When I lived abroad sometimes people insisted that I couldn’t be American because I didn’t “look” American…people insisted I was Chinese (I’m not, LOL!) and would say things like, “Yes, you’re American, but you’re REALLY Chinese/Japanese/Asian). It used to annoy me but I figured it was just one of those things that we Americans have to suffer when we travel…foreigners just don't “get” our national story, they judge based on Hollywood and Disney, right?
But I never imagined that one day I could be judged based on my looks, ethnicity, or family story, in my own country. Because I'm from Hawaii, with its mostly Asian-Pacific population, I had somehow escaped the kind of visual judgment that African-Americans deal with every day, and therefore I “understood” racism intellectually but didn't feel it, viscerally, in my own back yard. Until now.
I grew up speaking a second language, loudly, publicly, with my mother, people of the older generation, and sometimes even my best friend. I had a great part-time job in high school because I spoke a second language. I graduated high school early because I had three bonus credits from testing out of foreign language requirements. And I went to a great college on the east coast to study foreign affairs, in part because I had this head start. But now we have to worry about speaking a foreign language in public?
Scary times we live in. What's next? Am I going to be a target because I listen to Bollywood pop in the car? Should I be worried the next time I go for a Vietnamese meal–will someone track my Yelp check-ins and notice that I haven't had a cheeseburger in a couple of years? Wake up, America! I hate victim narratives. If I'm the one complaining because all of these things happen to me or people like me, I'm descending into a victim narrative. But that's what will happen if you don't speak up on behalf of people not like you.
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