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Interracial Couples Talk Family: 'Awkward Moments & Weird Traditions' | VH1

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Interracial couples discuss bringing together their very different families along with the weird traditions and navigating those awkward moments. #Family #Relationships #VH1 Subscribe to VH1: http://on.vh1.com/subscribe Shows + Pop Culture + Music + Celebrity. VH1: We complete you.

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"Jane the Virgin's" Gina Rodriguez may star in a TV show based on a Venezuelan telenovela - and her character may devour Spanish soaps with her abuela - but when she was growing up in Chicago, the programs she plopped herself in front of the tube to catch were apple pie sitcoms such as "Growing Pains" and "Family Matters."

"I lived for those shows," says the 30-year-old actress, who won a Golden Globe for her leading role in the popular CW series. "I didn't grow up on telenovelas."

That presents a challenge for Spanish-language networks in the United States. Rodriguez, of Puerto Rican descent, is part of a generation of bilingual millennials who are gravitating away from the torrid love stories and brassy variety shows that have been popular for decades on Spanish-language TV.

Univision calls this generation "billennials." And they increasingly consume their media in English.

It's a shift that Spanish-language networks have seen coming for some time. Billennials now outpace immigrants, long the core market of Spanish-language media, as the main source of growth for the Latino population.

Univision may be sitting pretty as the fifth-largest U.S. broadcaster with 2.8 million nightly viewers, and Telemundo has a nightly average of 1.4 million viewers, but the two networks recognize that if they want to maintain their hold on the coveted Latino market they need to actively court billennials.

"U.S. Hispanic millennials really have the best of both worlds right now," says Telemundo President Luis Silberwasser. "They have their choice of the best programming, regardless of language. What that requires for us in finding success is innovation - the kind of innovation that the Spanish-language marketplace has never seen before. It's been a market that for decades has programmed the same way that it always has been, in a very traditional way."

Bit by bit, however, time-honored telenovelas and kitschy game shows are rubbing elbows with programs characteristic of English-language hits. That means more reality series, including an upcoming Spanish-language version of "Big Brother" for Telemundo, and music shows such as Univision's "La Banda" from Simon Cowell, featuring Ricky Martin, Alejandro Sanz and Laura Pausini as judges.

Telemundo's "La Voz Kids" wrapped its third season at the top of Spanish-language ratings. Meanwhile, established, older-skewing shows such as Univision's 53-year-old "Sabado Gigante" are being shown the door.

Even telenovelas and their classic rags-to-riches storylines are changing. So-called narco-novelas, centered around the drug underworld, have emerged in recent years. And on the heels of Fox finding gold with the musical soap "Empire," Telemundo will roll out two musical dramas based on the lives of popular Latin America singers Celia Cruz and Juan Gabriel.

Taking a cue from the success of prestige dramas such as "Breaking Bad," NBCUniversal-owned Telemundo has embraced darker subject matters and morally challenged characters with its Super Series programs. Not only are the storylines different, Super Series are scheduled like English-language programs. Instead of a more traditional single one-and-done season of 120 episodes aired daily over several months, Super Series telenovelas run over multiple seasons that are much shorter than a classic telenovela season.

The changes are having an effect. Telemundo's "El Señor de los Cielos" ("Lord of the Skies") launched its third season in April with 2.68 million total viewers and 1.76 million adults ages 18 to 49, making it the highest-rated premiere in the network's history.

Latinos represent 21% of the overall millennial population in the U.S. Many in this group are billennials. A 2012 Pew Research study indicated that English is the predominant language in 34% of Latino households, up from 9% in 2011, while Spanish is on the decline. And U.S. Census Bureau projections show that by 2020, one-third of Latinos ages 5 and older will speak only English at home, up from 25% today.

According to a 2011 Nielsen report, bilingual homes where both Spanish and English are spoken watch about 50% Spanish-language television, while English-dominant Latino households watch a mere 3% of Spanish-language TV.

Univision and Telemundo face an added hurdle as English-language networks profit from programs that play off the telenovela format. This year "Jane the Virgin" charmed critics. And NBC next year will debut Eva Longoria's comedy "Hot & Bothered," which pokes fun at Latino soaps and the stars who appear in them.

Attracting Latino viewers is good business for both English- and Spanish-language programmers. Nielsen Co. found that Latinos in the U.S. have more than $1 trillion in purchasing power and are projected to contribute 100% of the population growth between the ages of 18 to 49.

