“I loved the clip when they interviewed folks in Compton about #OscarsSoWhite. One guy says, ‘It’s not just black and white. It’s about Latinos and Asians being represented in media.’ But then Chris Rock starts talking and brings on these Asian kids in suits and jokes about them being good at math as accountants, and slave labor from China. What the fuck?!”
Cough, cough — a tall, older black man huffed next to me.
“Do you have a problem?” I asked.
“I don’t like how you said black.”
“Should I say ‘African American’ instead? I was talking about how Chris Rock was being racist to Asians and how that was bullshit.”
“Well, the racism between Asians and black people is different.”
The bartender, also black, piped in and said, “And look at you!” as he pointed to my date, a short white guy who could have been a wholesome J. C. Penney’s catalogue model.
The white guy was too terrified to jump into this conversation, but I kept at it with the stranger next to me. Eventually, the white guy offered to pay, but I told him I’d pay. He bolted out of the restaurant before I could even get my credit card out. The stranger next to me asked if I liked the guy. I replied that it had been going well before the heated conversation about racism, but if he couldn’t handle that — then he couldn’t handle being with me. I paid the bill and left.
A group of folks outside the restaurant apparently believed that my date had run out on me. They tried to help just in case I wanted to make a mad dash for him.
One emboldened woman from the group yelled, “Oh, he went that way!”
“Yeah, I’m not running after him, but thanks.”
In West Oakland, where I live, I look like an outsider as an Asian American. One day I smelled delicious BBQ wafting from my bathroom while I was doing laundry. I put my clothes in the washer and walked to DeFremery Park, where the McClymonds High School Reunion was taking place. There was a BBQ truck parked on the curb, and I bought a 10-dollar brisket sandwich with hot sauce drizzled on top.
I was the only Asian person around.
There were two white women (to give the scene a little credit on the diversity report card), but everyone else was black.
As I munched on my meat sandwich while sitting on a rock next to a swing set and a slide with little kids running around who were wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirts, a woman started speaking into a microphone: “Black Lives Matter! Black people need to stay in this neighborhood. We need to stop gentrification!”
“Shit,” I think in the back of my head. I become defensive. Maybe I can say I’m from here and explain that the old Asian lady who goes through our recycling on trash day to grab empty beer bottles is my grandmother. But that’s a lie. I was born in the suburbs of Chicago and mostly raised in the suburbs of Houston.
Growing up in the South as an Asian girl can be rough. I remember how my second-grade teacher was shocked that I didn’t wear an Oriental costume for Halloween but instead wore an adorable cowgirl outfit with a red hat, jeans skirt and cowboy boots—in Texas! On the way home from school once, a guy on the bus said to me, “Too bad about Hiroshima!”
My family is Taiwanese, and the Japanese were like the Nazis in Asia. I have a friend from Alabama who went to Morehouse who told me he misses the South and says that although the South can be racist, at least it’s in your face and not passive-aggressive.
California may be a liberal oasis, but microaggressions still happen — no matter how well meaning folks are. One time a pudgy, gray-haired white new hire came up to me and started to speak to me in an Asian language I don’t understand. I had to flat out tell him, “Don’t do that! Stick to English.” There was also a time when I was waiting for the bus, and this older black guy started attempting to speak to me in Chinese. I told him that my family is from Taiwan and that we speak Taiwanese. He got confused and said, “Thai?” Then he complained that he was just trying to practice Chinese.
I’m paranoid about being exoticized as an Asian woman. I used to date a black guy, and he fondly told me that his first girlfriend from Cornell was a Chinese American from Millbrae and smiled at me. Then there was a white guy whom I started dating. I found his ex-girlfriend on Facebook, and she was Asian. I’ve dated a few Asian American guys, but one was into assimilating and mostly dated white women, and the other was too hard to keep up with.
In California, I can talk more freely about racism than I could in Texas. I was once on a date with another black guy and explained to him the oppression and stereotypes I faced while growing up in the South. But he stopped me and said, “The racism and stereotypes you faced are different from mine. It’s like you’re at the bottom of the class, but you’re at the best school ever! For me, it’s like I’m the top of my class, but I go to the worst school.” This date was right after the verdict for George Zimmerman was announced. He told me he would never wears hoodies after what had happened to Trayvon Martin.
Although I’m not from here, I do know the rich history of West Oakland. I went to a hipster coffee shop, and this older white guy asked me why Oakland hadn’t gentrified more quickly. I told him that the Black Panthers originated here, and that they had told folks to buy property when then could — so they weren’t just going to sell it right away to rich white folks, and so it could go back to their black families — sisters, brothers, nephews, cousins and grandkids.
I first told my bad-date story to my best friend, Christopher. He’s stocky and short. He always wears black plastic glasses and headphones and carries a sketchbook, because he’s an amazing artist. He’s black. I complained about the Oscars to him, and he nodded his head. I stopped after 10 minutes of ranting.
“Hmm, you’ve never watched the Oscars and have no idea what I’m talking about,” I realized.
“Yup,” Christopher responded.
As a good friend, he kept agreeing with my opinions, even though he didn’t know what the conversation was about in the first place.
On the flip side to Christopher, I have an Irish techie friend whom I hang out with too. Once I invited her to the Hieroglyphics’ hip-hop festival in West Oakland, but I changed my mind at the last minute and just asked her to meet me at a beer garden for drinks, because I didn’t want to stand all day after a long week at work.
As we sipped our Hefeweizen pints, my friend confessed,“It’s a good thing we didn’t go to the festival, because we’d have been the only white people there.”
I countered, “You know I’m Asian, right?”
I’m never going to be black, but I’m never going to white either. As a kid, I grew up in predominantly white suburbs, and now as an adult, I live in a predominantly black neighborhood.
I am an outsider who wants to be heard.
I am an outsider trying to be understood.
I am an outsider, but I am ready to listen too.
