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Book Club: I Was Their American Dream · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and smitha I'm welcome to stuff
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I've Never told you production of iHeartRadio. And for today's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: book club, we are talking about Molica Greb's twenty nineteen
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  Speaker 1: graphic memoir I Was Their American Dream. This award winning
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: illustrated work depicts a biographical memoir of Greb, an Egyptian
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  Speaker 1: Filipino American immigrant, as she navigates all the facets of
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  Speaker 1: her identity through school, college, and marriage. The illustrations, which
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  Speaker 1: Greb also did, are fun and they layout shift a lot,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: which makes it very dynamic. There are things in there
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  Speaker 1: like recipes and crafts, like bingo cards, kind of cutouts.
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  Speaker 1: There's a page she says like you could rip this
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  Speaker 1: one out and make your own zine. So it's really fun.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a very jubilant teenage growing up experience. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, it's very fun. An Grey has said she
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  Speaker 1: grew up reading comics and making her own comics and
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  Speaker 1: scenes even from a young age. So I love that.
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  Speaker 1: And she's a big proponent about zines, particularly she wants
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  Speaker 1: you to go out and find some scenes. Love that, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and also this sparked an interesting conversation around drawing race
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  Speaker 1: without making the illustration look like a caricterature or a stereotype,
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  Speaker 1: and avoiding making whiteness seem like the defaults of the
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  Speaker 1: art is it's almost kind of I don't know, it
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  Speaker 1: feels kind of dream like in a way. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: But that was something she specifically did, was not really
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  Speaker 1: focus on racial features, which I think is interesting that
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  Speaker 1: that is something to consider when you're doing a work
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  Speaker 1: like this. Yes, okay, so this is another one of
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  Speaker 1: those books we've chosen that I feel like explaining the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: plot is kind of complicated because it does feel very
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  Speaker 1: like not stream of consciousness. But here's the thought, and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: here's a thought.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's a very short overview of her upbringing to today,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: like literally from yeah, not even brow this before her
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  Speaker 2: broth them, from the meeting of her parents, or actually
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: her immigration of her parents, her parents immigrating to where
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  Speaker 2: she is today. So in a graphic novel that is
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: as short as this, it's really hard to go through.
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  Speaker 2: So it's not even like a stream of consciousness. It's
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  Speaker 2: just like a very long plot, shortly like summarized.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very condensed, but it has like these bright
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  Speaker 1: like here's some tagalog words for food. It has like
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  Speaker 1: these Yes, things that are like I said pop up
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: in within the story, but yeah. It is a graphic
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  Speaker 1: memoir coming of age tale about Greebe's experience as a
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  Speaker 1: first generation immigrant growing up in California. Her mother is
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  Speaker 1: from the Philippines and her father is from Egypt. It
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: mostly details her thoughts and observations over the years to
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  Speaker 1: the lens of culture, race, and identity. After her parents
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: get divorced and her father moves back to Egypt, she
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: spends her summers visiting him there. Meanwhile, in California, her
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: mother works two jobs to afford private school and college.
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  Speaker 1: Later for Malacca, who attends a very diverse school and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is surrounded by her large Filipino American family. Meanwhile, she
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: dreams of living a life as she sees depicted on
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: specifically the television show Felicity, which cracks me up quite
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  Speaker 1: a bit, and meeting white people. She sort of gets
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to do when she goes to college in New York,
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  Speaker 1: but she's taken aback a little uncomfortable at the lack
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  Speaker 1: of people of color at her school and later her job.
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  Speaker 1: She marries a white man who is curious and eager
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  Speaker 1: to learn more about her culture and her family named Darren.
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  Speaker 1: Will talk more about that in the theme section, and
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  Speaker 1: they plan to have they plan to have kids together,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that kids that she will share her history and culture with. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a life packed into a pretty short graphic memoir,
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  Speaker 1: but it does touch on a lot of stuff. So
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  Speaker 1: that does bring us to the themes. One of the
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  Speaker 1: big ones is, of course family. One of the things
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  Speaker 1: that stuck out to me is the support and influence
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  Speaker 1: of women in her life. Her mom, her stepmom, her sister.
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  Speaker 1: I really liked, and I think this is just because
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  Speaker 1: the step mom is usually portrayed so negatively. Really liked
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  Speaker 1: that when she met her stepmom, she was somebody who
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  Speaker 1: they enjoyed each other's company, and she had kind of
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  Speaker 1: advice for Melcca. So I liked that. And her mom,
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  Speaker 1: of course is the one that's working two jobs and
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  Speaker 1: refinancing the house and doing all of this stuff to
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  Speaker 1: give her daughter this life that she thinks believes she
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  Speaker 1: should have. Her sister, she does have this really big family.
