Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse: Hi, my name’s Jesse Lin
[00:00:02] Angela: And I’m Angela Lin. Welcome back to another episode of, but where are you really from today is our last episode of this. Batch before we take another break and we are ending on July 4th weekend. So obviously we are revisiting our old topic from season one. When we still had seasons called red, white, and you revamped for 2022.
[00:00:30] Angela: Um, and this is actually an interesting topic because I’m in Asia right now. Um, we prerecord, but I will still be in Asia. the time of this publishing anyway. So it is an interesting kind of like position to be in, to be revisiting the topic of like, what does being American mean to us. Um, but before we go into all of that, I think for our open, we just wanna do a little mathy math.
[00:00:54] Angela: Um, how old is America nowadays?
[00:00:59] Jesse: I’m gonna guess 235, no final answer. 230 a oh, it’s 2038. I
[00:01:09] Angela: don’t know. I didn’t actually do the math. I thought you were Googling in the background. I mean, I can just do the calculator.
[00:01:17] Jesse: How
[00:01:19] Angela: 70. 246. What’d you
[00:01:21] Jesse: say? Okay. I was close 238 or something like
[00:01:24] Angela: that. Oh, whatever, 246.
[00:01:26] Angela: Isn’t it bizarre. Isn’t it like crazy town that we are only 246 years old as a country. Like, it sounds ancient to us like 1776 sounds like an an ancient year, but because we talk about being Asian all the time and like the new things we learn from our parents and stuff about our, our own history from, you know, China days, it’s like that shit, thousands of years old, I’m like 246.
[00:01:52] Angela: That’s like one barely one dynasty or whatever within China’s history. So it’s kind of wild.
[00:02:00] Jesse: it’s really interesting because like, it’s not even that the country has been around for so long, but it’s like the actual history, as you mentioned, for example, when we were doing the Ukraine episodes, Ukraine’s only been a country since the nineties, but Ukraine has had history back.
[00:02:16] Jesse: Into like ages and ages ago. So not only are we a new comp uh, company, a new country. We got stock. We are, we are, we are, we are just a company now. It’s just a capitalist company, all the United. Um, no, not only are we a new country, but the culture of our country is very, very fresh, new, always evolving
[00:02:40] Angela: as well.
[00:02:41] Angela: I think that’s honestly the difference. The, and we’ve discussed this in our past episode. And I think the reason why we renamed this episode, the same episode name essentially as what we did two years ago is because we wanted to see how our own reflections of what being American means to us has changed even just within these two years.
[00:03:02] Angela: And I think that is kind of the main thing that makes the. Very different from other countries, most other countries, which is just that, because our whole sh stick is being this melting pot. It is not, our history is not really about like, oh, well, we just got colonized by these people. So we became those.
[00:03:23] Angela: That was the culture then. And then we got colonized by those people. And then we became that, yes, fo show colonization happened and we did, you know, different civilizations did come to try to like, Try to take over things, but the kind of spirit of, you know, 1776 onwards America, is that it was all the kind of.
[00:03:47] Angela: people who left other countries who tried to create something new that like didn’t exist before. And honestly, the big break was to say, like, we don’t want Kings anymore. Like that, that shit’s done. like, we just wanna like figure out our own way of
[00:04:01] Jesse: like living well and religious freedom. Let’s not forget
[00:04:04] Angela: about religious.
[00:04:04] Angela: That’s true. God has always part of the story. Isn’t
[00:04:08] Jesse: he um, Speaking of pre-recording, I’m not sure if you saw the news yet, but there was that leak draft of the Supreme court, Roe V. Wade overturning. So you do wanna like encapsulate that here, because I do think that it’ll be an interesting discussion point as to, I think just generally like how America works and how passionate people about how passionate people are about.
[00:04:37] Jesse: American politics, including stuff that’s like usually pretty dry, boring, like the courts, right? Like. Records. Yeah.
[00:04:45] Angela: Well, let’s, I, I, we don’t need to get into like the actual abortion topic at least right now, but I do think one of the, like another key difference of like what makes America, America compared to a lot of other countries is this whole like federal versus.
[00:04:59] Angela: State BS, not BS. I just mean like, there was a very strong distinction and the like weird kind of like they work together, but not really, like the states are kind of independent, but not really, because honestly, when I first read that, that headline about the Roe persuade potential overturn, I was freaking out cuz I was like, wait, that’s a federal decision.
[00:05:22] Angela: So at first I thought like, oh, so does that mean like all across the nation? Abortion would be illegal. Exactly. That I saw. Then I like clicked a few more links and I was like, okay, so it’s state by state. It’s more that like, it’s more that the current states that have it as legalized because it’s.
[00:05:40] Angela: Federally officially a right. W would have the right to overturn their state laws to say like, oh, we never wanted this anyway. So now it’s illegal again for y’all as opposed to like states like California that are super liberal would never. Overturn it.
[00:05:58] Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s really about, I mean, if you wanna look at it without the human perspective, returning the right to the state to make that decision, as opposed to the federal government, um, obviously like.
[00:06:11] Jesse: All the states that didn’t want it had been kind of limiting the avail accessibility of sure. Abortion anyway. So it was like really curtailed, but federally, it meant that every state had to kind of like follow the federal guidance of like what you have to do. But now it’s kind of like, well, each state has the decision, um, in deciding those rights as part of its like statehood or something like that.
