https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:22:56 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2656467 Wed, 23 Nov 2016 11:32:47 +0000 Anagram 2656467@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>yeah, things have gotten MUCH worse since I posted this article. I teach in a middle school and we have had a rash of racist happenings since the election--directly related to Trump, btw. Kids shouting "build a wall! Send them back!" directly at other students (none of which, btw, happen to be illegal aliens as far as I know, but who happen to be brown or born in another country). Pretty sickening. </p> <p>On top of that, recently I had a 1st cousin post something ridiculous about undocumented workers (illegal aliens was his word) on his FB wall, and I politely commented on it and said what I think. This cousin is probably 47 years old, btw. And some random friend of the cousin's jumped in to argue with me (I was super, super polite and really chose my worlds carefully)...and soon this guy's argument devolved and it went from being mad about illegal immigrants hurting his chances of getting a job, to then ranting against NAFTA, to then a rant against "towel heads" (his words) and how they "all need to go back".</p> <p>So he started with a legitimate worry about undocumented workers undercutting wages in his field (cabinet building), but ended with just out and out racism. He didn't even try to pretend his concern with "towel heads" (UGH) was that they were illegal or hurting the economy. He doesn't care that likely, many muslims he ever encounters will not be wearing a "towel" on their heads, were probably born in the US or are now citizens.</p> <p>Nope...just outright racism. And while some will argue that racism has always been there and nutters have always been around (and I agree with that), what was particularly galling about this situation is that I KNOW there had to have been 20 family members who were getting notifications of this post, since they are FB friends with both me and this cousin--and not a one...not a one!, not even the cousin...said anything to this man about his racism.</p> <p>I did though. I'm happy to be polite, but still honest. So I called him out on it. Scary thing is--he's a business owner in a small city that must have lots of diversity, and his wife apparently works in the local school district, where there must be a lot of diversity. Think those kids are getting equal treatment from her? Please. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2656442 Wed, 23 Nov 2016 11:00:12 +0000 MrsSCB 2656442@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Ugh, this is depressing. I used to live in NYC and probably about four years ago I overheard a (perfectly able-bodied, probably in her 40s) woman laying into this guy as we were getting off the subway for not giving her his seat (which, why should he just because she's a woman, but I digress). Anyway, she said really nastily, "in AMERICA men get up for women to sit down" and then stalked off. The guy looked to be of Indian descent. I said, "wow, that was really rude." And he just looked defeated and said, "I'm an American, too." I said, "I know, I'm sorry." I didn't know what else to say. I was shocked by that, it was obviously very memorable. Now I'm worried it'll become more commonplace :-( </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2656437 Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:46:38 +0000 catlady 2656437@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@bluestriped bee: You are probably right. Seems like things have gotten worse in such a short time. :( </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2656426 Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:33:04 +0000 BSB 2656426@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@catlady: Yeah, I agree with you... but since the election, I feel like the progress we've done has stopped or gone backwards. </p> <p>It might be more media exposure but some Trump supporters now feel like they can say what they want. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635453 Wed, 12 Oct 2016 05:54:57 +0000 PinkElephant 2635453@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@mrsbookworm: right?! My first thought when this article came out was "if you reeeeeally don't like diversity, what on earth are you doing in a city like New York?!" </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635432 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 22:47:46 +0000 SugarplumsMom 2635432@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I remember the time someone yelled "go back to where you belong". I was 16, crossing a parking lot at an Asian grocery store at an Asian part of town. The guy that yelled it was driving a yellow BMW convertible ... he was middle eastern! Idiocy comes in all forms. I'm from Southern Cali. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635382 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 20:06:17 +0000 Mrs. Lemon-Lime 2635382@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I keep coming back to this thread. It's a shame we can't be more patient and kind to one another. It's unfair that being a minority is equated with foreign or new and somehow being American is a choice. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635378 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 19:59:46 +0000 mrsbookworm 2635378@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>This makes me so sad. I always think of NYC as a progressive place. If it happens so blatantly there, what is the rest of the country like? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635128 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:50:33 +0000 Mrs. Cheesecake 2635128@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>There was this article too: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/10/technology/thisis2016-michael-luo-nytimes/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/10/technology/thisis2016-michael-luo-nytimes/index.html</a> </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635117 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:40:04 +0000 Anagram 2635117@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@lamariniere: I saw it. But my favorite comment from yesterday wasn't posted there. This is actually what made me tear up a little yesterday--the comment from "Dorothy Hom". Mainly the last bit: Your incident reveals people's ingrained biases so similar to the recent Brexit vote. The British would rather founder their economic boat than support immigrants who threaten their Anglo-Saxon 'Britishness'. Sadly, though we reside in the most cosmopolitan of cities, there are still many who harbor hate, who lack compassion. They are threatened by anyone different than they.<br /> Please advise your daughter to remain confident of herself. She will encounter many in her lifetime who are ignorant and uninformed. She will find solace in taking the high road. Despite being singed by the hot air of racism, she can bend like the reed but never break. After all, what's five-thousand years but a drop in humanity's bucket? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635102 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 10:23:41 +0000 lamariniere 2635102@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Anagram: did you see the follow-up article today?