Blog 6 – Mixed Desires for Asian Americans

By Eric Yu

       Asian Americans living in the United States are often under pressures on whether to conform to their parents’ own traditions or to go along with their friends and companions. Clark et al. (1976) notes how various smaller groups desire to become part of a shared subculture (as cited in Maira 2005). However, Maira (2005) understands this to “mediate between the expectations of immigrant parents and those of mainstream American culture” through the “realm of the social and symbolic” (p. 232-233). Even though Maira (2005) often provides examples of Indian-American youth groups performing such acts to position themselves through the “racial project,” there are other groups who also perform such acts on a larger scale (p. 239). One such example is the Fung Brothers, noted for having created an image within San Gabriel Valley of the mixture of Asian stores present selling foods (Xia 2012). Maira’s observation of mediation between the two different factors helped produce a neighborhood where youth are “obsessed with boba tea, break dancing and Instagram photos of food” (Xia 2012). These brothers also produce content on YouTube, thus potentially spreading their influence to a worldwide audience interested in the life of Asian American youth. Thus, making such a life public for others to see reveals changes that focus on relationships of how power is held.

The Fung Brothers are interested in travelling to other locations in order to show how other places in the United States make food. However, their videos spread their influence and thus, political power over others. Thus, traditional borders of the nation are crossed to show cross-national boundaries.

Question: How else could such personal issues of “shared subcultures” become prominent and reveal their political aspects to the larger world?

Works Cited

Fung, A; Fung, D. [FungBrosComedy]. (2015, Jun. 15). ‪FUNG BROS FOOD: Soup Dumplings in NYC (Joe's Shanghai) [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/c30_KK2nSpU

Maira, S. (2005). Mixed Desires: Second-Generation Indian Americans and the Politics of Youth Culture. In W. W. Anderson & R. G. Lee (Eds.), Displacements and Diasporas (pp. 227-247). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.