"Young Latinos are one of the most coveted segments for advertisers," says Jorge Mercado, consumer connections director of multicultural ad agency Alma. "As long as networks like Univision and Telemundo produce content that is relevant and compelling, they'll keep their hand in the game. They've come around to realizing they can't just program to the grandparents anymore."

Programming to their parents isn't the solution either. Frances Negrón-Muntane, director of the Center for Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, says that though Generation X and Generation Y have bilingual and bicultural backgrounds in common, technology's influence in viewing behaviors has radically changed the urgency for Spanish-language networks to adapt.

"It's a matter of survival," she says. "When a group becomes more assimilated into the fabric of society, the functions of outlets - in this case, Spanish-language networks - change because the needs and wants are different. It seems like they're now at a crossroads. They are used to achieving tremendous penetration. But there is a series of shifts and transformations that have happened, and they now realize they need to account for that if they want to continue to thrive."

According to a 2015 Ypulse report, about 40% of Latinos under age 32 watch content on their smartphones five or more days a week. That fact is not lost on network brass.

"We cater all our content now to not only linear, but digital," says Alberto Ciurana, president of programming and content for Univision. "It's clear that this demographic is growing and their viewing habits are all over the place. It's not something that can be ignored anymore."

For years Telemundo and Univision have experimented with Webnovelas, online offshoots of telenovelas that run six to nine minutes. Univision's upcoming telenovela "Antes Muerta que Lichita" ("I'd Rather Be Dead Than Ordinary") will have a Webnovela extension. And with Univision's Novelas Xpress, viewers can stream abridged versions of telenovelas, cut down to about 15 hours.

Last year Univision launched over-the-top digital network the Flama, which features more than 20 original series targeting Latin millennials.

Telemundo, meanwhile, recently introduced "Double Acción," its first concurrent scripted experience, which plays out storytelling on two screens via a mobile device while the TV show plays.

Some viewers engage in bilingual multiple-screen viewing on their own. "It's interesting," says Telemundo's Silberwasser. "There are some people watching our Super Series or 'La Voz Kids' who are tweeting in English and watching it in Spanish."

Other initiatives are an interactive comic book and R.A.V.E., which gives viewers a virtual experience of a program via a smartphone.

The creation and investment in sister networks or brands aim to bridge the gap between American culture and the roots of acculturated youthful viewers - to unsteady results.

Telemundo had a head start with the launch of bilingual network Mun2 in 2001. But last year, after distribution issues and a lack of traction with the bilingual audience, the channel was rebranded NBCUniverso to reshift its focus to the Spanish-language market, with an emphasis in sports.

Univision, meanwhile, owns sister network UniMás, which targets males ages 18 to 35, with soccer matches and shows such as the suspense drama "Fugitivos." It has also invested in El Rey, an English-language cable TV network created by director Robert Rodriguez and Comcast. And it has partnered with ABC News to launch Fusion, a TV and digital news hybrid that originally targeted Latino millennials but has since expanded its scope to young viewers of all ethnicities.

El Rey and Fusion, both newer ventures for Univision, lost a total of $85.2 million last year, according to the company's financial statement.

Univision, the dominant Spanish-language network, still does well, however, with key demographic groups - adults ages 18 to 49 and adults ages 18 to 34 - outpacing English-language broadcasters, which have also faced declines with these audiences. It's one element that has helped put the company in strong standing as it positions itself to go public. But the network has had to contend with some erosion.

When tracking full-year data from 2010-14, Univision was down 23% in the 18-to-49 demographic, and 36% in the 18-to-34 demographic. Telemundo, meanwhile, saw gains in that same period - it was up 16% in the 18-to-49 demographic. But the network was down 36% among adults ages 18 to 34.

One question looming, as the quest to attract billennials intensifies, is whether Univision or Telemundo will eventually lose its Spanish-only identity and mix in English-language programs.

"This debate has gone on for a long time," Telemundo's Silberwasser says. "Who knows? My view right now is we do what we do best."

And right now, he says, "we are a Spanish language network."
yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com

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The billennial generation: how bilingual millennials are changing Spanish-language TV

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"Jane the Virgin's" Gina Rodriguez may star in a TV show based on a Venezuelan telenovela - and her character may devour Spanish soaps with her abuela - but when she was growing up in Chicago, the programs she plopped herself in front of the tube to catch were apple pie sitcoms such as "Growing Pains" and "Family Matters."

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1880 painting by Jean-Eugene Buland

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Check out a clip from ABC's upcoming 90s-set comedy, based on the childhood of celebrity chef Eddie Huang.

