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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
Half
I had a pretty good childhood, I think. It's lucky, all things considering-- my parents divorced when I was just a kid, a couple years old. It was all very amicable though, and they're still friends, even today. I never had to deal with them fighting, or being an object or tool for them to fight each other with, and they both loved me very much. Looking back on it, I'm kind of amazed two people who were so different would even consider getting married and having a kid. They must have really liked each other, cause there was no way that marriage was gonna work out. I'm glad they tried, though! Existing is the shit.
I lived primarily with my mother, and this because my dad lived, and lives, in Oakland. Oakland is a beautiful city, full of cool people and hip places, but it was agreed I'd be better off attending school in Sunnyvale, a suburb in Silicon Valley. Oakland has some decent schools, but they're not public, and although Dad might have tried to move to Piedmont, which had a great school system, it made more sense to do things this way. When Mom remarried and moved to Palo Alto, it was an even better idea to live mostly with her-- Palo Alto has well-known public schools, and despite being literally adjacent to East Palo Alto, is mysteriously crime free.
All this contributed, I think, to a delayed understanding of Race for me. I imagine your average Korean-American child is pretty aware, as soon as he's in Elementary School, that some people look different or speak different languages. I'm 100% sure that your average Black or Hispanic kid is aware as well, since their parents will teach them to watch out for racist people (and cops) who still exist in this world. I only spoke English,though, and as I kid I mostly looked like the other Asian-Americans attending my school (my Persian features wouldn't develop for a few more years). We were diverse enough and 2nd-generation enough that we only spoke English together, and so although I was obviously conceptually aware of concepts of race, it wasn't something I ever interacted with.
I guess it was as Middle School started that I encountered it. Whereas an my Elementary School had a class size of about 40 kids, my town had only 3 middle schools, so each graduating year in Middle School had like 300 kids. Enough that it wasn't feasible for everyone to hang out in groups. And as I started to make friends, I found people naturally cleaving apart into different groups. Some of it was by activity-- some kids liked to play with the little finger-skateboard things, and would do that at a different table, or some kids played basketball together and wouldn't grab lunch with the others-- and some of it was by race. Race is a confusing subject for a half-Korean half-Persian kid.
I'm not really sure how it came about, but my group of friends was largely white kids, and barring specific cliques, most groups were of one ethnicity. Looking back on it, I still can't figure out why or how this happened. It wasn't like the particular white people group I was in tried to exclude me in any fashion because I wasn't white. However, maybe another person would have felt uncomfortable approaching a group of just white people if they weren't also white. Maybe these groups already existed as friendships between parents, who hung out with other parents of the same race, or as church groups in the case of Korean families, as there is a specific Korean church in my area. Why did kids with almost no understanding of race segregate themselves? ;_;
In High School, things got even bigger and cliques were more based as much on social constructs (are you a "band nerd"?) as on race (there were two pretty-much identical cliques, on of which had a bunch of nerdy Asian people, and the other of which had a bunch of nerdy White people with a few nerdy Asian people). This was in its own way more horrifying, since even thinking about my High School social skills makes me wince but I got by just fine in my own way. I never felt truly at home with the Asian-American cliques, even if I had some friends in there, just because I didn't really look like them, and couldn't relate to some of the culture they shared. I ended up hanging out with the Whites. Not being a White person made me stick out a bit, but I sure as hell didn't count as an Asian person. I'd stick out anywhere.
I'm not sure I made the right choice. None of those guys are my friends any more-- the people I'm still friends with are people I met on Track or in Band. I'm not even sure there was a right choice to make, really-- but you can't opt out of the rules of High School society. I mean, you can, but then you're alone. I don't like being alone.
This Blog is Part of Blazinghand's Blog Series on Growing Up. If you enjoyed it, check out his article about the Stories from his Father or the Stories from his Mother.
This Blog is Part of Blazinghand's Blog Series on School. If you enjoyed it, check out his article about dealing with an Elementary School Bully or the joys of Starfox 64.
