Born in Seoul, raised in Danville and Modesto---now in Fresno, Central California. Fresno's reasonably diverse, thank goodness.

I was struck by the same thought when I read that there is demand for an Asian American Studies major at the University of Minnesota (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/03/03/67357)

Born in Guangzhou, China but immigrated to the States in '95. Always identified myself as Chinese-American. I've stayed in the Washington Metropolitan area for the past 11 years now (a short stint in DC Chinatown and Arlington, VA before settling in Vienna, Virginia.. that's NOVA for the people in the know). There seems to be a great deal of Vietnamese and Koreans in the Fairfax VA region, with a sprinkling of Taiwanese and Mandarin-speaking Chinese. The area, given its urban, metropolitan ambiance, is pretty ethnically diverse, so being Asian-American isn't anything exotic. Being Asian-American in this area is just like in anywhere else: excel academically, be filial and close to family, and get a "good" job (math/tech-oriented).One curious phenomenon I've noticed: there are quite a few Asian-Caucasian hybrids (I don't know the proper term) around this area.

wow! i feel like i learned a lot from everyone's posts. i also want to clarify that though i lived in SC for 10 years, i also went to middle and high school in southern california, along the lines of Chao's experiences: the 99 ranches and the Latino/Asian neighborhoods. so in that sense, i've have a very multicultural upbringing. then i went to Cal for undergrad and have been in the Bay Area since (minus a short stint in Massachusetts). i feel most at home in Oakland - it's a good combination of my childhood with its southern influences, and the neighborhood where i live, which is mostly people of color with a lot of Asian and Latino families.weird to say that i finally have found "home" in East Oakland, after all these years.

B, hybrids? makes em sound like cars. The term for anyone of mixed Asian descent is hapa.

I propose a geographic theory to why Asian Americans from the midwest and south are more likely to read and subscribe to such publications, in ways that Asian Americans from the West Coast and to a lesser degree, East Coast. Peruse this URL.

i'm from milwaukee, WI (tag me as "midwest") but i live in los angeles and have been since college. :) i have been exploring a lot about being asian american -- but i've been particularly intrigued with what people think it necessarily means and pleasant surprises as far as deviations from the "norm." the asian american experience is so different here in southern california than it is anywhere else. since i am from the midwest the most glaring example i can give is the segregation that still ensues, even when alternate resources are available. not as much push to assimilate--as when we are "true" minorities (or minorities by far) that is the only option. i think this aspect has stretched me so far as a person as it normally wouldn't, say as an second gen api growing up in irvine who had other asian friends available to him/her and chose to go that route because integration w/others' cultures didn't even seem to be an option. of course, i generalize by far. that's it.

It's funny that you shld post this today since I am rocking my "Midwest" t-shirt that always gets so many comments here in the Bay Area -- both from ignorant people who think I'm joking to jealous relocated Midwesterners who want to rep as hard as me. I grew up in Ohio in a pretty strong South Asian community and then went to Oberlin College, where I had the typical -- but perhaps slightly more radical -- college experience where I became a politicized South Asian American Woman of Color. Coming to San Francisco just solidified all the things I had been thinking about from a distance back in Ohio. I still think about going back and doing activist work with all the communities there, maybe in a few more years --- I am having too much fun right now.

I was born in Dodge City and grew up in Wichita, KS! Left age 12 to the bay area but i still feel the mark the midwest (and years of private, fundamentalist Christian school) left on me. (I thought i could escape being picked on for my Asianness there. i was wrong...that's a whole nother story.) I can't fully say i'm californian though i'm definitely not Kansan... at least, not in any conventional sense.

I grew up in New York, but moved to San Diego when I was 10. Went to Berkeley for college and now I feel like Norcal is my truest home. I'm in Irvine now but hope to return north after grad school.

I came to US when I was 7 and stayed in upstate NY for about a year. I think of all the schools I went to, that was the only place where I was the only Asian. The only other foriegn kid I remember was Jose, who I butted heads with because I thought his name should be pronounced with a "J" sound, instead of "Ho-say", my bad.I spent the next 10 years in Alabama/Mississippi/Georgia, and when I was there, probably the most Asians at a given time in all my schools was 3. We were mostly expected to hang out together, though we rarely did. The one Asian kid that I did hung out with was because he just moved here I had to hang with him in class and translate for him during the first couple months of school. All the Asian people that I know of either teach/study/research in universities or open Chinese restaurants/shops. And of course, who can forget the fond memories of constant teasing of my name. Good times. However, I went back to Alabama recently and notice a lot more Asians around now, even some South Asians. I was really pleasantly surprised about that.I didn't really assimilate myself to other Asian cultures, i.e., PI's, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, etc, until I went to Southern California during high school. I guess I don't have to tell you what a culture shock that was. Soon I found myself singing Karaoke, hanging out at Ranch 99, speaking Chinese outside of home, watching Chinese movies/TV/mini series, and interactions with other races outside of Asian became a rarity(at least comparatively). I think it's only when I came to San Francisco did I realize how similarly different I am from everybody else.

