Raising the Next Generation of Asian American Boys: How one family is teaching culture, identity, and masculinity
By Eric Lee
On an October Saturday, the boys head to a playground near their Gaithersburg home to play soccer, while the rest of the family makes Henry Pham’s favorite meal. Family dinners with their grandmother, Uncle Nguyen, and Aunt Thao aren’t a daily occurrence for the Phams. The matriarch, June Pham or ba ngoai, maternal grandmother in Vietnamese, lives in Cape Coral, Fla., and made the journey to celebrate Henry’s 9th birthday.
Henry determines it’s his turn to play goalie and tells his 6-year-old brother, Hayle, to go play in the field. Hayle immediately drops to the ground upset, believing Henry’s hogging the goalie position. With his arms folded tightly in front of him, he sniffles and whines before resting his chin on his forearms. His feet look like Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch, covered with green turf.
Nguyen walks over to Hayle with an annoyed, but authoritative stature. “You’re too old to be acting like this,” he says, but is only met with silence. Nguyen turns around and kicks the ball to Henry, only to miss the goal by a foot. It rolls to the fence passed Hayle.
Back at home, Hayle asks for a Ramune, a Japanese soda-like soft drink, that they bought the day before. While grinding garlic and herbs for the night’s meal, Thu, their mother, looks up at him, only to reject his request. “I heard how you acted at the soccer field,” scolds Thu. “No, of course you cannot have a Ramune!” Defeated, Hayle bows his head and runs to his room. Thu returns to grinding the herbs and continues to cook with her mother, preparing Henry’s feast of Vietnamese pork, summer rolls, and wonton soup.
Asian American families, like the Phams, are often presented with the challenge of fitting into society and their communities as they live a duality of identity. For many Asian Americans, embracing either identity can be ostracizing, like me as a Chinese American. When I was younger, I was often teased by white kids for being “too Asian,” which had a loose criterion of simply looking Asian. Today, I’m still mocked for being “American,” by other Asian people and family. “American” of course, meaning white.
“I really stress that WE are American; that anyone in America is American,” writes Thu in an email on December 2nd, ten months after first starting the project. “I told them about being American as a nationality and having to do with place, whereas being Asian is an ethnicity and has to do with much more than place for me. I think it’s a complicated thing to teach kids (and adults), but I have this unique vantage point that my professional life has been centered around equity and diversity work. I find these conversations really natural to have.”
“We talk about being Asian all the time,” writes Thu in an email. “We eat Asian food. We are PROUDLY Asian—every time we see Asian people doing awesome things, we talk about them being Asian. We really try to notice it and celebrate it.”
Thu is a sixth-grade teacher at Sidwell Friends School in D.C. and provides “non-bias training” to other educators around the United States. The course curriculum brings teachers, administrators, and other educators together to discuss not only race and identity, but gender, sexuality, socioeconomics, and more.
As a kid in Cape Coral, Fla., Thu was the only Asian person in her class and one of a handful in the entire school. Now living in the DMV area, she is trying to show the boys a different experience.
“Whiteness surrounded me much more than it did for the boys,” says Thu. “I really try to talk about whiteness as a racial designation that’s institutionalized. I talk a lot about systems with the boys. Not sure how much they understand, but I keep exposing them to it.”
In contrast, Sumi Hu, the Pham’s family friend who is raising two sons, Jonah, 8, and Rowan, 5, hasn’t actively brought up the conversation about identity yet. She hopes that over time, they will be curious and search for answers on their own, but knows they may need some guidance along the way. It’s a different tactic than the Pham’s, but one that some Asian American families practice.
Across the Potomac river in Alexandria, Va., Rodney Salinas and his wife, Taryn, are raising two biracial children, Gavin, 15, and Gabriella, 13. For Salinas, raising biracial children to understand their identity is another challenge. “I want to expose them to both sides of their heritage so that it’s not lost,” remarks Salinas. “It’s very intense to know where you come from and to not forget.”
Coming to the U.S. when he was one year old, Salinas and his family moved to Jersey City, where he was introduced to people of many backgrounds. In middle school, his family decided it was time to move to the suburbs. His father was a Navy man, while his mother a nurse. As Salinas puts it, “a typical Filipino family.”
