Week 8: Kristina Nguyen

"In the Black Pacific," Bernard Scott Lucious explores the Asian-African diasporas -- specifically the Vietnamese Black Asian. He explains this as the "Black Pacific" where there are three sub categories: experiences of ex Black male militants who have serve or continue to  in Asia, experiences of Asian women who have had affairs with Americans, and the experiences of Afro-Ameriasian children born to African American men and Asian women. He provides testimonies that showcase the displacement of these people due to racism, colorism and etc. Reading this definitely sparked a lot of random stories I would overhear my mom tell family relatives. Back then, I thought my mom was a bada**!!! She told me stories about how kids in her neighborhood would make fun of her and she would break the kids glasses and drag him by the ear back to his house and tell his mom that he started a fight with her. This reading opened my eyes to the reasons why my mom would have engaged herself in these types of action. I never truly understood the reasons for racism back in Vietnam and why my grandma had to take her to a school miles away only to have my mom and all her siblings drop out before high school. I find it really sad that his happened 30 years ago and I also find it really sad that colorism still exists today. You definitely see that people who are lighter skin gets treated better. I had a talk with one of my friends recently and I asked her what her parents would think of her boyfriend and although she's Chinese, and he's Vietnamese; She said her parents would want him to probably be Chinese, and if not at least tall and light skin. Let me point out that he's not even an Afro-Ameriasian.. just a darker Vietnamese. Tying back to the racism existed within the Vietnamese diaspora, I know Mix Ameriasian are admired now in Vietnam, and I wonder if the same type of admiration is given to Afro-Ameriasian when they visit their homeland or not? 

Here is a picture of Tyga, a famous rapper. Although he is mixed Vietnamese and Black, he rarely speaks about his Vietnamese descent in media and etc. I find it interesting because he is one of the few Asians who has made a huge crack in the entertainment industry; although he came from the lowers parts of Los Angeles.