i grew up in a tiny hole of a town somewhere in rural michigan, where the cows outnumbered the humans and the humans all had the same caucasian last name. asians were so foreign to them (pun intended) that everyone assumed i couldn't speak english. that and i was a master of the martial arts. "hey man, can you teach me kung fu?" um. no.i had no identity; it was beyond my control and was largely dictated by others' ignorance. regardless of how many times i explained my vietnamese background, i was still referred to as "that one chinese guy." in fact, anyone with slanty eyes and black hair was considered chinese. imagine my satisfaction when a black guy finally enrolled in my school and everyone asked him to teach them how to rap.the best thing to happen to asians might be MTV and hip hop music. with the growing number of rappers dating asian women, my classmates finally realized that "chinese people" were interested in more than just kung fu. then, the question became, "hey man, can you introduce me to the famous rapper your sister is dating?" um. no.but in all seriousness, thank [insert favorite deity] for college and airplanes. i got myself an education and flew myself the hell out of there. i now live in california, where the humans outnumber the cows and the cows are happy. (because good cheese comes from happy cows.)

I was born in Taiwan. Came to the States when I was about 5ish. Grew up in Cali, San Jose to be exact. So I often identify myself as Taiwanese American, although we are all really Chinese Americans. (Some people don't consider Taiwan and independent nation). I've gone back there a few times, and all the locals all can tell I'm fully Americanized by now. But its a great place to be and see. The food is awesome! But damn is it hot during the summers, and the mesquitoes love American blood.

I grew up (younger years) in the south, and then outside of Detroit for JHS-HS. I finally found my long lost Asian American identity at Brown, and deepened it in the Bay Area. SF life is DesiLicious.

I grew up in Houston, Texas. Houston, in numbers at least, is pretty diverse. My high school was roughly 1/3 white, 1/3 black and 1/3 Latino. There are lot of Vietnamese, Chinese and South Asians, but the only place where I really saw any Asians was in Chinatown, or the Chinese Baptist church. And I *really* didn't identify with any of the people at church. Many of my friends at school were Latino and that's what I identified with.When I went to college in Chicago, I became politicized and began to identify as Asian American, and not by my ethnicity. For the first time in my life, I also met other Asian Americans, who, just like me, had artistic bents and also didn't care for church. Ah Chicago, good times.I think I was a little shocked to see so many Asians on the streets of SF when I came here. It's unlike any place I've ever been. I tend to think Asians who grew up here and never left have been living in an unrealistic vaccuum. Well, some of them at least. It's easy to live in an Asian American world here, because there are so many of us, with all our organizations. I feel that my group of friends here is actually the least diverse it's ever been because of that.

I was born and raised in Georgia, and then went to California for college. I only started really thinking hard about my cultural identity and larger APA issue when I moved to the Midwest.I think that when I lived in Georgia, I just had no frame of reference, because being the only Asian face around without a foreign accent was all I knew. I never felt like I belonged in either the black or the white world. I felt very comfortable in California, where almost all the friends I made were Asian, but didn't think about it much until I moved to Chicago for law school and all of a sudden people around me felt like it was okay to make ignorantly pejorative comments about Asians, where there were very few Asian professionals (who actually wanted to give back to the community) to seek mentorship from, and race relations and diversity issues seemed 20 years behind the West Coast. However, I'm glad that I came here to some extent because I have realized now how important my cultural identity is to me, and I feel that I understand now that we really aren't anywhere near there yet as far as equality and overcoming discrimination.I'm really looking forward to getting the hell out of here though, and settling down in California or Hawai`i. I feel that it's important when I have them, for my kids to grow up in an environment where they don't have to question their identities to the same extent I have, etc. But now that I've had this Midwest experience, I think it's incredibly important to me to seek opportunities to mentor APA students and to try to give back to the APA community in general wherever I end up.I identify generally as APA since I'm mixed Asian (Taiwanese-Japanese), and I'm not altogether comfortable identifying with either.

