State of Grace

Fine cookin' folks, them Filipinos.

Well, dollins, allow me to jump back into the blog waters with the latest stupid thing Dubya said.  And, this time, it's personal:

From the HuffPo, a excerpt from a White House meeting transcript with President of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal Arroyo:

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PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Thank you.

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All righty, then! We at the White House know Filipinos as SERVANTS.  But, rest assured, the President says we're great folks and love America! However, more than anything, we can cook like a mofo!

No doubt that White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford can rock it in the kitchen.  This is not unusual - I come from a legacy of excellent Filipino cooks including my grandpa, who was the personal chef of a US Navy Admiral.  I have a lineup of bossy aunts who insist their adobo rules above all others and you'd best agree with them.  Perhaps Chef Comerford operates the same way - love my food Mr. President or you're dead meat, preferably the favored protein of Filipinos everywhere, dead pork.

But, try to see beyond your insular world, George W.  Watch who you're talking to - President Arroyo has a Ph.D. in economics.  Prior to being elected President, Arroyo held multiple federal government appointments.  Even her DNA is a big deal - her  father was President of the Philippines.

In other words, this lady is not going to relate to your clumsy associations between her people and their fine culinary abilities.  In the transcript, President Arroyo was polite, but I sure hope her "thank you" was a frosty one.

For the record, I'm a lousy Filipino cook.  I guess there's no job at the White House or in Kennebunkport for me or for my cousin Kevin, a professor in the poli-sci department at the University of Southern California and former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles.   Yeah, Cousin Kev, tough luck because you're a lousy cook, too.

Gaaaah, dollins.  Just gaaaaaaaah.

Internet, is it okay to ask someone about their ethnicity?

Again, I have a bunch of stuff to ask you, Dear Internet.  This time it's a big topic.

As touched upon briefly in previous posts, I am kindly requesting that you consider and respond to my questions on the often touchy business of asking a person about their racial background.   You may provide your answers in the comments section or use the trackback feature to your own blog post on the subject.

Target responders are Americans and Canadians, though this topic may be relevant for the British and Europeans, any country or region where power in the culture is limited to Anglo whites.

Parents may also remark on how these inquiries are presented in reference to their mixed race children.  Parents whose adopted children are racially different from their own ethnicity contend with an additional burden of  awkward and insensitive inquiries, (i.e., "How much did you pay for your Guatemalan baby?")  Though these stories are compelling and these families deserve our sympathies, the focus of this forum is centered on the basic issues of asking someone about their racial make-up.

You may answer all or some of these inquiries as you feel qualified, comfortable and/or willing.

Dear Readers, I want to know -

1. Is it okay to ask of someone's racial background?   
2. If you are okay with asking someone about her or his ethnicity, how do you pose the question?  (Frequently used queries include - "What's your heritage?"  "What's your race?"  Or, the oft-asked but incorrectly worded,  "What's your nationality?")
3. If you are curious about someone's racial background, but hesitate to ask her or him to discuss it, what prevents you from posing the question?
4. If you are of color/not white*, is it okay for a white person to ask about your racial background?  If you take issue with a white person asking about your racial background,  please explain why this presents a problem for you.

* "of color/not white" =  any individual whose ethnic make-up is not Anglo-white, the dominant and most powerful racial group of this society and culture.

Your commentary is important to me and may be useful to others including authors penning a modern etiquette manual,  citizens concerned about improving race relations, and folks who have always wondered about such things.

Feel free to add facts from the literature, survey and poll results, and any juicy anecdotal information to enhance your response.

In case you care, my own answers are after the jump. 

November 13, Wear a Hijab Day

November 13, Wear a Hijab Day
Originally uploaded by GraceD.

Three weeks ago, Alia Ansari, 37, a mother of six, was shot and killed in the Fremont, California neighborhood where I was raised.  She was walking with her 3-year-old daughter to pick up her other children from school. Her family has asked police to investigate the murder as a hate crime. They believe her traditional headscarf, or hijab, made the Afghanistan native a target.

This has sickened me more than I can describe in a simple blog entry.  That it happened in my old hometown, on an intersection where I used to ride my bike as a kid and drive my parents' car as a teen, makes it particularly painful.  What is also painful, and, more than that - angering - is that I'm not at all surprised that this crime of utter hate and religious bigotry occurred in this seemingly benign Silicon Valley suburb.

On the surface, Fremont bears the look of a model diverse community.  Sari shops and restaurants serving Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine occupy the strip malls.  An Indian woman, Anu Natarajan, was elected to the City Council in 2006.  There are now mosques in this city where Father Serra had established Mission San Jose, one of the California missions.

Scratch the surface, and you find deep resentment of these immigrants.  The most vehement objections to Fremont's Asian and Middle Eastern citizens are uttered openly from old guard Fremont, those residents who were around when I lived there in the 60s and 70s.  I know these old guard people, I grew up with them, I know their parents, I've patronized their businesses.  I have been told by old guard types that the Sikhs/Afghans/Indians/Chinese/Tongans are terrible co-workers, the worst next-door neighbors, and that their houses "smell".   After I've picked my jaw off the floor, I ask them why this is, why these particular ethnic groups, why this is different from the offenses of say, any other race.  Their response is the tell tale racist reply -  "that's just the way those people are." 

(That they have said this sort of thing to my face, my obvious Asian American face, is beyond mind boggling.  When I bring this up - hey, you know, I'm Asian, I'm an immigrant's kid - I get the other tell tale racist reply - "but you're different from them.")

I realize that these people, this old guard, were not the ones who shot bullets into Alia Ansari's head.   However, they hold their own smoking guns in perpetrating their insidious racism. 

Today, in an expression of empathy with Fremont's immigrant community, I will be wearing conservative Muslim clothing as I did when I dropped Molly off at her school, pic above.  My hair will be obscured under a scarf, the "hijab", and I will wear long, loose fitting, non revealing garments.   

I will also be "live blogging" this act of solidarity on my newest writing venture, a blog that will be  unfurled in the next few hours, pending some technical tweaking.  I was selected from a sizable and intimidating  list of Northern California bloggers to participate in this venture, and I am humbled to be associated with the distinguished organization behind this initiative.

In the meantime, my Dear Readers, some resources:

Wear a Hijab Day, coordinated by The Foundation for Self Reliance

Fremont Argus, 10/29/06:  Fremont mourns slain Afghan mom.

Tips for Beginning to Wear Hijab

Harold, Kumar and the things I do for my friends.

My dear friend and blog-daughter,  Andria, she of the beautifully written  A Girl Named Rio, is enrolled in a  fascinating  hybrid college course, 'Film and Anthropology'.  Andria's first assignment for the class required that she view a  movie of her choice with someone who was different from her in terms of age and ethnicity.  I was Andria's obvious 'someone', being more than twice her age as well as being 'of color'.

(Related digression - I like the term of color, which has a poetic sensibility.  Tagging myself of color also satisfies my ever gnawing need for self-aggrandizement, as I think of myself and 'colored' folk as "The OC".  My daughter, an ardent fan of the overwrought Fox Network drama similarly named, would not appreciate this.

To digress further - So, if I am of color, what pigmented reference do we use for our white brothers and sisters?  One solution - fellow WoolfCamper and all around witty babe Amber refers to those not of color, but of pallor. But if our white brothers and sisters vacation in the sunny tropics, do they return home of color? Or, of tan or of sunburn? Can you tell I need more coffee?)