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  Speaker 1: The Filipino American family specifically is the one you see
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  Speaker 1: the most of and I thought it was really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't news to me, but I thought it was
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  Speaker 1: really interesting that customs and how Molica was surprised when
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  Speaker 1: Darren was like, you visit too often with your family,
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  Speaker 1: This is too much. We were there last month, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: meanwhile she's like, I'll go by myself if I have to, Right.
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  Speaker 2: That's interesting because also going across country every month, that's
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: a pretty big trip. So that's like he's like, because also, yes,
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  Speaker 2: I wouldn't necessarily say that's like cultural thing because he's
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: technically from Tennessee. Yeah, so I find that insure because
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  Speaker 2: Southern families like my family, even though I don't see
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: them often, that's not the norm. They usually see each
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  Speaker 2: other at least as often as like, Yeah, the fact
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: that they live around each other as much as she
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: talked about her Filipino family doing the same thing, my
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: American family, Southern white family in Georgia, they all lived
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  Speaker 2: pretty close together. I was the first one that left,
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  Speaker 2: as I did. My sister eventually left as well, but
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  Speaker 2: not too far, and she ended up working in the
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: same area as they did, so she sees them on
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  Speaker 2: a weekly basis.
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  Speaker 3: So I don't think that's so abnormal.
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  Speaker 2: Now, my parents wouldn't necessarily expect me to come and
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  Speaker 2: see them if I were like across the country, I
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: barely see them, not barely, but I don't see them
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  Speaker 2: that often. Even though I'm only an hour and a
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  Speaker 2: half drives away. That's still like big enough that they
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: don't expect me to come every week. So I did
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  Speaker 2: find that interesting in that perspective a lot, because from
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  Speaker 2: white culture perspective, which I've seen a lot of, especially Southern.
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  Speaker 3: Culture, yeah, it's not that different. Yeah necessarily.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and that's one of the big messages of the book,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, is that it's hard to put there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot to encompass in somebody. And so just because Darren
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was like, we've already gone, we can't go again, you know,
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  Speaker 1: that's just a part of his particular upbringing. Because I
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: also don't see my family that often, but I have
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: friends who are very southern Southern Baptists related that. Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: they kind of all live near each other and they
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: see each other all the time. So I just thought
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  Speaker 1: that was interesting because her her family is so interwoven
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: in her life. And it could also be because there
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: is a section where she's looking at her own family
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  Speaker 1: and she does this really fun thing I think where
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  Speaker 1: she has like little, this is my aunt and she
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  Speaker 1: does this, and this is.
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  Speaker 2: Who's the matriarch, which was kind of the shogging part
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  Speaker 2: to me, Like she's the matriarch of the.
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  Speaker 1: Family, right, right, And she had that, and then she
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: had the comparison to what she sees on American television,
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  Speaker 1: which is the nuclear family. It's like the mom, the dad,
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  Speaker 1: and three kids, and how that was so different to her.
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  Speaker 1: And she references often how much she gleaned from TV
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  Speaker 1: or our media about what she should be doing. But
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  Speaker 1: I thought her reaction was interesting though, because she was like,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: this doesn't match my experience and I can't quite figure
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: out why what's going on here? Yes, which is explore
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  Speaker 1: throughout the book.
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  Speaker 2: I just also love how she kind of flips away,
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  Speaker 2: like she couldn't tell the white girls apart.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, usually that's the stereotype of Asian people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, even though she's like, no, this might be Karen
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  Speaker 2: Kelly Katie, I'm not really sure.
