I will now vent.
I have always hesitated to let my fellow American peers know that I have a girlfriend in Mexico. Because if I do let them know, they often start acting prejudiced and make hasty, bigoted judgments about my girlfriend even if they know almost absolutely nothing about her. All it takes is one sentence: "I have a girlfriend in Mexico." Absolutely nothing else. They wouldn't know her name, city, age, personality, or what she looks like, but still spew out plenty of hate.
Why do they have to say incredibly racist and bigoted things like:
- "Your girlfriend will dump you if you don't make a lot of money. All Mexican girls are greedy gold-diggers."
- "You're gonna get shot down there in Mexico one day."
- "That's weird, so she doesn't speak English huh?"
- "She'll get fat and ugly once she starts having kids."
- "She's not gonna be able to do anything for you, except have a bunch of kids. Like a baby-producing machine. Plus she's gotta adapt to this country."
- "Having fun with that hooker? Bet you just picked her off the streets."
- "Brown cholitas! Eww."
Also some not so bigoted comments, but still not very positive:
- "Now have fun getting approval from your parents, I bet they're going to be happy."
- "Yeah, that's messed up. Why can't you date someone right here? Just join some clubs or something and ask out the girls there."
- "In Mexico ... AGAIN?"
Seriously, I can't believe full-grown college students in the United States can be talking like this. This is immature, unintelligent, middle/high-schoolish behavior.
As you can see, they'd never directly criticize me, but just make nasty comments about my girlfriend simply because of the fact that she is Mexican. Whenever this happens, I usually don't say anything and don't fight back, because I wouldn't want to start fights or make anything worse. I'm very glad that people at HappierAbroad can actually understand me and my choices. Because mainstream Americans don't. They hate the idea of dating someone from a country perceived to be "worse" than the almighty #1 U.S. of A.
Plus, many of these these remarks came from Asian-American male acquaintances. They themselves are the children of immigrants who've been discriminated in this country, so why do they have to harbor all these anti-Mexican attitudes? They don't even know their own language and culture properly. Whenever I'd start speaking Chinese to them, they'd say, "Dude, this is America. Speak English." That's their heritage tongue, and they feel ashamed of it? I'm proud of it and cherish being able to speak it. Now why does that self-hatred have to carry over to other nationalities and ethnicities?
One of my Mexican friends here in the U.S. says that I should let everyone know we're together and be proud of it. He says I should fight back whenever they start bashing my girlfriend (which I never try to do, to avoid conflicts). I appreciate that a lot. For a long time I've wanted to keep my relationship as low-profile as possible and only confided it to close friends that I trust a lot. Why? Because I knew all this bigotry and prejudice would come along if I let everyone in my social circles know the truth. I've recently announced my relationship on Facebook, and thank goodness there were very few negative reactions. Most people seemed indifferent. The positive reactions nearly all came from close friends who had already known me well and had formed some sort of a special bond with me. On the other hand, if one of my friends had announced a relationship with a fellow Asian-American girl from his own school, he'd be bombarded with positive, delighted reactions.
Nearly all of my friends and acquaintances who are in relationships are dating someone from the same school, whether a high school, community college, or 4-year university. Long-distance relationships are usually those carried over from when they were in the same high school. At most, maybe neighboring schools within the same city. Usually they'd already have some mutual friends. They'd usually meet through some sort of a clique or social circle, like a club, group of friends, Christian fellowship, or class.
So I know what I'm doing is not only quite unusual but also very taboo. Why do the only "acceptable" girls for me have to be college-educated girls in the United States who are Asian, and at most white. But not any of the ones perceived to be "dark" such as Latina, Indian, Middle Eastern, or black - let alone one living in a foreign country. When I met my wonderful girl, we did not share any mutual friends, social circles, classes, and so on - whereas nearly every Californian young couple would have before they'd commit into a relationship. Nevertheless, I have had such a long, deep, and meaningful relationship with my girl, whereas so many American relationships would be shallow, superficial, and short-term, and be filled with disappointments. Yet everyone applauds them, while a meaningful but "different" one like mine is despised.
I'm still very young (early 20's) and don't look like a person who can't get dates in the U.S., so they usually don't think that I have trouble dating in America. So they will keep telling me to date some more conformist airhead women that I simply don't click with. Enough with that iPod/Smartphone addiction, bland pop music, and airhead valley girl accent.
On the other hand, Mexicans are incredibly proud and impressed when they know I have a girlfriend in Mexico. I have never once gotten any prejudiced remarks from them about this. They'll applaud and congratulate me for being open-minded and nice enough to be with one of their women.
Enough with the cliquishness, prejudice, and racism. The United States is not #1.
