it was interesting that they did it to pass as white because I was like, do you look white? Anyways, we're going to get in the comments section soon. But David, one thing that a lot of people can't deny is the taste of small. Check out small. Great transition. Check out small sauce dot com made with real truffle. It's our very own chili oil product comes in this cool bottle. Very squeezable. Pre-orders are open right now, guys. Check it out. We're very proud of it. And it goes well on everything. The very first comment, guys, make sure you like subscribe, turning your notifications, get the likes up said, well, it's not that hard if you're ethnically ambiguous. And this guy who left this comment is ethnically ambiguous. I guess there's three guys who are the almost the inverse of ethnically ambiguous. Could you see this? Like this study might not apply to people who are so easily identifiable as Asian like we are. Yeah, but I'm so Chinese. I mean, what else? How are we going to deny? Yeah, we might be like low, middle, high in the high level. Dude, where you just cannot do it. My name's Alvin David. Andrew got the whitest names ever, but like we're still super Chinese, dude. You know, I get the comments still to this day on this YouTube channel sometimes like, wow, the Fung bros have the typical Chinese faces. And I was like, dang, I did not know my face was so typical. Is that even me? What is a typical Chinese? I don't even know that. Well, he didn't say Chinese. He used another word. Somebody said, no, no, it's not. It doesn't matter if you're ethnically ambiguous. It's called internalized racism. This is obviously somebody else's perspective. I could say this, guys. I think a lot of people are generally vying for the position that gets them the most ahead in life. Like, let's say, for example, they're ethnically ambiguous and somebody wants to give them something because they think they're from this side or that side, they may accentuate, exaggerate or downplay, lean into or lean out of different identities that seem advantageous in the moment. Dude, David, is that as simple as me? You know, like sometimes like if a girl is asking, oh, are you Korean? And I'm just like, yeah, I'm Korean. Yeah, not Chinese. Is that kind of what you're talking about or is that kind of an extreme? That's an extreme example. I've seen people do that in L.A. like 10 years ago. But yeah, like I would say so. I would say that that would be like an inter-Asian version of it. This is another version. This guy said he's half Vietnamese, a quarter Chinese, quarter Japanese. And he's saying that he never fit in with the Vietnamese kids growing up because he didn't feel Viet enough. So he would just not say that he was Viet. And he would lean into his Chinese. Well, I could see because depending on the group that you're hanging out with, if it's like primarily like a Korean group and then like you're part Korean, but you're also part Vietnamese, which is part something that is more unfamiliar to the Korean side. They'd be like, it'd be weird. They they might think it's weird and they'd be like, oh, my gosh, you're like Vietnamese. Like that is so like, I don't know. I don't know any Vietnamese people. And then you're like, oh, you know what? I'm just Korean. Yeah, sometimes a lot of people do it for friend groups and just for the pings and the social life. Sometimes the inter-Asian stuff, that's almost like a whole nother video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to only put on Koreans, but this this woman said that she's Hmong. She has a son who's dating age and saying that when he's around Hmong people, he just says he's Hmong, even though he's part Viet and Lao, because sometimes other people like they just think it's like different or whatever. Well, it's easier to, you know, like you instead of having to explain your entire heritage, right? You're like, oh, OK, they moved there. And then my mom lived over here. Well, and do you feel for this Hmong person even more? I empathize because Hmong is a more specific kind of a lesser known uncommon identity. They keep it pretty tight, too, in Minnesota and stuff like that. Yeah, and it's like if you have to explain being Hmong to someone who has no idea what that is and has never been explained that and you have to have the first conversation, you're like, hey, it's a minority group. We don't actually have a country and we can't. And then and then they're just like, oh, well, you know what's good is like within if it's inter-Asian, though, at least you kind of look you can kind of look the same, you know, I kind of think of like, oh, dude, can you imagine how hard it was for like Canelo Alvarez growing up? Oh, it looks white as hell, bro. And he's like hanging around with all these Mexicans, you know, right? And if you probably got picked up, but you probably didn't. That's why it was useful for him to know how to box. Just because like if you made fun of it, just knock you out. No, he looks like full on Irish. In fact, I would say I bet that his blood is probably like Spanish and Hungarian or something like. No, I think he said he