Rice Daddies Turns 5! To Celebrate, We're Giving You Gifts!

Rice Daddies, the group blog by Asian American dads, launched on February 6, 2006. Which means that yesterday, we turned 5! And we're still here! I mean, happy birthday to us! Heh. Five years ago, I wrote:

We're a group of dads of the Asian persuasion, most of us only 2 years or less into the parenting game. We're bicoastal and multiethnic, Chinese- and Japanese- and Filipino- and Korean- and biracial- Americans. We're writers and lawyers and businessmen and teachers (oh my!), stay-at-home and work-at-home and wish-we-could-work-at-home dads. We're dads who happen to be Asian, and Asians who happen to be dads. And we mention both, matter-of-factly, because they both matter.

Which is not to say that this is gonna be all serious all the time, or all political, or all race-centric. Of course, we're not promising that when we try to be funny, that'll work all the time either. (Except for MetroDad. We give you a money-back guarantee that he will always be piss-your-pants funny.) But really, this is just a place where we can muddle through our own experiences of what it means to be raising the next generation of Asian American young'ns in the technicolor 21st century.

Since then, we've seen old contributors go and welcomed new voices on board, and we've gotten more diverse in terms of ethnic background, geographic location, and length and breadth of parenting experience. (And we're always looking for more, so shoot us a note at ricedaddies@gmail.com if you wanna add your voice to the fray.) We've enjoyed making connections and building community with other Asian American parents, parents of color, and parents of children of color both on- and off-line (and we hope to meet a lot of you at the big Banana 2 AsAm blogger confab on Feb. 26 in LA!), and we look forward to continuing the discussion as our kids get older and teach us more about what it means to Asian Americans who are dads and dads who are Asian American.

To celebrate our 5th blogaversary, the amazing and prolific author Lisa Yee has graciously donated 5 sets of her two Bobby Ellis-Chan books to give away to Rice Daddies readers, signed by both her and illustrator (and AsAm dad) Dan Santat. Lisa's middle-grade novels have always featured Asian American characters, like Millicent Min, Stanford Wong, and her American Girl books, and her Bobby Ellis-Chan books portray the everyday life of an interracial family, comprised of a boy trying to find his place in his family and school, his princess-obsessed little sister, his football star older sister, their Chinese American businesswoman mom, and their non-Asian pro-football-player-turned-stay-at-home-dad, with humor, a keen, sensitive eye, and a matter-of-factness about the family's racial background that I found refreshing. And my six-year-old daughter absolutely loved them!



To enter to win a set of autographed copies of Bobby Vs. Girls (Accidentally) and Bobby The Brave (Sometimes) for your young readers, leave a comment on this post by midnight PST on Saturday, February 26, listing your or your kids' favorite children's book either by an author or illustrator of color or featuring characters of color. At the end of the contest, we'll compile all of your recommendations into a single post and we'll have a random drawing for five winners.

Thank you for all of your support over the years, for reading, commenting, linking, and coming back. You're why this isn't just a blog, but a community. (Okay, sappiness over. Heh.)

“Gwoye Fan”

[Cross posted at Cranial Gunk]

When you make fried rice, you use rice that’s been in the fridge overnight (“gwoye faan” in Cantonese). You don’t use fresh rice right out of the cooker.

The other thing you don’t do when making fried rice is you don’t cook everything all together, all at once. I mean you can, but I’m pretty sure my Dad would give you his patented WTF-look. It’s not a look of anger or reproach. It’s more on the lines of “if you’re not going to do it right, please step out of my kitchen.”

It’s been so long since I posted to Rice Daddies that it didn’t feel right to repost or cross-post something from Cranial Gunk (my personal blog). Happily, other Rice Daddies have been composing some really thoughtful pieces and sharing some really interesting links. I tried to leave comments on the posts that really struck me, but had too much to say for just a line or two.

So here I am with my gwoye faan, my eggs, spring onions, and my Birds Eye Classic Mixed Vegetables, to make you some of my Dad’s “chaau faan.”

How do other Rice Daddies feel about Jon Gosselin? I think he is making some very foolish decisions right now in a belated effort to assert his identity and redirect the course his family has taken. I feel that a lot of unflattering reports are a result of his being a public figure without a savvy public relations team.