  
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
I swear, there's like a guy who just wanders around rating all my blog posts 1 star. DAMN DUDE. If you don't like it, at least post and tell me why! You're always there within like the first few minutes of the blog going up. Are you a bot? Are you just like the ultimate hater? You were even there to hate on The Stuff of Champions! ;_;
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Don't worry about it, happens to me too, just accepted it. I read your blog, by the by. I just don't have much to say on it 
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
Yeah, I'm not too worried, it's just I went to edit it to add the stuff at the bottom there, and like a minute later I've finished the edit and BAM 1 STAR. I guess it's probably not the same guy, just various people finding blogs displeasing, but I like the idea that there's one very devoted guy who 1-stars me every time I write a blog within like 30 seconds. It makes me feel loved <3
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BAM. I dunno. There are some things to be said towards various studies suggesting that we tend to congregate to people that look like ourselves, to an extent, which could go some way towards racial self-segregation of cliques in a school environment with sufficient diversity to enable it (not a factor in my own experience - my school was pretty homogenous, and I can't recall it ever being a factor for the small group of people that were outside the dominant racial group - although where I was, there were subdivisions by ethnicity that may have been a factor). Then, too, there could be socioeconomic or even geographic factors, which all too often can correlate to racial factors because of the "neighborhood" construct. (Ie, "black", "hispanic", "poor", or whatever adjective people apply to them. Even "bad neighborhood", "combat zone", etc.)
And you can't really opt out of the rules of high school, even if you try, unless you plan on having absolutely no involvement with anyone outside your teachers. I was very much outside of the social structures, but I still was a "band geek" because I played an instrument. (Not that I hung out with band people outside of school, or much inside school either.) Plus, the ones that are complete and total loners? Yeah... that's not healthy. Like, seriously. Even the super shy or super bullied usually have at least one or two friends.
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Always wondered whether the racial-denomination changed with the nation's renaming. Or do you just call it Persia in the way that some Iranians that fled refuse to acknowledge the current regime? I've never really understood what was considered the 'correct' usage, though I guess both are somewhat accurate.
As for the blog, race seemed to be prominently featured, but I didn't get the feeling that it really played a big part in the actual friend-making. You yourself said that it quickly changed towards interests rather than race.
I think that race itself is mostly meaningless, but race often corresponds with culture, especially for minorities that often have more intimate relationships than the majority.
So, in many ways, whilst race doesn't tell us anything about an individual, it does give us a chance to make an educated guess that they are more likely to be a certain way. That sense of feeling like you understand someone might be a powerful factor when you consider that approaching strangers (with the intent of making friends) can be very stress inducing for a lot of people.
In the end, losing friends is just the way things go. When things change, you only really cling to the best friends.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
On July 27 2012 05:07 zalz wrote:
Always wondered whether the racial-denomination changed with the nation's renaming. Or do you just call it Persia in the way that some Iranians that fled refuse to acknowledge the current regime? I've never really understood what was considered the 'correct' usage, though I guess both are somewhat accurate.
Persian refers to an ethnic group-- the Persians make up about 2/3rds of Iran's population. Iranian refers to a nationality. So, for example Anglo is an ethnic group, but an Anglo could be British, or American, and a Briton could easily be some other ethnic group. Another example would be Hui and Han, the two most common ethnic groups in China. I think a lot of immigrants who left Iran because the country was going to shit like to think of themselves as Persian rather than Iranian for the reason you've specified-- they are culturally Persian but they feel no connection to the government and state of Iran, or wished they didn't.
On July 27 2012 05:07 zalz wrote:
In the end, losing friends is just the way things go. When things change, you only really cling to the best friends.
;_; yeah
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As a white person in one of those cliques, I don't remember race actually having that much to do with it. Yes to a large extent asians/whites/others (that's basically what my high school was) stayed separate, but there were always exceptions. It seemed more like the culture was different though. The asains tended to study harder in their cliques, so I didn't join those, for example. (There really is a reason that became a stereotype)
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EPT
