<p>Yes, there are campuses on which Asians are URMs (though obviously none of the UCs)! Keilexandra had a great thread awhile back about which colleges include Asians in their diversity weekends/programs. Middlebury and Swarthmore are two that spring to mind. Apollo6, you ask but their experiences and backgrounds are the same as their white siblings, aren’t they? No, they are not the same - how could they be? And of course your Korean children will bring diversity to colleges they will bring their unique perspective of belonging to two cultures/races and thats a tremendous strength.</p>
<p>In fact, there is no “pure” Chinese, as there is no “pure” Americans. China, a country with over 3000 year written history, is a melting pot. There are 55 distinct nationalities in China. There were groups came from Russia, Middle East, Europe. A group of people in Western China trace their roots to ancient Rome. I was born in China, married to a Chinese. However, if you look at my S2, he has brown hair and distinct “western” features. On the other hand, many babies born with parents of European origin have so called, “blue butt”, a darker spot on their behind, which is considered having Mongolian genes. On the other hand, long ago, a group of nomads call the Huns, was driven out of northern China and settled in Eastern Europe. American Indians are descendants from a group of migrants from Asia. The take home message: We are a lot closer than you think. We may look slightly different; we are, in fact, the same underneath the skin.</p>
<p>“There are colleges that consider Asian to be URM (rather than ORM) ???”</p>
<p>Yep. Hamilton, Colgate, Bates, Colby, St. Lawrence…I could go on and on. </p>
<p>If you check Asian when you take your PSAT you will be inundated with invites to diversity weekends from the schools who are looking to diversify their student body.</p>
<p>I was born in Hawaii as were my parents but my grandparents were from Korea. Been living on the mainland for more than 50 years. My only language is English yet to this day I’m still congratulated on how good my English is. It’s insulting and frankly I’m tired of being thought of as a perpetual foreigner. My kids are half Asian. The one that looks more Asian has experienced more prejudice than the other one that looks more non- Asian. We live in a primarily white community, and it’s a pain to have to deal with the daily level of general ignorance. So I hope no one thinks to tell me something equally stupid like go back to Korea or something like that since I’ve never been and couldn’t speak to them any better than anyone else who isn’t from Korea. I have to wonder how many generations and years of buying into the system it will take and how many dollars in taxes people like me have to pay before we are finally accepted as Americans. Sorry for the rant, but you bring up a great topic.</p>
<p>My wife is from China and our teenage son is half-Chinese. Since I do not speak Mandarin, we spoke English at home and though my wife tried to teach him her native language, he resisted and did not learn nearly as much as she expected. So we decided he should spend a few summers in China with his relatives to immerse him in the culture and language. However, that did not go as expected as he instead taught his relatives English more than they taught him Mandarin. Oh well, at least he speaks some and can understand more, though he is far from fluent.</p>
<p>My Indian H learned 3 languages (and alphabets), including Eglish gowing up. He met me here and our son is 1/2 Asian but knows none of the Indian languages, nor do I (with the exception of a few phrases). We always marked both Asian and white on forms- I had no problem with the school district getting another minority for funding purposes. It was a tad annoying since H’s foreign childhood language triggered parental language paperwork for son’s entry into kindergarten- my H’s command of English is better than 90% of Americans’ and son was entering early with a 2nd grade reading level…</p>
<p>It was discouraging to find out that so many Asian immigrants have been so successful there is an oversupply for the elite colleges so his ethnicity worked against him.</p>
<p>I have two mutts: Asian/Caucasian.</p>
<p>None of them speak my native language. I did not teach them. The reason being, my husband is also from another country, and the only language common to us is English. Since both of us worked, in the evening, if each parent starts to talk in his/her native language with the kids, there will be no conversation that all of us can participate in. So, this was a deliberate decision we made as a family, knowing full well that we are sacrificing on the multi lingual front. </p>
