“My Eyes Are Open” — Eunwoo Kim
TPT Essay Contest Winner
“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us — that’s where it’s at.” — Jesse Owens
Describe a time in which you saw or experienced a struggle/injustice. What was your biggest takeaway from the event?
Reality check: growing up as a part of a minority group in America often means that you grow up prepared to face injustice. Of course, my experience as a Korean immigrant is not exempt from this. In fact, at a young age, I would see Asian accents and languages being ridiculed on TV and wonder what it was about my language that warranted a laughing track after it was heard. Was it the way that the letters would roll off my tongue slightly differently than everyone else? Was it the language itself or the people who spoke it that would differentiate us so much from other Americans, simply for using our mother tongue? The more I thought about it, the less I understood. This was especially true when I first began to consume American media in preparation for assimilating with my American peers after immigrating from South Korea. These bright TV shows that were supposed to show me the most exciting, notable facets of life in America did nothing but belittle me for my accent and ethnicity, stifling my voice and rendering me silent.
However, when I did start going to my American elementary school, I felt assured that my worries of being made fun of for having such an obvious Korean accent would be largely for naught. Our school had a large Korean population within an even larger Asian population, meaning that I could converse with my friends in Korean without concerning myself with the judgment of others. And so my life in America progressed with the early-made assumption that I would not have to worry about racial injustice of any sort coming my way.
Although I witnessed many instances of severe racism against Asians on the internet as I grew older, I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was something that I could not possibly come across myself — after all, everyone told me that California was the most diverse, accepting state of them all. If I was complaining about racism here, I should try living somewhere else and see how that goes. As such, I dismissed any remarks that made me feel uneasy or undermined, essentially blinding myself to the displays of casual racism I was the victim of throughout my childhood.
The encounter that led me to realize that racism is a part of my reality was in middle school, at my local Starbucks. I was engaging in a casual conversation with two of my Korean friends from school about some of the newest shows we were watching. As we giddily began to walk the distance from Starbucks to the library, drinks in hand, we were suddenly stopped by a loud outburst from a woman we had not noticed before.
She began to laugh at us and imitate our words by speaking in gibberish, clearly mocking the fact that we were conversing in Korean. Images of the internet articles I had scrolled through and dismissed so readily came flooding into my mind as I suddenly found that I was struggling to breathe. All three of us hesitantly continued to walk at a faster pace, exchanging quick glances but otherwise left completely speechless. It was only after minutes of walking that we began to discuss what had just occurred.
“Was that because we were speaking Korean?” I asked in a small voice, looking down at the bumpy gravel I was dragging my shoes on.
“Yeah,” my friend was walking resoundingly forward, but her fists were clenched. “I think it was.”
“I didn’t even realize what happened until right now,” the other friend said shakily, laughing a little, “I didn’t think that would ever happen so outright.”
My steps faltered as I clenched my jaw and bit the inside of my cheek, still looking downwards. I had been no louder in the face of racism than I was as a child, shamed by stereotypes presented to me through a bright screen.
“Let’s go back,” My voice was quivering but forceful, and my friends had also stopped in their tracks to look at me. “We should say something, at least. Wasn’t that messed up?”
So we marched, trembling with anxious anticipation, drinks now almost finished after a few short minutes of nervous sipping, making our way towards the chair outside of Starbucks where we last saw the woman. I had a plethora of responses swarming my head, ranging from uncontained rage to coolly logical verbal sparring.
When we arrived, however, the seat was completely vacant. The woman was nowhere in sight, and somehow, her vacancy was what angered me most of all. As we trudged back to the library with our shoulders slumped, I felt as though I had let the woman win.
“Hey Eunwoo,” I found that I truly couldn’t look my friend in the eye, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know that I could.”
The utter defeat and humiliation that came with my lack of ability to speak out, a trait that I had usually prided myself in, cloaked me in shame. I kept revisiting the exact moment that I continued to walk instead of confronting the woman — the brief halt in our footsteps, the way we looked at each other in uncertainty, then went about our way with a new burden weighing in our hearts. At the same time, I was absolutely devastated by what I had already known all along: the feigned ignorance I used as a shield that served to protect me from the harsh truths of being a minority in America could not — did not — hold up against the piercing glare that was reality.
The times that my elementary school friends asked me to repeat a certain word that was difficult to say just for their amusement, the way that people said the word ‘Asian’ like they were speaking of vermin, and the way that the adult authorities in my life would casually subscribe to Asian stereotypes seemed all too clear to me now for what they were: not friendly banter, not harmless jokes between friends, but racism. How had I let myself believe that just because I was surrounded by Asians, racism would not be able to penetrate my life as it had done to countless others?
Now I could see the horrifying instances in which I had let others ridicule me; just as Asian accents aroused laughter in the TV shows I had watched as a child, the same experiences were echoed throughout my childhood. The issue persisted in my mind, causing my cheeks to redden in belated embarrassment — there might as well have been a giant laughing track to denote the entirety of my adolescence and all the mufflers in the world could not stop it from piercing my ears, no matter how much I wished they could.
I am still grateful to have been able to surround myself with those who share my culture throughout my life. It certainly played a huge role in my adapting to life in America and helped me keep sight of my heritage even as the years flew by. I am also not blind to my privilege of experiencing less racism than others to the extent that I was able to close my eyes to it for the better part of my childhood. However, the idea that racism only occurs in large, news-worthy cases spread across the internet or that places populated with minority groups can’t still perpetuate racism is harmful. Just because a state, city, town, or school is diverse does not mean that the issue of racism doesn’t need to be addressed.
In actuality, racism, prejudice, and injustice exist in a variety of forms fitting for a country that has such a long history of discrimination. Even acts of casual racism that can be dismissed when brought up, invalidated when protested, and ignored when argued, are a huge part of why minorities feel unsafe in this country. We cannot continue to uphold the false narrative that racism in places like California can be dismissed as an overreaction solely because other states are even less accepting — it is undeniably harmful, especially to minority children who have been taught to invalidate their own experiences and suck it up, prohibiting them from learning of their ability to advocate for themselves.
Nowadays, whenever I see a harmful Asian stereotype on TV, I go on social media and speak out about it. I’ve learned to challenge underlying assumptions behind the racist language used commonly by those who wrongly believe that I will remain idle whilst they antagonize my heritage. I use my voice to advocate in any way I can for the travesties I and others face through our daily lives; any and all injustices must be discussed, not merely looked over depending on the degree of the offense. After all these years, I know I can speak, and I expect to be heard.
