You Just Gotta Grow a Pair

Ironically, race is a touchy subject in my family. Yes, my family: the family with a hodgepodge of cultures and people that you would never think go together but do. My brother and I were raised to be very self-aware of our race and how that could affect those around us. Why should any 10-year-old, Asian or not, have to worry about how their race affects others? Well, because my parents’ generation learned the hard way. Their parents didn’t warn them about racism; everyone was grateful to be “living the American dream” at that point. And a parent’s job is to prepare their child for the potential dangers they’ll experience in the real world. That preparation was essentially to grow a pair.

Last summer, I realized that not everyone in America acknowledged the extent of racism in this country until Black Lives Matter protests began to take place throughout the country. This was shocking to me. It appalled me that families didn’t have regular conversations about racism at the dinner table. For us, it was a weekly check-in to see if we had any new stories to share with each other, like when my mom got the eat shit and die look from this lady at Costco during the height of the pandemic. People don’t usually talk about that on the reg? That’s crazy bro.

THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH

A question for you, whether you’re Asian or not: how did you learn that Asians were good at math? Can you remember one particular person telling you this, or was it an unspoken fact generated by a comment from some kid you went to grade school with? Maybe even a teacher? Was it from one particular situation that involved one of the few Asian kids in your whole school? You can’t remember, can you? I don’t remember either, but news flash: Asian people being good at math or extremely intelligent is a stereotype, and stereotypes are no bueno, even if they are “good” ones.

Why can’t you remember where you learned that from? Why can’t I, as an Asian-American, distinctly remember where I learned that from? If I had to guess, some kid in elementary school said something to me about the relation between Asians and good math skills, and I went home that day and I asked my mom about it, and my mom probably had my cousins elaborate on it because I listened to them more. Regardless, you not being able to remember where you learned this stereotype proves my point that society creates stereotypes, and we unknowingly or knowingly persist them because we do not know how to effectively negate them. This is part of the model minority myth.

The myth is an invisible force that reinforces discrimination against minorities in the United States. It describes how the “model minority” of Asian Americans is able to successfully live out the apparent American dream to its full potential, proving the American dream is achievable to all people that come to the United States, not just white American people. But as history has shown, this claim is untrue because there’s something called systemic racism that creates unequal opportunities for many minorities, particularly black people. The term was first used during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, in which white people argued why the “problem minority” (Black Americans) couldn’t amount to the same successes as the “model minority” (https://www.instagram.com/p/CBV-7TEhMxh/, @jocekittyllama). Not only does it belittle Black Americans, but it discredits the existence of white privilege, undermines the experience of racism by minorities in the US, and drives a wedge between Asian and Black Americans.

ASIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

I have been told on numerous occasions, “At least Asians get a good stereotype, they’re good at math.” This drove me INSANE, because you know what other stereotypes I got? I’m obedient and submissive, I’m a bad driver, I’m Buddhist, all karate-type noises are associated with me, I’m automatically Chinese (even though I am, this stereotype is problematic as it groups all Asian Americans into one category while there are hundreds of different Asian ethnicities), I eat cats and dogs, I play piano and probably the violin while I’m at it, I’m uncomfortable around black people, and more recently, I brought the coronavirus to the United States because I hate this country, obviously. There’s no such thing as a good stereotype because they all result in prejudice and discrimination.

So, how many of these stereotypes actually apply to me? Well, if you know me, I don’t think I would use the words ‘obedient’ and ‘submissive’ to describe me, the level of my driving skills are subjective depending on who you talk to, I’m Catholic, I’ve never done karate, I wouldn’t know what a cat or dog tastes like, I played the piano and quit because I wasn’t very good at it let alone picked up a violin, I’m not even going to argue this one if you know how I grew up, and I’ve never been to China.

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If any of these statements are making you uncomfortable then good, you’re learning. Now, imagine coping with all of this in grade school, without enough intelligence or experience to process these thoughts and emotions caused by people perceiving you before you even open your damn mouth. My dad taught Braden and me to not take ourselves too seriously. That way, these kinds of remarks become water off a duck’s back. Be the bigger person. Have the thicker skin. Our older cousins taught us to divert the negative connotations of these comments into jokes, like, “You think my eyes are squinty, well at least I don’t have to pay extra for widescreen movies” (back when DVD’s were a thing and widescreen versions were more expensive than fullscreen ones). These tactics worked, but eventually, suppressing all of this for so long inevitably builds up until it explodes.

I don’t want to tell my kids to grow a pair when they encounter racist people. They shouldn’t have to experience racism to begin with. Previous generations were taught that because there was no other way to solve the problem at hand. But if we say we truly want to make this world a better place for future generations because previous generations have aided in our dying planet, then social activism is no exception to this category.

I might continue to not take myself seriously, but I’ll take what I do seriously, and activism is a never-ending, evolving process that requires us to take seriously.