[00:06:33] Jesse: Right?
[00:06:34] Angela: Yeah. And actually, I mean, to be fair, I don’t know shit. Governments in general, even our own. But even when I was saying all this, I was like, actually, I feel like COVID really highlighted that the us is not the only place for like little regions also make like completely different decisions.
[00:06:51] Angela: Because for example, like when we were in Spain for a wedding, . I mean, it was like county by county. They were changing like what was okay. And what wasn’t considering the exact same COVID circumstances. So, so yeah, maybe we’re not that special. I don’t know.
[00:07:10] Jesse: uh, yeah, I don’t think so either. I think we just have a distinct flavor of like, of that.
[00:07:16] Jesse: I, I mean, if we’re looking at Spain for comparison, I just think that their government is much more of a coalition than ours is cuz they. They don’t have that many parties, but they have at least three major parties that share the power somewhat equally versus here. It’s a two party system. So if you’re like, you’re either one or the other, or you can’t really do much versus like, there is at least some coalition anyways, we can get into it.
[00:07:41] Jesse: I’m very interested in this topic. Okay. In my, in my perspective, I could be wrong. Sorry, Spanish.
[00:07:47] Angela: sorry, Ramon left. He’s not here to defend his own people next time. Um, Loles okay. Let’s, let’s wrap back to the like original kind of topic area. Um, so what does being American mean to you and how has that changed in the last two years?
[00:08:08] Angela: Since we asked ourselves these questions, ,
[00:08:11] Jesse: it’s such a hard thing to reflect on because it’s not something you think about every day, because it’s not connected to like thousands of years of history, like your heritage. And even if it were we’re born of immigrant families. Right. So it’s not our heritage anyways.
[00:08:29] Jesse: So it’s just something that I don’t think about a lot. Um, I think that the last time we discussed it, we were very closely connecting how, like your pride in living here with the current situation in the government. And if you were to ask the question to me like that, I would still say, um, the needle hasn’t moved much.
[00:08:55] Jesse: Like I think from the optics perspective, some sanity has been restored in terms of just like. The general blah, blah, blah, around the presidency has returned to like its boring status. As, as we, I guess most people are kind of like prefer it to be, but the reality of the situation for a lot of people and the reality of what the political engine, if you will, has produced since Joe Biden was elected into, as the president has.
[00:09:28] Jesse: really changed a lot. And so from my perspective, like I don’t feel net positive about the situation. I don’t feel net negative either. Cause I don’t think anything has like really slid off the table. But overall I would say like expectations are not being met because there were a lot of things that I think people myself included were looking for the new administration, which house control of all, all of.
[00:09:57] Jesse: And the executive branch waiting for them to kind of like make the moves on all of these legislative promises that they had stated that they would deliver on and still have not. And that’s where I’m at. I think like, I just, I know you, I know in like talking with you, like you shut out a lot of, um, just there’s been so much like negative news and stuff, and I just feel like.
[00:10:25] Jesse: more and more, it’s hard to determine how much of that is representative of what’s actually happened. Right? Cuz you see like Asian women attacked Asian women shot, then you have like school shoot, like, and it’s it’s, it’s so much that it’s hard for you to determine like, oh shit. Like is the core fabric of society really like warping into.
[00:10:45] Jesse: You know the toilet or is it just like, there’s more reporting because that’s kind of what reporting does now to like get eyeballs and clicks and whatever. Um, so from that perspective, like how I feel about, if you wanna say the moral fabric of the country, like my pride there, I don’t know. I’m not sure, like I’m always glass half full.
[00:11:04] Jesse: I feel like in these situations, I’d like to believe that people are more like, you know, like as we discussed, I like to believe that people have more in common than they do different, but it’s hard to. . What about you?
[00:11:18] Angela: there’s a lot to unpack from what you just said. Um, I wanna. Uh, offer a resource, which is one of my friends gave me this resource recently.
[00:11:26] Angela: Okay. And I was like, oh, this is wonderful, which is, um, you mentioned the thing about like, it’s really difficult now to tell, like, if things are really as bad as they are given, the way news is reporting, whatever. Um, on Instagram, there’s an account called ground news and they basically highlight different headlines and show underneath the breakdown of the percentage of either.
[00:11:49] Angela: Um, left wing sources, centrist sources, or right wing sources that reported on that headline so that you can tell how biased that is. And it also shows like, Basically it, it gives you a chance to see, like, if I’m always following these types of news sources, I, would’ve never even known that this thing happened because it’s not being reported on by my like typical go-tos versus like, when I see the breakdown of this is like, oh, well centrist and right wing or whatever, or reporting this thing.
[00:12:21] Angela: And I would’ve wanted to know that, but the, you know, left sources, aren’t reporting that anyways. I, I really like it because it, it kind of shows you a more representative. View of like what’s actually happening and also like which ones are really skewed based on who’s reporting. What, um, yeah. I’m like, where do I go from where you, where you left it?
[00:12:43] Angela: Um, so I, I think for me, I will never let go of my core pride in being American, no matter where our country has gone in the last. Let’s call it the last eight years or so. Right. Um, how much it has gone kind of up and down in that timeframe. And for me, it still goes back to what I said in like our first episode of this it’s that I.