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  Speaker 1: I liked that too. I also liked when she gets married,
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  Speaker 1: she calls it her big fat Filipino Egyptian, American Southern
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  Speaker 1: Baptist wedding. Yep. But all of their families came together
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  Speaker 1: and they they made all their different traditions work, and
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  Speaker 1: it sounds like it was a beautiful wedding and everybody
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  Speaker 1: was really really happy. But yeah, that family element of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: making sure that that it was a celebratory experience, but
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: also their cultures because she went out of her way
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  Speaker 1: to go through all all of these different cultures were
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  Speaker 1: being honored. So I really enjoyed that. Obviously, a big
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: theme is immigration and identity. There's also a lot of
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  Speaker 1: conversation around her parents who came in to the United States,
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  Speaker 1: who immigranted to the United States when they were adults,
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  Speaker 1: versus her who was born in the United States, and
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  Speaker 1: they're differing views of how her life should go or
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: how their lives should go. And one of the things
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that stands out to me at least, was, you know,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: she had this she had this close connection to her family,
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  Speaker 1: She had this really close bond. She went to Egypt
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  Speaker 1: every summer with her dad, but she still wanted to
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  Speaker 1: build a life of her own, and she felt this
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  Speaker 1: guilt of when she finally did move away, of not
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  Speaker 1: being there for her family, and her family admittedly seemed
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  Speaker 1: to make some comments of like I wish you were here,
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  Speaker 1: you should be here, but were her mom especially was like,
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  Speaker 1: if this is what you want, we'll find a way
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  Speaker 1: to make it happen. So there's a lot of talks
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  Speaker 1: about that. There's also a lot of comparisons about being
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  Speaker 1: Filipino versus Egyptian.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because when they talk about the reasons
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  Speaker 2: are the attitudes of her mom versus her dad in
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  Speaker 2: coming is very different. Yeah, the fact that the mom
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  Speaker 2: didn't want to come because she was very comfortable and
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: of high status when she was in the Philippines. But
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: at the same time, all the disruption was happening, people
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: were really scared about the current state of affairs. So
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  Speaker 2: the family decided to go and she just had to
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  Speaker 2: go with them. And then when she came to the US,
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  Speaker 2: the things that she was like she lost all of
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  Speaker 2: the easygoingness that she had and all the status she
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: had versus her father, who really saw and I know
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about in a minute, the American dream
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  Speaker 2: being different, and how he embraced it and was excited
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  Speaker 2: for it, Like he was excited and saved up money
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: and his dream and goal was always to be in
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  Speaker 2: the US, not the UK, the US, and like having
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: those dreams as he is, like that was his lifelong
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: dream to come as where she was forced to come here, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and lost a lot of her status, and like that's
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of the big immigration stories we see, like
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  Speaker 2: doctors and people's scholars and those who were highly educated
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: who come to the US and can't use those degrees
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and have to start over. Like we've seen that oftentimes
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: because of the way it worked, the way the immigration
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: system works and the refugee system works, and refugee status
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: in general. So it is interesting in that conversation just
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: to see that beginning.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, absolutely, and you see it play out too,
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  Speaker 1: and as Malica gets older, just in their behaviors and
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: how they're handling life in general. But yeah, one of
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the things that I thought was interesting was the code
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  Speaker 1: switching that Malica does between Filipino and Egyptian customs and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: culture while also adapting to American culture and doing a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: lot of self discovery because of it, because she's kind
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: of always aware of it because she has these differing
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  Speaker 1: She goes to Egypt every summer. She has this huge
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  Speaker 1: Filipino family, And there are a lot of ways this
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: shows up in the book. A lot of dichotomies I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: would say so. For instance, her mom is Catholic and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: her dad is Muslim. She understands Tagalog and Arabic. You
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: can see it. There's a To me, it was comical.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I hope it wasn't dramatic. For there's a scene where
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: she's praying and the way she adds like the Virgin Mary,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: but not Jesus, but like she just has a very
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: long prayer where she's trying to incorporate all of these
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: different beliefs, and the way the food she eats depending
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: on where she is, because if you're Muslim, there are
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: certain foods you can't eat, so being aware of that.
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  Speaker 1: There's a scene where she brings her skateboard to Egypt
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  Speaker 1: and her dad is like, they're gonna stare at you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: if you go out there as a girl on your skateboard,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and she's like ah, and then they did and she
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was like never again. And the author talks about that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: story a lot, so she must must have stuck out
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to her. Yeah, and she has like a chart. It's
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: comical too, that's the here's acceptable behavior depending on what Yeah,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: what mode I'm in. Yes, she also talks about food
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  Speaker 1: a lot, which I appreciated. She talks about food a
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: lot to describe identity. There are panels where she's realizing, well,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: one where she's getting judged for the food that she has,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: which we've talked about before, that it is quote strange
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: or it smells strange, the foods like when she goes
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to college, which we're going to talk about more in
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a second, but when she goes to college is mostly
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: white college, and that's when she kind of had a oh, okay,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: they don't have the foods that I'm used to, And
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I love how often rice comes up like a rifle
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't being served? Where's the rise? What's wrong?
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Right?
