The Color Of The Sun Is Beautiful Until It's Become My Skin

Sometimes, it feels like we live in Neapolitan ice cream: divided by color, but the heat of it all sometimes turns the black and white to a murky gray. We live in an incredibly split world. To some degree, we are all at fault for this separation, but it's also seemingly impossible for us to personally untangle the result of centuries of history. Experiencing this life as a woman of color has been a challenge. We've seen in the media all the hatred and violence fueled by baseless prejudice. The subject of race has always been tricky to navigate. My intentions with this piece are not to make a victim of myself or to bait people into pitying me, but rather to shine a light on some personal experiences that may not be as blatantly visible or as heavily portrayed in media.

I am fortunate to have such a rich background of culture that I can pass down to my children and so forth. I am also fortunate in that despite the fact I grew up a minority race and gender-wise, I lived a very comfortable life, financially and academically. However, this privilege does not negate the otherwise antagonistic interactions I've had because I'm Chinese. I am lucky to have never encountered any physical threat or harm, unlike my parents and other Asian Americans, but the subtle, quiet aggressions I've experienced have heavily affected the way I think, behave, and most importantly, the things I believe.

Internalized Racism

Throughout my childhood, I grew up surrounded by a majority of white people. At the time, I never really realized how much that affected my perception of myself as well as my ethnicity. From elementary school to middle school, I switched out my Thermos lunch for a turkey and cheese sandwich. I refused to speak Mandarin to my parents in public and resented the exotic qi-pao's I had to wear during Chinese New Year. I began to detest the taste of rice and traded my chopsticks for forks. All I wanted to do was fit in. It wasn't that I wouldn't be accepted by my peers because they were white and I wasn't, but I feared the risk that they would reject me. My rationale was that if I took the steps to be like everyone else, then I wouldn't have to run that risk. I truly believed that Hollister shirts and white bread would mask who I really was.

When I entered college, it was like diving into a whole new world. My university housed people from all over the country and all over the world. I was surrounded by people that resembled me, people I could relate to on a different level. Except, suddenly, I wasn't like them at all. I remember some of my Asian American friends from freshman year calling me white-washed and treating me like I was so different from them. It seemed like where I came from undervalued my "Asian-ness".

Back then, I thought I was trying to fit in, but really all I was doing was rejecting my true identity. I had grown an internalized hatred for my history and the culture I came from. However, despite my own mistakes in my experience, they were my mistakes to be made. I had to come to terms with my existence on my own, and that meant taking a couple of steps back before making any progress. It doesn't excuse the way I had been treated by people of a similar background just because my upbringing was different from theirs. I had to deal with my own internalized racism in my own way. Being treated negatively by people who were supposed to be on my side isn't something that we always see in the media. It may not even make sense to some, but it's an experience that you have to live through to grow.

Feeling Undesired In a Society of Eurocentric Beauty Standards

It's really no secret that I don't look like my white counterparts. For heterosexual Asian women, we experience the dating world in a much different manner than our white female friends. For example, as most women do, when we're interested in a male, typically a white male, we tend to go through their followings on social media. However, for us, it's for a different reason. We're not asking which women these men are following, but rather what kind of women. We're not assessing the competition; we're wondering if we would even qualify for the race. On the other side of the spectrum, we also worry about the fetishization of our race. The concept of "yellow fever" dehumanizes us. Does this guy genuinely like me for me? Or do they view me as exotic? If I were stripped of my race, would I still be of interest to them?

It's also incredibly easy for me to disqualify myself on my own volition. If I'm with my white female friends and we see an attractive guy walking down the street, automatically I will take myself out of the equation. To no fault of my friends or even the random guy, it's just a natural instinct. I have grown up constantly being told what makes a woman beautiful. Features and aspects that make a woman desirable. Women in movies, TV shows, and ads. Except, all these women have Eurocentric features. The beauty standard we are held to is mirrored after Caucasian women, already an expectation I've lived up to. It also doesn't help when I've felt like the second choice to my white friends in many boy-related situations.

To be very clear, I'm not trying to place blame on anyone. It's really just the way things are. Sometimes I wonder if my friends ever walk into a room and the first thing they do is scan the crowd for a familiar face-- not familiar in the sense that there's someone they know personally, but familiar because there is someone who isn't white. I wonder if they ever feel less than just existing in a crowd. The experiences I've shared are only a couple of drops in the ocean. They occur every day. It's a hurdle that people of color shouldn't have to endure just to live, but we do. Despite it all, I don't wish I can change anything that has happened to me. Though I do wish for a less insecure, less biased lifestyle, everything that I have gone through has made me into the woman I am today. It has taught me many lessons about myself, others, and the world we live in, lessons that many others will not have to learn. It has taught me growth and confidence. Most importantly, it has taught me how to find love for myself.