Obiwanhavanese posted about his anxieties regarding his son not learning his parents’ native language. I’ve also had the same fears. Currently, despite starting early with my eldest, we cannot say that he speaks Chinese. He remembers numbers and a phrase here and there but not well enough to actually use them with any automaticity.

However, it’s not his problem or his brother’s. It’s our problem, their mother and mine. The children want to learn but among the hindrances is the fact that neither their mother or I speak Mandarin (the Chinese that their mother and my parents say the kids should learn). Their mother speaks Vietnamese and I speak Cantonese. My parents (native Cantonese speakers) speak a little Mandarin but are not fluent enough to help the children learn. In fact, part of the problem is that my own Asian-born immigrant parents prefer to speak English to the children!

Malcolm Gladwell spends a good deal of Outliers speaking to the impact of “cultural legacy” in shaping success and Karen the Californian alludes to the social expectations of an Asian face mouthing Asian words. While I maintain my belief that learning Chinese is important for my children, I also acknowledge language is only one cultural transmitter. Language helps but there are other ways to perpetuate a cultural legacy.

In the opening of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, a pregnant Indian woman living in Boston, combines

Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts and chopped red onion in a bowl. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of green chili pepper, wishing there were mustard oil to pour into the mix… a humble approximation of a snack sold of pennies on Calcutta sidewalks.

There are differences between Asian culture and Asian American culture. Food is another cultural transmitter. Lahiri’s description of a woman’s attempt to recall her home country through a self-concocted recipe is an example of this difference.

Now let’s go back to Jon. Current circus aside, there was a painful episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 where he “teaches” his children about his culture. Jon’s mother is Korean (which brings up the interesting question – Why doesn’t he assume his father’s culture as his culture?)

I agree with Racialious, the episode was atrocious and upsetting because it promoted several Asian stereotypes. In this day and age, it is not outrageous to expect both Jon and Kate to be more racially sensitive. In the show, Jon talks to the camera about his “culture.” I wonder if he identifies himself as an Asian American or if the designation was put upon him by the show’s producers seeking to expand the show’s demographics?

Back to Obiwanhavanese’s dilemma, as Asian Americans how important is it for our children to speak our parent’s language? Do you think the Gosselin children will learn Korean? Does their father?

Assuming our children do not speak the ancestral “mother tongue” (it is a given that mine don’t because Mandarin is not my mother’s tongue) can what is lost be replaced by another cultural transmitter?

Part of the challenge of identifying yourself as Asian American is determining which is Asian and which is American? Identifying yourself as Asian American necessitates the establishment of new common “norms,” traditions, or practices that distinguish the categorization from identifying yourself as Asian.

A couple announcements...

First, to anyone coming to us via NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin, on which I'm privileged to be a member of a dadblogger roundtable for the second June in a row, welcome to Rice Daddies! You can listen to the segment on the NPR website here.

Second, to anyone in the LA area this weekend who is mixed-race, the parent of a mixed-race child, or otherwise interested in multiracial issues, please check out the free, second annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival at the Japanese American National Museum in LA's Little Tokyo, Friday June 12 and Saturday June 13. Click thru that link for free registration info and a full schedule of workshops, readings and screenings. Saturday morning features a family event designed for children and their parents, and on Friday at 11:45, I'm proud to be leading a workshop with fellow multiracial parentbloggers Susan Ito (Reading Writing Living) and Liz Dwyer (Los Angelista):

Parentblogging at the Crossroads of Race and Family

Friday 11:45-12:45

Blogging technology has transformed parenting into a public act, with mombloggers and dadbloggers documenting both the big moments and tiny details of their family lives online. How race, culture and politics intersect with parenting, however, often gets glossed over. A growing number of parentbloggers of color and parentbloggers raising children of color are showing that race is a parenting issue. This workshop will explore how multiracial parents and parents of multiracial children can use blogging to record their familial journeys, reflect on important questions, develop their writing voices, and build community at the same time.

Happy 3-Year-and-1-Month Birthday To Us!

So, apparently, we missed our own 3rd blogaversary—-which all of you know is totally uncharacteristic of us Rice Daddies because we never forget our loved ones' birthdays and anniversaries cuz we're cool like that. But anyway, 3 years and one month ago today, on February 6, 2006, a group of Asian American dads launched this virtual place to talk about dadhood and stuff, and spotty posting schedules and disappearing contributors notwithstanding, we're still here.