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  Speaker 1: And then there's a section that's focused on of finding
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the right label, especially if none of them fit you.
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  Speaker 1: So she'll ask like what are you? And she went
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to as I said, she went to a school that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: had a lot of diversity, and she always struggled to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: condense the answer because she had just this whole like
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Filipino Egyptian. But I do this, and I do this,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm also this, and I love There's a page
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  Speaker 1: where she has like a map of the high school,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and it's so specific. It's like here the Taiwanese students
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: that play magic and the Mexican Funks. But then later
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: when she moves away from home, she asked a bunch
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of people about asking that question, and some of them
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: say like, oh, I find that offensive or othering others
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: are like it depends on the situation, but that was
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: something that she personally seemed to appreciate.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Well, It's definitely something that for all of these conversations
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is something that she grows into. It's interesting because with
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the challenges of like wishing she didn't have these types
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: of foods, that's the whole package that her family got
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: together for her for college, and she's looking at the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: startines with tomato sauce and like she's like, I'm not
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: gonna eat this. This is never gonna be open. And
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: then her being in college being like, Okay, where the
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: hell is this rice? This is not the good rice.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: This is not the good stuff. In fact, I'll eat
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: hot dogs and rice. Now, I'll pretend like a spam.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Where is my spam? And then her being the whole
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: time going this is not spam. This is not spam.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I need spam, and then her going back and opening
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: that exact can because she missed it she's like, here's
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the real food, and realizing how much she did miss
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: that same way with the culture stuff was like when
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: she was asked that question as a child, she was
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: afraid of answering that, mainly because she felt so out
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: left out. She wasn't one or the other. She was
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: an unusual quote unquote like a racial mix in her mind,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: being Egyptian and Filipino. Who sees that who does this
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: type of conversation? And then as she got older, seeing
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: the different types of people, She's like, now I want
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  Speaker 2: people to know who I am, how different I am,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: But this is what I need to do. So I'm
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: going to ask them so that they'll ask me so
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I can brag about my culture. So it was really
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: fun to see her flip into and I think myself
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: as in that similar state of like my identity is
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: like trying to be like I'm Korean grand lying alone
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: to the tac I'm like, yes, I'm in creative. I'm
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: now embracing it, and I'm trying to grow into it
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: and be proud of it and try to actually learn
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: more about it and grow into loving it as well,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: like not being ashamed of the fact that I did
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: like kimchi and having memories of loving kimchi, and though
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: my adopted family would really hated it, throw it out
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: immediately soon after because I'd like, it smells so bad
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: and that's the only memory they have of kimchi. Well,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: my memories of kimchi are very near and dear to me,
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and like finding that shame and then growing into this
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: because also being made fun of by having being derogatorily
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: named as kimchi, Like I literally got microaggression just by
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: being called that or that the assuming that's what I
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: need type of conversation to finally be like, no, but
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I need to find it.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I'll try to make it type of conversation. So it
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: is that growth and identity and finding that going from
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: what you thought you were supposed to want to be,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: which is the whitewash version, which, of course her and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: my childhood were very different. She was not surrounded by
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: white people, and in fact, being around white people was
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: weird for her, Yeah, which I still appreciate. I was like,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: that's amazing to me, not knowing anything but white culture.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: But there's still this level of hierarchy of like knowing
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: that that is the standard here in the US is
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: to be white, and so trying to find that somehow
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and then outgrowing and realizing that's not necessarily the end
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: all or the better place. So it is interesting to
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: see her grow into that in a very comical and
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: very artsy way.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, as the graphic novel.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, and that is something else that gets touched on
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a lot in the graphic novel, is not understanding why
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: there's a cultural disconnect between the values in practice of
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: your culture and being an American. So why is it
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I'm eating sardines and tomato and somehow that like others
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: me that kicks me out. I was born here, I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: grew up here. What is this? So that does bring
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: us to the American dream featured in the title. Here's
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: what Garib told the New York Public Library in a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen interview. For me, the American dream was totally
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: different from my parents, who thought of it in conventional terms.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: The house, the car, the education. Mine is being comfortable
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: with yourself and achieving the highest version of yourself. For me,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: it is being comfortable with my own cultural ethnicity and identity,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: but also being comfortable enough to call myself an artist
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and maker. So I liked this quote because I think
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of us can relate to that in some
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: way or another because it has changed, and in some
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: ways it's because we can't afford those things anymore. Yeah,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: but I do think it's shifted.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So again like going back to what her parents
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: each saw as being the American dream, her dad especially
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: like you got to go to an Ivy League school,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: you got to do these things, and you got to