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Fresh Off the Boat

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"We are like Patrick Swayze in 'Ghost' -- stuck between two worlds, part of both, belonging to neither."

Over the duration of its two seasons, ABC's family comedy, "Fresh Off The Boat" ― the first television show about an Asian-American family in over 20 years ― has continually asked complicated questions about the Asian-American experience in a country that prefers cultural assimilation over true integration and celebration. From Eddie Huang, the oldest son of the family, being called a "chink" by a classmate in the pilot episode, to Eddie's mother, Jessica Huang openly wondering if their assimilation into American society has diluted her family's Taiwanese heritage, the show acutely reflects contemporary anxieties that Asian-Americans grapple with today.

As television critic Dan Caffrey pointed out last week, "Fresh Off The Boat" asks viewers, "is [assimilation] something to be resisted or desired? Or is it a little bit of both? ... what does it mean to be Chinese? What does it mean to be American?"

Last Tuesday's season premiere of "Fresh Off The Boat" seemed less concerned with questions and more interested in making statements about Asian-American identity ― statements that were amplified and made powerful given the context of Jesse Watters' racist Chinatown segment that aired earlier this month on the "O'Reilly Factor." In the premiere, the Huang family travels to their native Taiwan for a family wedding. Once they arrive, they're shocked to discover that they, as Americans, feel just as out of place in Taiwan as they do in the United States.

Jessica Huang, who throughout the series expresses how much she misses Taiwan, confesses to her husband Louis at the end of their trip that she's "homesick for Orlando." She reflects, "Well, maybe we'll never feel completely at home in either place." Louis has a revelation, "We are like Patrick Swayze in 'Ghost ' ― stuck between two worlds, part of both, belonging to neither." Jessica nods and whispers, "Damn it. It is the best movie ever."

It was one of the very few times where I saw my dilemmas as an Asian-American not only reflected, but normalized on mainstream television.

While "Fresh Off The Boat" has never been perfect in depicting complex Asian-American experiences, this quiet, fleeting exchange was made radical by the assertion of two characters who, for most of the series, seemed obsessed with being liked by their white neighbors and assimilating. Louis and Jessica, in that moment, weren't asking questions about what it means to be both Asian and American in the United States. They knew what they were: proudly American and proudly Taiwanese. They weren't asking others to validate their identities or assert themselves as wholly Asian or wholly American. They were speaking in statements, quietly, definitely and defiantly affirming and accepting for themselves an Asian-American existence that wasn't the butt of someone else's joke, but complex, nuanced, conflicted and real.

They belonged to both worlds, and to neither - and that feeling in of itself wasn't a bad thing, but a matter of fact. It was one of the very few times where I saw my dilemmas as an Asian-American not only reflected, but normalized on mainstream television.

This nuanced approach towards Asian-American identity was made even more powerful considering the fact that the Asian-American experience has long been represented in popular culture as either a punchline, or a wholly, foreign "other" in American society. Long Duk Dong of "Sixteen Candles" is often brought forth as a prime example of this perception, but recent stories about anti-Asian racism and stereotypes attest to this truth.

Earlier this month, the "O'Reilly Factor" aired a "comedy" segment showing correspondent Jesse Watters harassing Chinese-Americans in New York City's Chinatown to the backdrop of "Oriental" music, asking them: "Is it the year of the dragon?" "Do you know karate?" and most infuriatingly, "Can you guys take care of North Korea for us?"

A week after Watters' segment, The New York Times deputy Metro editor Michael Luo wrote an emotional open letter to a woman who yelled at his family to "go back to China!" Asking the woman to understand his experiences as an Asian-American, he wrote, "It's this persistent sense of otherness that a lot of us struggle with every day. That no matter what we do, how successful we are, what friends we make, we don't belong. We're foreign. We're not American."

Luo's pieces following his open letter, the conversation ignited by Watters' segment and the cancellation of a racist NBC sit-com pilot " Mail Order Family," proved something else: Asian-Americans of all colors and backgrounds shared experiences being vandalized, harassed and discriminated against because they were "othered" as being foreign. While Asian-Americans have come to be seen as an assimilated " model minority" who has become the " highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing " racial group in America, we are still seen as a foreign, exotic, un-American and sometimes, menacing caricature.

