A Personal Experience of Asian Stereotyping

Before I even delve into the deep and complex world that is stereotypes, I’d like to make one thing clear: No I don’t eat dogs, I don’t play a musical instrument, I don’t go to an Ivy League, I’m not a third- degree black belt, and I’m not insanely good at math. When you ask me, “Where are you from?” I’ll always respond, “I’m from Florida.” Then you’ll probably ask me, “No. Where are you really from?” and again, I will say, “Yeah. I’m really from Florida.” Then for the next five minutes, we’ll take part in an incessant cycle of interrogation in which you will ultimately realize that I’m American too. I would like to think of myself as an “Asian—American”. Born and raised in the Land of the Free. I grew up eating hamburgers and even celebrating the Fourth of July. But for some astonishing reason, I seem to have come with an incredible package of stereotypes. I grew up with a commonly American liberal perspective as a second—generation Asian American.

I was taught that I was unique just as everyone else and thatI had every opportunity available to me. Once I began attending grade school, I became the victim of being one of the few Asians in the American school system. I spent most of my middle school years trying to avoid the persecution of others and most of high school just trying to fit in. But no matter how much effort I put into how I presented myself, I was always surrounded by social prejudice wherever I dare ventured. Growing up among American society, I felt like an outsider. I felt different in the way I looked, the way I behaved, and even just the way I was. I remember middle school as if it were a bad dream. My first encounter with racial stereotyping was more than distressing to my middle school self. I had been new to the public schooling system and me, being oh so innocent, was eager to make new friends and expand my knowledge.

I waltzed into my first class of the day, with bright smiles and everything, sat down, took out my notebook and waited keenly for the teacher to enter the room. As I was waiting, I heard a boy yell, “fried rice” from the back of the room. Again, me, being so innocent didn’t even process that “fried rice” was being directed towards me, and continued to cheerfully wait for the teacher. Eventually, after about five minutes of my unresponsive nature, the boy came directly up to me and called me a “Chink”. Yes, so sad, I know. But before you start feeling bad for me, I just want to let you know that I had no idea what a “think” was. I stared back at him in utter confusion and eventually, he walked away. As of now, this sounds more like a success story than anything else. Unfortunately, my unresponsiveness caused the boy to sincerely despise me.

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From that day on, his life’s mission had become to insult me day-after-day, attempting to bring out any reaction in me. At first, I thought it was amusing. I would laugh and joke around with him. I almost even thought that this was his weird and skewed way of making friends. At one point, it did seem that we had become friends. But eventually, it had become apparent that he had only befriended me to let me down. Looking in retrospect, I actually feel quite idiotic at how oblivious I had once been. In the midst of all the racial slurs and ridicule, I had no time to feel offended. I turned a cold shoulder to almost everyone and sped through all of middle school trying not to feel. Eventually I had built up a stronghold of anger and bitterness. I felt disappointed in my peers and even myself.

I would ask myself daily, “How can I become good enough today?” After adopting that question into my life, I had slowly started to feel inadequate. I know how quickly this seems to be escalating towards the morose direction. But this is exactly the effect of stereotype in my life. The incessant feeling of inadequacy and the universal expectation for me to succeed had quickly taken its toll on me. Eventually, once all the racial chaos died down and being nice was considered the new “cool”, I finally had time to think about who I had become. Looking back, I realized that I had ultimately conformed to the ways of others in order to fit in and had adopted a culture that wasn’t even mine.

I had started saying “like” an unhealthily large amount of times per day, and progressively started to forget what my true identity was in. After two years of high school, I finally realized in one prophetic and revolutionary moment, that I had adjusted everything about myself in order to avoid being labeled as “Asian”. Once I embodied that fact that, yes, I am indeed Asian, 1 was able to toss the negative impact of stereotype in my life, out the window and start afresh. As cliche as it sounds, my experience with stereotypes has broadened my perspective on race as well as taught me what it means to have true self—worth and inner beauty.

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