actual asian problems

I just have to say that it has been such a relief to find that others have experienced and dealt with internalized racism and self-hate for their own culture- I have thought for the longest time that I was one of the few and far between who wished to be white. All through kindergarten to middle school, I hated my background. I hated I was Chinese, I hated that boys didn’t look at me because I wasn’t skinny and blonde, I hated that my skin got so tan over the summer, I hated having such straight hair and eyes that nearly disappeared when I was really happy. I hated that people always assumed that I spoke Chinese, I hated that people always mixed me up with either another Asian girl or thought I was Korean or Japanese. I hated that people would ask me if I was communist or asked if I ate dogs or made fun of me for my “squint eyes”. I began to actually hate my own country because, while I traveled back to China every few years, I hated that I came from that place that was causing me so much self-hatred. I wanted to be white, damn it. I wanted blonde hair and blue eyes and light skin. I wanted that type of hair that was so curly that it bounced right back into place after pulling it. I felt ugly and unwanted everyday of my life in school for so many years. My parents knew that I wanted blonde hair and blue eyes, they always told me I was a beautiful Chinese girl, but that wasn’t enough. The constant judging eyes of my peers destroyed my self-esteem and I am still trying to build it back up. 

I have come such a long way from a broken little girl with endless amounts of internalized racism to a stronger girl trying to shake the past and be proud of where she came from. I love my home country, I love my culture, and I love my language. I would rebel and misbehave when mom would try to keep me in a Mandarin course when I was in 4th grade because I was embarrassed. You know why I was embarrassed? Because even back then I had been fed the bullshit that I was supposed to know how to translate anything a stranger would eagerly demand me to say. Because even back then I knew that people would whisper about that little ugly Chinese girl who didn’t even know how to speak Chinese- boy, I bet those people thought that Asians were supposed to be smart. Even now I face the Asian C-Word, people asking me for help in math just because I’m Asian, getting made fun of because I’m a Chinese woman driver, people calling me their “one token Asian friend”, and I still get these damn peers asking me how to say this and that in Chinese. 

I know that Asians are the so-called “model race” to white people in America, and I know that other PoC’s get so much worse crap than me, but even we have problems too. We (the Chinese) don’t have nearly the history of torture that other PoC’s have, but our struggles are still real. My struggles are still haunting me every step of the way, and I doubt that they will ever fully dissipate. There will always be a little voice in the back of my mind doubting every move because, “just because you’re Asian” or “no other white guy will ever like you- you just got lucky with this one” or “I only got the job because the employer has a fetish”.

I have such a huge problem with white people (especially the younger generation since they are growing up so ignorant) who think that my culture is “cool” or “exotic” or even photoshop themselves to look Asian. It’s disgusting how white people (general term) take these things that mean so much to us and wear/practice/preach them with no deep meaning. They take the pool’s pretty tiles and rocks out but leave the concrete structure and water. They take the ropes and blankets off the huge packs on our backs and dance around playing with them while we are crushed by the baggage. It’s just so unfair. And then, my gosh, those people who actually think that they are “transethnic”. Hah! What a fucking joke. It sickens me how ignorant and totally privileged these people are who think they have a right to claim any ethnicity they want just because they’re really into the culture or have a fetish. It’s actually really creepy that anyone could possibly think that they can “come out” as “transethnic” and think that they should have been born a different ethnicity. It’s insulting, that’s what it is.