The stereotype that Filipinos join the Navy dates back to 1901 after the U.S. invaded the Philippines to suppress insurrection and secure its grip on the country. President William McKinley signed an executive order recruiting 500 Filipinos to the join the U.S. Navy. This program allowed Filipino nationals to become U.S. citizens. Along with enlisting men for the Navy, Filipino women were recruited into nursing by the 1903 Pensionado Act, which created scholarships and educational opportunities to study in the United States. While the Pensionado Act was not directly related to nursing, it was an opportunity for people to seek new jobs. This pattern which feeds the cliché continued in 1948, when the Exchange Visitor Program was created in response to potential Soviet Union influences around the globe. The goal of the program was to show the world that American society and democracy were better than the Soviet model by allowing international students to study in the United States. In a podcast by University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy, Professor of Ethnic Studies and Associate Dean of the College of Letters & Science’s Division of Undergraduate Studies, said that over time, all of these acts provided opportunities for Filipino nurses to immigrate, especially since the U.S. had a shortage after World War II.
Taryn is Italian-American and grew up in New Jersey suburbs in the same neighborhood as Salinas. The two met when they were both 15 years old and have been together since. “We have frequent conversations about it,” says Salinas during a phone interview. “I probably am more insistent about my heritage and sharing that with the kids than maybe other parents might be. I love exposing them to the [Filipino] culture whenever I can either through food or cultural events or family… I never want them to forget where they came from and more importantly, to be proud of it and to never be ashamed of their identity.”
At Cho Eden Supermarket in Falls Church, Va., Hayle and Henry hide in a corner behind a towering set of empty vegetable and fruit boxes. They whisper to each other, strategizing their search efforts for their day’s treasure, Ramune. The drink is popular among Asian youth. Its Jolly Rancher-like fruit flavors are punchy on the tongue, while the drink sizzles in the mouth.
Finding small glimpses of Asian snacks and drinks in daily life is exciting. I remember going to Sushi Garden across the street from my elementary school. It was the only place with Ramune. I loved grabbing one on the way home from school with my cousin Tabitha, who likes to tell the story of the time I ate all of her cucumber rolls. What’s special about Ramune is that it’s a glass bottle with a polished marble. After unwrapping the plastic wrap around the top, you must press down on the cap until the marble breaks through the lid’s cover and shoots down into the drink itself.
The boys’ search for the drink comes to an end as bà ngoại pays for the summer roll wraps and a selection of vegetables before they can make their case for the treat.
Eden Center, where the supermarket is located, is more than a strip mall in Falls Church. It’s also more than the number one tourist destination given by the Falls Church Economic Development Authority. Eden Center is the heart of the Vietnamese community in the area, home to over 120 shops and restaurants.
After South Vietnam’s capital, Saigon, fell to the communists of North Vietnam in 1975, many Vietnamese began to emigrate from their homeland. According to “Echoes of Little Saigon,” a collaborative project between the Arlington County Public Library and students from Virginia Tech’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, immigrants fled in fear of retribution for their loyalties to the South. Many of those refugees were previous government employees or military officials who tended to be financially stable and educated. They also supported the U.S. efforts. They were given first priority for evacuation from the country and U.S. visas.
Kim A. O’Connell, a research fellow at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, worked on “Echoes of Little Saigon,” and states that Northern Virginia was an ideal choice for many refugees due to its proximity to the U.S. capital. The number of Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S. grew from roughly 15,000 in 1975 to over 235,000 in 1980. They moved from Saigon to create “Little Saigon” in Virginia.
The total Asian population is now larger than ever, but only makes up roughly 5% of the total United States population. This is about an 85% increase from 11.9 million Asians in 2000, making them the fastest growing racial group in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. By 2055, Pew Research Center predicts Asians will surpass Hispanics as the largest immigrant group.
I follow behind Hayle and Henry into another supermarket. Thu pushes a shopping cart as the boys’ eyes gaze upward at the tall aisles and even taller ceiling. The make their way to the produce area, comparing prices on carrots and pears. Stunned by the number of Asian pears, Hayle begs Thu to buy a box. He grabs the box by the ends and lets out a groaning screech as he struggles to lift it. Thu comes to his aid and carries the box to their cart. Hayle quickly turns around and runs off to catch up with Henry.
