How to be Asian American at a Mostly White School

Step one. Realize that you’re not the only one with “daddy issues.” The stereotype of Asian parents wanting their kids to be either a doctor or a lawyer is true, so there’s no use in trying to win the suffering olympics about whose parents were the biggest hard-asses. You and your Asian friends all lose out on the fact that countless hours of your childhood were spent bent over the piano until you either perfected a piece or your tears blinded you to the sheet music. Likewise, don’t be surprised when your white friends’ parents let them watch TV during the week, go over to their friends’ houses as much as they wanted, or didn’t ground them when they returned home with less than an A minus.
As a senior in college, one of my friends was going through a tough time — the first time she was arguing with her dad. Outwardly sympathetic, the notion of having a friction-free relationship with my own father almost made me laugh.
Step two. Don’t be surprised when your friends have never had pho before. It may remind of you of your cultural differences from everyone else at your school, but instead, look at it as an opportunity to drag them to the nearest pho restaurant. Tell them to ignore the slightly disconcerting fact that the walls are made of mirrors that are slightly steamed up from the conglomeration of bodies and bubbling vats of soup, that people have tracked in watery mud in various places on pale laminate floors, and the brisk nature of the waiters. You simply don’t go into Asian restaurants expecting good service — unless they are, in fact, white restaurants.
When the bowl of steaming beef broth with a glutinous ball of rice noodles topped with various types of meat and delicate slices of onion slides in front of you, show your friends how to tear the basil leaves into the soup, tenderly squeeze the juice out of the lime wedges, and dump a handful of bean sprouts into the bowl. Watch them slurp in their first perfect spoonful, and aggressively badger them, asking, “Well, how is it?!”
Step three. When people begin telling stories about their family and how amazing it is that their grandmother went through so many hardships running the family business and raising five kids in rural America, consider keeping your own family history to yourself for the moment.
A story about how your grandmother lost everything while running away from North Korean communists, holding one of her sons while he was shot by a stray bullet and killed, having two of her other sons contract polio, and telling her family that they were going to “fast” for three days but really she just didn’t have any food to feed any of them might be a little dark for the moment.
Step four. Anticipate the fact that most people think that mochi is made of ice cream and that ramen is packages of instant noodles that drunk college students make when they stumble back home after a night out.
Step five. When a professor singles you out in class for being Asian, it’s okay to feel angry, hurt, bewildered, or shocked; it might feel like time freezes and you’re reeling further and further away, unable to burst out of this cycle of replaying the same scene in your head.
Yes, it did really happen, and yes, judging by your classmates’ non-reactions to what your professor just said, you will doubt the validity of your indignation. The moment will slip by in seconds, leaving you to the ever-widening spiral of replays while the rest of the class moves on, your professor completely unaware of the effect of what they said, and you will feel silenced.
Once, my professor was teaching us about the formation of suburbs, and how initially they were created as white-only neighborhoods. Being the only non-white student in the class, he casually said, “Yeah, Naomi, you wouldn’t have been able to live there.” I sat there as every pair of eyes in the room unwillingly drew toward me then flicked away in awkwardness, feeling shocked at the way his comment made me feel oppressed under the racial power dynamics of the room.
Step six. Find your voice again. Preparing to go to class can feel a lot like preparing to leap off the blocks at a swim meet; your heart starts racing, your joints start to feel weak, and when you dive in the shock of the cold water triggers your body’s flight mode and all you can do is swim because the faster you go the faster it will all be over. You don’t always have to call your professors out on their BS directly to their face; sometimes your presence can be enough of a protest when the system in place ceaselessly seeks to batter you into thinking that your voice doesn’t matter.
Despite the fact that you feel as though you’re voluntarily drowning, never stop climbing up the steps of the blocks. There’s no doubt that you belong up there and one day, someone just like you will follow the wake of your bubbles.