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: get accepted to the here and like grow big into
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: a business and do these things. And then her mother
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: like being of money, being of class, being in these ways,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: like traveling, which I love that for her mom, like
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: she was a world traveler and did and then some
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: and then finding love like it was it was a
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: different level, which I found fascinating again because I'm sure
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: like Egyptian culture versus Filipino culture are very different, having
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the Catholicism versus the Muslim conversation is very different, having
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: like Filipinos who eat all the meat, give them all
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: the meats versus no pork. Like it's a big shock
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: for her to have to like switch off in these things,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: but also understanding like bringing in their love of their culture,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: but also wanting that dream fulfilled while they're in the US,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: like having their identity, but at the same time each
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: and then the each family members having their dream in
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: that identity, like having her aunt tell her that this
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: one thing be successful in this way, and then having
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: her grandfather coming and be like, no, you need to
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: read more books. We're going to talk about books more,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: you know, or what was that her uncle. But it's
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: just such a fascinating level of like pushing pull for
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: her and what is this American dream? And it definitely
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: wasn't journalism for her parents. Her parents were like, no,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: absolutely not that that is not on the pyramid.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Here right, there's an actual illustration of a pyramid of
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the acceptable occupations and what she pursued was not on there.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was also like reading her dad, especially
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: his interpretation of the American dream, felt very consumerist, I
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: guess because there's another like annual trips to Disney World
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and it shows him in like a Mickey Mouse hat.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But there's also a scene where he while they're in Egypt,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: he puts her in American T shirts and I'm so
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: proud and he's so proud of it. He's like, oh,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: she's half American, like he's bragging about it, so clearly
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: it was really really important to him, and he had
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: pride around that about her fitting in to American culture.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And the novel starts with her mom saying, you have
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to be better than us, and Molica's kind of grappling
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: with what does that mean? What exactly are you saying
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: by you have to be better than us? And then yeah,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: just the amount of work her mom does to achieve
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: this American dream for her daughter, of refinancing the house,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of working so hard, of like bringing in the family too,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to do all these things, it's clear how important it
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: was to them. Yes, and that brings us to whitewashing
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: over all over American culture and what you've seen in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the media. So there's a lot of points to be
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: made here. So one is she Molica feels like a
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: fraud at one point because her friends of color in
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: high school are telling her she is whitewashed, and she
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't really know how to combat that or what that means.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: She wants the life that Felicity had, specifically in New York,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: so that's why she went to a college in New York.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: In an interview with MPR, Greeb described growing up watching
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: white people in the media and glorifying them in their
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: lifestyle until she got older. And she also showcases some
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: crushes she had on some rock stars, celebrities stuff like that,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: white rock stars.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: She also had a crush on the whitest boy there
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: who was not white the school.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: At her high school.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was not white, but he seemed white to
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: them in comparison to which is kind of funny.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, but she does have also a kind of comical,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: kind of sad line where she was excited to go.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: She didn't have white people at her high school, so
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: she's like, I'll get to see some white people. So
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: she was excited. She I think it even says, just
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: like Felicity. And so she goes to college and yeah,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: it's pretty much all white people. She kisses a lot
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of white boys. She learns the lyrics to songs for
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: mostly white peers would sing yeah yeah yeah. So having
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: this kind of shock of wanting something you see on
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: TV and then getting it and realizing I don't know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it did take her some time to realize it.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: But I mean, and she did end up marrying a
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: white man, which I know you're going to talk about
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in a second. So it wasn't necessarily she was trying
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: to find a white man though, But all that to say, like,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: you know, it happens when you when you can become
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: a part of that culture.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: It kind of happened.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, her parents they wanted her to get
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: exposure to whiteness because it's the quote real world.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Not only exposure, they wanted her to learn to be
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: a little more white like they are, like learned from
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: them literally, as she said, as the uncle's like, you
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: need to know, you need to learn.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but she did. I mean she was really she
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: was angry, especially at the I don't see color conversation.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: She got a lot in college. She encountered a lot
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of microaggressions at work, some of which were like it
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: made me double check when she would have been how
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: old she would have been with that hapened. But yeah,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's still going on.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Well, mean, it's kind of like that same comment about
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: like just using food like an assumption of like food
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: of a type of food in order to like, oh
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you really love kimchi. Yeah, obviously you kind of smell
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: like type of type of thing. There's a lot of
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: microaggression that she didn't understand because for her, the microaggression