Raising boys in today’s America presents a set of concepts to kids such as masculinity, miscommunication, and balancing expectations and societal norms. For many Asian Americans, these obstacles are heightened due to stereotypes and cultural backgrounds.
The “American” identifier in the term Asian American is often overlooked, which has led to racist and xenophobic interactions. A common attack on Asians is “go back where you came from,” when in fact, Asians have been in the Americas as early as 1763. Filipino sailors known as “Manilamen” and “Tagalas” anchored themselves in a village called Saint Malo located in the southeastern part of the then-Louisiana Territories. The location was ideal for hiding from the Spanish who ruled the Philippines for over 300 years (1565 to 1898) and often abused Filipino men under their control.
Less than a century later came the next Asian wave crashing into the Americas. With the California Gold Rush making headlines around the globe, and conflicts such as the Opium Wars and Taiping Rebellion in China, over 40,000 Chinese from mostly the southern region of their homeland arrived on U.S. shores in search of a better life. Their labor built the railroad expansion to the western states, worked in factories, and mined for gold. Initially the new opportunities meant they could send money home, but as more arrived they were viewed as competition in the job market and soon became the scapegoats for unemployment and other social woes. The reaction of fear comes from racism and prejudice is called Yellow Peril, a 19th century idea that the “East” was going to take over the “West.”
On May 6, 1882, the United States signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law restricting long-term immigration on a federal level. Residents and immigrants of Chinese heritage who had been living in the United States were grandfathered in, but could not become legal citizens of the United States. Chinese immigrants and those already residing in the U.S., were able to apply for citizenship only after the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act in 1943. While the repeal allowed for a maximum of 105 new immigrants to be granted visas, those already living in the U.S. still could not own land, property, or businesses. The repeal of the 1882 law was thought to be in an effort to build a strategic alliance between China and the U.S. against Japan during World War II.
While one restrictive law against Asian was modified, another was enacted. After the 1942 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This forced over 110,000 Japanese people into concentration camps over fears they would support Japan’s wartime efforts against the United States. This incarceration was enforced for two years until President Roosevelt signed Public Proclamation No. 21 on December 17, 1944.
Today, the world is experiencing social distancing efforts and lockdowns to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. The flu-like virus has closed businesses and universities, and stopped travel around the globe. While debate surrounds the exact origin of the virus in humans, many people associate the virus with Wuhan, China, because it was the first city to experience widespread infection in late 2019. In the early months of 2020, the virus spread worldwide. As the United States began to close down, President Donald Trump began calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” during interviews, press conferences, and online. His language has become a weapon for many people to use against Asians, both verbally and physically. In March 2020, Jose L. Gomez, 19, stabbed an Asian American family in Texas. He told authorities he tried to kill the family because he thought they had COVID-19 and were infecting people. Following this attack, the FBI released a report to local law enforcement saying that hate crime threats and acts against Asian Americans will continue to surge across the United States. In February 2020, a 16-year-old Asian American high school boy in San Fernando Valley, Ca., was physically assaulted by a group of other high school students accusing the teen of having COVID-19. In New York City, an Asian woman was punched for wearing a mask, while a man was beaten for not wearing a mask.
None of this is new to the United States. In 1900, San Francisco experienced an endemic of the bubonic plague. The disease originated in Chinatown, but affected mostly European Americans in the area. Rather than locking down the entire city, quarantine cards were distributed only to Asians, preventing them from leaving Chinatown. Other non-Asian residents were allowed to flee the area over fear they would contract the disease. San Francisco Mayor James D. Phelan was anti-Chinese and said to the San Francisco Chronicle on March 10, 1900, “They are fortunate, with the unclean habits of their coolies and their filthy hovels, to remain within the corporate limits in any American city. In an economic sense, their presence has been, and is, a great injury to the working classes, and in a sanitary sense they are a constant menace to the public health.”
