I don't remember the first time I experienced racism. I know I was young. Probably before I knew that I was being treated differently because of how I looked. Even until now, 27 years later, it is one of the constants in my life. A lot of people have made comments too about how I'm not actually full Korean or I don't look Asian, so how can I experience it? I have found out over my life, that being racially ambiguous doesn't protect you from bigotry. People who are angry at life will try to paint you in a corner or put you in a box that their tunnel vision limits them to.
Kimberly Yam, Asian Voices Editor for the HuffPost, sent out a tweet about how her father was her hero, but that all changed the day he came to school and his accent was mocked. She was only 8 years old and the cruelty of American society had already made its impact. As the tweet thread continued, I noticed one that stood out to me particularly. Another twitter user had replied with a similar story about how her grandmother sent her to school with an Asian dish and another student had approached her with an insult on how disgusting it was and how dare she bring it there. I immediately related to this. All throughout my elementary schooling, I was a tough tomboy and had a tight-knit group of buddies, by no means an outcast, yet my friends closest to me made the same comments during lunch about my mother's kimbap. So I closed my lunchbox and didn't eat that day. Then it happened again. And again. Quickly, my mom noticed that I was returning home with a full lunchbox and apparently contacted the teacher to watch over me during the lunch period. I never told them the reason for my fasting; they thought I had an eating disorder. I was in second grade. Double embarrassment. I could no longer fly under the radar as "one of them." That moment for me was monumental in my mental shift towards assimilating to white America.
It was never too hard for me though to "pass." Although my parents were teachers and had good jobs, I was always keeping up with the Jones's when it came to my classmates in upper-class, white Suburbia of Indiana. My high school was prestigious in academics and athletics. Thankfully, I was decent at both and somehow found myself in the more "socially elite" group. They were well-known, loud-mouthed, and many wanted to be like them. I wasn't a huge fan of their personalities, but I knew that I would rather be on their side than against it. Because of the high education of the area, the racism that existed in this bubble was sterile, at least towards me. My brothers faced insufferable bullying due to the stigma of Asian men, nerdy/passive/weak. But mine was the kind of racism that manifested in the stereotyping jokes, toeing the line of malice, and microaggressions they enacted to make sure I felt different. Even I joined in on the jokes most of the time because I didn't want to come off as sensitive. I was one of the few Asians at my school and the others came from families that were more culturally "Asian" than mine. I was in between and a part of neither. There was my fair share of those that pulled their eyes back slanted around me, yelling "ching, chong" whenever we ordered take-out or watched a martial arts scene on TV, and the INCESSANT question of if I ate dog. Boys going through puberty with their raging hormones, would ask me vulgar questions about certain acts or the anatomy of my reproductive system based on fetishes often found in porn. These were the more blatant acts of racism that I dealt with frequently, but eventually numbed myself to. The subconscious racism I dealt with was what made me the most bitter.
I NEVER saw Asian faces in the media. Not in entertainment and not in sports, with the exception of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. I could have been pretty decent ball player, possibly getting a scholarship at a small college. But there was the politics. There's always politics, especially in these types of communities. My parents weren't friends with the other athlete's parents. This came down to them being deaf, but also because my mom was Asian. And adopted. She has never felt like she's belonged. I grew up watching her disband friendships constantly until I got to college and then I never saw her invite or hang out with another woman again. These were complexities in our family that permeated my own experience within this life. Coaches saw me and didn't know anything about me or who I was raised by and what my family was like, but I knew they didn't take me seriously as a player. Athletically, I was outperforming even the top senior on the team. While yes, my fundamental understanding and IQ of the sport was lacking, none of the coaches I ever had thought to invest time with me to develop this even with my potential. The environment was very competitive, to the point of cruelty, and my teammates that were chosen for varsity looked down on me and made sure to keep me there. Recently, I found out and eventually became appalled, that Jeremy Lin, was a standout player at his high school in California, but received no scholarships at DI universities. Eventually he went on to play at Harvard, and then a sleeper in the NBA until he was given chance by being a last resort coming off the bench. Ever since reading that article, I wonder if that's what happened to me. Being a girl, I could only imagine this subconscious discrimination being twice as significant. I never will truly know.
Then came college. This new world, where I discovered that 30% of the student population was Asian or Asian American was a whole, different experience. On the other hand, it was a major agricultural school, and God love them, but came a whole lot of rednecks. Don't get me wrong. Half of my family are farmers themselves, but when you get two different cultures in large groups put in a condensed, small community, there is bound to be tension. And boy, did I get it. I applied to nursing school and was accepted as a freshman direct admit. After the first semester, I no longer wanted to stay. My roommate was a young, selfish, wealthy white girl from a rich area in Indiana. She lacked understanding of basic human respect and her entitlement was apparent. As well as her boyfriend. This guy was a hulking ball of aggression and had the intelligence of a rock. I was always disappointed in her decision to date him. Over time, their relationship became toxic and he became very verbally aggressive and I would label his behavior as domestic violence. When they would get in a fight, he would call her at all hours, only to have her sit there listening to him abuse her with insults and ugly names. She would cry and drink Nyquil until she fell asleep. She would be exhausted and stopped going to class. I would have to beg and drag her. This would happen for several nights and days. Eventually, I took her phone off the charger when she was asleep and answered it, demanding him to stay away and leave her alone. But she would always go back to him. He ended up contacting me through my cell and texted me pages of messages calling me a "yellow bitch" and a "gook" and to mind my own business. This was the first shock wave of many more racist incidents to come.