said that he thinks he might be like a quarter or eighth Irish, but it just came out. You know, you know how it is. Like sometimes you're like a quarter something that you end up like. So this other comment is from this Japanese person who is fourth generation Japanese. He's like, oh, my gosh, like my grandparents were interned. So they went to hyper assimilation mode. They stopped speaking Japanese. We never cook Japanese food at home. It's something that I had to grow out of and I had to grow back into being Asian out of this. And it was hard for me. But that was a very tough. You know what I found? I found that it has a lot to do with class. Like sometimes if you came from a high class family overseas, you're more likely to maintain ties to your high class side versus if you were and there's nothing wrong with it or right with it. It just is what it is. If you are like a farmer or like some sort of end of the dynastic hierarchy, like a peasant back in Asia, why would you? Why wouldn't you like more take on a an American identity? Sure, sure. Because your linkage back to the home doesn't necessarily. Well, you're saying people are if they can would trade up. Yes, you would. I generally believe I don't know. Maybe it's just the immigrants that come to America or just, you know, Asians in general, maybe even more than other groups. We don't do what's best for us. Most people seem like they'll trade. Somebody said, I mean, I just look so Asian. I can't even hide it if I wanted to. Someone said, man, I just read about all the. You know, I often as an Asian foreign born, I just feel lucky. I didn't spend my childhood in the U.S. where it looks like a lot of childhood traumas exist in people who are born and raised here through their younger years. Uh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because, dude, kids just say the kids have no filter. Yeah. You know, they just go up to an Asian. You'd be like, you have weird eyes. Why do your eyes look like that? And you know what? As a kid, those comments are really mind boggling, too. They really mess you up. So that's why sometimes as much as you're an outsider, when you are an immigrant, you come over as a full grown, identifiable adult. You know who you are. And so that you don't have that identity struggle growing up. So, I mean, I do see if you're a confident immigrant, that's not a bad place to be in America. That is why there is a distinct disconnect between people who were raised in China and like Asian-Americans, because there's like because what we grew up as a minority. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas they grew up as a majority. Like if you ever talked to like a black person, like they have a disconnect with people from Africa because they're like, we just have experienced totally different worlds. Yeah, that's a good point. Somebody said no self-confidence. I blame the parents. And then somebody said majority of the parents were working 12 hour shifts to survive. What do you expect? So basically some people are saying, man, I blame the parents for not raising proud Asians in the West. That is, you know, and then other people said, but I don't know. I guess the parents got excuses. So this is that one. It's not like the second comment is denying it, but it's more excusing the parents due to the situation. Yeah, I feel like this comment is really interesting to me because I definitely obviously by community and parents, those are two huge aspects. But also if you're an immigrant just trying to go for the better opportunity and usually better opportunity translates to better financial opportunity, but not necessarily better social opportunity. So then you go to whatever town and your kid feels very misplaced and you don't have time to like coach them through this identity process. And maybe as a parent, you don't even know how because you just all you know how to do is work, you know. So that is an unfortunate situation. Yeah. Somebody said, to be honest, I don't feel the need to uphold all the traditions of my culture because my culture is an Asian. My culture is Asian-American. So it's just going to be a mix. And I think it's just as valid. This is somebody saying like, yo, I don't know everything about my culture, but I don't care. Well, yeah, it works both ways, too, because someone like the ultra like, you know, because I just thinking about what I was saying earlier about it being related to class. But there's some people who rep super hard whose parents are from the rural areas in Asia, too. Sometimes it's like a feast or famine type situation. I guess. Well, is Asian-American culture. Yeah, there's a different culture. That's different than this guy seems to be the most well-adjusted guy here because it's like, yeah, that's what I am. I'm a mix of Asian and American. So that's because it's dude, if you're like an Asian guy and you know, like everything about it, like everything about Asia, you know, every single detail, it's like, what are you what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true. I would say extra effort to get to put into this. But yeah, that's what I try to do, that effort. But I know that that's not normal, nor what I expected from most interests you to, you know, but to just force yourself to learn everything, just because like, well, I am this person, so I have to know. It's like, no, you grew up here. Would you guys define Asian-American culture as almost like instead of being ten out of ten on your own heritage culture, you're like four out of ten on all the Asian cultures? You know what I mean? Like you're going to fall. You're going to Korean barbecue. You're going to Boba. You're going to dim sum. You're going to your Filipino friends debut. It's like that's that's more Pan-Asian than most people in Asia. Sure, sure. