Our summer movie series continues with Crazy Rich Asians and a story about coming of age in a world where the cast (occasionally) changes but the narrative doesn't
The academia thing bothered me a little too! I definitely got my first exposure to wealthy Asian international students in grad school. I learned what Canada Goose and Moncler coats were (and here I thought my North Face puffy was fancy), so I’m sure Rachel would have seen that population at NYU and Stanford.
I know! I'm willing to grant that ridiculous opening scene playing poker with the TA for the sake of the movie. But there's no way Rachel doesn't see Nick's money immediately. We also don't know where she did her MS, PhD, postdoc, second postdoc, etc. but it's hard to imagine that she didn't teach crazy rich Asian undergrads before NYU as well.
Maureen, thank you for sharing this! I come from Eastern European working class immigrants. On my dad's side, there is my grandfather, a stone mason by trade who used his chisels on the weekend to sculpt. His kids are almost all artists. On my mom's side are a bunch of resilient Polish ladies, who managed things like single-parenting while dad was in jail and wrote plays for their churches. We are a tough and creative folk, who have benefitted from the privilege that comes from easy assimilation into Whiteness.
And where do tough, creative, working class people find identity now? I found it in punk rock. :)
I think this take is so great! Craftsmanship can give such a rich sense of heritage and identity, and it takes effort to find it in a lot of professions today. Congratulations on continuing the family tradition in an unconventional punk setting.
I just love this question (and more broadly that thread from Maureen's essay). That's the kind of community everybody deserves, wherever they live-- a community that sees you and your background and says "all right, cool, want to be a part of something useful for the whole?"
I loved this essay. And I must admit that I loved the movie when it came out. It was a big box office hit, if I recall correctly. There were two other books in the series... and yet, we never got a film sequel. Why, when Hollywood is all ABOUT sequels? It seems like it would have been a slam dunk!
Thank you Sue! And I have nothing against the movie! It should be an unremarkable romcom! My beef is with the buzz around representation and diversity that came with it.
Probably when there are so few movies like that (ie, all Asian casts), the movie has to represent literally everything and stand for something larger than itself.
Ok, I guess I do have a beef with the movie, for reasons explained. But I enjoyed it too, and don't hold stronger enjoyment against anyone - the cast is likeable, the plot is pure comfort food, and the visuals are ::chef kiss::
I love how I knew exactly what the song would be from the album cover + “ What's that? You're an elder Millennial.”
I grew up Catholic in the Atlanta suburbs in the 90s, and what I most appreciate about that now is the little ripple of complexity being Catholic in the South added to my otherwise extremely privileged white middle class upbringing. Things like knowing my piano teacher’s dad had had crosses burned on his lawn by the KKK when he was a kid for being the “wrong kind” of Christian made it…hmm, I don’t know how to say this, but I keep picturing something like wrought iron whitewashed with the wrong kind of paint for metal, and how the paint cracks and peels first where there is grit or surface roughness.
I honestly have a lot of reactionary conservative in my heritage: Confederate soldiers on both sides of my family tree, and I discovered a few months ago that my absolute favorite person as a child, my maternal grandfather, had at one point been a host for John Birch Society meetings. I am in process of trying not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but also very much not to keep a bunch of mucky used bath water because “just think of the baby!”
Some parts of my heritage that I have been able to love lately: my maternal grandmother was a 2nd gen immigrant from what is now Czechia, and as someone caring 24/7 for twin infants I find myself delighted and captivated by the Czech Catholic devotion to the Infant Jesus of Prague (creepy liturgical doll clothes and all!).
My maternal grandparents were also very much into hospitality: they hosted Thanksgiving every year and their entire block of neighbors was invited (and frequently stopped by at least for a piece of pie or cup of coffee). I think about their knack for building community frequently as I learn more about community building and organizing.
My grandfather also had a deep well of curiosity that sent him back to community college in his 80s just to learn more stuff and also made him interested in whatever people he loved were interested in: piano lessons, angsty teenage poetry, shimmying up tree trunks, genetics, badly written plays to be performed by my cousins at Thanksgiving, just to name a few. I experienced that curiosity as a kind of Mr Rogers level of unconditional positive regard, and it definitely shaped my personality and career choices. That may be part of why learning about the Birch Society stuff has shaken me so much.
Elder Millennials represent! I get the hero thing. The great grandfather that I describe had a wife and a concubine. My grandfather and siblings escaped but the concubine’s children didn’t get the same treatment. I have no idea what Dan Maoxin did or who he sold out to survive Mao and die of old age. My solution is to go abstract: intellectualism, learning, culture for the sake of it. Of course it is harder to abstract when you actually knew and loved the hero in question. Your grandfather sounds like an amazing grandpa!
Thanks for sharing! Another mark of the decade - people like me now know about imposter syndrome and pay attention to this stuff much more than we did before. It sounds like you got through it, but a lot of students really struggle.
The imposter feeling was strong, though I didn't have a name for it. I called myself a transitional person. I'm sitting here today realizing how much my dad's decision to withdraw from his privileged culture and raise us in a rural setting with his just-above-minimum wage job formed my self expectations.
The academia thing bothered me a little too! I definitely got my first exposure to wealthy Asian international students in grad school. I learned what Canada Goose and Moncler coats were (and here I thought my North Face puffy was fancy), so I’m sure Rachel would have seen that population at NYU and Stanford.