[00:13:15] Angela: do Biden very strongly into the whole American dream thing. Is it perfect? No, but are we in one of the few countries where you do have the opportunity to, like, if you work really fucking hard, if you get a little bit of luck because you always need a little bit of luck as well, but are you at a much higher.
[00:13:40] Angela: possibility of achieving what you wanna do than in a different country that doesn’t offer you as much of this opportunity. I think the answer’s still, yes. And I’m biased because I literally just spent the last few days, um, editing our mother’s day episode that we’ve released by now. and especially coming from the real immigrant perspective because you and I are not immigrants.
[00:14:03] Angela: We are, we were born in the us. So I will kind of, um, devil’s advocate at different point. You said earlier as well, but we’re not the immigrants. Our parents were the immigrants. And when we asked both our parents. Do you, is there anything you regret about immigrating even after they mentioned all the hardships that they went through during that transition, especially your mom talking about feeling like so lonely and isolated and like having to start over and all that stuff, even reflecting on all that, both of them said, no, there’s nothing I regret about coming here.
[00:14:34] Angela: And my mom specifically said something like. The opportunities that you get by coming to this country are like unparalleled. And most people don’t have that opportunity to come here. So like, I always, whenever I need kind of a reality check of like, how lucky are we to be American? I always kind of look back to what.
[00:14:55] Angela: Actual immigrants. Think, especially if you talk to like fresh immigrants, our parents have been in the us for decades by now, and they still think that way. But if you talk to like fresh immigrants, like I’m sure if you talk to some recent war refugees, for example, that they would have a completely different perspective than we do on like what, what it means to be in this country and like the levels of freedom and like opportunity that they have just by not being in the situation they were in.
[00:15:24] Angela: so part of me will always be prideful of being American, just because it just symbolized as kind of like land of the free thing. Right? Like of course we have flaws. Of course we have a bunch of shit that’s wrong with our country as well, but it is always. That symbol, I think in the global sphere of like, we stand for freedom, we’re still kind of fucking fucking it up in a lot of ways, but like, that’s our kind of core belief of like our founding mantra for this country.
[00:15:49] Angela: And we still try to move that forward and we are still one of the biggest opportunity. Givers in the need in the world right now. So for that, I’m always very proud. Um, going back to what you said of like, it’s not our heritage because our families are not from the us. I fundamentally disagree with you because there is no American heritage in that sense, like.
[00:16:16] Angela: America, as we know it from 1776 onwards is what everyone made of it, of all the immigrants that came to the us. So there’s no, we are not native American. So if you’re saying like, we’re not from here, cuz we’re not native American. Sure. Yeah. But like no one is really we’ve wiped most of them out, unfortunately.
[00:16:36] Angela: So. you and I having been born in the us, we are American. Like, I don’t identify as strongly with Taiwan as I do with the us. So if you wanna say like, which heritage are you like really? You know, are you closest to, for me as American, I, I’m trying really hard to kind of like climb back to the Taiwanese part because I know it’s really important to be close to the, the mother culture.
[00:17:01] Angela: Right. But. Which one do I associate myself more to? It’s definitely the American culture and I. We are both deeply American. Like it’s a really hard concept to grasp. Like, how would you describe being American and blah, blah, blah. But because I’m abroad right now, especially my perspective is very different because I think when you leave the country is when you most recognize that you are American as fuck.
[00:17:27] Angela: Like you land somewhere else in there. Everyone is like, oh my God, So American, you know what I mean? Like, it’s very easy for them to describe you like that versus like, when you try to describe yourself, like, what does American mean? You’re like, I don’t know, but like you land anywhere else and you’re like, Ugh, these fucking Americans, right?
[00:17:42] Angela: Like they like can pick you out everywhere. And even we’ll talk about this more. Or maybe we, we already have, because by the time we publish this episode, that episode will have been live already. But we reflect on my experience of being in Asian and Asia, but. The type of Asian in the country I’m at.
[00:18:02] Angela: Right. And I’ll give you a preview right now when I’m in a different Asian country. I honestly, the, the thing I think I am the most is American. Like I don’t. And when people ask, like, where are you from? Whatever. I say America, because it’s not true to say I’m from Taiwan. I’m not from Taiwan. Like, I, I can say like my family is from Taiwan or whatever, and then make that makes ’em feel a little, you know, closer to me in a sense, because they’re like, oh, so you are like Asian kind of, but like, I don’t know if I told the story in that previous episode or not, but a perfect example is that three years ago, when I lived in Japan for a few months, um, and I was working at Adobe still at that time, I had lunch with my coworkers who were Japanese.
[00:18:51] Angela: and we were in a Chinese restaurant that they chose. I was like, I definitely don’t wanna eat a Chinese restaurant, but they chose it. They wanted it. And I, I made some comment about like, oh yeah, I’ve, I’ve eaten this a lot because my, my family’s Chinese. And they were like, wait, you’re Chinese. And I was like, my last name’s Lin, like, what did you?
[00:19:10] Angela: And they, like, they genuinely were just like, I don’t know. You’re just so American. I just, I don’t know. I just knew you were American. So they didn’t even think about my ethnicity. They just were like, you’re so American, like the way I talk, the way I act, the blah, blah, blah. So I think it’s always good to kind of zoom out from our general, our like day to day perspectives, especially we’ve had our reality check by many of our guests that are not American.