KKT, My wife is Japanese, we presently live in Japan, she will be a Asian lost in America if the Navy forces me to move. I hope I can find a community in the Southern California area that come close to Japan. She is one of those Asian chicks that love the Hip HOp Community, but that is only going to go so far. I know she is going to get homesick. I guess after 2 years we can move back, I do like it over here.

I grew up in California, but it's not the California that many people posting here were drawn to.Outside of the Bay Area, the L.A. area and a few other larger cities, California is a very different place from what most people would imagine. More like the Midwest or South that many of you have fled -- not very diverse and not very many Asian Americans.I grew up on a farm in a small city near Sacramento.I had similar experiences to many of you, not really identifying and feeling uncomfortable about my race.

See that State at the top of this blog topic? That's my state. Until moved to the SF Bay, I lived in Minnesota for half my life. I can't say I liked it at first- coming from the East Coast, it seemed like everyone was a couple years behind cool (I lived in Indiana for a year before where a classmate used the phrase "always looks like he's got a good tan" to describe me). In the last couple years I lived there and especially now that I'm away from it, I realize how cool a place it is. You know all that PBR and track bike crap that blew up in The Mission (and NYC, too) in that last couple years? Yeah, Minneapolis, 1998. Affordable housing with public transit to non-stop intercontinental air travel? Yeah. Fresh produce and funding for the arts? You know it. Strong ethnic minority communities? Well, if you know where to look.So besides the Midwest, I'm from Singapore, New Jersey, Maryland (Go O's). I've only recently started accepting the term Asian American to describe me; I'm Chinese, not Asian, and the USA is a resting point for not even 1/3 of my family right now. I don't know if it'll be my last and it almost assuredly won't be for future generations. I didn't flee the Midwest to the more AA friendly environment of SF so much as I moved to a place that has more jumping off points to drop the second A.One of my earliest memories of being in the USA was being made fun of for speaking Chinese- by my English-speaking, half-Korean neighbors. I didn't like having to go to school an extra day on Saturday and those schools only taught Mandarin anyway so now my Chinese is limited to knowing when my Mom is coming to cane my ass and how to order a handful of dishes. My most vivid AA related college memory was my mom's house being broken into my freshman year- by Vietnamese who took nothing but some cash and a knife from my bedroom. They just wanted to scare the suburban Chinese (it happened to the house of another Chinese kid I knew in college who lived a few miles away) Congratulations to the Vietnamese kids- now my mom has a security system and doesn't go to Asian American gatherings anymore. Aside from my best friend who is Korean and didn't really identify with his Asian side, either (because when you take AP classes, play in band and spend time reading and drawing comic books, there are plenty enough other reasons to feel alienated), Asian Americans tended to be people I avoided more than were drawn to.So why do I put time into Hyphen? Because I might not call carbonated beverages "pop" or casserole "hot dish", but when I'm rolling with a Midwest crew, I know where I am. And when I see William Hung rock the mic, I know where he's coming from too. Because everything I wanted to avoid is so much of what brings me back. And like every other community I've been lucky enough to be a part of just before someone cashed in on it, I think Asian American is still an identity in the process of construction. Yeah, its significance is very different in the Bay than it is in the Midwest or overseas, but if it was the same, we wouldn't have many stories to tell and that would be an unfortunate thing.

I've grown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and am now attending college in Columbus in the Buckeye State. I guess I've had the typical Midwestern experience... I didn't feel completely isolated, but I definitely felt the effect of rural Ohio towns.It's interesting, 'cause I thought that here at Ohio State University we had a decent sized Asian American population that keeps somewhat active, but I interned in Los Angeles last summer, and the perceptions about Ohio, and the rest of the Midwest, were pretty funny (and a little alarming). I worked at an Asian American non-profit, and the reaction I got was mostly, Are there are other Asians in Ohio (often confused with Iowa)?? I think it really is a costal perception that there's no one in between the two coasts, which perhaps is reinforced by the constant cry out from the Midwestern and Southern communities that they are so alone...But yeah. Midwestern I am, and most likely Midwestern I'll remain (no matter where I live).

my family has as classic a 1975-Vietnamese-refugee trajectory as you can get, pretty much. grandparents on both sides fled from the North into Sai Gon in 1954. parents fled Sai Gon in April 1975, (gloomy baby erin in tow), spent a week in Guam, a month in Camp Pendleton, and then settled in Southern California. only point in which we were geographically original is that my sister & i grew up in West LA, not Orange County. but our parents moved to OC a few years ago for the easy access to 24 hour pho places. which means we are now, omigod, SO Vietnamese.