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, yes, I would say Pan-Asianism is kind of Asian-American. That's kind of what it means, right? We're not talking about Imperial Japan Pan-Asianism. We're talking about I'm Asian-American Boba Pan-Asianism. I'm talking about Pan-AAPI. Right. This guy said fact is our cultures were backwards for most of the modern era is what it is. I can see why kids were ashamed and trying to hide it in the Western world. And then somebody said, bro, STFU. And this turned into a whole, you know, arguing. You're basically just bowing down to the West at that point. Just like, oh, everything they do is right. We're just we're the wrong ones. Like, shut up. No, I mean, I think that there's a balance. You know, obviously you live in the West. You choose to your family, choose to come here. You choose to stay here. So it's like, of course, there is some buy in and there is some valuing things of the West, but there's also you don't have to devalue things, everything from the East. But there are also maybe some things from the East that you don't want to engage with. Right. And I think that's something of every culture that you want to engage with. You know, this quote was pretty interesting by this guy in the study. He said it was kind of a stigma when you were little or a teen that you were younger, you don't want to speak Chinese because people would just think you were a fob or an immigrant. And that wasn't cool. This is a guy in his early 30s with Chinese immigrant parents. Yeah. Alvin, do you relate to this? You grew up in where, Virginia? Yeah, Virginia. Yeah. Was that I mean, you can speak Chinese. Were you openly, proudly speaking Chinese whenever you could? Or was there some sense like, you know, if I don't have to, I'm not. Yeah, but it wasn't it wasn't like like, oh, I feel weird about it. It's more like because I because I would speak a little bit Chinese around my white friends when I was like in elementary school and they thought it was cool, you know, but it was more like I'm just better at English and like with other Chinese Americans, we're all better at English. So we're just going to speak English. But actually, a lot of kids thought it was like, cool. I feel like a lot of kids actually became more racist as they got older. Like when you got to like college, like I feel like people started separating like ethnically more. But when their kids, everyone. Yeah, I would agree with you. I would agree with you when your kids and you're not even aware of like social hierarchy and punching up or punching down. My group's powerful. Your group's less powerful than none of those. No, none of those calculations even are in your brain. No, because even if when kids make comments, I mean, your eyes are weird. They're not doing it from a hateful place. They're just like, I don't trust these Chinese. Like it's just because they literally never seen their face before. Right, right, right. So it's just like not tracking with their brain. No, I know what you're saying. Yeah, it definitely seems like when people get older, they search for power. And in the search of power, you have to rank people lower for some reason. You have to justify that in your brain. Yeah, and you have to be judgmental to to to rank people and build this hierarchy. So then as people move higher, then they start battling for things. Yes, it's a winner take all or it's a scarcity mindset versus when you're a kid. You're just like, hey, if everybody's fun and likes cupcakes, cool. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's why people like I mean, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, obviously, but sometimes people like these certain very niche pursuits that sort of like bring it back to the kid days. Like I always feel like at least like at a lower level, military friend groups, they feel more like a return to the kid days. Sure, sure. That's what I think from what I've heard from my friends in the military that are white and non-white. You mean in the fact that they're a bunch of kids going to kill other kids? Yeah, I don't know. There's just some sort of thing that brings it back to that like quasi. No, well, what you mean is like then race doesn't matter for the mission that we're on. