A boy classmate kicked me on the bus in fifth grade (Or maybe it was fourth?). I havenât told anyone. Especially not my parents. I didnât speak. I didnât write it down in a diary. Thereâs no record of the incident. No meetings with a teacher or principal. No police report. I vaguely remember thinking how he ruined my white knee socks with dirt and pretended I didnât hear what he said (Did he tell me to leave? Leave his school? Leave the only country Iâve ever known? Did he mutter a racial slur?) I still remember his name. And how he made me feel like I didnât belong â that I was smaller than I was as one of the only Asian American kids in a predominately white, Catholic school in a New York state suburb.
In time, like all things in the past, I had forgotten all the other details, burrowing the memory deep under my skin. I thought the scar had faded without a trace.
But journalist Jane C. Huâs eloquent article about the history of Asian American hate in the United States brought back the half-forgotten memory. So do the story after very alarming story after story after story after podcast after podcast after podcast after study after study after heartbreaking must-read essay after essay documenting the rise of racism and anti-Asian sentiment across the country.
In pre-quarantine time (think back to January/February 2020), I would shrink and worry about what someone might say to me in zumba class or in a grocery store while I was shopping alone. Would they look at my Asian face and think I had the disease we barely knew? Would they confront me until I disappeared within myself again?
I still worry. For relatives and family friends who live in American cities big enough to have a Chinatown. For my immigrant parents â hardworking essential workers. For myself. When I do actually leave the house for walks and hikes, Iâm thankful that I have a dog as a security blanket, who would at least warn me if a stranger got too close and would probably try his best to protect me from any physical attacks as well as try to drown out the verbal ones (Does the dog know Iâm afraid? Does he sense that when my white-knuckle fists grip his leash tighter and closer?) But I canât bring Emotional Support Dog everywhere I go (as much as ESD would love to follow and guard me).
I havenât seen âMinariâ (which broke the âbamboo ceilingâ) yet. Itâs in my queue and Iâm hoping to watch it (with a box of tissues on hand) with my immigrant parents someday. But I watched this interview with actor Youn Yuh-jung, where she describes the disconnect between first-generation and second-generation Asian Americans:
âSecond-generation Asian Americans think they are Asian Americans but in the eyes of Americans, they donât look American. There must be a dilemma in that. We expected to be treated (poorly) so there was no sorrow.â
Her analysis explains why I was blubbering like Awkwafinaâs character while watching âThe Farewellâ and âCrazy Rich Asiansâ while my parents, on the other hand, didnât understand my emotional outbursts.
Maybe thatâs why I never told them about the boy who kicked me on a bus. What could they â who had me on standby as their early English-language translator, who surely suffered worst unspoken sorrows â have done if they knew?
Queued this week:
These reminders that you donât need to work in pain and that sometimes excuses are necessary
The sorting hat for sleep (turns out there are four houses instead of just morning bird and night owl)
Quasi-controversial girl scout cookie power rankings (Thin Mints donât make best cookie)