The Many Ways We Scar

A parenting group I'm a part of gave Black, Latinx, and Asian members the opportunity to share their experience with racism in a safe space. This was what I posted.

When I was first asked to share my story, I was glad to do it. But admittedly, a bit scared.

Because here’s the truth: For a long while, I’ve had to get over a lot of internalized racism. My path to being anti-racist is ongoing, and I still have so much to learn. With all the rising hate against Asians and Asian Americans (though it has always existed before), it has really surfaced a lot of complex emotions for me.

I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and both of my parents immigrated from Taiwan and met here in the states. After they arrived, the rest of the family did as well and I grew up with a lot of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents and my first language was Mandarin.

Back then, there was a small Chinese community and we frequented the two same grocery stores where we’d play with live crabs and pick out our favorite Asian snacks. We'd go to the video rental places to find Chinese cartoons (for us) and soap operas (for Grandma).

When I was young - and truthfully even now - my family never spoke of racism. My mother even told me many times that I owed a lot to this country, and I took that to heart. I could recite the pledge of allegiance. I could remember the preamble to the Constitution. This country is my home, and the only home I’ve ever known.

Now, thinking back on my childhood with a lens of an adult, it’s amazing how many microaggressions washed over me yet still remain with me today. All the times I witnessed my mother being belittled and rolled over. But every time, she just took it in, never complaining. The time that our fence (and only our fence) was kicked in by the neighborhood kids and my grandma ran out, yelling at them, and they laughed at her, calling us names. It was brushed off. Kids will be kids.

In elementary school teachers laughed loudly and made me repeat the names of my cousins to them like we were a punchline. Kids asked me to say stuff in Mandarin, then repeated it like “ching chong ling long.” One girl got in a fight with me and told me that I was ugly with my flat nose and squinty eyes.
I even got sent to the Principal’s office once. Why? Because they mistook me for another Asian kid in the grade. Imagine the surprise when the mom came to pick up her kid, but it was the wrong kid.

In fourth grade, I was swelling with pride when I was told that I should present at the school assembly about Lunar New Year. But my teacher made a big speech to the class not to “laugh at the kids because the boys might dance with boys and girls might dance with girls.” Homophobia and racism wrapped up in one sentence? My young body knew it sounded and felt wrong, but I didn’t have the words to protest.

At the end of the same year, everybody else got certificates for some attribute like “hard worker” or “most improved reader” or “great sense of humor.” As for me? I got “Most likely the star of the Next Joy Luck Club.” That same fourth grade teacher told me I would love that movie so I asked my mom to watch it with me. After I watched the movie, I ripped up the certificate.

I didn’t feel Asian enough because I couldn’t read or write. Even in my community, being called an “ABC” basically felt like I was told I was a watered-down version of a Chinese person. People complimented and made back-handed comments about my Chinese for being “good enough” and yet I was never seen as American because people questioned whether I could understand English. And I had to attend Chinese school.

(Sidebar: another extra day of school for a kid is THE WORST).

Still, I clung to any scrap of representation. The Asian girl from the original Ghostwriter. The yellow ranger from Power Rangers. Claudia Kishi from The Babysitters Club. I still remember watching a movie where the setting was in China, and the white main character saves everyone and the Asian girl was the sidekick. My friends loved the movie. I hated it, even though I wanted to love it.

Everything in the media felt like a flat version, like Americanized Asian food. Not authentic, but it was all I really had.

Here’s where the internalized racism came in.

I started making jokes about Asian people. I made fun of the fobby accent. I wanted to go so hard against those stereotypes that I shunned association with the things that I thought the stereotypical Asian kids liked. I wasn’t good at math, and I sure as hell was not diminutive or passive. I didn’t want to be white, but a part of me didn’t want to be a stereotype.

It wasn’t until college and beyond that I started to see these types of interactions for what they were: microaggressions. Racism. But I never admitted it was that because each time, they were small instances and I was told to ignore it. They were “just a joke.” Because hell, even I told the jokes. Because I wanted to show that it “wasn’t a big deal.”

And what did we have to complain about? We didn’t struggle. We had it good, compared to so many others. Yet these tiny scrapes, these tiny wounds, they add up and scar us. Even today professionally, I get mixed up all the time with other Asian women who look nothing like me at companies. People stumble over my last name (hello, it is a noun in the English language). And no, it doesn’t make me feel better when someone tells me they have an Asian wife or leer at me and tell me how “beautiful Asian women are.” And yes, even as an adult I’ve had someone pull their eyes at me once in a club, or asked my friends and me if we gave free massages.

These days, I hate that I worry for my older mother who lives in Texas because I’m not there to help her, and I worry for her safety. She worries about ours, and still often tells me to be careful because my temper can run hot.

When I walk with my daughter speaking Mandarin, sometimes I pause and wonder if I should throw in a few English words. I say thank you loudly. I brace myself for the moment someone will yell “speak English” at her and me.

The thing is, even as I think about all the internal struggles I’ve had, I don’t feel alone as alone. It feels as though there has been an awakening. I see so many third culture people just like me, struggling with the same tension inside but saying it out loud. We didn’t choose to be born here. We’re grateful, but not grateful. Proud, but also ashamed.

In the wake of all of this hate, the main thing that has comforted me is seeing so many of us are linking arms in solidarity. We *all* need to fight together against white supremacy.

We are not a monolith and our experiences vastly differ, but we are definitely stronger together.
And to my fellow Asian American struggling with racism from others and truthfully even within our own community: we may feel like chimeras, but we are amazing.

Even though sometimes it feels like we are everywhere but nowhere, we are HERE.
And damn, that feels good to say.