Consumption, drugs and style: Constructing intra-ethnic boundaries in Asian American youth cultures

Abstract

Based on 250 qualitative interviews with Asian American young men and women in the dance/club scenes in the San Francisco area, we examine the interplay between consumption, style and taste cultures with issues of ethnic identity, gender and acculturation. We explore the ways that consumption and taste markers (e.g. fashion, cars, music and drugs) are used to establish or negotiate symbolic boundaries between groups in this youth culture. The picture they paint of the dance scene is one less about cohesiveness and unity and more about divisions and boundaries, not only between but also significantly within ethnic groupings. The choice of drugs and ways of exhibiting intoxication are among the types of consumption that the young people drew upon to mark symbolic boundaries and establish identities. The young men and women in this study discuss a number of key boundaries in the scene, e.g. between FOBs and twinkies, between pretty boys and thugs, as they attempt to establish the cultural legitimacy of their own styles of Asian American identities.

Notes

Notes

1. The specific pleasures of drug consumption, however, have been somewhat under-analysed in these literatures (Hunt et al., 2009).

2. See Fazio, Joe-Laidler, Moloney, and Hunt (2010) for a detailed analysis of drug use patterns in this sample.

3. For a more detailed discussion of sampling and methods in this project, see Moloney et al. (2008).

4. While most respondents who spoke critically about FOBs were second or third-generation Americans, Brenda was first-generation (or 1.5 generation), having immigrated during elementary school.

5. This mirrors the relationship that many clubbers in Thornton's (1996) classic study had with the ‘mainstream’. While the mainstream versus hip hierarchy identified by Thornton is not the one that is at work in the criticisms of FOBs (who might not typically be described as ‘mainstream’), there is the similar process of a very clear other versus an undefined in-group.

6. The difficulties of meeting the expectations and demands of appearance-based hierarchies in the club scenes was also a theme in a number of interviews with gay and bisexual men regarding the gay club scene.

7. This issue is obviously not limited to the Asian club scene, although some participants believed appearance standards are more relaxed in the multi-racial dance scenes, while others attributed this to a problem with commercial clubs (versus underground scenes or raves) more generally.

8. See Warikoo (2007) and Wilkins (2008) for more on racial and cultural authenticity and ‘wannabes’.