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The Truth by Frank Y Pak Agostinelli When I do have the opportunity to read-up, to my dismay ain't a damn thang changed when it comes to the younger generations of mixed Asians. I reminisce when I had to throw down constantly with misled kids my age relaying the racist doctrines bestowed upon them by their narrow-minded, close-minded, no-minded caregivers known as their parents. Chink, Gook, Jap, Nip, Didi-Mao, Ching-Chong, Boat People, Ancient Chinese secret huh, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees look at these, Oooh Ah-sooo . . . I've heard them all as I am willing to bet so have you. It is degrading, it is denigrating, it is despicable, and it doesn't matter what locution one decides to use, it's all a pile of crap! It has been over 20 years since any moron had the testicular fortitude to say such racial epithets to me or anyone remotely Asian around me. It is bothersome to me the name-calling saga continues to this day. I've never wore blinders or donned rose-colored glasses. I've seen a lot. I've learned a lot. If it isn't bad enough we do have an identity crisis that will linger throughout our lifetime, one would think maybe, just maybe this Great American Melting Pot as it was so titled many moons ago would have some semblance of understanding of mixed Asians (or anyone of a background that is not Caucasian). It doesn't even tip-toe tolerance. Granted there are those who are not drunk with fetishist desires and look upon us as objects of salacity. But the numbers are microscopic. I turned 35 this past November and still have to endure what some of the younger mixed Asians are enduring. But not to the same degree of severity. It all depends how you can desensitize yourself to it (questions, slurs, other nonsense). Our life is a constant work in progress because we are different in appearance. Our workload deals with people outside our circle as well as those who are within our circle. Relating to both sides of our respective mixes is a job in it's self. This is a generalization, we either relate well with one parent or have trouble relating to both. There are the rare occasions when both parents knew what they were getting into and did their best to bridge the cultural gap and create a harmonious family life. Quite frankly the aforementioned is applicable to all races but for our Eastern/Western cultural gumbo it is a tad different no matter what the collective would want you to believe. I find it odd we can understand everyone else but it is not completely reciprocal. We have to fight stereotypes. We have to fight not being (insert your ethnicities) enough. We have to fight questions about our last names that do not correlate with the face. We have to fight an assortment of imbecilic comments and questions. We have to fight. Period. The most important facts we must take from this fight is we observe, learn, absorb, and apply. Be the best individual you can possibly be. Be secure with who you are, and if people, critics, nay sayers, and the malcontents won't accept who you are . . . feel free to insert the inflammatory F-word coupled with them. |
Being Multiracial: On That Thin Edge Of Barbwire by Mika Doyle Confusing. Painful. Enriching. Eye-opening. I grew up in a very small town where minorities were few and far between. In my graduating class, there was one Hispanic, one Black, and one half Thai who everyone thought was just a dark complexioned White. So any difference was immediately singled out, regardless of how different it really was. I had to deal with being singled out for being half Japanese/half White since first or second grade. My "best friend" started making fun of my mom. She said my mom should go back to Japan because her mom said she wasn't an American citizen. I was enraged, and we got into a tussle on the playground. Later, I found out my mom really wasn't an American citizen but a resident alien, and I felt betrayed because I had defended her against my schoolmates with false information. I guess I just assumed she was a citizen. I understand it now, but as a second grader, it was mind-boggling. Anyway, every year I had to deal with a new teacher mispronouncing my name. I was either Mike or Micah, but rarely ever Meeka, which is how my name is pronounced. A few teachers had the audacity to tell me my name was spelled wrong, and I had no good argument except "no it's not!" because I hadn't studied Japanese yet. I had been bilingual up until the time I started school, so I was far more American than Japanese by both Western and Eastern standards. Teachers would pick me out in class to ask how to pronounce a name in a story or to ask me about a piece of Japanese history, and once a teacher made fun of me because I didn't know how to do origami. Kids always called me Chinese, and I could never seem to convince them that China and Japan had extremely different cultures. I've been called a Jap by another former friend, and I've had people do that stupid thing where they make ridiculous noises to "imitate" the Japanese language when they find out I'm Japanese. I felt isolated, and like a token, so when an opportunity arose for me to use my ethnicity to my advantage, I took it. I applied for a minority in the media scholarship and was accepted despite being only half (and trepidations as to whether this organization even considered Japanese minorities). I thought it was a great opportunity, but it turned out to be a disaster. The actual internship aside....we had to go to these meeting every summer where everyone would come together and discuss our experiences and then have a workshop on a job skill or something. I only went to one because the first was enough for me. We were all sitting around a big table waiting for everything to start, when someone asked me in a not so nice voice, "What are you?" I was the only one who was asked this, the only one who was asked to validate their minority status. No one talked to me for the rest of the day. This was my first experience with reverse discrimination, and it hurt like hell. I wasn't completely accepted with the white kids, but I wasn't dark enough for the nonwhite kids. So where was I supposed to go?? College was great at first because everyone assumed I was white and I no longer had to deal with the issue of ethnicity. That is, until I started taking Japanese classes and the Japanese teacher recognized my name as Japanese. Since then, it's been a battle to prove to all these non-White people that I AM half Japanese and not just White. I've made friends with the very few Asian people at school (namely 2), and I room with one who is now one of my closest friends. She keeps telling me how being half is so beautiful and that I should stop letting people bother me, and I know she's right, but there's still this pain inside of me that won't go away. I am either the Jap girl, or the White girl who couldn't possibly be anything but White. And let's not forget the experience of going to Japan for the first time without my mom. I was definitely hakujin rather than nihonjin. Gloria Anzaldúa said something about being multiracial that has stuck with me and seems to repeat over and over in my head because I feel that, in those words, I have found myself: "This is her home...this thin edge of...barbwire." I teeter painfully on that sharp edge of barbwire, and I believe I will for the rest of my life. But there is still hope in my life for feeling comfortable in my skin, for I have found others who do not see me as anything but myself. One is my soon to be fiancé, who wrote me a letter that brought me to tears. I can't share it here because it's personal, but the main idea is that I should be proud of who and what I am because he loves me for me and is honored to have me in his life. |
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