Oppressions

I want to share this poem with everyone who is reading this.










WHEN I WAS GROWING UP

Nellie Wong

I know now that once I longed to be white. How? you ask. Let me tell you the ways. when I was growing up, people told me I was dark and I believed my own darkness in the mirror, in my soul, my own narrow vision. when I was growing up, my sisters with fair skin got praised for their beauty and I fell further, crushed between high walls. when I was growing up, I read magazines and saw movies, blonde movie stars, white skin, sensuous lips and to be elevated, to become a woman, a desirable woman, I began to wear imaginary pale skin. when I was growing up, I was proud of my English, my grammar, my spelling, fitting into the group of smart children, smart Chinese children, fitting in, belonging, getting in line. when I was growing up and went to high school, I discovered the rich white girls, a few yellow girls, their imported cotton dresses, their cashmere sweaters, their curly hair and I thought that I too should have what these lucky girls had. when I was growing up, I hungered for American food, American styles coded: white and even to me, a child born of Chinese parents, being Chinese was feeling foreign, was limiting, was unAmerican. when I was growing up and a white man wanted to take me out, I thought I was special, an exotic gardenia, anxious to fit the stereotype of an oriental chick when I was growing up, I felt ashamed of some yellow men, their small bones, their frail bodies, their spitting on the streets, their coughing, their lying in sunless rooms shooting themselves in the arms. when I was growing up, people would ask If I were Filipino, Polynesian, Portuguese. They named all colors except white, the shell of my soul but not my rough dark skin. when I was growing up, I felt dirty. I thought that god made white people clean and no matter how much I bathed, I could not change, I could not shed my skin in the gray water. when I was growing up, I swore I would run away to purple mountains, houses by the sea with nothing over my head, with space to breathe, uncongested with yellow people in an area called Chinatown, in an area I later learned was a ghetto, one of many hearts of Asian America. I know now that once I longed to be white. How many more ways? you ask. Haven't I told you enough?

Since I am a minority here in the US, so I ask myself, how did I feel I was living here in the US?

During my last 3 years living in the US as an asian male, I was surprised that so many Americans came to me and expected that (a) I am good at Math (b) My major is Business or Engineering (c) I eat rice everyday.

However, I failed to meet all these expectations form them.
First, I am NOT good at Math. I didn't finish high school and I supposed to have 2 years Math to take. But I skipped 2 years of High-school and went directly to a college in the US. I got a B in Math for Liberal Arts at a public college (the easiest class that everyone got an A/A-) and also a D- in Calculus, and I still remember I got a 37/100 in my final. Compared to American students, I am bad at Math.

Second, I can't study science with my Math skills and I didn't even interested in studying Business anymore. I still remember how it felt being the only asian student in a History class during my 1st year of college.

Plus, I do not eat rice every day. I only had rice like once /week even I was in Asia. I prefer pasta and noodle.

I feel like Americans had been labeled Asians in many ways and it seemed to me that we were all the same to most Americans. But we are NOT. And this kind of wrong beliefs have made us to limited ourselves sometimes and maybe wasting our times to overcome problems that it bought to us.

I remember pretty much all my asian or asian-american friends told me that- If you can't get into UC Berkeley, UCLA, or not even USC, people would think you are a stupid asian (at least all asians would think so). And that's why UCB has more asians student than white students, because all asians (especially for those in California) are expected to get accepted to UCB. The society is making us to 'adjust' and 'be part of the norms'. While all my Hong Kong friends are going to UCB, USC, and UCLA happily and feel like being accepted by the asian community, I was the only one who choose not to attend any of those schools and this made my mother did not talk to me for 3 months. I had to goto the food bank a few times and was homeless for the whole summer. See how much you will suffer from these kind of expectation?

I would say, all my asian friends are very hard-working, and they try very hard to overcome how others look at them but still adjust themselves to meet some of their expectations that others have.