I’m not some stereotypical loser who feels inferior because of their Asian facial features. Then you may ask, “what the eff is wrong with your title, then?” I don’t hate my heritage; I’m actually very proud of my rich heritage(yes, even my creaseless eyelids!), and hope others feel the same way about their heritage. Okay, I can sense your impatience now, so I’ll start from here: I don’t hate my ethnic background; I just hate the way people treat me because of it.
And if you’ve already assumed that I’m some paranoid minority with a victim mentality, you’re pretty wrong.
What sucks about being an Asian American? Well…
1. People assume that you’re Chinese.
Nothing wrong with being Chinese-rich history, yummy foods, beautiful people, I can go on and on about the rocking Chinese culture. But hello, there are other ethnic groups out there! I don’t want to be recognized as something I’m not, so I hate it whenever people ask me dumb questions like “Soo liek OMG liek are you liek Chinese?” So annoying. Do you not understand the meaning of the word, “Asian”? Assuming all Asian-looking people out there as Chinese is like assuming all Caucasians as Germans, or all Hispanics as Mexicans.
2. People assume that you’re not American.
I heard that things are different in California and Hawaii -and thank God, I’m moving to SoCal!-, but what about all the other states? I’m constantly asked where I’m from, and if I were to tell them “St. Louis,” they would always drag me to the dreaded question, “no, where are you ORIGINALLY from?” Usually at that point, I’m about to scream, “I’m originally from St. Louis so stfu and mind your own fucking business!” but I just tell them some random country’s name, and they shut up.
”Where are you originally from?”
”Estonia.”
”Are you for real? You’re from Europe?”
”Absolutely. I’m European x 100,000.”
There are Asian AMERICANS out there, why can’t they ever understand that? I was born and bred in this country; I didn’t get off the boat three days ago. I am American; I just don’t have blond hair and blue eyes. “American” can’t be a race since this country is made up of millions of different people from different backgrounds. I call myself an American, but they just give me weird looks whenever I do that, so I have to add that stupid hyphenization crap before that. “Asian-American.” Then they give me a stupid lecture about not assimilation enough into the mainstream American culture.
3. People assume that you have small eyes.
Again, nothing wrong with having small eyes. In fact, I don’t even like to call stereotypical small Asian eyes “chinky,” because I consider the word derogatory. However, I don’t have those kind of small eyes, but people assume that I have them because I’m Asian. And even when they see me, they go, “Gee, girl. Wear some white eyeliner. Your eyes are small.” Well, they’re not, and I know this because people who are close to me always tell me how big my eyes are. You just expect all Asians to have those kind of eyes, and when you see one with non-stereotypical Asian eyes, you just decide to put them down anyway. Why do you not realize that making fun of Asian eyes is actually as offensive as calling African Americans the “n word”? Asians already take a lot of crap from others because of eye shapes/sizes. You don’t need to make us feel crappy any more by putting down our non-stereotypical Asian eyes. Well, people even do that “pull eyelids” thing in front of Asians with supersized round eyes, so who am I to complain?
So those are the three things that I think sucks about being an Asian American. I’m very much against generalization and stereotypes, although sometimes I use them for joke purposes. I don’t understand why some people think a certain group of people, whether they’re Asians or not, look and act all the same because of their ethnicity. Why can’t we all just live in peace?
Anyway, if you’re Asian American and want to add to the list, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment!
Written by SJFF
Do not take out!
