I’m still a foreigner in my own country
It wasn’t too long ago that my family and I visited Japan. I have always been fascinated by the culture and wanted to experience it with my family.
During the trip, my Chinese American wife says to me “Isn’t it kind of nice to see so many people that look like us?”
I agreed because I knew what she was really saying. It wasn’t a comment about the homogenous nature of the country. In this foreign country, my wife who was born in California and I who has spent the last 40 years as an immigrant often felt more welcome and at home than in our own country.
I was taught to follow the rules. That it wasn’t my place to speak up. That protesters were troublemakers. It was my job to adapt and fit in. To find success within the confines of the system and not complain. And never ever complain.
As I ventured outside my circle and especially beginning when I left home from college, I began to learn how shielded I really was. That the acceptance I knew or perceived often didn’t go past certain county lines.
You learn quickly that without these safeguards, the country you venerate may not be as recognizable as the one you believed to exist. Your skin becomes to appear more brown as your social acceptance also begins to fade. You realize that the color of the skin of the company you keep will often determine whether you get prompt service or whether you are sat in the back of the restaurant while your glass of water remains perpetually dry. Refills after all are prioritized for the white clientele at this local diner.
As I grew more aware and less silent, my veneration for all things American also dissipated. Belonging was and always has been an illusion. Toleration is granted only when silent.
One begins to look at our experiences thru a different lens. And you begin to ask questions:
Why was it that I wasn’t able to keep my original name? So what if someone at immigration thought it was “too confusing”. I waited years and swore fealty to a nation that would treat me as a second class citizen while passing a test that many of its own native born citizens could not.
Did my friends and I deserve to be threatened by police during a sobriety test on a night we didn’t drink? Or get pulled over because “the car looked suspicious?”
I’ve been called names you would expect as an Asian American. Some are almost laughable in their inaccuracies and assumptions.
The more recent events and focus on Asian hate has made me more aware. Aware of my own complacency. I am part of the larger Asian cultural silence that has allowed this behavior to perpetuate.
Like this country, I am a work in progress: flawed but improving; demanding and no longer just hoping for a sense of a belonging.
