Language can be found everywhere around us. From the commercial signs in public streets to the people that you interact with, language is being expressed. However, with the emergence of an internet-based society, the most common way that people are expressing language is through social media. “Subtle Asian Traits” (SATs)is a Facebook group with over 1.7 million members, where Asians share their experience as children of immigrants using language in the form of memes, images, and discussions. Similar to neighborhoods that express their culture through signs and stores, the members of SATs create Facebook posts. As a member of SATs, I have noticed that there are many similarities among the Asian members of different ethnicity in terms of food, entertainment, etc.
Formation of Subtle Asian Traits
In 2018, SATs was formed by a twenty-one year old student In Melbourne, Australia, named Angela Kang. Like most immigrants, Kang and her family struggled with adapting to a new environment. Although there were many changes to their way of living, one of the things that they maintained was their culture. With the support of nine other friends who shared similar cultural upbringings to Kang, they formed SATs. In just a year, the group garnered a following of over one million members. The surge of SATs popularity was unexpected to the founders who had formed the group just for fun. However, SATs became a platform where Asian immigrants can share their own experiences while living in a western country.
Asian Expectations in Subtle Asian Traits
Among Asian immigrants, the expectations that their parents have for them are very high. Immigrants are known to be very hardworking because of their desire to provide a comfortable lifestyle for their children. Asian immigrants are no different from this. Because of the hardships that they had to endure in a new country, Asian parents expect that their children are doing their best in school. This translates to having high grades. In the image shown below, a meme that was created from a cartoon is used to show the expectations that Asian parents have for their children. The caption above the image says “Asian parents when their kid has a 3.99 GPA”. A 3.99 GPA is considered more than satisfactory to many, but to Asian parents, it’s considered a disappointment because a 4.0 gpa was not earned. Therefore, one of the cartoon characters in the image says “Oh, that’s right, honey. We don’t have a son” to represent the disappointment that an Asian parent would have to their child achieving only a 3.99 GPA. This meme from SATs demonstrates in a joking manner that Asian Parents have high expectations for their children.