<p>One of them looks more Asian than Caucasian - he can pass in my native country as exotic looking, but still “one of them”. The second one looks more Mediterranean than either Asian or EU type Caucasian. </p>
<p>Some interesting stories. When S1 was an infant, my husband had a business trip to his home country, and he book the baby with him to show him to his relatives and friends. On the plane, a schumck came up to him and point blank asked him “so, how much did you pay for him?” My husband was speechless. I later told him that he should have answered “None, but you should hear how much I paid for his mother”. </p>
<p>Another time, he took both kids to the beach. The kids were playing with sand, and my husband was pacing around right next to them. A beach guard came, and started to yell to a megaphone that there are two unattended kids and please parents or guardians come forward. </p>
<p>Then, there is this little gem. We had an Italian American nanny for 15 years. One day she came home and told me that a group of women came up to her and said “Oh, what beautiful children you have. You must be a proud mom. They look just like you” NOT. no way… </p>
<p>The best one is from my friend who is black and married to a Caucasian man. They have four children. One looks mostly black. Two look mixed and one looks mostly Caucasian. She told me that when is out just with the Caucasian looking kid, they all assume she is a nanny and comment on how loving she is toward “her charge”, and whether she has friends as loving and caring as her to work for them (she lived in a very tony, upscale town).</p>
<p>Very interesting stories, Hyeonjlee. Thanks for sharing. We had certainly been involved in similar situation when both our boys were young, when their “western” features were more pronounced. For some reason, they are both more Asian looking as they are growing up…Golden hairs turn darker for both boys. Looking up to the family tree from one side of the family, there were some genes came from Russia .</p>
<p>hyeonjlee - I laughed in recognition at your stories. But of course it’s not always funny (as in the lifeguard account). S was out on a first bike ride and H was following a ways behind. He fell and H ran to him but a bystander got there first. He pushed H away saying ‘where’s the parent?’ and it wasn’t till S said ‘Papa’ that the stranger let H get to our son. I actually always carry a birth certificate with me because I have nightmares that there’ll be an emergency and the Hospital personnel won’t let H in as they won’t believe he’s the father. Sorry, I know this is OT but I do appreciate hyeonjlee sharing.</p>
<p>I will share one story somewhat similar to those recently added. We were on a vacation in Beijing and we were at the gates of the Forbidden City, which my wife and I had always wanted to see (our son not so much). My wife went to get some tourist information from one of the information booths and we were waiting for her. My son, who looks increasingly Caucasian by the year but who might have been able to pass for Chinese at the time (he was 9), began loudly protesting, in English, that he was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. As he began walking away from me, towards where he thought the hotel probably was (though we had taken the subway and he could not have known), I grabbed him and he started screaming. I was then surrounded by a crowd of Chinese tourists who were wondering what this strange Western man was trying to do with this little boy. One woman who could speak some English (most Chinese assume Westerners speak English, and that is usually true in China), started yelling at me in English and asking what I was trying to do, and while doing that she was looking around, presumably for the police. I told my son to tell her I was his dad, but he was enjoying the spectacle and kept quiet. Then my wife reappeared and quickly explained and the incident was over. I was nervous there for a moment, though.</p>
<p>I have a friend who had fraternal twins. One looks very dark and of mixed ancestry while the other looks nearly totally Caucasian. Strangers would come up to her frequently and ask if they were twins and then ask if they had different fathers or different mothers!?!?! It was very odd & I was there a few times when it happened. She kept her sense of humor, but thought it was extremely rude!</p>
<p>I was in the supermarket, my two oldest girls were 5 and 3. Checkout girl says, “Are they sisters?” I say, “Yes.” She says, “You can tell, they look so similar. It is just so nice that you kept the family together!” I had a double-take and said, “No, no, they are my kids.” To which she replied, “Of course they are dear, OF COURSE they are.”</p>
