Anonymous | nationality: American | ethnicity: Chinese
“Yellow”.
I feel 'yellow' is a hard thing to claim as an identifierfor asians. So far
as I know, it's mostly been used to refer to eastasians, and I've mostly
heard it used in the term 'yellow fever', which israther derogatory.
Additionally, I've never heard it used by anotherasian person to refer to
someone else in a casual manner, which makes it feelmore like a slur
than anything. I know a few people who want to reclaimit though,
though I can't share their sentiments.
“Asian”.
I think being Asian is defined by ethnicity. Not necessarilyappearance,
but by genetic birthright, if that makes sense? Icould go anywhere in
the world and have been born anywhere in the worldbut, in the end of
the day any person only needs to look at me in theface and identify
that aspect of me.
Ethnicity|part1.
Permanent, immutable, stressful, dismissed, pride.
Ethnicity|part2.
I chose 'permanent' and 'immutable' because I understandmy 'asianess'
is something that I can't really hide or change, andbecause of that I
will always be conscious of how I am being perceived.I chose 'stressful'
and 'dismissed' because of how I feel a constant pressureto perform
well, for the sake of my parents and family, and yethave my
achievements dismissed in the public eye because itfits into a
stereotype (there's a meme that circulates now andthen about how "No
matter how hard you work or what you do, there's alwaysan asian
that's better than you") I listed "pride" becausedespite everything, I still
feel a degree of pride over my ethnicity. The historyof China isn't clean,
and the depiction of asian people in the media doesnot paint the most
flattering image. Despite all that, I still feel proudof my heritage,
culture, so on and so forth.
Differ from Asian stereotype(s).
I'm not outstanding at anything in particular. Mygrades are average. I
don't do any sports. I don't do music. My hobbiesare not my talents; I
draw, but it's not anything particularly impressive.I'm not very
motivated. I'm not very driven; I usually need a pushto get going in a
certain direction, so I supposed in a way that meansI'm lazy by nature.
One of the few times I heard someone talk about theasian stereotype,
they described it as a sort of backhanded compliment.You are so
expected to perform well that it's a surprise whenyou don't, and this is
really very mild compared to some other stereotypesput on difference
races. It doesn't make it less detrimental though.
A theoretical space without racism.
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