The Cupertino Courier

News

Asian American teens bridge two worlds

By Monika de la Porte

For 18-year-old Jeremy Shieh, a recent Lynbrook High School graduate, representing his school at a California student leadership convention two years ago provided a moment of awakening when he realized he was expected to represent the Asian perspective.

"You don't particularly think of yourself as being Asian at Lynbrook," he says.

The occasional, sometimes disconcerting, reminder that they belong to a nationally defined ethnic minority is part of the uniqueness of growing up Asian American in this area.

For Shieh, it brought home the point his teachers and many adults around him often made when they spoke of the extraordinarily sheltered cocoon the students live in.

"They were always talking about this unique little bubble, a bubble of New Age Silicon Valley engineers and their families that appears to be of predominantly Asian origin," Shieh says.

Asian American students encompass a diversity of cultures and history that few of them see is as defining them in any relevant way. At the same time, certain common characteristics and experiences make being Asian seem so much a part of the norm that it pre-empts blatant racism and all but the most general kind of stereotyping.

The Bay Area's multiculturalism has absorbed many Asian cuisines and accents. Traditional ethnic festivals such as the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, the Chinese Lunar Parade and the Indian Diwali mela have become a part of Cupertino's cultural landscape.

The students' burgeoning quest for self-identity is complicated by the push-pull of trying to balance some very traditional parental values with living in a much more liberal society.

Asian and American:

How deeply these young people identify with their Asian or American sides appears to be constantly evolving.

For instance, living in an area that has a large Indian population has allowed Mitha Nandagopalan, a 17-year old senior at Lynbrook, to pursue her interest in classical Indian dance and vocal music. But while she appreciates the opportunity to form a solid cultural knowledge base about her parents' native land, it doesn't make her feel any more Indian than American.

"I think if I lived somewhere else, I would enjoy exploring another culture just as much," she says.

Sameer Thadani, 18, another Lynbrook graduate, considers himself primarily American. But being Indian is important to him too and he sometimes feels he has to compartmentalize his different sides to fit in.

He likes wearing Indian clothes, folk dancing and celebrating Indian festivals the traditional way, but feels that doesn't quite fit in with the person he is at school.

"It's almost like I'm American during the day, at school with my friends, and Indian in the evenings, at home with the family. I really want to be both Indian and American. It just feels hard to be both at the same time," he says.

Many parents emphasize bilingualism as an essential key to mobility between cultures. Most Asian children spend some part of their early childhood in language schools. Many neighborhood schools host Chinese schools on Friday nights and weekends. Indian culture schools teach a few Indian languages. A local Japanese school offers a parallel Japanese education to augment the American one. If nothing else, parents attempt to keep the language alive by speaking to their children exclusively in their mother tongue.

And frequently, how well they speak their heritage languages does determine how easily the teenagers can relate to their parents' culture.

Monta Vista senior Julia Wu, 17, relives the frustration she feels every time she visits China with her parents. Her relatives think she looks American. She can't speak the language, and finds she can't relate to the trends and popular culture there. Even studying Mandarin at Monta Vista, she feels at a disadvantage compared to other students who seem to have a stronger foundation in the language. But every visit to China strengthens her resolve to one day be able to bridge the cultural divide.

Old worlds vs. new

As for parental expectations, the teens find a level of comfort in knowing that all their friends face similar issues.

Mitha notes that her mother is conservative about how she dresses and has a difficult time accepting that her daughter's busy social life often involves staying out late at night.

"Sometimes it's hard to tell between cultural and generational differences. Dating, for instance, would be less of an issue with an American family because it's become accepted as being a part of high school," says Mitha. "For my parents, it's just not something they're used to."

Thadani, who hit a brief, bumpy patch with his parents over the issue, feels that in the end reason and logic help to work around parental resistance. Pointing out that attitudes toward dating vary a great deal from family to family, he firmly believes that it's up to the younger generation to keep communications open and help their parents understand new perspectives.