Former boyfriend's parents: "We don't mind she's Chinese." Me:"That's nice. I'm American. Tell them I don't mind they're white." #thisis2016
- Erika Lee (@prof_erikalee) October 14, 2016

A tenured prof told me Chinese people don't experience discrimination anymore bc we're so successful in this country #thisis2016 https://t.co/RSRimjVkZ9
- Jennifer Chan (@jenniferinparis) October 10, 2016

@michaelluo They put me in ESL classes because I didn't have an American name. I was top of the class in reading #thisis2016
- Tien Dang (@maybeitstien) October 10, 2016

My first job, as a child care worker, my client shouts at me, "Go back to China, you Japanese bitch." Really? I'm Filipino. #thisis2016
- Pamela P. (@PamItUP) October 17, 2016

While it would have been easy to brush off Watters' and Bill O'Reilly's jokes as "gentle fun," Asian-Americans who know the bloody and often violent history of this "othering" understand that it is no joke. For as long as we have been in this country, Asian-American identity has often existed in the American imagination as " Yellow Peril" - a racist and xenophobic fear of people of Asian descent as "foreign invaders" intent on taking over Western civilization. Yellow Peril first violently manifested in the 19th century as Chinese laborers came to the United States looking for work, and it ultimately culminated with the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles' Chinatown, where 17 Chinese men were lynched and murdered by a mob of 500 people.

Prompted by the fear that Chinese-Americans were intent on taking over the country, similar mass lynchings also took place in Chinatowns across the country. By the end of the 1880s, it was estimated that some 200 Chinese people were lynched by mobs. The mass lynchings of Chinese-Americans remains to this day, this country's great unspoken shame. Yellow Peril would be invoked time and time again, in the mass incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, in the brutal murder of Vincent Chin and most recently with the state-sanctioned profiling and monitoring of Chinese-American scientists.

What this violent history tells us is that no matter how removed historic Yellow Peril can seem from Watters' segment or Chris Rocks' Asian joke at the Oscars, these systems are connected. "Othering" Asian-Americans is an American pastime that seems to continue without question. And, no matter how much Asian-Americans believe that they can assimilate, that they can be "white," that they are above systemic racism in the United States, that they can - as Lucy Liu tried this past week - ignore or dilute their Asianness, we will not be considered American by a wider United States that has premised citizenship on whiteness. As Wesley Morris reflected in the New York Times Magazine last month, "citizenship is citizenship, until appearances get in the way." Model minority be damned.

It isn't enough to be visible. We must normalize the act of speaking up and taking control over our identities.

What makes this stereotyping, this "othering" of Asian-Americans so outrageous and frustrating is precisely the fact that it is happening in 2016, when Asian-American voices, who have for so long been relegated to the sidelines of popular culture, are gradually finding representation in the mainstream. For example, we've seen a pregnant and hilarious Ali Wong, a staff writer for "Fresh Off The Boat," ferociously rant about race, sexism and feminism on her Netflix stand-up special "Baby Cobra." CBS News' digital news anchor and vice presidential debate moderator Elaine Quijano became the first Asian-American and Filipino-American journalist to ever moderate a national debate. Mindy Kaling continues to make history as the only Indian woman starring in and leading her own groundbreaking sit-com show, "The Mindy Project." Last month, "Masters Of None" co-creators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang won the Emmy for best writing for a comedy series, with an episode ("Parents") that depicted generational tensions between first generation and second-generation Asian-Americans. Yang in his acceptance speech declared, "Seventeen million Asian Americans in this country, and 17 million Italian Americans. They have 'The Godfather,' 'Goodfellas,' 'Rocky,' and 'The Sopranos.' We've got Long Duk Dong. So we have a long way to go. But I know we can get there, I believe in us, it's just gonna take a lot of hard work."

These are the voices of Asian-Americans who refuse to be seen as monolithic caricatures, the voices of people who have defined on their own terms, what Asia-America should look like: a rich, diverse and nuanced community not bound by stereotypes. They are the voices who upend the quiet, docile stereotype of Asian-Americans, and call out racism where it exists. They are diverse voices who acknowledge the multitudes of Asian-American identities today. Fully American and fully Asian; sometimes existing in between and sometimes belonging to neither. Existing in limbo, they are the voices of a new Asia-America that refuses to be defined and characterized by others. They are like Jessica and Louis - who acknowledge that they exist between cultures and fully, wholly accept that. They are the voices will inspire the next generation with the message: you are real, you are valid and you have a voice.

But progress doesn't just happen with "hard work" or mere representation. They say that we often live with two identities: how we define our identity and how others perceive it. Recent events have shown us how a greater, whiter America still views Asian-Americans through the menacing lens of Yellow Peril. But, recent events also show us an Asia-America that is ready to upend stereotypes and proclaim an identity that is truly reflective of our own.