With the decline of job opportunities in manufacturing, mining, and construction and fear over immigration status, many Chinese opened their own businesses such as laundromats and restaurants in Chinatowns, which made it possible to keep themselves. Most of these occupations were viewed as “feminine” work, unlike constructions and mining, which were “masculine” jobs. The domestic work launched a stereotype of Asian men as subservient, weak, and feminine. Asian men still face the struggles of acceptance within American societal norms due to persistent negative stereotypes. In the media, Asian men are often shown as the “Fu Manchu” and “Charlie Chan,” characters who are villains, hyper de-sexualized, and comedic relief for viewers. These caricatures of Asian men have become common false representation of their masculinity in mass media.
Author Peggy Orenstein asked American boys to describe what being the “ideal guy” meant to them. “Dominance. Aggression. Rugged good looks (with an emphasis on height). Sexual prowess. Stoicism. Athleticism. Wealth (at least some day).” These traits lean towards toxic masculinity, an extreme take on what it means to be a man. She explored the effect of “bro culture” on boys and the resulting effects of misogyny and aggression. Orenstein continues in her essay, to discuss the #MeToo movement and masculinity and its ability to provide a platform and context to having conversations about gender and sexuality. While Thu’s boys may be a little young to understand sexual predatory behavior and masculinity, she’s begun the dialogue about consent and gender. She’s prohibits them from playing video games such as Fortnite and watching YouTube, where they can encounter “bro culture” and disturbing content.
Orenstein writes that “Bro culture” in American society evolved from “jock culture.” It’s where groups of boys (and men) engage in dangerous conversation about women, each other, and themselves. To not engage in the culture of toxic masculinity and misogyny would be self-ostracizing and detrimental to having friendships.
There is no way prevent the boys from knowing Fortnite and the range of content on YouTube. They hear about them from their peers at school. Sometimes they watch videos of people playing Fortnite on YouTube, which confuses Thu as to why they enjoy watching people play video games. While she can’t stop them from coming across that content, she can help them learn to respect and set boundaries and prepare them for when they are engaged with dangerous behavior. “As with being Asian, I try to be very verbally explicit with them about gender,” writes Thu in another email. “I talk about consent. I tell them that they need to ask if they want to touch someone or be in their space, and respect if they hear ‘no.’”
As male culture in the United States evolves, there is a rising awareness of the systemic issues and biases in government, workplace, and community. The #MeToo movement, a movement focused on supporting survivors of sexual assault and harassment, is changing how men occupy those spaces. And Thu knows that.
“Hayle’s favorite shirt is his ‘Wild Feminist’ shirt. We talk about how feminism is about empowering women and girls. Also, they have this unique look at gender because I am their mother, and I am the one who is with them most of the time, taking them rock climbing, hiking, exploring. They are growing up thinking that this is how all women are.”
For other parents like, Albert Hsu, a mid-40-year-old property owner in Edison, NJ, masculinity isn’t a focus in raising his 3-year-old, Matthew. “In terms of masculinity traits: leadership, being bold, being assertive, not being afraid of voicing his opinion, I don’t think I have to teach Matthew that,” says Hsu on a phone interview. “I already see it.”
Over text message, I asked my father how he raised me to be Asian and if it he was aware of the choices he made.
“Your heritage is Asian and look Asian,” he writes. “Because you were born here, I wanted you to also have a strong American identity, hence private school, sports.”
I pushed him further, “What does the private school and sports have to do with American identity though? Because you didn’t really do that growing up?”
He replied, “Raising you without the immigrant mentality.”
Throughout my childhood, my father always told me to not have “the immigrant mentality.” I never understood what it was and nodded along to his usual rant, which was prompted any time an Asian person did something not to his liking. All he texts back is “like your grandparents.”
My paternal grandparents were born in Hong Kong and came to the United States in the 1960s, finding haven in New York City. My grandfather came first in 1963 working overnight shifts ironing shirts at a laundry. He saved up enough money to live in the Lower East Side with his brother until 1965, when he went back and brought my grandmother, my Uncle Peter, and my father, Norman. Moving homes from the Lower East Side to Long Island, my grandfather opened his own cleaners in 1969. During all of this, my grandmother supplemented their income by working as a seamstress, ten cents per piece she made. They worked extreme schedules, leaving my father and his brothers to fend for themselves. This was the epitome of the “American Dream,” so why wouldn’t my father want me to embrace this?