</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/nyregion/go-back-to-china-readers-respond-to-racist-insults-shouted-at-a-new-york-times-editor.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&#038;smid=nytcore-iphone-share" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/nyregion/go-back-to-china-readers-respond-to-racist-insults-shouted-at-a-new-york-times-editor.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&#038;smid=nytcore-iphone-share</a> </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2635005 Tue, 11 Oct 2016 00:44:45 +0000 irene 2635005@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Funny how a version of this (a lot less hostile, more on the ignorant spectrum) happened to me on an airplane today:</p> <p>We were on a plane back home. I was sitting next to my 4 yo and my husband is in the row behind us. There was a white southern man sitting next to me. He was nice and all. My son was playing a race car game on his iPad (he never gets a chance to play games on iPad unless we were on a plane), and this man commented how good he was playing that game (and he really wasn't because he never played, and he always finished last place the whole 2 hours of the flight). I was like yeah (whatever).</p> <p>When we landed and all of us were waiting to get off. The man turned to me and said, excuse me, are you Chinese? I hate strangers just asking me out of the blue on questions like that I said yes. He started asking, I am just curious. Are you taking your son back to China? I was like (wtf inside), eh, no, we live here and we are coming home. We were flying in from Toronto and not from an Asian country for crying out loud. Then he asked, so, your son was born here? I was like, yes? He then said, his neighbor who is Chinese took her son to China, and half the time she has her son, and the other half of the time her son is back to the States with the father. I got offended, and I was like, my husband is right behind us, right there (pointing to the back row, which he should have seen it as we passed things back and forth during the flight). He went, oh I mean, now his son is bilingual now and she utilized this amazing opportunity, and her son is as smart as your boy here now. I was like Okay. Good for her. And I was thinking, eh, how do you even know if my boy was "smart" just in this 2 hours of flight of him playing a race car game...?</p> <p>I was offended with the whole thing because first, I am Chinese but NOT FROM CHINA. I am from Hong Kong. And 90% of people from Hong Kong gets offended when you ask us if we go back to China or anything related to China. That's just the political atmosphere and how the culture is right now. Then, what is with all those asking? And the ignorance of the conversation ? I would like to think it wasn't racist, and I take it as he is genuinely ignorant but I am still not even sure what he is trying to ask me about. I couldn't help but comment to my husband I think he probably votes for Trump :bummed: </p> <p>Anyhoo..... this just makes me think of what happened today. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634931 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 18:17:19 +0000 mrbee 2634931@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Maybe it's terrible, but you just get used to comments like that. Although I'd also be upset if someone said that to me in front of my kids. You can say stuff to me all day long and I probably won't care, but please don't put those thoughts in my kids' heads!</p> <p>All that said, I agree with @catlady: I think it's getting better every generation! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634874 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 15:07:58 +0000 Mama Bird 2634874@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I'm glad he confronted that woman. Like all bullies, she probably just expected to get away with it. Maybe she'll think twice about spouting that again.</p> <p>I'm sad though how many seemingly normal people can have the ugliest beliefs. The last couple of years have really brought it out of the woodwork in my social circle. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634814 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 13:28:31 +0000 catlady 2634814@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>That letter is sad, but I believe (or maybe just hope) that we are just seeing greater media exposure of these types of issues and that the underlying racism issue in the U.S. is actually getting better. We are in a strange period in time when lots of things are coming to the surface and when social media makes it easy for people to expose racism in others. I am half-Asian and my (Chinese) dad tells me that things were worst for him during the Vietnam War and have been better with time. My parents went through a ton of issues as a mixed-race couple in the 70s (especially from my own grandparents, who threatened to disown my mom) but now, a generation later, I have several cousins who have married partners of other races and no one has blinked an eye.</p> <p>I do distinctly remember a white woman shouting at my dad to go back to China when I was a kid (maybe 20 or 25 years ago) but it only happened once in my life, and my dad just brushed it off and said she probably had emotional issues. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634805 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 13:13:03 +0000 Mrs. Cheesecake 2634805@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Yes, I definitely feel you on this. I identify as Filipina-American (born and raised in the Midwest and California), but growing up I always had this feeling that I was "forever foreign." People would ask me where I was "really" from, commented on how my English had no accent, and other micro-aggressions that many Asian-Americans face on a frequent basis. While I hope that by living in a diverse area like San Diego my kids will be exposed to a diverse community of people; I know that these things still happen and I dread the day when I will have to explain to them why they are not viewed as a "typical American" but rather an "other." </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634800 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 13:03:43 +0000 lamariniere 2634800@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I read this earlier today. As someone who is mixed Caucasian/Asian who grew up in a very white small town, I've had my share of these types of comments. Luckily, my (white) mother instilled a lot of value and self worth in me and encouraged me to stand up for myself when facing these types of interactions. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/an-open-letter-to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china#post-2634791 Mon, 10 Oct 2016 12:55:55 +0000 Anagram 2634791@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I probably need a media diet for a while, because this just broke my heart. Although many of the comments give me some hope again. I'm becoming increasingly scared/anxious about raising my non-white daughters in the current USA.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china.html</a> </p>