[00:19:36] Angela: That we’re very, self-centered in the way that we think about the world. But when you zoom out from just like being in our day to day shoes of like in, in the us, we. Are deeply American, no matter how much this stop, Asian ha blah, blah, you know, things that are going on that are dividing us. I think at our core, you and I are way more American than we are.
[00:19:57] Angela: Anything else. Just by the fact of having been born there, raised there, like kind of shaped our whole lives there. Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us. The biggest way is by increasing our visibility by following us on Instagram at where are you from pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from subscribing to our YouTube channel under, but where are you really from podcast?
[00:20:19] Angela: Rating and reviewing us on apple podcasts and telling your friends the more people we can get to listen to the show, the more we can continue spotlighting different perspectives and stories. And if you feel so inclined, we’re also accepting donations@buymeiacoffee.com slash where are you from? Thanks.
[00:20:35] Angela: Y’all
[00:20:37] Jesse: I think I, I hear what you’re saying and I, I mean that, like, that heritage doesn’t belong to us because I kind of feel like. The wave of Asian immigration that kind of transformed the culture that we are a part of now didn’t exist necessarily before our parents immigrated there. So I kind of just feel like that heritage was a mix of all the people that were already there, but it didn’t necessarily like that’s not something that I feel like I inherited.
[00:21:11] Jesse: Um, but I think we also defer in the sense that like, I don’t necessarily think a lot about being American and, and you have like much more, I think you have a much more fleshed out idea of what that means to you and even, um, like something like, and something that I’ve noticed when I travel abroad is when people ask me where I’m from.
[00:21:33] Jesse: I tell them like where I live community wise. So like the most. Region or whatever, I’ll be like, I live in New York. I, or, you know, when I was, when I lived in California, like I’m, you know, originally from California, I don’t necessarily tell people like, Hey, I’m American. Um, and I think there’s a, a, a difference there because I don’t, I don’t identify very strongly with the idea of being American.
[00:22:00] Jesse: If that makes sense, even though it’s like hard to, I like say like, what is that picture? Cuz it’s different for everybody. Right? If you ask you, you have a very clear picture. Someone else from the south might have a very different picture. But for me, I don’t really have much of a picture of what that.
[00:22:16] Jesse: Looks
[00:22:16] Angela: like so, well, I think that also kind of goes along with what we already mentioned at the top. It’s kind of like federal versus state level, because one of the reasons, I guess, that we think there’s such a difference between us and other countries from that standpoint is that each state has such a strong identity.
[00:22:34] Angela: And you could just identify with the state’s culture and vibe as opposed to like the whole nation. So I I’d guess that’s probably what your, you know, Saying and what you just, um, laid out for me. I understand why you do that. I, I used to do that too, or I still do that sometimes, but I think, um, That’s because we are lucky enough to be from states that on a global scale, people know like if you were from like, even states that we know, you know, like that aren’t like, BU fuck nowhere.
[00:23:05] Angela: But like, if you’re like I’m from Connecticut or whatever, you know, like a, nor an average like global citizen does not know what Connecticut is, is you’d have to say the us. Or like close to New York, right? Like you’d have to like anchor it on something. So I just went tri-state area, New York, nobody. The fuck knows what tri-state area is and you’re not in the tri-state area.
[00:23:25] Angela: I didn’t, I’d never heard that phrase before going to NYU. Um, so yeah, I, I think I just try to make it easier for people. So I start with like America, the biggest thing they definitely know. And then if they know anything about the us, then, you know, I can zoom in a little bit more. Um, but yeah. I think it’s because we’re already coastal people.
[00:23:46] Angela: So you’re lucky enough to be able to say somewhere that you do identify with more, that someone actually would know what it is, um, on like a global scale.
[00:23:55] Jesse: Yeah. I, and I also, I just feel like, yeah, I think what you’re identifying is correct. Like I feel more strongly. My life and my community in New York than I do more strongly about my life and my community as an American.
[00:24:14] Jesse: And so I think when people ask me that that’s usually what I default to. It’s not to say that, like, I don’t recognize that there are tons of benefits in growing up in the us. And there are still many ongoing benefits that, um, I think a lot of. Reap. It’s just that I don’t, I don’t know. I’m not proud of it.
[00:24:38] Jesse: Cause I feel like I haven’t contributed anything to it. If that makes sense. Does that make sense? Like, I feel like here, I can say like I’ve contributed something to being a new Yorker because I volunteer, um, I pay taxes here. I vote for like very specifically public officials here. Like I feel like I’m much more invested in where I am than I am.
[00:25:01] Jesse: necessarily overall as the country. Right. And so, like, I don’t feel a ton of ownership over that, but
[00:25:09] Angela: I guess. that’s where it’s kind of like, it depends on how you see it, which is like, we don’t live in the whole country. We live in like one specific place. So you can’t POS unless you are a federal government official, you can hardly have an impact on like a national scale of anything, really.
[00:25:32] Angela: Like, you can only do what you can in your local community, and that doesn’t make. Not American. I think it’s just that everyone’s kind of idea of what America means is based on where they grew up. So like mm-hmm, , it, it is, the state has like a very strong influence on what you deem as American. I guess it’s just interesting to me that you abstract.
[00:25:58] Angela: You say like, oh, I’m very involved in like the New York community, but not American. It’s like New York is America. It’s like part of America. Yeah. So you’re like, but it’s your version of your American community? You know? Yeah.
