Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is people are not perfect. Including parents. Irrespective of race, most people are set in their ways and seek comfort in the familiar. OPs wife is reacting partially out of fear & insecurity while stepping into unfamiliar territory. Vietnamese is home, familiar, comfortable. Anything else uncomfortable.
Does that make her a bad person, or racist? I don't think so. Look within America you'll find a lot of people, (non-Asian) like her. If you shun people like that and hate them, you'll be hating half the world. I think time and understanding will heal everything.

She is doing more than reacting out of fear and insecurity, she is refusing to attend a wedding. That's a huge slight in American culture. The one in which she lives. The one in which her son is marrying into. And that's a mistake that time may or may not heal. I think that's what a lot of us are trying to express here - that the assumption that time will heal everything (i.e. the snubbing of this wedding) is a very risky one to make, with serious negative consequences if and when grandkids enter the picture.

The shunning is occurring on the part of OP's wife, not the posters here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is people are not perfect. Including parents. Irrespective of race, most people are set in their ways and seek comfort in the familiar. OPs wife is reacting partially out of fear & insecurity while stepping into unfamiliar territory. Vietnamese is home, familiar, comfortable. Anything else uncomfortable.
Does that make her a bad person, or racist? I don't think so. Look within America you'll find a lot of people, (non-Asian) like her. If you shun people like that and hate them , you'll be hating half the world. I think time and understanding will heal everything.

She is doing more than reacting out of fear and insecurity, she is refusing to attend a wedding. That's a huge slight in American culture. The one in which she lives. The one in which her son is marrying into. And that's a mistake that time may or may not heal. I think that's what a lot of us are trying to express here - that the assumption that time will heal everything (i.e. the snubbing of this wedding) is a very risky one to make, with serious negative consequences if and when grandkids enter the picture.

The shunning is occurring on the part of OP's wife, not the posters here.

Her anger in all likelihood is directed at her son. Not the DIL. Her son let her down by not letting her in, early. A week before the wedding is brutal. I'd be pissed too. These people birthed and raised him. They deserve to be treated better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is people are not perfect. Including parents. Irrespective of race, most people are set in their ways and seek comfort in the familiar. OPs wife is reacting partially out of fear & insecurity while stepping into unfamiliar territory. Vietnamese is home, familiar, comfortable. Anything else uncomfortable.
Does that make her a bad person, or racist? I don't think so. Look within America you'll find a lot of people, (non-Asian) like her. If you shun people like that and hate them , you'll be hating half the world. I think time and understanding will heal everything.

She is doing more than reacting out of fear and insecurity, she is refusing to attend a wedding. That's a huge slight in American culture. The one in which she lives. The one in which her son is marrying into. And that's a mistake that time may or may not heal. I think that's what a lot of us are trying to express here - that the assumption that time will heal everything (i.e. the snubbing of this wedding) is a very risky one to make, with serious negative consequences if and when grandkids enter the picture.

The shunning is occurring on the part of OP's wife, not the posters here.

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is people are not perfect. Including parents. Irrespective of race, most people are set in their ways and seek comfort in the familiar. OPs wife is reacting partially out of fear & insecurity while stepping into unfamiliar territory. Vietnamese is home, familiar, comfortable. Anything else uncomfortable.
Does that make her a bad person, or racist? I don't think so. Look within America you'll find a lot of people, (non-Asian) like her. If you shun people like that and hate them , you'll be hating half the world. I think time and understanding will heal everything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What arrant nonsense. Let's flip it, shall we - OP's now white, with deep southern roots that go back centuries. His son is marrying a first generation Vietnamese girl, and his wife is apoplectic, and refuses to attend the wedding. You see, she always dreamed of a DIL who has the same ethnic background she has - it makes it easier to connect, and to pass down traditions. It's not that the prospective DIL is Vietnamese - of course not! - it's that she ISN'T a white southerner.

You'd think that was just fine, right? Of course you wouldn't. You'd lose your chit, and call her a racist redneck - and you'd be right. This is no different.

Not the same thing. The first gen Vietnamese potential DIL, in your scenario, speaks fluent English. That means the potential DIL has demonstrated the ability to share in her potential in-laws' culture because she can speak their language. Also, by growing up in the US, she probably has some of degree of familiarity with their culture. She can connect with them linguistically and to a lesser extent, culturally. On top of that, because they live in the US, it's already guaranteed that Southern American culture (food, holidays, and most importantly, language) can passed on with far greater ease.

An equivalent scenario for your white Southerners look something like this. If the white Southerners some how ended up as racial/ethnic minorities in Vietnam. Their son brings home a Vietnamese woman who doesn't speak English and is not familiar with Southern American history/culture.