In the last year, we've welcomed new voices to these pages and welcomed new arrivals into our families. Actually, that's why I missed our blog birthday, since we've been a little busy at the household in a strange land lately. The picture with this post is from last week, of The Pumpkin (at age 4-and-1/4) and her new little sister/best friend/pet/new toy, The Button (at almost 2 months). [You can go here for the reason she got her nom de blog and another reason I missed the blogaversary.]

We wanted to remind you of all the ways, besides commenting, that you can participate in this community. Upload your latest kidpix to our Flickr pool, from whence we get the photos at the top of your screen. Give back to the next generation by donating to our Donors Choose Rice Daddies Empowerment in Diversity Challenge (and tell your teacher friends about it too). And if you are a Rice Daddy (or soon to be one), and you would love to add your voice to the conversation here, we'd love to have you. Just email me and we'll set it all up (you don't have to have your own blog elsewhere).

Also, I wanted to give you a heads-up about an exciting new project coming from two of our own, InstantYang and RakuMon (plus their compatriot and fellow rice daddy Parry Shen), the awesome Secret Identities Asian American Superhero Anthology. It's being released in April, so check out the website for blogposts, multimedia, and tour updates. It's no coincidence that this project was birthed by a group of Asian American dads, thinking about the legacy of positive images and empowerment they can help leave to their and all our children. [And I'm really excited to have a small part in it as the author of a one-page section intro.]

Finally, thanks to all of you who read and comment and link and come back even when content isn't updated as frequently as you'd want. Thank you for continuing this journey with us, into the fourth year and beyond!

New Asian American Tween Novel "1001 Cranes" Out Now (Win an Autographed Copy!)

When I was a senior in high school, o so many years ago, I submitted a short story, set in a WWII Japanese American concentration camp, to a contest being run by LA's longstanding bilingual JA daily newspaper, the Rafu Shimpo. Like many of my generation, my exposure to the paper was via my grandmother's subscription, her copies being handed off to my parents, and then to me, every week or so, bundled up in grocery store plastic bags. When, to my surprise, I won the contest, the editor of the English-language section asked me if I'd be interested in writing an occasional column as part of their perennial quest to connect with younger readers. [Which, of course, now that I'm in the newspaper business, I know is a quest not limited to the ethnic press. Heh.] Honored by the request, I wrote an erratic series of navel-gazing columns over the next two years, looking at stuff like mixed-race identity, the evolution of community, and going off to college from a self-absorbed and self-described "hapa yonsei perspective." (It was called, wait for it—"In The Mix," natch.) If it'd happened today, I'd have been just another teenaged blogger with an audience of 1, but back then, pre-World Wide Web, an editor saw something in a kid who wanted to write, and took a chance on him. And the stuff she let me write about—race, identity, community—is the stuff I'm still writing about, 16 years later. The editor's name was Naomi Hirahara.

In the time since I met her, Naomi left journalism to tackle full-time her dream, to write novels. Naomi is now the award-winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, featuring an LA-area JA gardener (like both her father and my grandfather) turned sleuth. And now, I'm proud to announce the publication this week of her first novel for middle-grade readers, 1001 Cranes (Delacorte Press for Young Readers).

The book follows 12-year-old Angie Kato, a Bay Area girl forced to spend the summer at her grandparents' flower shop in Gardena to avoid her parents' impending divorce. We follow her journey of growth and self-awareness as she learns to fold the titular origami wedding displays that her family's shop sells [we have ours hanging in our living room!]. I can't wait to put a copy of this on The Pumpkin's "for future reading" shelf.

Naomi's kicking off a whole bunch of SoCal readings with this coming Saturday's Japanese American National Museum's Summer Family Festival, part of the opening weekend of LA's Little Tokyo's historic Nisei Week festival. If you're in the LA area this Saturday, I highly recommend you check it out.

Now, to the contest! Naomi's been kind enough to give Rice Daddies an autographed copy of 1001 Cranes to give away to one lucky reader. All you have to do to enter is, by midnight PDT on Saturday, August 16, write in a comment on this post about one tradition—familial, cultural, whatever—you want to pass down to your kids, and why. The winner will be chosen at random (probably, if one time makes a tradition, by The Pumpkin pulling a slip of paper out of a rice cooker), but you gotta write a comment to enter.