[00:26:12] Jesse: It’s what I can see and what I can touch and what I can feel and what I experienced.
[00:26:17] Jesse: I can’t say that I’ve experienced the rest of what America is. And so for me, this part of where I am. The majority of my American experience, if that makes sense. And because it is, and because I recognize that it’s not the America thing, like the full thing I say, it’s the New York experience. And that’s why, yeah.
[00:26:40] Angela: I don’t think it’s true. I wonder, I wonder also if it’s because you haven’t traveled to that money states, cuz I think I’ve traveled to a lot more states than you have maybe. So I have like a bigger view of what America. Means in a lot of different states be not that I’ve spent like months in every state, but like I’ve visited a lot of states and ones that are kind of like random as well.
[00:27:06] Angela: Like, like during business, when we went to like the Kentucky Derby, you know what I mean? Like, you know, and like, because we were in Illinois, we also went to Wisconsin, like random. And I went on the Chinese bus store with my parents, like Wyoming and like Montana and like random places. So. Seen a lot of different reflections in new Orleans, Louisiana, South Carolina, mm-hmm, all those Florida, like I’ve seen what it can be in all those different places.
[00:27:34] Angela: So for me, I can kind of like patch work together that there’s like so many different reflections of America, but there is just this like kind of underlying thing that I still feel. So maybe that’s part of it as well that like you’re mostly California New York experiences. So it’s harder to. Piece together like the rest of the country in your
[00:27:55] Jesse: head, maybe I think it’s like about it.
[00:27:58] Jesse: The camaraderie and relationship aspect of it, I think is actually very, it’s a very good point because I don’t think it’s even, I don’t think it’s necessarily just about visiting for me because I mean, I haven’t visited for a very long periods of time either, but I’ve been to a few states. I think it’s just that, like, I couldn’t tell you that I have like a friend in Montana.
[00:28:22] Jesse: Or like, I know somebody who lives in Utah necessarily, and because I don’t have relationships to people who live in those areas, I don’t necessarily have that experience that you’re talking about of like, feeling this underlying, like, Hey, we’re kind of the same. It’s more kind of just like, it’s a little bit of a blank for me.
[00:28:43] Jesse: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:44] Angela: Makes sense. I think that is something that’s kind of interesting to me is that. when we talk about tourism too. Like for some reason, a lot of Americans never tour our own country. Like the first ideas. Like, let me get the fuck outta here. Yeah. I, I know the us so well, meanwhile, like a fucking massive country with so many different land, like differences, culture, differences, and stuff.
[00:29:10] Angela: And if you never like check it out, even. The national parks, right. Are like, so fucking beautiful, magical, beautiful. And people really don’t go to them as much as like, they’d rather go to like Italy and like, blah, blah, blah. Because it sounds more like, blah, blah, you know, hoorah than
[00:29:26] Jesse: staying. Yeah. It’s a full shebang than, than being at home.
[00:29:30] Angela: Yeah. Yeah. I think we’re underrated from a tourism standpoint. No,
[00:29:34] Jesse: no, I, I totally agree with you. I, there are tons of states and parks and places in the us that I would really like to go. Uh, and they just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Yeah. Maybe this year,
[00:29:45] Angela: maybe year. Yes. Um, well, I wanna wrap back to something you mentioned, because like I said, you said so many things in your thing.
[00:29:54] Angela: Go, I wanna, like, I wanna like talk about it. Um, so I won’t comment on the political situation, because as you said, it’s just kind of like, bla we’re still bla, like, it we’re less like embarrassing, but still bla. Um, but. the something that has it hasn’t like taken a, it didn’t chip at my pride of being American.
[00:30:20] Angela: I guess it just made me kind of like sad is that I do feel like there, our country is dividing a lot more than it did than it was before. Like I think the left right division has always been there and like, I don’t actually know if it’s stronger of a divide than it was before. Or if it’s just that now again, we’re being bombarded by news and like, it’s just like news cycle is really feeding into it.
[00:30:49] Angela: So who knows, but what has happened in the last two years? It is George Floyd happened all the Asian violence happen. Like a lot of other things have happened socially that have like split our country a lot more. and it is also, I can’t abstract the like digital social news nature of all of that happening at the same time.
[00:31:15] Angela: But for me, the feeling is like, we’ve never been this fragile in, in like a societal standpoint as we are kind of now, because we’re in this weird place, right? Like all the like social stuff that happened, the racial stuff that happened. It. Difficult to kind of grasp, right? Because you’re like, theoretically, we’re trying to highlight the, and celebrate the differences in all of us and to kind of like help everyone educate each other on like, why these differences are awesome.
[00:31:52] Angela: Right. As opposed to things that should be torn down or like looked down on and all that stuff. But there’s this fine line that I think we have not grasped, which is. By highlighting all these differences. We’re also, there’s this other wave where it’s like, people are kind of trying to highlight the differences in a way of saying like you and I are different.
[00:32:13] Angela: We’re not the same. You will never understand. You will never be blah, blah, blah. So it’s like the, if the goal was like mutual understanding and mutual kind of shared everything. I think what’s really happening is that there’s a lot of, kind of like now you versus me and like, you’ll never get it. So now I hate you.