Soon into my second semester, I met with a few Korean girls and they convinced me to join an Asian sorority. It was completely foreign; extremely satisfying and totally unfulfilling at the same time. Being half and having no Korean family members outside of my mom, I wasn't able to relate that well, even to the Asian-Americans. They still took me in. I went through the hazing and the initiation. I developed bonds with girls that would end up being my sisters. I met Asian males that weren't the stereotypical, nerdy ones at school and found they had interesting, complex lives just like mine. These people were foreign, but they were relatable and they looked like me. Although, I loved being around them and being exposed to this culture, I never found peace. We would travel in groups, typical of the initiation process, and friend groups in general, and that would make us targets. While sitting in our cars together, we would have drinks thrown at us from pickup trucks by guys with faded baseball caps and camo jackets. I would walk across the street and have white guys yell Chinese gibberish out of their windows, while walking to class. The nights we went out to house parties, we ran into a group of drunk frat guys that yelled "stupid chink" in our direction and start a fight with our Asian male fraternity counterparts, thinking the guys would be too passive to fight back. They were wrong, of course. White guys at bars would make bets on who could kiss an Asian girl first, as if we were some Oriental rug they were competing for at an auction. This kind of stuff happened over and over again, and I started to doubt my desire to stay. So I left. I blamed it on my obligation to my major and told them it wasn't a priority. I regret it every day. I let those stupid people win.
And now, in our current political climate, it's been painful. I don't socialize often anymore and I've become more withdrawn. I still come across grown adults with misconceptions and played-out comments about Asians ALL THE TIME. I live near DC, with one of the most diverse populations in the nation, and yet I still run into extremely ignorant people all the time. It's been a while since I've been part of an Asian community, but I'm still searching. I've overcompensated by embracing the Korean grocery stores here, learning how to make kimchi, promoting the #CrazyRichAsians movie on social media, going to Korean BBQ once every few weeks, inking Hangul on my body, and even taking up TaeKwonDo. I'm desperate to connect back to my roots, but I don't know where to start and feel childish when I try. But I'm willing to try.
I'm angry that I was never allowed to be proud of who I was. It took a long time, but I'll continue to take the steps to embrace that pride. All I saw was red, but now I see yellow.
Kimberly Yam, Asian Voices Editor for the HuffPost, sent out a tweet about how her father was her hero, but that all changed the day he came to school and his accent was mocked. She was only 8 years old and the cruelty of American society had already made its impact. As the tweet thread continued, I noticed one that stood out to me particularly. Another twitter user had replied with a similar story about how her grandmother sent her to school with an Asian dish and another student had approached her with an insult on how disgusting it was and how dare she bring it there. I immediately related to this. All throughout my elementary schooling, I was a tough tomboy and had a tight-knit group of buddies, by no means an outcast, yet my friends closest to me made the same comments during lunch about my mother's kimbap. So I closed my lunchbox and didn't eat that day. Then it happened again. And again. Quickly, my mom noticed that I was returning home with a full lunchbox and apparently contacted the teacher to watch over me during the lunch period. I never told them the reason for my fasting; they thought I had an eating disorder. I was in second grade. Double embarrassment. I could no longer fly under the radar as "one of them." That moment for me was monumental in my mental shift towards assimilating to white America.
It was never too hard for me though to "pass." Although my parents were teachers and had good jobs, I was always keeping up with the Jones's when it came to my classmates in upper-class, white Suburbia of Indiana. My high school was prestigious in academics and athletics. Thankfully, I was decent at both and somehow found myself in the more "socially elite" group. They were well-known, loud-mouthed, and many wanted to be like them. I wasn't a huge fan of their personalities, but I knew that I would rather be on their side than against it. Because of the high education of the area, the racism that existed in this bubble was sterile, at least towards me. My brothers faced insufferable bullying due to the stigma of Asian men, nerdy/passive/weak. But mine was the kind of racism that manifested in the stereotyping jokes, toeing the line of malice, and microaggressions they enacted to make sure I felt different. Even I joined in on the jokes most of the time because I didn't want to come off as sensitive. I was one of the few Asians at my school and the others came from families that were more culturally "Asian" than mine. I was in between and a part of neither. There was my fair share of those that pulled their eyes back slanted around me, yelling "ching, chong" whenever we ordered take-out or watched a martial arts scene on TV, and the INCESSANT question of if I ate dog. Boys going through puberty with their raging hormones, would ask me vulgar questions about certain acts or the anatomy of my reproductive system based on fetishes often found in porn. These were the more blatant acts of racism that I dealt with frequently, but eventually numbed myself to. The subconscious racism I dealt with was what made me the most bitter.
