I am an American born Chinese, but up until sixth grade, I had never even heard of the term “Asian American.”
It was second grade and we were having a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Movement, and I distinctly remember thinking I was white because my skin color was the same as my white friends. I recall asking my white friend if I was white after the lesson because my teacher’s description of discrimination deeply frightened me. My friend gave me a weird look and said, “Relax Katrina, you’re definitely white,” and shoved her forearm against mine, exclaiming that there was no color difference at all.
As a kid, I never understood why my family did things so differently from my white friends. After all, I was technically “white” in all of my friend’s eyes, which validated my own misconception. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t eat pizza or hot dogs on a daily basis. I didn’t understand why we could not use forks or knives as often. I did not understand why I had extra “homework” after my schoolwork and why I had to go to Kumon when all of my other friends did not. When my friends would ask for a playdate or sleepover, their parents almost always say yes because they’re free that day. On the contrary, I almost always had either a piano lesson that day, an extra swimming practice, or an art class of some sort. Saturdays were for Chinese school, and Sundays were for Bible study.
The first time I heard of the term “Asian American” was not actually in America. When I moved to China in sixth grade, I was filling out an identification form on the plane when I noticed that the options included “white” and “Asian American.” This was deeply confusing because I genuinely thought I was white up until that point. It was hard to finally come to terms with being Asian American as I had never truly experienced racism. However, after I returned to the States in eighth grade, my eyes slowly opened to the subtle racism and microaggressions that Asian Americans experience. People automatically assumed that I am good at math, science, and school in general, regardless of whether or not my grades backed that up. My peers usually thought I spent all of my time just studying, and that I was not athletic in the slightest bit. When I told my classmates that I was not taking orchestra, they were shocked because they assumed I played the violin, even though I have never touched one before. Although these stereotypes do not bother me, I think the level of influence they have can easily translate to the emersion of genuine issues of discrimination against Asian Americans.
The underlying issue is that racism and discrimination towards Asian Americans is normal, so much so that it is not considered racist when someone mockingly says phrases like “ching-chong” or “dog-eater” because “it’s just a joke.” This normalization has been extremely prevalent in 2020, especially at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, when public figures like our very own president repeatedly used phrases like “Kung-flu” or the “Chinese virus.” While 2020 has made great strides in recognizing marginalized groups and social justice issues, it is disheartening to not see the same energy when it comes to fighting anti-Asian sentiment. A lot of the same people who are chanting “Black Lives Matter” are also the people who turn around and blame the coronavirus on the Asian community, the same people that consistently make fun of our eyes, regardless of the fact that not everyone Asian has the cliche mono-eyelid small eyes.
What’s even more alarming is that videos of people attacking Koreans or Japanese people for the coronavirus even though they are not Chinese have been surfacing all over social media, as if the blame for bringing over the coronavirus has shifted to all Asians regardless of their cultural background, that people view Asians as dirty, diseased savages, disregarding the many different cultures that make up this race.
The worst part about all of this is that the general response of the American people to this overt racial injustice is silence.
No one is organizing widespread protests to stand up against sinophobia. Rarely do you see Instagram posts being shared that convey any morsel of interest in fighting for Asian civil rights. No one is conveying the message that Asian lives matter too.
The same hatred and discrimination that we are seeing more openly has always been there, and it has occurred so much to the point that racial microaggressions in any form are considered an everyday experience, to the extent that even some Asians do not recognize racism against themselves, and cannot sympathize with the Asian people that actually have experienced hate. Racist people who discriminate against other minority groups usually get their entire lives ruined; their careers get destroyed, their college scholarships are revoked if they’re high school students, not to mention the constant harassment they face on the internet. However, when it comes to Asians, barely anything happens. People merely laugh at the disgusting words said as if they were jokes, causing the victims to feel gaslighted.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that we see this anti-Asian sentiment being perpetrated by other minority groups who experience racism themselves, but go along with the notion that anti-Asian hate is not considered as racist as hate against Black people.
There will be no unified stance against racial justice as long as casual racism against Asians is still normalized.