[00:32:33] Angela: Like, there’s a lot of this kind of like crack that I see happening in our societal fabric. That is like, I don’t know how we’re really gonna overcome that in the near future and it’s society. Yeah. It kind of scares me, honestly, because I’m like our whole. and like I said, the whole shtick of the us originally was like melting pot and like, yeah, we’re stronger together because we’re merging all these different things.
[00:32:59] Angela: Mm-hmm and now I think it’s saying like, almost like, oh, we shouldn’t merge. We should just like recognize separate things and like somehow still be together, even though we’re like kind of separating things.
[00:33:12] Jesse: I don’t know. I, I agree with you and I really don’t see. I mean, it’s, it’s really hard to find. a common ground in those situations where, where you no longer feel people are hearing you necessarily.
[00:33:33] Jesse: And I think that, like, I think that where I would’ve loved to see it is like, we recognize we’re different. We want to celebrate your differences. I recognize that I’m never gonna have the lived experience. Um, an African American, that individual is never gonna have the lived experience of me. That doesn’t mean that we don’t necessarily want certain things that kind of overlap.
[00:33:58] Jesse: But I think what you’re pointing towards is that like, when those differences exist and people are like, you can’t possibly understand me, they also think that the underlying needs are so fundamentally different that there can’t. Like a commonality there. Um, and I think that that’s fundamentally, the problem is that like, people are so absorbed in their own.
[00:34:22] Jesse: I don’t know. I don’t know what you wanna call it, their own like group hood. I don’t wanna call it community because that’s not what a community about. It’s not supposed to be exclusionary. People are so absorbing their own like group hood that sometimes it’s hard to soften up and hear from other people.
[00:34:40] Jesse: Um, and recognize that like fundamentally what you want is the same. Um, but I, I do feel like because of how incendiary, um, politics are and like speech has been it. Is also really hard to reconcile certain things. Right? Like, I feel like we’ve done this, this before, like the government in the past, although there were divisions on social issues, like generally it felt like there was still kind of like an error of respectability for your colleagues working in the government, regardless of like, which side of the aisle that they’re on.
[00:35:17] Jesse: And I feel like that has kind of disappeared, um, for better or for worse, like, and that. Makes, it just creates an environment where nothing gets done and like nobody wins. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s really hard as a citizen when you see that kind of like divisiveness on like the highest levels of the government to be like, Oh, now I’m personally gonna set a good example or like I’m personally gonna be invested in this thing, because what you see is just kind of like a mess.
[00:35:55] Jesse: So like, why what’s your incentive to like rise above it or care about something when you’re like, this is just like a dumpster fire a little bit. Um, let me think that that’s.
[00:36:06] Angela: Yeah, it’s interesting because obviously Trump changed. The way that the us was seen both outside of our country and within our country, just from like a kind of symbology standpoint of like what our country stands for and the way we should act with each other and whatever I, because.
[00:36:32] Angela: whether you supported him or not the way that he acted was a lot more, as you said, kind of incendiary, right? Like he kind of just like said whatever he wanted to say and in a non polished, like way, which is what we’re used to from government officials, which is like, even if they were thinking similar things, like you’re an idiot, they would say it in a more kind of like contained and like PC way to their opponents versus he’s gone now.
[00:36:59] Angela: Right? Like I think there’s. that a lot of things like, especially when we were talking about this topic two years ago, when he was still president, it was really easy to kind of say like, oh, it’s all Trump’s fault. Like everything’s Trump’s fault. It was very easy. Everyone was just kind of saying like, blah, blah, blah, Trump, Trump, Trump.
[00:37:16] Angela: He’s gone now. I think whether you wanna like attribute it to like that kind of. Extreme personality, having a ripple effect into how a government is run today, or if it’s it would’ve been like this. Anyway, I do agree with you that there is this just like lower level of decorum that exists now in terms of the way that like government officials that are like the leaders of our nation act now.
[00:37:43] Angela: And it’s difficult because I think for me, it’s almost. pre-Trump times, as you said, government was just kind of boring, right? It was just kind of like, whatever, this is the thing we need it. Like, technically this is the thing in control, but like, it doesn’t have like a daily impact on my life because it doesn’t, it’s not even reported on as often.
[00:38:03] Angela: And I just like. Barely keep up with it. And now it’s almost like you’re so wrapped up in these personalities of the government officials and what they represent from like a human level that you get really attached to like, oh, well, like his personality is something I gravitate towards or is something like I hate.
[00:38:22] Angela: So now I like feel really strongly one way or another about this issue. Of the, like personality of this person, as opposed to the actual issue at hand and whatever, it’s just like, it’s all become a lot more theatrical, I think. And I, I don’t like that well,
[00:38:41] Jesse: no, I think that, like, it serves a purpose, right.
[00:38:44] Jesse: Because what I think, what both parties saw, what with Trump is that, that kind of dialogue really motivated. A certain, a certain kinds of people to go do stuff. And so they’ve taken that on because they’re like, oh, this is a really effective way to drive people to certain actions, but it’s kind of like, you know, parts of what he started.
[00:39:09] Jesse: He kind of lost control of, and that’s. A little bit, I think what’s also happening with, with many of the party leaders and you’re talking about fragmentation. I agree that there’s a huge divide between what you wanna consider this left and what you wanna consider this a right. But even within each sect, there’s a huge divide.