I grew up in North Jersey suburbs and am currently attending Penn State. After going to Penn State I am looking forward to attending law school in Southern California. It's not that there aren't alot of Asians in State College it's just that the mentality of most people is a good 15-20 years behind what you would find in NJ or SoCal. Pennsylvania can be deceptive because it is a blue state and you can find a good number of Asians in areas like Pittsburgh and State College but a survey of bumper stickers in any parking lot should give you a better idea of how you'll be received.Growing up in North Jersey I always had many more white friends than Asian friends but here I've found that Asians have become very insular as have most other racial groups.

Minnesota represent! I was born in Saigon and raised in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis. What people call the hood round these parts, also somewhat unique in that it is one of the few urban Native American communities in the nation (Little Earth housing projects is like an urban rez). Minneapolis/St. Paul Asian population is changing a lot, there are sizeable populations now, many of hwom are Southeast Asian, lots of Hmong folks and Vietnamese. Lots of Adopted Koreans, as well - I believe statistically the two largest APIA populations in MN are Hmong, then AK's.

I was born in Queens and grew up in the North Jersey suburbs, which were almost entirely white even though we were only 20 miles outside of NYC. My parents pretty much integrated my hometown when they moved there 30 years ago, and my mom found friends by looking up any Asian sounding names in the county phone book and cold calling them. Back then we had to drive into Manhattan for any sort of community, Chinese or Filipino food, etc.Today the area where I grew up has a much larger Asian population--there are nearby towns which are mainly Korean American, for instance--with new immigrants moving out of urban ethnic neighborhoods into the burbs. My parents rarely bother to go to Queens or Manhattan Chinatown anymore.My first, life transforming, encounter with actual like minded Asian American communities was in NYC, when I was in college. It wasn't until I visited relatives living in the Toronto suburbs and moved out to the Bay Area for a couple of years that I actually saw Asian suburbia. I've always wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a place where Asians were the majority.

I'm Berkeley born, Cali raised. May seem exotic or TV-sitcomish to some (Dharma & Greg with a Japanese overlay) but every area has its challenges and possibilities. Apparently for us from the Bay Area, that means avoiding sounding like a fortune cookie at every turn. During college I lived one year in Ohio, and that was an eye-opener. Gave me some tidbits that I still feel very passionate, including:**"Asian-American community experience" has so many other important factors than just headcount of black-haired people in given zipcode, including income, presence of other people of color (and what kinds), local industries, relationship with immigration, etc. For example, there's little in common between a upper-middle-class Monterey Park Chinese sorority member and a NorCali Cambodian or Vietnamese or Filipino (yet we all grew up "among Asians").**I feel bad for the Asian-American brothers and sisters raised in backwoods all-white areas of the U.S., they got it rough. Connecticut too.**That said, Asian-Americans that grew up around all white people may feel more culturally alienated (not to mention the racism they endured), but I notice they're usually much more adept at white people's culture, its language, mores, attitudes, and how to pimp their system. That's an asset I can't say we all have here in Cali, a.k.a. the "Third World of America."**We need to stop being jealous of each other's experiences a la "You had a better Asian experience" because the point is they're ALL Asian-American experiences and none is more or less authentic.**I wish people would stop saying that growing up in the Bay is like "living in a dream world." That's funny, I felt fine when visiting the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and Cuba. I connected with people on our mutual strivings for a better society, and life. Perhaps the rest of America is the dream/nightmare world?

I'm Berkeley born, Cali raised. May seem exotic or TV-sitcomish to some (Dharma & Greg with a Japanese overlay) but every area has its challenges and possibilities. Apparently for us from the Bay Area, that means avoiding sounding like a fortune cookie at every turn. During college I lived one year in Ohio, and that was an eye-opener. Gave me some tidbits that I still feel very passionate, including:**"Asian-American community experience" has so many other important factors than just headcount of black-haired people in given zipcode, including income, presence of other people of color (and what kinds), local industries, relationship with immigration, etc. For example, there's little in common between a upper-middle-class Monterey Park Chinese sorority member and a NorCali Cambodian or Vietnamese or Filipino (yet we all grew up "among Asians").**I feel bad for the Asian-American brothers and sisters raised in backwoods all-white areas of the U.S., they got it rough. Connecticut too.**That said, Asian-Americans that grew up around all white people may feel more culturally alienated (not to mention the racism they endured), but I notice they're usually much more adept at white people's culture, its language, mores, attitudes, and how to pimp their system. That's an asset I can't say we all have here in Cali, a.k.a. the "Third World of America."**We need to stop being jealous of each other's experiences a la "You had a better Asian experience" because the point is they're ALL Asian-American experiences and none is more or less authentic.**I wish people would stop saying that growing up in the Bay is like "living in a dream world." That's funny, I felt fine when visiting the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and Cuba. I connected with people on our mutual strivings for a better society, and life. Perhaps the rest of America is the dream/nightmare world?

