The cost of striving for “model minority”
Learning silence as a second language
I have several memories of people blaming me for being out of touch with my Japanese roots. One was a gym coach, the classic kind with a buzz-cut who wore sunglasses on our indoor basketball courts, carried a whistle around his neck and chewed gum as he told me, at 11 years old, that I didn’t “seem” Japanese. Another was a geeky college teaching assistant who, after unsolicitedly sharing his infatuation with anime, told me I should learn Japanese because “it’s actually quite a beautiful language.” Another was an online date, a casino card dealer who looked like a vampire and said my last name was interesting to him, but that he was disappointed I wasn’t “more Japanese.”
I think there are more memories, but like any good, model minority, I’ve repressed most of them so that I could continue to ogle white men without feeling affliction.
Now with increasing anti-Asian violence, my good ole American sadness and rage are bubbling up and winning over the motherland quiet. How’s that for patriotism?
