September/October 2010 Issue

From FOB to Fobulous

How Asian Americans are turning an insult upside down.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/margolove/2757511201/">margolove</a>/Flickr

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Getting called a FOB (“fresh off the boat”) used to be the ultimate put-down for Asian Americans. But “FOB blogs” have turned the insult on its head by celebrating FOB-iness—particularly the culture gap between assimilated Asian kids and their parents. Favorite topics include parental quirks such as excessive frugality, unrealistic academic expectations (“So I heard you got into Harvard for graduate school, that is very…uh…adequate”), and ESL malapropisms (“the itchy, bitchy spider went up the water spout”).

Beyond the filial impiety, there’s a streak of pride, says Suzanne Leung, the 25-year-old cocreator of the blog Absolutely Fobulous: “We really see it as embracing our culture. When we say we’re being FOBs, it’s just being true to where we come from.” Teresa Wu, the 21-year-old behind My Dad Is a FOB and My Mom Is a FOB, says that “Being a FOB’s kid is cool.” She’s learned to take condiment packages from restaurants and “judges prospective husbands for their height, majors, and wealth,” something that may sound familiar to anyone with an immigrant relative, whether it’s a Chinese mom or a Jewish bubbe.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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