My mom is from Vietnam & my dad's polish american. They met during the war, got married, and moved to Milwaukee, WI (dad's hometown), which is where I was born a few years later. Since then I've lived in various cites/towns (larger and very small) in WI, San Francisco, and currently reside in Chicago. I volunteer, sit on the board of, and am a member of several Pan-Asian organizations.RUKKU: I agree with what you said about the perception of the Midwest by costal folk.

as a son of a Viet refugee displaced in the heartland of white america i feel like my life has always been about movement. notions of "home" always hit the hardest when i think about the stories my grandma used to tell me about about home, about the motherland.i think i have always searched for a sense of "home" ever since i can remember. my moms likes to talk story about how when i was 3 i tried to run off into the street by myself! she believes i have always been like this, a wanderer who's going to get hit by moving objects!i have had the privilege to move around the states since the age of 16. from memphis, tn to san diego to the yay area to richmond va to wash dc & back to the yay area, my "home" life has been mad transitory.i now live & work in the yay area & consider it home... for now. but i don't see myself moving anytime soon, & can picture myself raising beautiful, fierce asian american wanderers here.asian america? it's everywhere.

i grew up mostly in southern arizona and central ohio, with an early touchdown in upstate new york and a late one in southwestern michigan.rukku: glad to hear that klumbus is improving, but the view of the midwest on the coasts is drawn fairly accurately from recent history. i must be around 15 years older than you, if you are an undergrad now, and when i was a kid in columbus, i was one of very few asians, and especially few chinese. we were very isolated from any asian community (and keep in mind that my dad was in the east asian languages department at osu) and our next door neighbors, who happened to be chinese (the only other chinese family in our neighborhood) were so anxious not to be pegged that they ignored us for six years. we never even had dinner at their house.arizona, of course, was pretty much asian-free as well, but very relaxed about it. when i was in college in tucson in the late eighties/early nineties, they still had an "oriental studies" department, which included all of asia and the arabian peninsula.i moved to san francisco specifically to find an asian american community. i even wrote it down on my list: "find asian american community." check.

oh, and great idea for a thread, momo!

I'm just a young asian kid trying to make it in the big city.........

Oakland-born, Seattle-raised. Seattle is a pretty diverse city, but my family's house was in middle-class and mostly white suburb. The only thing that really kept me connected to the AsianAm community was weekend visits to Chinatown and my family's Chinese church on Beacon Hill.Significant times elsewhere:-2 months in Sao Paulo & Presidente Prudente, Brazil-1.5 years in Kobe/Osaka Japan

I was born and raised in SF, so I got a taste of life in the city in my earlier years. I later moved to Columbus, Ohio when I was in elementary school and was the only asian kid. the school was mostly white. during summer camp there were two kids who teased me because I was chinese. I later wrote about that experience in one of my journal entries for class, and apparently my english teacher was horrified because she immediately called a meting with the principal and the two kids who did it. up until that point it seemed normal for me to not be considered a "typical" american, you know, the feeling of not really belonging. some of my friends were cool though because they stuck up for me when i was being teased, so not everyone was ignorant like that.I've since moved back to the bay area (oh the food!!) where I'm part of a rapidly growing minority population. I work in a research lab where nearly all of the other undergrads are chinese. Last summer, I also did research at a company where a large number of the scientists were of chinese descent.in the bay area, it feels like our minority status isnt so apparent, but that doesnt mean that racism and bias is nonexistent. even in a place like SF, a few asian high school teens were beaten because of their race. cultural clashes are beginning to emerge in suburbs as well, where white residents are decrying efforts to revitalize local malls by opening new asian shops and restaurants. also, parents in some white families are enrolling their children in private schools because of the "overcompetitiveness" that they perceive as the result of large asian populations in schools.i identify as chinese (vietnamese) american, whose family came to america by way of vietnam.