“Fruits are exotic. Humans are not.”
“To many people here, I look “exotic,” and when they find out that I’m from Guam, my “exoticism” increases. However, I’m not exotic. I’m a human being. Fruits are exotic. Humans are not.
This hasn’t been the only time that I’ve experienced something like this during my time at Princeton so far. I’ve heard, “What’s it like to be from a ‘territory?’ ” and “Have you ever heard about [insert big-name U.S. company]?” and, the most invasive of all, “What are you?” What am I? I’m a human being and a Princeton student, just like you.”
"How is your English so good?" I was confused by these words. I've never heard them before - not addressed toward me…dailyprincetonian.com
Not sure how I feel about the term ‘exotic’ in any geographic context. Also thinking about the ways we are taught how to engage with racial/ethnic difference. I think that a lot of people don’t engage because they recognize that the only lessons they have ever had are problematic, and there isn’t a clear and immediate and straightforward place to go to learn new lessons. I think that the lessons we have — define, define, celebrate — are from things like those terrible 90s textbooks that always had a group of friends who were each defined by their nationality/race/religion except for the white American Christian who was the cheerful one in the wheelchair. And like Sesame Street which had to start at ‘be aware of the existence of this way of being’ which was all about having people explain themselves and their histories to an audience. And then once they were defined, there was some sort of food- or maybe dance-based event.
It’s a shitty model if you are the one being stared at and asked to explain yourself with your racial/ethnic makeup — particularly when there is a loss of interest once that race-related confusion is satisfied and an absence of further questions, after such an invasive moment, about any of the other (if perhaps less entertainingly exotic) parts of who you are. And the weird moments later on when you realize that some people didn’t ask further questions because your race/ethnicity/nationality/… activated some unconscious stereotype-based narrative that filled in the rest of their perceptions about your life.