<p>Then there are the times when people “see” the family resemblence between the adopted children (from different biological parents) & the parents who are raising him and her. They are very earnest in this conversation.</p>
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<p>The first part (different fathers) assume extreme promiscuity on the part of the mother (in a very rare occasion having sex with two man within a very small window) will different fraternal twins with different fathers. Extremely inappropriate to suggest the possibility</p>
<p>The second part is physically impossible: how can you have twins with two different mothers? This show extreme ignorance of the part of the questioner.</p>
<p>This is my pet peeve: American education should have more science and less fluffs.</p>
<p>(caveat: I guess it’s possible: fertilize sperm with eggs from two different women and then implant both on a surrogate mother. But this is like a Chinese contortion art).</p>
<p>Yea, but these total strangers ask these rude questions IN FRONT of her darling children! It is remarkable how different the boys look in coloring and other aspects, but STILL!!! I only spent time with her when our kids were in preschool together. Our older kids have now graduated college!</p>
<p>Very interesting post; love the stories. My son, who is half Japanese, only knows the language from going to our public Japanese immersion elementary and middle school. It appears that he is expected to know the language better, as the other half-Japanese students have a mom from Japan, and they speak it at home.</p>
<p>I am blonde, fair-skinned, and he is olive-skinned, and ‘exotic’ looking. When we would be out and about when he was a baby, people would ask me A LOT if I was his nanny. He was a very unhappy, colicky, baby, and I would always answer (with that crazed, sleepless cackle that only mothers of colicky babies can understand), “Are you kidding me? You couldn’t pay me enough to be a nanny to this baby!” They would look at me kind of funny and sidle away.</p>
<p>My half Japanese niece is totally bilingual, though doesn’t write and perhaps read as well in Japanese. Though she has spent some time enrolled in school in Japan, her education has been in English, with Japanese Saturday school. At home she grew up with mommy’s language and daddy’s language, and still speaks different languages to each parent, for the most part. My brother speaks fairly good Japanese, and he and his wife usually speak English to each other. </p>
<p>One part of her ethnic mix that makes me sad, was pointed out by her mother. In Japan they see her foreign features, and think gaijin, while we see her Asian features and think Japanese. So no 100% visual inclusion. But growing up in a very international city, she fits in with her peers just fine, as well as our half Asian family, from multiple generations. </p>
<p>Someone mentioned going back to China for learning from family that didn’t succeed. Didn’t work well for my (adopted thru marriage) Korean brother as well. He refused to talk after being given a hard time in Seoul, so never did learn much Korean. Not easy, because he feels like he blows it regularly in Korean social situations. </p>
<p>So many hard questions from strangers. Someone (male) once asked me if my twins were born at the same time or sequentially. I didn’t have the heart to start a detailed discussion of how birth works with the guy.</p>
<p>Hey, my son was a miserable, colicky baby too. Don’t cross paths with many moms who have colicky kids. What a painful experience, though I loved my son dearly, didn’t even want to think of having any other kids for a long time. When my 2nd son was born and was a sweet baby I suddenly understood why people like babies! Anyway, I was often told colicky kids grow up to be very smart. Turned out to be true for my son. What about yours?</p>
<p>My S wasn’t colicky but did have a very tough time sleeping (didn’t sleep more than 1-2 hours at a time until he was past 18 months old!) Most of the daylight hours, he was attentive and not fussy, with a very long attention span. At night, he’d wake regularly all through the night. He has grown into a very light sleeping man who favors sleeping late and waking VERY late. Fortunately, he is very smart and was able to get his U courses and jobs to allow him quite a lot of flexibility in choosing his hours.</p>
<p>D, who was born 2 years & 5 days later was sleeping thru the night at 4 or 6 weeks! H wanted a 3rd baby but I reminded him that we didn’t have the colicky one yet and I only had two hands, plus we’d already have to work forever to put the kids through college as it was. We never had a 3rd baby. ;)</p>
<p>Good story, austinareadad. You’ve got a smart one there. Lol</p>