"Hello, Mango Baby!"

[aliki]

How would you respond if you were at a school-sponsored social event, and a 5-year old stops eating his spaghetti, looks up, waves enthusiastically, and repeats over and over: "HELLO, MANGO BABY!" at your half-Asian child?

Brian says it's not a derogatory slang or racist remark at all, and a quick Google search seems to agree with him.

Initially, I thought perhaps I misheard him and it was something nonsensical that children say, but judging by the reactions of the parents-- who turned bright red and kept saying "STOP SAYING THAT!" while hitting his hand-- perhaps not. They looked like they wanted to crawl under the table and hide for the rest of the night, which only provoked the child to keep repeating it while waving at Erika, repeating the phrase louder and louder to hysterical decibels.

He didn't say it to any other children the entire night. Just Erika. She has brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin, and was wearing a pink hoodie sweatshirt with the word "LOVE" on the chest, and dark brown pants with white sneakers. She was eating cubes of cheese and spaghetti. There was no mango involved.

Thoughts?

Mango because of her skin color? Because Asian people at Mango? Because Mango is the new word he learnt but he's only going to use it when referring to Erika and no other children at the dinner?

I asked the child "what does that mean?" and the parents just got more embarrassed and started covering his mouth with their hand, so I just moved to a different table. (I wasn't seated at their table, but someone at their table had waved me over and when I arrived, said "I just wanted to see the baby!".. which then started all the "MANGO BABY" comments).

Comments

[d-arte.livejournal.com]

Wow. I don't know. I'd be inclined to ignore it as a weird kid-thing, but the reaction of the parents is disturbing. Why didn't they just apologize to you and explain?

[aliki.livejournal.com]

They didn't-- they just kept shushing the child and looking very embarrassed. And when I asked the child, he didn't explain either. So I just smiled and said "well enjoy the rest of your evening!" and went back to my table.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

It was just so strange! I had no idea how to handle it!?

In hindsight.. it sounded more like "MONGO".

[zaplightsmusic.livejournal.com]

what the...??? like d_arte i am confused at the parents' reaction. when i googled mango baby and racist i got something about African-American hairstyles, racism, and using mango-flavoured mousse on an African-American baby's hair, or something. but the way the parents reacted? I don't know, maybe *they* didn't know where it was coming from and don't know the term and just thought you'd make a racial connection so they were embarrassed? then seeing their reaction of course you thought it must mean something offensive? cos even if the parents WERE privately racist and the kid picked up on it, wouldn't they use some more common racial slur?

very odd.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Brian had no idea either what it could mean, and I Googled it and came up with nothing.

I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except for the parents reaction! Which was so strange!

[zaplightsmusic.livejournal.com]

ps: whatever it was i'm very glad Erika is too young to pay any attention! weird situation.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Yeah! She just kept enthusiastically waving back, with a big grin.

[zaplightsmusic.livejournal.com]

one other off-the-wall suggestion - could there be a show with a baby or child that looks like Erika eating mango? still doesn't really explain the parents...

[steforama.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that these parents don't know you at all?

I would be inclined to say it was just a random little kid pronouncement that just HAPPENED to be something that could possibly be construed as relating to Asian-ness and that's what the parents were embarrassed about. Maybe the boy saw a child that looked like Erica eating a mango on Sesame Street or something?

I supposed that it is also possible that the parents are jerks and call kids with any sort of Asian features or whatever "mango babies", but that's just weird.

It's too bad that their reaction was like that though because that's what invites the suspicion. I don't think I have to say that Joe and I refrain from racist or bigoted comments in our house, but if Cecilia came out with something odd like that, my first reaction would not be to try to silence her, but to ask her why she is saying that and see where the connection is coming from. With Cecilia, if someone is wearing the same color shirt as Grandma wore that weekend, that person (man, woman, whatever) could then be called "LIKE GRANDMA!". Which out of context, might be odd to that person.

[smittenbyu]

this...

[aliki.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know the parents. Didn't look like they were old enough to have high school students, so maybe they were just friends of the school admin that I went over to say "hi" to. It was a dinner to benefit Kiwanis, so it's an extended-family school-sponsored event type thing (grandparents, parents, neighbors, everybody was there).

I'm guessing it's the Sesame Street scenario you described. He probably saw "Ni Hao, Kai Lan" or some similar show, and they were eating mangoes. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/-the-other-side/]

No idea. Never heard of it. He could be mispronouncing mongo? Like Mongolian?

[aliki.livejournal.com]

In hindsight, it did sound more like "MONGO". I assumed it was "Mango". Or maybe "MUNG-GO" or something to that effect. Who knows!?

[sooshi.livejournal.com]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mongo%20baby

Uh, I don't know how accurate that is...

[sooshi.livejournal.com]

I don't think the little boy meant any harm. The parents on the other hand. He may have just started repeating what they were saying.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's possible that the parents use it to refer to other people, so he hears it from them, but it was the first time he was able to use it in context to an actual baby? I've never heard anybody use that phrase before, so I have no idea.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Wow. I sure hope not!!

[-evalution.livejournal.com]

my guess is it's just a five year old kid thing, but i'd be kind of put off by it, i think. my daughter is almost 5 and jokes are the best thing ever, as are nonsense teasing nicknames, so maybe it's just that? the parents reaction is kind of weird, imo.

[beautymask.livejournal.com]

what CAN you do? but the parents should have said something to the child instead of shushing or slapping his hand.

i fear for america people

[aliki.livejournal.com]

The parents' reaction seemed completely strange. If I were the parents, I would have said what I said, which is "what do you mean?" in a non-confrontational manner, and hopefully the kid would explain "oh, it's because my friend wore a pink shirt and ate a mango too.." or whatever the reason was. Instead of telling the child they are doing something wrong when we (at least, I) didn't even unerstand what was going on!!

[tabloidscully.livejournal.com]

I just happened to be cruising the Wikipedia entry on Heathcliff today when I saw the reference to one of the dudes being called Mongo. Then I remembered your post and thought, "What if the kid was saying 'mongo'?"

Was Erika the only baby there who was presumably of Asian descent? If so, I think maybe that's what he was saying, especially given the reactions of the parents. I've seen people who, in a fit of rage or whatever, dropped slurs they would never otherwise say, and once they returned to their normal emotional plateau, recovered enough to realized their mistake and be appropriately remorseful of having said it.

It makes me wonder if that was the case here, though even if it is, there isn't much you can do about it. I want to say that the circumstances would seem to indicate that it was a term referenced by accident (if the parents were flaming racist a-holes, why would they seem embarrassed rather than totally comfortable with what the baby was saying?) but racism is still racism is still racism.

Hopefully, it was something innocuous, but if not, I hope the parents took that as a lesson of just how much babies tend to echo and mirror.

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Brian thinks it's a slang for "humongous"-- apparently there is a reference to a character named Mongo in Blazing Saddles and he was huge? And he thinks the parents called her that because she's so tall? :/ Of course he always thinks the best of people and hardly ever sees comments as racist.

I was the only Asian in a room of about 100 people? And our area is 99% White. We only have 2 African-American students in our entire student body!

I do think the parents didn't think that their child would repeat such things, and probably didn't say it to be malicious... but it's something they should consider for the future.