Eric Lien has an interesting post up titled “Yellow/Brown Conflict and Self-Segregation”. Eric always has his finger on the pulse of Yellow Amerika. He says:
I’ve noticed that South Asians tend to more segregated in the realm of dating and relationships, but less segregated in their daily social life
But the recent article that duende linked to about American-Born South Asians getting arranged marriages states that the most recent Census shows that 50% of the 2nd generation (those born here) are marrying non-South Asians (no gender break-down, but I suspect it will be about 50/50, rather than the typical Asian ratio). Eric’s observation might be a result of the fact that South Asians have a higher proportion of new immigrants than the older established Chinese and Japanese communities. But, it is still interesting that he feels that South Asians mix socially more with whites. Earlier, Eric & others have stated that compared to East Asians, South Asians tend to be more outgoing, loud and verbose, so this might explain their affinity with whites who share the same qualities (on a relative scale-don’t tell me that the typical WASP is loquacious, but some Jewess’ I’ve met would give a Bengali Babu a run for their money). Additionally, the South Asians that come to the United States are somewhat on the more “Caucasoid” end of the phenotype spectrum [1]. Though almost all Arab-white marriages in the United States result in children that can “pass” (including two stars of Baywatch and the singer Tiffany), a large portion of the offspring of Indian-white marriages also can pass as white (this is dependent on the phenotype of the Indian parent, I knew a light-skinned man from Uttar Pradesh who ended up with red-headed twins, who had his large nose at a young age, so I don’t think he was cuckolded) [1].
Finally, Eric does not mention the Southeast/Northeast Asian split. I had a friend who was Korean-American who had a crush on a rather attractive girl of Hmong Laotian origin, and his Korean-American female friends would always blurt out “but she’s Hmong!” (imagine sneering disgust). I have met Thais who are my complexion as well as Vietnamese that are no darker than the typical Korean or north Chinese (and they were not Chinese Vietnamese), so the phenotype would probably matter….
[1] Or any other race. My mother is convinced that brown people who “breed out” lose their ethnic look. The actress Tatyana Ali and TLC member Chili are half-black & half-brown, but identify as black (and to most people, look “black”). The singer Norah Jones is half-brown, but most people don’t know until Ravi Shankar is mentioned. Jimmy Smits has a father that is of East Indian origin from Suriname, but his Puerto Rican mother tends to determine his ethnic identification as a Latino. I knew two girls (twins) who were half-Filipino & half-Sri Lankan, and I just assumed they were dark Southeast Asians when I first met them.
[2] One of the most peculiar arguments I had was with a friend of mine who I once went on a date with. I mentioned offhand how I’m “Asian-American,” and she objected to me using that label, she thought of me as a “white person with brown skin,” and when I pointed out to her that someone who was white but was brown was a ludicrous definition she became angry. Later I found out she tended not to find “Asian” men attractive, and I know she found me attractive, ergo, in her mind, I just couldn’t be Asian….
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