It isn't enough to be visible. We must normalize the act of speaking up and taking control over our identities. We need to normalize Asian-American dissent. We must embolden and support the voices of Asian-Americans who seek to defy the status quo so that they become the norm, not the exception.

ALSO ON HUFFPOST

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'Fresh Off The Boat' Season Premiere Makes Important Statement On Asian-American Identity

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"We are like Patrick Swayze in 'Ghost' -- stuck between two worlds, part of both, belonging to neither." Over the duration of its two seasons, ABC's family comedy, "Fresh Off The Boat" ― the first television show about an Asian-American family in over 20 years ― has continually asked complicated questions about the Asian-American experience in a country that prefers cultural assimilation over true integration and celebration.

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Globalization & Cultural Change

It's pretty amazing that today a person can travel across the world within a relatively short period of time when there was once a time when most people didn't even venture more than a few miles from their homes! The development of technology has made it increasingly possible to bring people together and allow them to interact across traditional borders. The process of people interacting and exchanging ideas across traditional borders is called globalization.

While advancements in technology have allowed globalization to occur at a much more rapid pace, it's not really a new concept. Different cultural groups have been interacting with one another ever since humans developed new ways to travel long distances. As different cultural groups interact with one another, there are a wide range of relationships that can develop.

Cultural Assimilation

In this lesson, we will discuss two possible effects of increased cultural interactions: cultural assimilation and cultural extinction.

If you've ever started at a new school or job, you probably realized how important it can be to 'fit in' and satisfy your innate need to belong to something. People at your new school or job may have said or done things that were much different than what you were used to. In order to fit in, people may need to pick up on and/or adhere to such things as local fashion trends and musical tastes, cultural norms and attitudes and/or body language habits and everyday slang. The process of taking on the characteristics of a culture by giving up one's own is called cultural assimilation.

However, it's important to note that for the most part, the process of assimilation is something that's done willingly. One of the most obvious examples of assimilation is the United States' history of absorbing immigrants from different countries. From 1890 to 1920, the United States saw an influx of many immigrants from European and Asian countries. The desire to come to the United States was primarily for economic purposes. Nevertheless, the longer those immigrants stayed in the U.S., the more likely they were to assimilate to its culture.

For example, many Irish immigrants assimilated to the American way of life, including its fashion trends, cultural norms, and everyday slang in the early 20th century, though they did keep many of their own traditions as well.

Sociologists often measure the degree to which immigrants assimilate into a new culture in terms of four areas of interaction:

Socioeconomic status

Spatial concentration

Language assimilation

Intermarriage

Socioeconomic status is the level to which immigrants can move up the social ladder and earn a suitable living for themselves. Unfortunately, non-white/non-European immigrants often faced racial and ethnic discrimination, which makes it harder for them to establish a healthy socioeconomic status.

Spatial concentration is the degree in which similar cultures start to spread out and not live as clumped together. Major U.S. cities are locations that often have pockets of different ethnic groups living close to one another.

For example, there may be a Latino pocket of immigrants in one neighborhood of a city and an Asian pocket of immigrants living in another. This is often practical for immigrants because it gives them opportunities to assimilate more slowly by giving them more time to learn the larger culture and language. It also allows them to keep a bit of their own culture.

Language assimilation involves learning the local language or dialect and using it to communicate on a daily basis. It can be one of the hardest barriers for immigrants or a minority culture to overcome, as learning a new language can be hard and not doing so can limit employment and education opportunities, which can also effect socioeconomic status.

Assimilation can also happen through intermarriage as minority cultural members marry and have children with members of the major cultural group. Intermarriage gives some cultural legitimacy to a bride or groom, and their children. This can also allow immigrants to automatically gain access to the benefits of being part of the larger culture.

Cultural Extinction

While the process of assimilation is often done willingly, on the other side of the spectrum, cultural identities are sometimes forcibly removed from groups or can occur when one culture actively seeks to replace an already established culture.

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cultural assimilation & extinction: definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Cultural Assimilation & Extinction: Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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It's pretty amazing that today a person can travel across the world within a relatively short period of time when there was once a time when most people didn't even venture more than a few miles from their homes! The development of technology has made it increasingly possible to bring people together and allow them to interact across traditional borders.

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This video was created by GoAnimate.com and illustrates (very simplistically) assimilation and accommodation.