Why do you ask?
Is it your curiosity in the ‘origin of my features’?
Is it your fascination for ‘other’ cultures and what they have to offer you?Why do you desire to establish an exact definition of my difference?
Why do you assume I desire, and am able, to define this difference to you?Do you show the same interest in determining the ‘ethnic make-up’ of every white face that you see?
Isn’t everyone from somewhere?
Do you not have a heritage?
Why does whiteness make yours invisible yet my brownness make mine subject to your anthropological investigation?Do you believe that I should be delighted to personally inform and educate you?
Do you think it is my responsibility to know, and always be ready to impart, the details of my cultural heritage?
Do you apply these same standards to yourself?Why do you assume that I’d love to reminisce about what my family, or I, left to come here?
Did it not cross your mind that we may have left for good reasons that I do not wish to reminisce about, especially with a stranger?Do you believe your curiosity is commendable?
Do you think I should be grateful for your ‘tolerance’ and interest in ‘diversity’?Do you believe this is YOUR country to welcome me to?
While brownness prompts
“Where are you from?”
Your whiteness prompts
“What do you do?”
You wish to define me by my physicality but you expect to be defined by your actions and your intellect.Have you travelled the world and been asked the same question?
It is not the same experience in a place where you had expected to be treated as a visitor.
Perhaps your whiteness provided a fascination, but wasn’t it also exalted?
Weren’t you still treated like a speaker at a podium?
Or don’t you see this because you are so used to being heard from that position?Do you not realise that in expecting to discuss my brownness as subject of your fascination you position me as an exotic curio on a pedestal?
Do you think I wish to be a talking doll, spilling my secrets each time yet another curious child pulls my cord demanding that I politely answer your question?
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A struggling artist trying to make it. Sometimes I'll indulge in fandom amidst artwork postings and sketches. Actually most of the time. Also, I apparently have a lot of feelings about racism and sexism.
Current shows I'm watching are Nikita, Hawaii Five-O, The Walking Dead, Elementary, probably more to come as long as people of color are represented.
Anti white washing, anti white privilege, anti racism, anti sexism, anti all other isms...people just need to be decent people.
There’s a lot of Cho Chang discussion on my dash right now and I’ve always had really mixed feelings about her?
On the one hand, I liked that there was an actually Asian character in Harry Potter who wasn’t The Token Asian and whose Asian-ness was their defining trait, and that she wasn’t exotified as the Hot Asian Chick with long silky~ Asian hair, and nor did Harry or Cedric seem to fall for her because of some Asian fetishism. I LOVED that when we’re first introduced to her, the main thing we learn about her is that she’s a Quidditch player, because how often does an Asian character, let alone a female one, get written as an athlete rather than a nerd? She was in the DA and actively rebelled against her parents who told her NOT to go against Umbridge, and she fought at the Battle of Hogwarts and survived. That’s pretty fucking awesome when Asian characters barely exist in the media, let alone having all that good stuff happen.
On the other hand, JKR definitely fucked up some things as well. And the pseudo-Asian name that doesn’t make much sense if you look at actual East Asian cultures is the least of them. The biggest to me though, is how JKR even outright said that she wrote Cho to be a character set up to make Ginny look better as Harry’s love interest, though I don’t have the quote on-hand right now. I mean, that’s fucked-up on a gender level in terms of pitting women against each other over a man and using women as plot devices, and also fucked up on an extra racial level to use a WOC as the inferior foil to a white woman and to make her look better.
But those are issues I have with JKR herself as the actual writer rather than Cho herself? IDK Cho gets so much shit from random for sexist and racist reasons that while I’m all for calling out JKR on her problematic things, I’m also not going to totally dismiss Cho herself when she already gets that a lot and there aren’t many Asians in popular Western media, let alone having any positive traits, period.
(via thewayistare)
Connie S Chan, “Asian American Women and Adolescent Girls: Sexuality and Sexual Expression.”
It’s so weird finding a paragraph in your reading that essentially captures your entire adolescence.
(via thatisnotfeminism)
My entire life. This paragraph.
(Source: , via gaobibaituo)
By distancing herself from other Vietnamese, Hannah suggests that the negative images of Vietnamese perpetuated in the majority culture do not apply to her. She reveals that her perceptions have been shaped by the internalization of derogatory notions of her ethnic group. Asked about these stereotypes, Hannah views coethnics as confirmatory examples. She said
It doesn’t bother me because a lot of Vietnamese people I’ve seen are like that, at least from my high school. That’s why I believed it so I didn’t want to be a part of it. I didn’t want to be associated with that.
As these cases illustrate, the assimilated and biculturals rely on intraethnic othering and the social borders they generate to telegraph their cultural affiliation with the white-dominated mainstream. Border crossing carries the risk of being misidenified and denigrated as a “FOB,” or a foreigner, and having one’s Americanized status go unrecognized. In fact, the assimilated were more likely than the ethnically traditional to describe the risks of border crossing as shame, embarrassment, and downward social mobility. This mirrors the racial hierarchy of the larger societ, with higher status accorded those who are aligned with whites.
"(Source: optimistic-red-velvet-walrus, via fascinasians)
same girl, same story. I’m having a lot of fun doing these short comics with Lydia
Single Girl, Asian Daughter
shoutout to the lovely Connie Sun, who unfortunately doesn’t have Tumblr (someone posted this from her website)—but you should all go show your love and appreciation at her blog, which is listed above!
I apologize to all my high school API/immigrant parent followers who live in the hopes that after you get into a good school you will finally be liberated
OH MY GOD I JUST EMAILED THIS TO MY DAD AND HE REPLIED WITH THIS IMAGE DAD PLS
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(via gaobibaituo)
In Shanghai, my boyfriend, a white American, looked like just another foreigner taking home an Asian woman — me — like a souvenir.
This is a good read, y’all.
(via lady-jei)
Just Kidding Films know how it goes.
(Source: ithink-weshouldrunaway, via lady-jei)
“These incidents may appear small, banal and trivial, but we’re beginning to find they assail the mental health of recipients.”
-Sue et. al , 2007
If white people would even admit any of the stuff on this list was racist my life would be easier.http://www.olc.edu/~jolson/socialwork/OnlineLibrary/microaggression%20article.pdf
I am so saving this shit.
I was asked where I am from (for the umpteenth time) at starbucks today, and it annoyed me more than usual.
(Source: youngbadmangone, via lady-jei)
