Is it still taboo to date someone who is not your ethnicity? Most Asian Americans are proud to know their identities and are thus confident enough to make their own judgement about who they should and should not date -- eventually marry. Among the Asian community, many feel somewhat hurt at the generalized stereotype of being an Asian man or woman as opposed to Chinese, Japanese, etc.
The trend of interracial dating has significantly decreased through the years. First generation Asian men and women have a shocking ration of 7:1, where as second or later generational ratios are 3.3:1. If you were to ask anyone across the country they would refute this trend, but the numbers don't lie.
This disparity of ratios between first to second generation Asian Americans may be the cause of the media putting pressure of Asian American women to marry "more desirable" White men. The more White men are glamorized, the less Asian women would want to "marry down" to men of Asian American descent.
Another probable cause of the disparity in ratios is that in traditional Asian American roles there is often an unbalanced and often undesirable role of women in the relationship. There is very much so the notion that Asian women would need to work to please her man. But the belief is that if Asian American women were to date White men, the woman is given the opportunity to grow and become string as individuals. And this is somewhat more desirable to Asian American women.
The trend of White women dating Asian American men has also the same correlation in dissatisfaction.
If Asian American men were to marry White women, there is evidence suggesting that he would feel more intimidated in the relationship because White women tend to be more liberal.
And generally the mentality of of an Asian American is that it is something out of the ordinary and somewhat exotic if he or she dates outside of one's race.
With this culmination of ideas, we can see that there is an identity problem of Asian-Americans in this society. Basically Asian men need to have more confidence in themselves as well as telling Asian women that Asian men are just as worthy of their attention. But ask any social scientist, one of the hardest things to change in a person's values are the perception of traditions and ideas.
Maybe to help fix this we need to start promoting positive self image at a younger age. We should be proud our selves, we should be proud of our heritage, we should be proud of our history, and that being different is okay.
Being different is not a mistake, preventative action may be the best cure for this epidemic of poor self-image among Asian American men and women as well as minorities all around the world.
It is simple to say that a person is most impressionable at an early age, so instead of having your children exposed to the media which undoubtedly plays a huge part in their lives, teach them to be proud of their heritage. Tell them to explore and learn about it. The more you know, will empower one's self-confidence.