And finally, congrats, and thanks, to Naomi! Yay, more diverse literature for kids! Go get your copy now!

Guest Post: "My Daddy's Girl I Am Not" by Mama Nabi

[We have a lot of women readers. You are our partners, our lovers, the mothers of our children, our mothers, our sisters, our friends. You are Asian American mamas and mothers of the next miscegenated/transracially adopted/panethnic/multiculti Asian American generation, our fellow travelers on this journey called parenthood. And we wouldn't be here, literally and figuratively, without you. Thus, it gives me great honor to be able to repost this meditation-on-the-father-and-child-relationship slash shout-out slash exhortation-to-us-to-get-our-fingers-back-to-the-keyboards by longtime reader/commernter/supporter Mama Nabi from Kimchi Mamas. What'd'ya say, fellas? Shall we step it up a notch?]

Last time I saw my father in person, he and I took a walk around the University of Minnesota campus. We were waiting for our ride to northern Minnesota to attend my sister's wedding. I was grumpy and resentful toward my mother and sister for dumping Dad on me. That was in 1991 and I have not seen him since. 17 years. In the beginning, it was his choice to travel as he pleased without any commitment to family; for about a decade, it is I who have enforced a filial embargo against him.

During my childhood, Dad was "dumped" on me often as Mom took my sister to her various lessons and extracurricular activities. This is how I learned to sit and watch boxing and kung-fu movies... or just sit in a corner and stay quiet. He didn't take me for walks or to playgrounds... Dad is not exactly a proponent of "quality time with your kids". Despite all those potentially bonding moments, Dad and I shared more awkward silences than I have shared with bad dates.

It did not help that whenever I screwed something up or showed my temper, Mom would cluck her tongue and say Just like your father... you can't deny the genes; you are your father. It was the most hurtful thing she could say to me and it stung. I got most of my looks from him - that was bad enough, I didn't want to be like him, be him.

Thus, I read Metrodad's story in KoreAm Journal with much interest. With equal interest (along with sympathies and compassion), I read his tribute to his father-in-law who recently passed away.

Until I went to a boarding school where I met friends who love their dads, I had no idea what a dad's role as a parent could be or should be. I never talked to anyone about my dad. I was ashamed. Embarrassed. As a child, a teenager, I somehow thought it would reflect badly on me, as if I had done something so extremely terrible for my dad to behave as he did. And as an adult, I had my notions of a good father but it barely registered to me that a good father should *gasp* interact with his child.

While I hopped from one blog to another, in hopes of finding similar voices and concerns being an Asian mom in an interracial marriage, I ran into Rice Daddies and read this intro post. Intriguing... dads think about stuff, too? Well, blast them - not only did they reshape my notion of an Asian dad, they made me question my then husband's parenting involvement... or lack thereof. I started to talk about these newfangled daddy-types I found online. I wanted him to get excited about this new resource for him. Hey, these guys are trying to figure out how to be daddies, too. Maybe you might find something in common... Nada. No interest at all. Once I practically forced him to read one of Metrodad's posts - he had asked me to help him look something up online and I told him he had to read this really really funny guy - who happens to be also a daddy.

I won't repeat the exact words he used to denounce MD's humor... it was something to do with letting his daughter eat out of his dog's foodbowl. Suffice to say, we had a mini-argument. He didn't understand what was so fascinating about guys who seemed, to him, a little "too into parenting". I know. You all may close your jaws now. No worries. I am no longer married to him.

So, am I saying that RDs contributed to my divorce? No. Well, just a little. Not in a bad way. I am grateful that they showed me who a DAD is... and what to expect from him. In a way, they are also helping me heal my own dad-daughter wounds and angst. Not just in a way that tells me my father was and is an asshole... because, yes, he is an asshole, period... but also in a way that helps me navigate my own feelings toward forgiveness. Yes. I would like to forgive my father. He was never a daddy to me, perhaps he just didn't know how - although, I know he's been a better father to someone else's children (that's another post) so I am thinking he does know. Whatever his reasons may have been, I would like to one day wake up and decide to lift that filial embargo. And perhaps be there for my Little Nabi as she will have to sort through her own feelings about my ex-husband, her daddy.

RD's have lately been spotty with their posts, however. Sorry, guys, there's no gentle way to state that. They have added two new voices recently so I am hopeful that they won't become defunct... we do need their input, their collective voice, and that "y chromosome" of which they seem to be so proud (read their tag line).

