Like many people across the United States and around the world, my heart is heavy in the aftermath of the racially-motivated killing of half a dozen massage spa workers this past week. I wish that I could say that I was stunned as recent events unfolded. I truly wish that I could say that this was a tremendous shock to me. Unfortunately, just like many women of Asian descent in this country, I have stories about how I have felt unsafe or othered for being Asian.
If anyone reading this knows me personally (and, let's face it: this is a personal blog, so most of you probably know me personally), you likely know me as someone who tries to be lighthearted and kind as often as possible. I try incredibly hard to try to understand where another person is coming from, even when I feel personally wronged by them. I was raised to think that way by my incredible, talented, smart, and brave Asian mother. It doesn't matter what happens, she is constantly reminding me that I don't know everyone's story and that I can't judge them based on a small interaction I have with them.
By and large, I agree with her approach and do what I can to empathize with others. I think that's something that has helped me both personally and professionally. However, there are some times when I have to absolutely draw a line and as of this week I've hit my limit.
I grew up in a very white, generally religious and conservative area of Eastern Washington. When I say that, I mean "30-40 minutes away from a well-known very active neo-nazi compound in Idaho" Eastern Washington. I'm unsure how aware my peers were of that fact growing up, but I always knew to look out for the signs of skinheads and other "race warriors" when I was out in public. My mother even sat me down at one point before a field trip my class was taking over to Idaho and told me that if I encountered one of Them (I already knew what that meant), to let them think that I was Native American since there were a number of local tribes in the area. The explanation? "If you're Native American they will think that you are like an animal and beneath them. You could get lucky and have them ignore you. If they know you're mixed race they will want to eliminate (kill) you because they will see you as inhuman and unclean." Heavy stuff for a kid in elementary school.
One of my first experiences with racism was in Kindergarten when we were learning to read. Our teacher would have everyone's name on a piece of paper that would be taped to another kids back. We then walked around the classroom showing our classmates the name and asking identifying questions in order to try to guess who we were. The most common question was, "Am I a girl/boy?" The second most common question was, "Do my eyes look like this?" as they pulled back the corners of their eyes until they could barely see. This starts young. My classmates never felt that they needed to know more than what my eyes looked like in order to know who I was.
I've shared this story a number of times and some of the feedback I've received was along the lines of, "It was just kids," and "They didn't know any better." Sometimes I've heard something worse: "That's at least pretty harmless." Spoiler alert: it's not.
I was an incredibly awkward kid with intense undiagnosed social anxiety growing up. I found it painfully difficult to make or keep friends. Between fourth and sixth grade I stopped having birthday parties because even if people had been invited, I didn't know if anyone would actually show up or, if they did, if they were only there because their parents told them they had to go in order to be polite.
Fortunately, my parents found out that I enjoyed sports and we were fortunate enough to be able to afford to sign up for a bunch of seasonal sports teams. I was grateful because at least when we were on a team together most of the time my classmates would at least try to be nice to me. Coaches generally frown on bullying teammates. Generally.
The problem with having coaches that are supposed to stop things like bullying is that sometimes coaches don't realize that they are the ones doing or enabling the bullying. I played softball and took great pride in being our team's best pitcher for a few years. In order to be fair to all of the players, after you played a few innings in the infield, you also had to go play in the boring outfield where you hoped that there was a convenient patch of blooming clover so that you could make yourself a clover wreath while you waited for the inning to finish. Every time I went into the outfield, I was always put in the position that was facing directly or almost directly into the sun. I complained to my coach about this and asked why he always did that. I said that I would voluntarily play right field (the boring-est of boring positions) so long as I could occasionally not have to stare into the glare of the sun. Coach Jim got down to my level and said simply, "It's easier for you than the other girls." A few seconds of my utterly confused face prompted him to elaborate: "You're already squinting."
Thanks to my optimistic mother, my first thought was, "Ah, that makes sense. I'm just naturally built for this kind of environment." After all, adults, especially teachers and coaches, are always doing their best to be nice, right? They would never do anything that would harm a kid under their care. My dad was there and heard this exchange and just about choked in shock. He later pulled the coach aside and told him that his comments were inappropriate and that he should never say that to me again. I still stared into the sun from the outfield for the rest of the season.