It's not surprising that in an area that has an inordinate number of children from mixed families, the teenagers find it unremarkable to see students date across racial lines.

Julia, who is dating a white student, finds her parents are more concerned with his grades than his race, which is not an issue for them.

"We see a lot of people dating people of their own race, of course," she says. "But we also see lots of Asian kids dating whites, or Indians dating Asians or whites. I don't think anyone goes around saying, 'I will only date people of a certain race.' "

Comfort zone

In their book, "Asian American X," a collection of Asian American coming of age stories, editors Arar Han and John Hsu, former Monta Vista students, write about growing up within a critical mass of Asian students. That, they say, sheltered them from the kind of racism non-white students often encounter in predominantly white high schools.

Yet, sometimes Asian students are seen as segregating themselves.

Thadani insists there's nothing conscious or racist in the way people separate. It's just an age, he says, when people become more self-conscious, and tend to feel more comfortable with people who look and think and talk like them.

"Still, as part of the student leadership body, I was always trying to push people out of their comfort zone," he says.

Overall, Shieh says, "Our generation is doing a very good job of not having a gap between cultures. We all really get along and go to each other's parties and do things together. There is never anything exclusive about our groups--people are completely free to move from one group to another."

Battling stereotypes

But the stereotypes can't always be laughed away. And part of the challenge of finding one's self can be looking for the individual within a socially defined collective identity. Shieh grimaces talking about a Wall Street Journal article that created a stir in November 2005. Entitled "The New White Flight," it depicted the growing number of Asians in the area as an indication of whites fleeing unhealthy academic competition.

Like many of his peers and teachers, Shieh feels the changing demographic is more a reflection of Caucasian families whose children have moved on to college, selling their homes to cash in on property values that have risen with the prestige and reputation of the schools.

That reputation has been built around very high test scores. Like schools in neighboring Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Saratoga with much smaller Asian populations, these schools, often ranked among the top 100 in the nation, are seen as gateways to the best colleges. And Shieh sees Asian students suffering as much as Caucasians in the push for academic excellence.

"Because Asians are supposed to be hard workers, someone who isn't getting great grades may feel people will think less of him,'' says Thadani.

Other persistent stereotypes involve the belief that Asians are genetically wired to excel at math, intent on pursuing careers in science and have no interest in the liberal arts or extra-curricular activities.

"People are always saying--you're lucky, you're Asian, you must be good at math,'' Julia laughs. "Yeah, well, most of my Caucasian friends are better at math than I am. I must be weird."

Overall, Shieh thinks the school system is very effective in opening up new areas of interest for all students and that the school and most parents are very supportive and encouraging of extra-curricular activities.

The teens speak about their parents' attempts to steer them towards the security of high paying careers with understanding, humor and affection.

"Asian culture and movies always feature these children whose joy in life comes from satisfying their parents' wishes. It's how you thank your parents for bringing you to this land of opportunity," says Shieh.

Given that the large majority of people, including immigrants, living in the Silicon Valley are in technical careers, it's understandable that parents would see the most financial security for their children in following similar career paths. But, there's no question in the young people's minds that their parents can be brought around to seeing the importance of allowing them the freedom to create their own paths.

Still, the paths taken in these schools, Shieh realizes, are very different from some explored by students in other schools. The student leadership workshop he attended was an eye-opener in terms of how different the students' priorities were.

"We just don't do the kind of crazy things that you hear about and see in the movies--that are considered typical of the true high school experience."

But Shieh has a hard time accepting that the more academic focus makes Lynbrook and Monta Vista the "Asian" schools as some of the students at the workshop referred to them.

Recognizing that many students succumb to the pressure of believing that getting into prestigious colleges is the only point of high school, he points out that there are many, like him, who've balanced good grades with a lot of fun and social experiences.

"I really don't see it as related to race or culture," he says. "It's a question of respecting the individual path, and being able to see different paths as being equally fulfilling. People are just at different stages of understanding that."