I know! I'm willing to grant that ridiculous opening scene playing poker with the TA for the sake of the movie. But there's no way Rachel doesn't see Nick's money immediately. We also don't know where she did her MS, PhD, postdoc, second postdoc, etc. but it's hard to imagine that she didn't teach crazy rich Asian undergrads before NYU as well.
Aaaabsolutely this.
You mean you don’t have stage-quality lighting in your lecture hall?
I mean I guess the business school at NYU might
they're an "aspirational peer institution" for us
LOL. I say this as someone who went to business school— even my fancy glass fortress didn’t have lighting that nice.
Oh man I could go for some stage quality lecture hall lighting right about now. I'd teach the hell out of some intro courses.
Maureen, thank you for sharing this! I come from Eastern European working class immigrants. On my dad's side, there is my grandfather, a stone mason by trade who used his chisels on the weekend to sculpt. His kids are almost all artists. On my mom's side are a bunch of resilient Polish ladies, who managed things like single-parenting while dad was in jail and wrote plays for their churches. We are a tough and creative folk, who have benefitted from the privilege that comes from easy assimilation into Whiteness.
And where do tough, creative, working class people find identity now? I found it in punk rock. :)
I think this take is so great! Craftsmanship can give such a rich sense of heritage and identity, and it takes effort to find it in a lot of professions today. Congratulations on continuing the family tradition in an unconventional punk setting.
I just love this question (and more broadly that thread from Maureen's essay). That's the kind of community everybody deserves, wherever they live-- a community that sees you and your background and says "all right, cool, want to be a part of something useful for the whole?"
I loved this essay. And I must admit that I loved the movie when it came out. It was a big box office hit, if I recall correctly. There were two other books in the series... and yet, we never got a film sequel. Why, when Hollywood is all ABOUT sequels? It seems like it would have been a slam dunk!
Thank you Sue! And I have nothing against the movie! It should be an unremarkable romcom! My beef is with the buzz around representation and diversity that came with it.
Probably when there are so few movies like that (ie, all Asian casts), the movie has to represent literally everything and stand for something larger than itself.
Ok, I guess I do have a beef with the movie, for reasons explained. But I enjoyed it too, and don't hold stronger enjoyment against anyone - the cast is likeable, the plot is pure comfort food, and the visuals are ::chef kiss::
I love how I knew exactly what the song would be from the album cover + “ What's that? You're an elder Millennial.”
I grew up Catholic in the Atlanta suburbs in the 90s, and what I most appreciate about that now is the little ripple of complexity being Catholic in the South added to my otherwise extremely privileged white middle class upbringing. Things like knowing my piano teacher’s dad had had crosses burned on his lawn by the KKK when he was a kid for being the “wrong kind” of Christian made it…hmm, I don’t know how to say this, but I keep picturing something like wrought iron whitewashed with the wrong kind of paint for metal, and how the paint cracks and peels first where there is grit or surface roughness.
I honestly have a lot of reactionary conservative in my heritage: Confederate soldiers on both sides of my family tree, and I discovered a few months ago that my absolute favorite person as a child, my maternal grandfather, had at one point been a host for John Birch Society meetings. I am in process of trying not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but also very much not to keep a bunch of mucky used bath water because “just think of the baby!”
Some parts of my heritage that I have been able to love lately: my maternal grandmother was a 2nd gen immigrant from what is now Czechia, and as someone caring 24/7 for twin infants I find myself delighted and captivated by the Czech Catholic devotion to the Infant Jesus of Prague (creepy liturgical doll clothes and all!).
My maternal grandparents were also very much into hospitality: they hosted Thanksgiving every year and their entire block of neighbors was invited (and frequently stopped by at least for a piece of pie or cup of coffee). I think about their knack for building community frequently as I learn more about community building and organizing.
My grandfather also had a deep well of curiosity that sent him back to community college in his 80s just to learn more stuff and also made him interested in whatever people he loved were interested in: piano lessons, angsty teenage poetry, shimmying up tree trunks, genetics, badly written plays to be performed by my cousins at Thanksgiving, just to name a few. I experienced that curiosity as a kind of Mr Rogers level of unconditional positive regard, and it definitely shaped my personality and career choices. That may be part of why learning about the Birch Society stuff has shaken me so much.
Elder Millennials represent! I get the hero thing. The great grandfather that I describe had a wife and a concubine. My grandfather and siblings escaped but the concubine’s children didn’t get the same treatment. I have no idea what Dan Maoxin did or who he sold out to survive Mao and die of old age. My solution is to go abstract: intellectualism, learning, culture for the sake of it. Of course it is harder to abstract when you actually knew and loved the hero in question. Your grandfather sounds like an amazing grandpa!
Thanks for sharing! Another mark of the decade - people like me now know about imposter syndrome and pay attention to this stuff much more than we did before. It sounds like you got through it, but a lot of students really struggle.
The imposter feeling was strong, though I didn't have a name for it. I called myself a transitional person. I'm sitting here today realizing how much my dad's decision to withdraw from his privileged culture and raise us in a rural setting with his just-above-minimum wage job formed my self expectations.
Feel so lucky that you shared your story with us, Mare.