The cost of striving for “model minority”

Learning silence as a second language

Photo credit: CBS News New York / The Atlantic

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?

“Love this country for its promise, not its practice.”