The Fighting 44s

Thanks to AngryAsianMan for the heads up on this.

SnapDragon Consulting put together a list of key insights for the Asian-American demographic in collaboration with hundreds of Asian American youth. This is interesting to myself and D as we both work/worked in the advertising/marketing field — albeit, it’s stuff we as “Fighting 44s” already knew. What fascinates me is the approach that was taken to bring light to these issues; a professional brand consulting company issues a press release to highlight the modern concerns of asian-americans. Forget “Asian History Month”. Forget the craziness surrounding “Rosie O’Donnell”, Abercrombie, Details Magazine, and others. If you really want to penetrate the mainstream american mindset, have a corporation issue a press release.

Here are a few of the key insights from the report:

1. Many Asian-American youth feel excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It’s made worse by the fact that they see advertisers actively wooing the African-American and Hispanic markets.
2. Mixed race kids are proudly identifying as Hapa, a once derogatory word in Hawaiian to mean “half.” Hapa is also slang for marijuana in Japanese (spelled Happa). Hapa is supplanting terms like Amerasian, biracial, and blasian.
3. Asian-American youth are secret fans of “easy listening” adult contemporary music. Lite FM is a hidden passion.
4. There’s a “hero gap” among Asian-American kids, which is being filled for many by activists from other cultures. Martin Luther King is a role model and hero to many young Asian-Americans.
5. Most Asian-American kids refer to white people as “white people” the same way African-Americans do.
6. Underage gambling is huge. The “new” American poker obsession is nothing new to Asian-American kids. Gambling has a long history in Asian culture. Many students Rigg spoke with are avid online gamblers and card players. Some organize private online poker tournaments.
7. Asian-American kids want an end to the hyper-nerdy images of themselves on TV and want to see more punked-out skater and graffiti DJ images which reflect a different energy. The feeling is: Enough with the math geeks, future doctors and violinists. Asian-American kids crave street credibility — not just academic accolades.
8. Asian-American kids universally hate the question: Where are you from — especially since the answers are usually something like “Westchester” or “Boston.”
9. All things Korean are hot and getting hotter. Fashion. Foods. DJs. Online communities. Korea is the new Japan.
10. The 15 minutes of seemingly benign American Idol fame for William Hung had a surprisingly negative effect on Asian-American students. There’s a feeling that Hung perpetuated the worst stereotypes about Asian people and gave non-Asians permission to indulge in two years of racial stereotyping and mocking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 1:44 pm and is filed under News, Opinion, Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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