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, yeah, because they're there's another thing that is like beyond it's a matter of life or death when it gets like when the stakes are that high. You're just like, I don't care. Yeah, but it's crazy that we have to result to that level to return to the child life. So when you're younger, it's fun or no fun. And that's all you're concerned with. And then when you get older, it's just life or death. And those are the two sides. Everybody else in the middle is like silently discriminating against. That's why that's why humans were meant to kill each other to stop racism. Um, ultimately, guys, what are your takeaways? One in five Asian-Americans have admitted denying their heritage at some point, whatever that means. Obviously, these studies, you know, it's very like unclear exactly what situations we're talking about. One in five. Yeah, I don't know if I I can't say that I would ever fall into this statistic, but maybe I mean, I think there was a time when I didn't know how to feel about specifically being Chinese. Like I didn't fully know what that meant. You know, like in high school, late, late junior high. And I was just with other Asians and the other Asians that seemed like they were having more fun. Yeah, I didn't think being Chinese was cool. You know, I didn't I wasn't I didn't identify with it. I couldn't really speak it. So I didn't fully I wasn't fully emerged, even though I knew I was. So I think that that was a journey on its own, you know. So I don't know at that time in my life, I would have counted as one of these Asian-Americans possibly or or maybe not. But right now there's something there. I would say, man, it might be true. Chinese are still the the most anti-fun, though, out of all the Asian groups, just as just to address your concern of when you were in high school, you're justifying what I felt. Well, that's what you were valuing at that point in your life, right? Everybody has different metrics. My parents were anti-fun and they're Chinese. So that checks out to me. I think it's true, man. And if you made me bad money, I'm just talking about probabilities and statistics here. Yeah. Every time we'd go on vacation at the end of the vacation, they'd be like, are you ready to start doing math homework again? I'd be like, you just ruined the flight back. Why do I have to think about this? Yeah, just be yourself. I think you just got to be yourself, you know, be as Asian as you feel. And like, dude, should people know? I do think there's something about Asians, though. Let's be acknowledging here. Is there something about Asians more than let's just draw the comparisons? African-Americans are Latinos. That makes them did not. They don't rap as hard like them. Rapping is more dependent on like the the sways of time or this. You know what I mean? The the winds of the narrative than other groups. Yeah. Well, you know who raps hard is like Indian kids, Indian kids, brown kids. They rap hard because they have the spiritual angle, right? I don't know what it is, but that's something I always admire about them is like they're just like super into the culture. They're like they also date within themselves a lot. Like they're all about being like brown. And I think that's dope. So they're racist. I'm just kidding. No, no, no. But I know what you're saying that that so should like other Asians rep like brown kids, like the brown Asians, like I think Asians should rep brown culture. They'd be like, oh, ******* vision is the shit. I just think that Asians, they more cater to get the result to a level that other groups like, for example, brown people would view as like a little distasteful. The amount of catering and pandering, you know what it is? A decent portion of Asians would do that to get a more comfortable life or more accepted in the mainstream. I think when Asians come to America for most Asians, the goal is not to come to America and just rep being Asian as number one. And number one is to make a better life, make more money, gain higher status, possibly fit in with the flow. And under that number one goal, there's a lot of things you have to do. And one of them seems to be assimilation and denying sometimes being Asian or at least denying the unappealing parts of being Asian. So, yeah, and I do think there's something about being so saturated in Eastern culture that it makes the assimilation process have a lot of compromises and a lot of sacrifices that maybe other groups obviously have been acclimated to a lot of Western exposure for hundreds of years. Like they figured out where they want to mix and match seemingly with like less compromises. That's the easiest way to put it. Anyway, guys, let us know what you think in the comments section below. Shout out to Alvin Quiet. Check him out on Instagram. Internet favorite. Yeah, dude, stand up comedian. Subscribers love me. He's Alvin Quiet. What you perform at the Comedy Cellar constantly. Comedy Cellar, New York Comedy Club, Stamp, New York. I'll be on the road. Indianapolis, the September 22nd. St. Louis, Austin, Raleigh. Now you're going to sell out those shows because you dropped it at the end. Yeah, huge. All right, guys, check out Alvin Quiet. Thank you so much for watching the hot pot, boys. And until next time we out. Peace.