Alexmom, glad you hightailed it outta of there when you had the chance. Do your parents still reside there? You've had alot more experiences than I have-i.e. KKK infested hometown, stint in Afganistan, move to Chicago etc. I live in the Bay Area and over here a person could just hang around their ethnic enclave if they wanted to. What was the percentage of Asians and mixed people in your old hometown? You came out of your experiences strong and resilient.[/quote
Mostly white where I grew up, a few blacks, a smattering of Puerto Ricans and following that....a few Asian people.Mostly asian wives of former military servicemen. So there really weren't alot of fullblooded asian kids my age. There were a few mixed asians at my school but most of them pretended to be either hispanic (since there were more of them...you know the saying-safety in numbers) or those that could pass for white did. I couldn't get away with doing that.
Sometimes I wonder how my outlook would be had I lived in an area where people like me were the majority or at least the majority minority.
I remember looking at my exboyfriends yearbook. He went to Lane Tech high School in Chicago. THey had Vietnamese Club, FIlipino club, Korean Club...you name it they had it. I was so jealous! I would have loved to have blended in.
But hard to do when people toss garbage at you from their car and call you gook. Was a daily occurence - I kid you not.
Racism is alive and well. Whenever I hear Ea's say they never or hardly experienced racism it's beacause they probably already live in a diverse community, or they look ambiguous enough not to be harrassed,etc.
Yes sometimes I wish I had looked more mixed like alot of the girls here, and not because I want to be more pretty althought that would have been a plus...but so that I could have gotten through the day safely.
Looking Asian in some communities is equal to being live target practice. It would make me upset when other Ea's would see white people throwing things at me or calling me gook and they would look away. Sometimes, in a few cases they would join in. I remember when a group of white boys in my school trapped me in a hallway and tried to pull my pants down because one of their uncles said that "gooks were a good lay."
A half filipino/half white boy I knew passed me by and laughed when they were trying to grope me.
I ended up punching one of the guys and got away.
All this happened in the "safety" of a public school. This was not the only incident. They never picked on the black girls or the Puerto RIcan girls...because you better believe the black guys or Puerto RIcan guys would serve them some whoop ass. But asian looking girls?
Easy target.
The ea guys wouldn't defend one of their own because they didn't want people to know they were asian. And perhaps I don't blame them. They'd be next in line for target practice.
I remember telling a teacher , and one of the guys who had touched me inapporpriately said he would never do what i said. Later when i tried to tell other students he said I was making it up and he didn't have to force anyone. I was so Chinese looking that I had to begged to be raped to have anyone touch me.
All my high school peers did was laugh.
There were two guys that came to my defense when something similar occured a few days later when I got pulled down a stairwell. This white guy told them to stop harrassing me....turns out his grandmother was full blooded Filipino whereas I always thought he was Italian. He never told anyone else but me.
A few days later on my way to the bathroom, the same guys tried to corner me again. This time the guy that defended me was a senior. A huge black guy who was on the football team. He told them if he ever saw them touch me again he would f**k them over.
They never touched me again in that way.They did find other ways to harrass me though.
There was another Asian girl. I used to follow her around in secret to be sure they wouldnt' do the same and I would tell her what hallways or stairwells not to take. Once I saw the same group of guys about to do what they did to me. I popped out of a corner and told them to stop. Thus there energies became more focused on me and away from the other Asian girl. I felt I could properly fight them off better than the other Asian girl could. Plus they became disinterested in the other Asian girl because she would get scared and comply, she wasn't fighting....wheras I always fought. These guys liked it when I would fight back.
Really it's all about violence with boys like this. Not the whole sexual aspect of it.
They continued to harrass me until I graduated.
Yes I look more Asian...thus to many I look more like victim material.
I'd rather be ambiguous and have people ask "What are you" than having to wonder what halls to navigate so that I don't get my pants tore off.
One of the guys that used to harrass me and try to grope me amongst other things....while calling me slanty eyed c*nt and gook is now married to a Korean American woman and has children.
Maybe he became more openminded since he is now in an Interracial relationship and has biracial children . You think?