There are numerous other stories I have about facing these kinds of microaggressions (and not-so-microaggressions) growing up. There was the kid who proudly talked about joining the Aryan Brotherhood that ended up being assigned as my lab partner in Biology. The numerous boys who called me "exotic" in order to give me a compliment (while telling all the other girls how beautiful or pretty they were). There was "Asian row" in math class where the teacher sat all four of the Asian kids together no matter how many new seating charts they made. I could tell you about the time that I was offered a job at a strip club because, "Our Asian girl just moved to LA and if you came to work there we could bring back Exotics Nights on Thursdays!"
I left for college and ended up going to college in Seattle. This was in the early days of social media where facebook was still mostly a networking platform for college students and you needed a college email account to set up a profile. I had a very limited profile with the basic profile picture that was actually a picture from my senior year in high school. I didn't have a wide network, just people who I met and knew in real life (which is still pretty much the case to this day). The messaging feature, however, was one where a friend of a friend could reach out to you to connect.
A friend of a friend reached out to me one day and asked if I would go out on a date with them. I told them I didn't know them and that I wasn't really interested in dating (it was only my freshman or sophomore year, after all). They kept pushing and asking why I wouldn't give them a chance and eventually I asked them to please stop sending me messages. Within hours of the last message I sent, I began getting phone calls from strange men wanting a "happy ending" massage. Turns out that this guy had found my cell phone number (probably from the student directory) and posted an ad on craigslist saying, "Cute Asian girl looking to give happy ending massages." It took far longer than it should have to have the ad taken down and it was impossible to get anyone to do anything about the incident. I called local police and they said they couldn't do anything about a "harmless prank". I contacted the student services at the university and they said that it was "impossible to prove" that this kid posted the ad even though I had clear documentation that this ad was posted from a computer that had his IP address.
I cannot tell you how terrifying the next few weeks were. I came back to my room once to find a note shoved under my door saying that I deserved getting raped for trying to report him to the university. I got a few random late-night calls from guys making sex noises and saying, "Sucky sucky! Me love you long time!" I didn't report any of these things as I had already learned that there was no protection for me. I didn't even tell my parents because I didn't want them to worry. The worst of it was when I ran into the mutual friend on campus. I hadn't told them about the incident with their friend because I didn't want them to get mad at me. They invited me to a party that weekend and said that a friend of theirs had noticed me a few weeks back and had been bugging them to officially introduce us ever since. I bet you can guess who the guy was.
My stomach dropped straight into my shoes as soon as I realized who the person was that wanted the "official introduction." The friend left us alone to "get to know each other" and I was so afraid to do or say anything. He started the conversation with, "Now you actually know me, cute Asian girl. Will you finally go out with me?" I don't remember how I got out of the situation, but I remember crying myself to sleep that night.
Almost a year ago I ventured out from my apartment in North Seattle to get teriyaki from a local family-run restaurant. I knew they were struggling to get by with the recent stay home orders and there were a number of minor vandalisms that they had had to pay for. While I was leaving the parking lot and making my way to the crosswalk, a white man and woman followed me for a little bit and said loudly, "I thought they told all the Asian kids to go home." I had ventured out of my apartment for the first time in weeks and this is what I emerged to. I told them off and walked away in a hurry. I proudly told my parents about how I stood up for myself later and my dad praised my gumption, but my mom said, "You should have just walked away. You never know if they have a gun."
All of these thoughts and experiences have come flooding back to me over the past few days and it all feels terribly overwhelming. I am not sure how to process all that I am feeling or the grief that I feel for members within my own community as we adjust to this latest event in a long line of racially-driven hate. For some of us, this is the first time that we have felt this level of hatred hit so close to home. For others, this all feels like just one more day of the kind of sentiments that we have come to expect and have had to learn to deal with for our entire lives.
I try to remember that I come from a long line of women who were strong an resilient. My great grandmother who came to America as a picture bride and managed to hold the family together through the Internment. My grandmother who raised six kids on a farm and helped to take care of the generation before her as they reached old age. My mother, the first in her family to get a college education and who also did a hell of a job raising two bi-racial kids in a time and place where it wasn't always safe for them to exist.
I'm confident that I will eventually emerge stronger and more resilient than ever. I'm still motivated to work toward making great change. I will stand in solidarity with all of my brothers and sisters (and any other folks not part of the gender binary) in all marginalized communities every single time that I see or hear of the latest injustice that has happened. Today, though, I mourn and I do what little I can within my own community to support them in their grief.
