Asian Americans Don't Buy Domestic Cars

What Asian Americans don't drive.

I'm in the market for a new car. I'm currently driving an eleven year old Honda that we bought before my wife and I got married. Since then our finances have gone towards a wedding, having three children, buying a house, and purchasing a minivan followed by a second minivan after the first one started to have maintenance issues. So you can see we've been pretty busy the last decade. Luckily during all that time my Honda has been running like a champ and the need to get a replacement always ranked at the bottom of our endless priorities list.

My job has been going pretty well these last couple of years. Even though my car is still running great the missus said it's time for me to get a new car. Great, I thought. It's about time. Since I've been having a good year professionally, I asked my wife if I could get a Cadillac. The new CTS is pretty nice according to all the car reviews. It also looks awesome. It's not a car that you see coming and going on every block here in Southern California, like Lexus and BMW. "No way," came her emphatic answer. "Asian people don't by American cars."

"What's wrong with American cars?" I asked. Tiger mom replied that Asians with means only drive Mercedes or Lexus. None of her friends own domestic cars. Now I grew up here in the States so I wouldn't mind driving an American car again. We were an Oldsmobile family, having owned three before the company was eliminated by GM. I said I like the new Cadillacs. In fact I wouldn't mind owning a Buick. All I need is a car that I can commute to and from work with in comfort. I don't need some fancy label on the hood.

"Absolutely not," she said. "American cars are not reliable. You need a reliable car for your work. You don't want to have a bunch of repair issues that causes you to miss work. That's why you cannot get BMW or Audi either. Besides, American cars are built for tall Americans. You would never fit inside a Cadillac. Plus my parents in China have never heard of Cadillac, no matter how prestigious they are here."

Even though this will be MY car to use, I cannot spend such a large amount of money without mutual agreement on this one. If I bought a Cadillac and something did go wrong or the dealer service department treats us badly because they're not used to dealing with Asian customers, I would never hear the end of it from the wife. So now we are only looking at Mercedes or Lexus cars. Though they're nice enough, I can't help looking enviously at the beautiful Audi's and Caddy's that drive by us on the road. Maybe if Jeremy Lin and his mom promoted Cadillacs it would find more acceptance in the Tiger Mom community. Oh, and having car dealerships that don't look like they are stuck in the 1970's time warp would help too.