I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. About race. My skin. The times we live in.
Last Tuesday, a man opened fire on three massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia. Eight people were killed. Six of them were women of Asian descent.
I am horrified. The Atlanta shooting is part of a growing trend of anti-Asian discrimination that has spread during the Coronavirus pandemic. Since President Trump labelled the “Chinese Virus” in March last year, racially-motivated attacks have risen across the world.
As an Asian-Australian, with Asian family and friends, I am scared. I am worried that I will be attacked on the street because of the color of my skin. Or the attack will be on somebody I love. But the truth is, despite recent events, racism against people of Asian descent is nothing new.
It’s a complex issue. It’s intersectional. Depending on gender, age, sexuality, profession, and socio-economic background, Asians will have experienced racism in different ways.
But the important thing is recognizing that it exists.
Discrimination against Asians has been hidden behind the idea of the “model minority.” It’s the Asian way — keep your head down and don’t stir trouble. Yes, our hardships are not the same as our POC brothers and sisters. But we should not silence any bigotry. It’s important to acknowledge it. Not pretend that it doesn’t exist. So we can prevent tragedies like Atlanta.
So I’ve decided to share my own experiences, hoping that we can normalize the conversation about Asian discrimination and begin to address it. The below list is not exhaustive. Nor does it compare to what others have faced. But I’ve never told anyone, and thought I should. So people know. So others will.
- When I was 9, in primary school, a couple of students spent an entire lesson telling me how flat my face was.
- During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a classmate called me a “ching chong cheater” because China was doing well in the games.
- As a kid, I was constantly called “yellow” for the color of my skin.
- When I was 11, I joined a football team. Parents had to supply orange slices during the games. When it was my mom’s turn, a couple of kids mocked her accent loudly in front of me. I quit the next year.
- In high school, a social sciences teacher constantly referred to me and a group of students as “the Asians.” I didn’t continue the subject.
- During high school, while at a train station with friends, a group of students from another school kicked our legs from behind. They called us “stupid Asians.”
- In high school, friends told me I had weird eyes and that “Asians have small penises.” When talking about their own relationships, I heard them say “Asian girls don’t count…”
- On a college trip to Europe, a museum guide asked me where I was from. When I said Australia, they gestured pulling their eyes apart, and asked me what had happened to my face.
- On that same trip, in a hostel elevator, a British Chinese person came up to me and asked if I spoke Chinese. He loudly said, so his non-Chinese friends heard him, that he didn’t, and that speaking Chinese was lame.
- In college, a friend and I were playing the piano in the student lounge. A student walked past, stopped, and said “oh great, another Asian who can play the piano.”