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: she knew was not microaggression from her own people. It
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: was more like they're just blunt, right, and so like
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: that didn't seem that way until she kind of figured out, oh, okay,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: this was not this is to other me and that's
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: that other conversations like what does that mean?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: In that same conversation, like what are you?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: A lot of the people that she took a poll with,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: like other people of color when they say that, I
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: don't mind it if it's from people of color. I
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: minded when it's from white people, because there is an
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: underlying I'm better than you kind of conversation or fetishism
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: that lies that seems to lie when they ask that
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: type of question, as opposed to if another Asian person
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: asks another Asian person, it may be because they find
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: some commonality of wanting to see something comforting of their
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: home like that. And I've definitely been approached by Chinese
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: people asking me whoere I'm from and hopes that I'm
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Chinese and having that moment but still being able to connect.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like how I talked about Brandy finding
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: something different and not white and realizing that the white.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Isn't the standard.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Like when I talked about how I looked up to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Brandy because she was one of the first women of
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: color I've ever seen in a lead and loved and
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: like to see that felt like it was opening doors
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: for all of us. And that's kind of the same
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, you're not necessarily from my country, but
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: you're close to that, and I file some commanderie here
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: and then that level. So when she's talking about that
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: understanding of like it's not so bad hearing it from
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: other Now, don't get me wrong, there's still bad players
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: in that because there's also otherness and like I'm better
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: than you because you're so in so country and I'm
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: from this country instead, which is a whole different conversation
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that we have to we'll have to like unbox later
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: at a time, but it is kind of that interesting
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: conversation that she's learning because it wasn't meant as harm
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: when she was in Egypt or when she's with her
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Filipino family, you know, like that was just like a
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: part of the conversation where there is ill intent outside
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: of and also like that backwards of like I don't
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: see color slash. The melting pot really also harmed people
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: of color and people who are from different countries because
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: it negates where their background, it negates their home, their culture,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: all of that. Instead of embracing that culture, they're like, no,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: but you need to acco me to us, just melting
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: with us, and that's that level. Is also like, oh
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: that's infuriating, right.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And just a quick clarification, Brandy from Cinderella.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, I always I'm not gonna lie, like I've
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: talked about her many times. Yeah, just that side note
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: is like one of the things I think of it
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: as a child, when I think of seeing beyond white
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: people as the standard. Brandy was the one that broke
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: the mold for me. Yes, and this is why I
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: love her so much.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I knew who you were talking about, but I wanted
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to make sure.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: You know because you know me.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like listeners who have seen this, Yeah, for
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: those who have been around you know, but for those
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: who are maybe newer. I have a love for Brandy
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: that transcends, and it has a lot to do with
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: my childhood experiences. I've seen a woman of color as
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: lead and being like loved as her.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: So yes, you can go see the episode we did
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: on it, Yes, if you would like.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: To till it's still a part of my heart.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, as we touched on two, she the graphic
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: novels kind of split into like chapters of her life,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and she does have a chapter about her relationship and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: eventual marriage with a white man named Darren and her
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: family's initial resistance and her own questions about it. And
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things about this novel that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I really appreciated is she's really open about, you know,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: still learning self discovery. She asked. She was like, hmm,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: what should I think about this? What should I think
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: about this? And then she had her observations of him
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and his interactions with her family particularly and her culture particularly,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of how she arrived at her answer. Yeah,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: but that was a whole thing. Ultimately, it's about being yourself.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It feels very bright to me. It feels very like
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: ask questions, be curious, hold on to these things in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: your culture and your history. It was kind of strange
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: to read it now because it was written in twenty
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen and the immigration system has changed so much since lastly. Yeah,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: so there is a bit of a what felt to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: me like a disconnect of Oh, I wonder what she thinks?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Are I like what she would if she had? And
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: something she would add on the end update? Yeah, I
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: don't know because she's still around. But yeah, I really
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it. I thought it was cute. I love the art. Yes, well, listeners,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: go check this book out if you haven't already. If
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for our next book club or
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: anything at all, you can email us at Hello at
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: stuff Whenever Told You dot com. You can find us
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: on Buce Guy Momso podcast or on Instagram and TikTok
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: at Stuff We Told You or else on YouTube. We
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: have some merchandise at Compureau and we have a book
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks its
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: always to our super judicial chandler and our executive producer.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: I am thank you and thanks you for.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Listening Stuff Never Told You Instructure by Heart Radio. For
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check out
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the art radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.