Teased for not knowing English, my father embraced becoming American, both culturally and nationally. He played stickball in the streets, rode American-made motorcycles, and often visited the American countryside, all things he’s pushed me to do. For him, the cons outweighed the pros of being Asian American. Raising me without the “immigrant mentality” was a defense mechanism for him, and to protect me from the trauma and neglect he experienced. This meant an extreme focus on school, American sports, and Hollywood versions of masculinity.
I grew up playing baseball and attending math tutoring on the weekends instead of enrolling in Chinese school. Avoiding the language at all cost made it easier for my father to fit into his workplace and social groups. Kids would sometimes comment on my ethnicity, while I pitched and batted. While he would stand up for me, his primary method of protecting me was making me become the best player possible to show them I am capable. We trained every week, refining technical skills of baseball and how to “suck it up” when I was sad or tired. All this just so I could prove myself to others.”
“I think it's a stereotype and it's not true,” says Vi Bui, mentoring and program manager at Asian American Youth Leadership Empowerment and Development in Washington, D.C., on the notion that Asian parenting is stricter. “It may come out in different ways. I think for the most part, it is [about] being protected. I suppose it is oversight of a parenting response to the realities of the world that we live in… It may not be reflective of the actual reality, but that's their reality of what they were growing up with was dangerous.”
June Pham visited her daughter’s family to celebrate Thanksgiving. As Thu, Hayle, and Henry ran the two-mile portion of the Turkey Chase in Betheseda, Md., June was preparing the day’s feast. In the car ride back, Thu remarked that Thanksgiving would be different this year because of her father’s absence. He passed away in February 2019. Each year, her father and she would argue whether or not to make a turkey. It was always too dry. But this time around, it would be different. With only June around, the women began to cook the turkey and prepare the vegetables.
“I definitely think I have been influenced by my own childhood,” says Thu. “My mother was very traditional and was ALWAYS home for us. She was also a martyr, and miserable at times. She was the breadwinner of the family. I had a lot of mixed messages growing up. More than anything, in order to not end up a martyr, I want my boys to grow up seeing me as an individual and independent human being rather than just as a mother.”
The Pham’s each have demanding jobs and Thu recognizes that she needs to address her and Hansel’s occasional absences for work. It’s a teaching moment.
“I want them to be comfortable around other adults, and to also find their independence,” remarks Thu. “In many ways, I am not a traditional Asian woman in the sense that my mother is. She doesn’t like that I work full time, and that I also go to conferences and take trips without kids. I talk to the boys about how his father and I both work and also do things that we enjoy so that we can be the best and happiest parents for them.”
But their absence isn’t always easy for the boys.
Before his swim meet in Sterling, Va., Henry gets overwhelmed and has a meltdown. At this particular meet the kids are separated from their parents early on, leaving the children to be on their own for a few hours. He eventually calms down after talking with Thu and walks to meet his team.
In the stands and stressed, Thu texts with Hansel, who is working, about the meet, which is much larger than she expected.
“Henry is crying. He is very upset. It is crowded, he doesn’t know a single swimmer, and at these big meets they make you drop off your kid and leave them. I am way up in the bleachers. He can’t see me.”
“Poor kid,” Hansel responds.
She write’s back, “It is horrible. He’s trying to be stoic. But fail.”
“Praise him like crazy for sticking through it. Not his performance win or lose, but his ability to persevere.”
Later during the meet, Thu leaves to go to the restroom. Embraced by the warm air in the pool, Hayle curls up on the bleachers. He lifts his index finger to his chin, as he always does when he focuses a thought.
“You know, there are only two Asian kids in my class,” he says, still with his finger on his chin. He turns towards me. By then I’d been around Hayle for about seven months, photographing and observing. While he’s talked about being Asian with Thu and Hansel before, he and I have never had a conversation about it.
“There’s me and Taiji. He speaks Japanese to his parents sometimes.”
I nod. He then tells me that his parents are Vietnamese and Chinese, while continuing to fiddle with his fingers.
“Do you like being Vietnamese?” I ask trying to keep his attention on the topic as a new race begins behind him.
“I don’t know, it’s kind of weird,” he says.
“Why is it weird?”
“I don’t know,” pauses Hayle. “I guess I don’t get sunburnt though!”