[00:39:28] Jesse: So like the Republican party, the majority of those people that are in Congress, I don’t think that they reflect the overall Republican voter. Anymore, whatever that looks like, like they reflect, I think like you’re, those people reflect kind of this for me, this like old money wall street, conservative kind of person and a large majority of the bases, like poor white trailer trash.
[00:39:57] Jesse: It’s not the same anymore. Um, and
[00:39:59] Angela: I mean, and similarly on the democratic side, on the democratic side side, I would say, yeah, I would say the loudest voices, for example, like AOC. Don’t represent like a huge portion of the democratic party. Yeah. But because she’s such a cult of personality, it’s easy to assume that the entire like Democrat party is similar to that, but it’s even, even within the elected officials, there’s like, most of them are not like as extreme as she is in terms of the way that she kind of positions herself.
[00:40:30] Angela: But she’s just like so emblematic because. Young and she knows how to use social and she’s
[00:40:36] Jesse: like she’s terms. Yeah. All that stuff. Yeah. But, but like, yeah, I agree with you. I think there is also significant fragmentation within. The democratic party, right? Cause there’s people who are, I think still very much aligned to what the core values of the party were.
[00:40:53] Jesse: I’d say like the nineties early two thousands. And then there are like many other groups who are like maybe more right. Leaning, maybe looking for like even more progressive or radical ideas to be established in the government. So I’m not, I’m not saying in any way, shape or form that this is only happen.
[00:41:12] Jesse: On the Republican side is very much happening on the democratic party side as well.
[00:41:19] Angela: Wow. I didn’t think, honestly, even though this topic is about America, I didn’t think we were gonna talk about politics this much.
[00:41:28] Jesse: well, I will say that, like, I don’t know about other countries, but I do feel. One of the main things that is interesting about America is the significant Naval gazing.
[00:41:40] Jesse: We love to talk about America and we love, and we are concerned with all things American. And that is part of why I think like people love being here. The participation in what America is or could be, I think is. like for those people who care is like on another level. I don’t know if everybody cares, you know, like the whole voting rate is like necessarily compared to like other countries.
[00:42:07] Jesse: But I think the people who care care very strongly. And I don’t know if you necessarily find that in other countries.
[00:42:14] Angela: Do you think there’s a level of imposter syndrome in why we act like this? Because I, part of me feels like we’re not a real country. We’re not a real country. Yeah, no, because other countries get to just fall on the fact that they were just like born as that country, largely mm-hmm of like, you know, whatever history is very long.
[00:42:31] Angela: There have been many different like takeovers, but I just mean like the modern day countries that exist right now have at least been in exist. Of a certain culture. Yeah. Like way longer than the us has existed. Yeah. And they were just kind of like, it, it, it was just like, that was just what it was, as opposed to, like, we had to like, make a thing and we’re trying to like, prove to ourselves that the thing is working
[00:42:55] Angela: So we’re like constantly trying to like, grasp onto the thing we thought we made. Yeah.
[00:42:59] Jesse: You know what I mean? No, I, I, I totally hear you. I mean, it’s kind of like the same way that we’re, you know, we’re talking about our identities. Like, I feel like if we had been born into. You if we were in Taiwan, we wouldn’t question it so much, but because our identities are in effect new and kind of like in a state of flux being built by us, it’s something that we talk about a lot and we navel gates about.
[00:43:24] Jesse: And I think I definitely agree with you. Like that’s part of why there’s so much conscientiousness about what America is, because it’s not rooted in. thousands of years of history. It’s very like in two more of our lifetimes, that could, that’s like 50 per that. Oh, that’s like, we’re, we’re at what? 200 something years.
[00:43:47] Jesse: So yeah, in the lifetimes of two, two more people let’s say, assume each person lives to a hundred, it’ll be doubled age of our country. And it’s only like two more generations passed very easy. So it’s very malleable, I think. And that’s why people are so obsessed with. Controlling what that, what the narrative America looks like.
[00:44:10] Angela: Yeah. Wow. Alright. Shall we switch on to the fortune cookie clothes? Yes. Um, okay. So we wanted to share one thing that made us why didn’t we write this? Something that made us proud. I’m proud. Proud to be an American.
[00:44:34] Angela: there you go. What made us proud to be American this year?
[00:44:38] Jesse: This year 2022. I mean, oh gosh, I wanna get first
[00:44:44] Angela: let’s let’s not do, let’s not do calendar year because we’re still like early in the, for those listening. We, we we’re recording currently May 4th. So like we’re barely, we’re like, not even halfway through the year, so let’s, let’s make it like, um, you know, roll the last rolling 12 months as opposed to.
[00:45:01] Jesse: I was like really confused at first, cuz I was like, May 4th. It’s May 3rd.
[00:45:05] Angela: Oh, sorry. Y I’m in the future cuz I’m in the fucking Asian side of the world, buddy in Korea right now.
[00:45:15] Jesse: so I am, I think I mentioned this before, but I think during the pandemic, there were a lot of situations where. Better angels of people came out to play as opposed to the devils.
[00:45:29] Jesse: And we saw a lot of, we saw a lot of, I think, really uplifting news about like people helping out, other people without asking for anything in return. We saw a lot of kind of self forming community groups that would help out people who like elderly people or people who otherwise couldn’t help themselves out.