So, KM readers - do visit those daddies over at Rice Daddies, show them some love... it's not often that a blog can say that it planted the seed that grew into a divorce. (And I say that with affection...)

Do you have a rice daddy in your life of whom you are proud?

-Mama Nabi

Rice Daddies in the News

So, things have been a little slow around here lately. Here's a little reminder to all my homies listed in the column to the right—come on home! It's okay. Heh. In the time since we've heard from some of you, a few of you have had second kids (that we've never heard of over here), others of you have celebrated milestones like first birthdays (again, that we've never heard about over here, even big ceremonial traditional Korean ones), and others of you have written great stuff in other places that, you know, could easily be crossposted over here. We don't mind. Just come home, brah. We miss you. Heh. And for any other AsAm dads out there who wanna add their voice, just holla.

Okay, so now to some fellow Rice Daddies in the news lately...

Late last month, Thomas Beatie gave birth to a daughter, and the first photos of father and child were released last week. [Psst! Hoy! Wanna blog here, Tom? Just let me know!]

Also last week, the New York Times ran a story about Dr. Arnold Kim, who's finally left medicine to run his blog, MacRumors.com, full time. Yeah boy! Besides his love of his subject and his ability to make almost as much money blogging as doctoring, the article points out another reason for the career shift: "He also had a practical reason for wanting the ability to work from home. Her name is Penelope, and she is 14 months old." [Again, Doc, if you wanna blog about things other than Apple, let me know!] [Hat-tip to Angry Asian Man.]

And finally [hat-tip again to Angry Asian Man], apparently, in my quest to find kiddie music that doesn't suck, I've somehow missed Nashville hapa singer-songwriter Steve Lee. His self-released kids' album, What Did You Do Today, Stephen Scott Lee?, is supposed to be pretty good, and is being followed up by an album calld "Steve Lee's Greatest Animal Hits" that includes an autobiographical growing-up-Asian-American track called "Say Herro." That's awesome. He was featured earlier this year in Koream Magazine. [Koream also featured our own MetroDad's Father's Day remembrance and a cover story on the man who's brought AsAm fatherhood to television sets everywhere, Jon Gosselin of "Jon & Kate + 8."] [And yeah, Jon? If you wanna, you know, blog? Right here for ya, buddy.] [And Steve, if you wanna get your CDs out to AsAm parents, please let us know!]

So, that's what's going on in the AsAmdadosphere. Here's hopin' that posting will be more frequent in the weeks ahead.

We're on Alltop, baby!

I've been a fan of Guy Kawasaki's blog-topic-feed-aggregator Alltop since I first learned about it from Citymama just a month ago. It's a great timesaver and an at-a-glance way to keep up with what's going on in certain topic areas of the blogosphere, like getting to see the rss feed reader of a really well-read friend. In my work life, I've been enjoying the Social Media and Journalism topics, and, of course, checking out how the other half lives on the Moms page.

Alltop launched with the Moms topic already on board, and as they've been adding channels, I've been waiting for dads to come up. And now, they have! dads.alltop.com has a lot of familiar names, including, of course, our own MetroDad right up at the top in first position. But the coolest thing is that we're there too, thanks to a tip from MJ, the head-nanay-in-charge over at Filipina Moms. (Salamat po, mare!) [Was that right? I'm only pinoy by marriage, heh.]

So, that means two things: One, my brothas, better get your typing fingers in gear cuz now we got people watching! And two, uh, Guy? Email us. Seriously. You've got four kids! You're a mack daddy Rice Daddy. Join us!

[Oh, one more thing. Looking at other channels, I noticed that most of them, in the Alltop bar that stays static on your screen as you scroll, have a link to the main Alltop page--but on the Dads page, it says, "Perhaps we can interest you in our Sports and Autos topics." It's just me, but I thought that was hilarious. I love niche marketing. Heh.]

Rice Daddies is a Toddler Now

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us... Yes, today is our 2nd blogaversary. In the coming year, we promise to be as alternately pissy and adorable as our own spawn were at this age. (For those of our bretheren who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing this yet--Hah! I mean...no, really, I mean, Hah!)

We've had a great time over the last two years, blogging at the intersection of our Asian Americanness and our dadditude. Thank you for reading and commenting, and stay tuned.