Quote:
Originally Posted by aohige
There's a deeply rooted hatred for blacks and hispanics here in Texas.
I gather there's a closet racist on nearly every other block.
Only thing that changed over the years is how expressive they are.
What's funny is, a lot of (predominately white) co-workers I had in the time I lived here, they don't seem at all concerened to tell me how they "feel" about blacks and hispanics. Apparently me being Japanese was not even slightly a concern to them that I might not share their sentiments. Puzzling, really.
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My wife (japanese-american) has had the same experience many times when we lived in Texas (white people mouthing off about non-whites while she's sitting right there....). Its like 'asian' isn't on their mental radar at all and they're too stupid to get a clue.
Most of my wife and I mutual experiences range from glares when we were dating in the '70s (either japanese businessmen in the shopping district or white guys with the whiff of the KKK on them) or her getting mistaken for chinese, mexican, korean, even *italian* ... o.O. And often by the people of those ethnics (hilarious).
Here in Oregon once you get outside the metro area into the rural and coastal towns, my son has been pulled over many times for "driving while Mexican" (he's hapa). There's no mistaking it - he's done nothing wrong and they walk up with a smartass "Hola, Jose". Sometimes he responds in Japanese and sometimes in his nastiest Texas accent - after that its face-saving time by the sorry excuse of a police officer. One time they pulled him over when he was dating a white girl and they asked her if she was okay...
Myself... outside of being mistaken for butch gay (for some reason when my son and I are roaming about, they automatically assume he's my boy-toy <rofl> he's rather good looking and doesn't look like me at all) I haven't had many problems. I'm often the only white person around in many situations and so its the "dancing bear" routine.
-- spent a year delivering mail to all-black and latino neighborhoods, the hippy-biker mailman.
-- often in restaurants where I'm the only white person... mostly its "watch him and see if he does something stoooopid"