[00:45:47] Jesse: Um, and we just saw a lot of like, I. Individual citizens organizing to fill in gaps where the government or elected, or like whatever was just not providing what was needed for the community. And I think that’s like a really, uh, maybe it’s not uniquely American, but I do think that that’s one of the great things about living in America is that people will come and, um, really pitch in and show their better selves in a pinch.
[00:46:17] Jesse: um, on the other side, on the more per no, no personal, more selfish side. I mean, at the end of the day, like we’re all capitalists, regardless of like, you know, like I don’t, I have more like socialist leaning, social concepts, but at the end of the day, like I wanna make money on, I get paid. I wanna like live my fancy ass lifestyle.
[00:46:39] Jesse: And so being here. Is obviously a boon to me because I can basically set my own pace on like how fast I can grow or how slow I can grow it because it’s more, less ish. A meritocracy. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, capitalism for my lifestyle.
[00:46:58] Angela: Thanks, Jeff Bezos. Just kidding. Um, he’s not capable though. Mean
[00:47:04] Jesse: he could be, he could be like the don’t you think Amazon
[00:47:06] Angela: is the, a fabric
[00:47:08] Jesse: of capitalism.
[00:47:09] Jesse: That’s true. Like extreme capitalism. I think it’s
[00:47:13] Angela: like 60% of the economy. No. Oh God. It, um, yeah. Um, yeah, I don’t know. I guess mine are kind of selfish and weird as well. Uh, not as well. Mine are selfish and weird. The first one is similar to yours about like the opportunities. So I guess being American, as I said, is like one of the ways that you have the most freedom to kind of like do whatever the fuck you.
[00:47:40] Angela: And so I’ve already mentioned this many times, but like the fact that I could just like, say, like, I’m gonna quit my job. And I’m just gonna like do this podcast full time and like travel and like make my own schedule and like make content and shit. And that’s like a job to be seen if I make money. But like, I have the freedom to make that choice and like to live that kind of a life.
[00:47:59] Angela: I don’t think it would’ve been as easy to. do that as a different kind of like as a non-American like, yes, there are content creators in other parts of the world, but I think it’s, there’s a much higher societal, like. Um, tide going against you in terms of like disapproval and like, it just not being the norm versus like, when I tell people now it’s still not like, they’re like, oh, I know like a million people that are doing similar things, but they’re like, oh, that’s cool.
[00:48:30] Angela: And like, you know, it’s generally a more kind of encouraging attitude towards it, as opposed to like, why the fuck would you do that as, which is more of what my parents are saying. Um, because they’re from the other generation older generation, the other side, World, um, is where they grew up. Yeah. Um, so that’s one, the other, which is like weird because I was like, is this, does this count as like the being American thing?
[00:48:52] Angela: But I think it does because it’s, again, showing that America is a reflection of a lot of different things and a lot of different cultures and a lot of different types of people. Everything everywhere all at once has not dropped a single, like dollar in box office revenue from a weekly standpoint in the last, like several weeks.
[00:49:15] Angela: And it’s still like topped in the box office. Amazing. And yes, incredible, totally deserved. But what I, why I am so proud of that and why I like attribute that to like America and like being proud of America is. We are finally progressing as a country to be more reflective of all different types of people that make up this country that we don’t have to all look a certain way.
[00:49:42] Angela: We don’t have to all act a certain way. And I don’t need to recap our entire episode about that movie, but just the fact that like they were Asian, but it wasn’t about being Asian, but they weaved in. Things about their Asian lives, just cuz they were Asian and that it did not deter anyone. If anything, it kind of like made people more interested and more invested in the plot because there were complex characters.
[00:50:09] Angela: That is what makes me really happy and hopeful for being American. Moving forward is the. I saw a demographic breakdown that, um, Asian people, like Asian Americans only made up 20% of the viewership of that movie, which means that 80% of the viewers are non-Asian. So it’s not about being Asian. It means that people can be attracted to.
[00:50:35] Angela: Really good content about human stories and humans are made up of all different people who look all different ways. So that made me really proud to see that of like, okay, we are, we are slowly advancing as a society to be like more, truly more kind of like open-minded inclusive and willing to connect at that human level, which is what I really hope for, for our country.
[00:51:01] Angela: Moving forward is like figuring out how to get back to. Human connection, no matter how many things on the outside make us different.
[00:51:10] Jesse: Yes. And thanks to capitalism. Maybe studios ex execs will see what you see too. Then the money’s there,
[00:51:17] Angela: girl. It’s true. Ain’t no indie, you know, corner movie that no one’s going to watch it’s.
[00:51:23] Angela: Yeah. Doing good. Yeah. All right,
[00:51:26] Jesse: listeners. Well, we hope you enjoyed another. addition of red, white, and you, we would love to hear from you, if you have any thoughts, comments, questions. If you’d like to share a story with us about your own American experience and how you do see yourself, or you don’t see yourself as American, or what have you feel free to write us in at tell us where you’re from@gmail.com or reach out to us on any of the social.
[00:52:00] Angela: Yes. Um, and as I mentioned, we are taking a break for a few weeks so that we can recharge and come up with. Awesome new topics to discuss on this show. We’ll let you know when we are coming back, but in the meantime, I’m still in Asia. I’m still traveling around. I’ll be making lots of social content. So follow us on our socials to keep up with us there.