I NEVER saw Asian faces in the media. Not in entertainment and not in sports, with the exception of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. I could have been pretty decent ball player, possibly getting a scholarship at a small college. But there was the politics. There's always politics, especially in these types of communities. My parents weren't friends with the other athlete's parents. This came down to them being deaf, but also because my mom was Asian. And adopted. She has never felt like she's belonged. I grew up watching her disband friendships constantly until I got to college and then I never saw her invite or hang out with another woman again. These were complexities in our family that permeated my own experience within this life. Coaches saw me and didn't know anything about me or who I was raised by and what my family was like, but I knew they didn't take me seriously as a player. Athletically, I was outperforming even the top senior on the team. While yes, my fundamental understanding and IQ of the sport was lacking, none of the coaches I ever had thought to invest time with me to develop this even with my potential. The environment was very competitive, to the point of cruelty, and my teammates that were chosen for varsity looked down on me and made sure to keep me there. Recently, I found out and eventually became appalled, that Jeremy Lin, was a standout player at his high school in California, but received no scholarships at DI universities. Eventually he went on to play at Harvard, and then a sleeper in the NBA until he was given chance by being a last resort coming off the bench. Ever since reading that article, I wonder if that's what happened to me. Being a girl, I could only imagine this subconscious discrimination being twice as significant. I never will truly know.
Then came college. This new world, where I discovered that 30% of the student population was Asian or Asian American was a whole, different experience. On the other hand, it was a major agricultural school, and God love them, but came a whole lot of rednecks. Don't get me wrong. Half of my family are farmers themselves, but when you get two different cultures in large groups put in a condensed, small community, there is bound to be tension. And boy, did I get it. I applied to nursing school and was accepted as a freshman direct admit. After the first semester, I no longer wanted to stay. My roommate was a young, selfish, wealthy white girl from a rich area in Indiana. She lacked understanding of basic human respect and her entitlement was apparent. As well as her boyfriend. This guy was a hulking ball of aggression and had the intelligence of a rock. I was always disappointed in her decision to date him. Over time, their relationship became toxic and he became very verbally aggressive and I would label his behavior as domestic violence. When they would get in a fight, he would call her at all hours, only to have her sit there listening to him abuse her with insults and ugly names. She would cry and drink Nyquil until she fell asleep. She would be exhausted and stopped going to class. I would have to beg and drag her. This would happen for several nights and days. Eventually, I took her phone off the charger when she was asleep and answered it, demanding him to stay away and leave her alone. But she would always go back to him. He ended up contacting me through my cell and texted me pages of messages calling me a "yellow bitch" and a "gook" and to mind my own business. This was the first shock wave of many more racist incidents to come.
Soon into my second semester, I met with a few Korean girls and they convinced me to join an Asian sorority. It was completely foreign; extremely satisfying and totally unfulfilling at the same time. Being half and having no Korean family members outside of my mom, I wasn't able to relate that well, even to the Asian-Americans. They still took me in. I went through the hazing and the initiation. I developed bonds with girls that would end up being my sisters. I met Asian males that weren't the stereotypical, nerdy ones at school and found they had interesting, complex lives just like mine. These people were foreign, but they were relatable and they looked like me. Although, I loved being around them and being exposed to this culture, I never found peace. We would travel in groups, typical of the initiation process, and friend groups in general, and that would make us targets. While sitting in our cars together, we would have drinks thrown at us from pickup trucks by guys with faded baseball caps and camo jackets. I would walk across the street and have white guys yell Chinese gibberish out of their windows, while walking to class. The nights we went out to house parties, we ran into a group of drunk frat guys that yelled "stupid chink" in our direction and start a fight with our Asian male fraternity counterparts, thinking the guys would be too passive to fight back. They were wrong, of course. White guys at bars would make bets on who could kiss an Asian girl first, as if we were some Oriental rug they were competing for at an auction. This kind of stuff happened over and over again, and I started to doubt my desire to stay. So I left. I blamed it on my obligation to my major and told them it wasn't a priority. I regret it every day. I let those stupid people win.
And now, in our current political climate, it's been painful. I don't socialize often anymore and I've become more withdrawn. I still come across grown adults with misconceptions and played-out comments about Asians ALL THE TIME. I live near DC, with one of the most diverse populations in the nation, and yet I still run into extremely ignorant people all the time. It's been a while since I've been part of an Asian community, but I'm still searching. I've overcompensated by embracing the Korean grocery stores here, learning how to make kimchi, promoting the #CrazyRichAsians movie on social media, going to Korean BBQ once every few weeks, inking Hangul on my body, and even taking up TaeKwonDo. I'm desperate to connect back to my roots, but I don't know where to start and feel childish when I try. But I'm willing to try.
I'm angry that I was never allowed to be proud of who I was. It took a long time, but I'll continue to take the steps to embrace that pride. All I saw was red, but now I see yellow.