A Few Thoughts About Race

Mara here: With everything going on in the U.S., I have been pondering writing a blog about race for a while. I haven’t done it previously because it’s obviously a hot button issue. And race is not something I want to get into a heated discussion with anybody about.

But I have a unique perspective on race because I am an Asian woman who was adopted into a family of Caucasian people. I have no underlying identity with Asian culture. All the people I had as role models growing up were white. My family, my friends, celebrities, politicians—for the most part they were all white. And I grew up in a small town in Northern California that was mostly a white community. 

I grew up wishing I was the same as everyone else. That meant I grew up wishing I was Caucasian.

I know it pains my parents to hear that. But if they thought it would somehow be different, they were kidding themselves.

It’s human nature to want what we don’t have. People with straight hair want curly hair. People who are skinny wish they weren’t as skinny. People who struggle with their weight would give anything to be skinny—even if it’s too skinny. People with freckles don't want freckles, and now people who don't have freckles are getting fake freckles tattooed on their faces.

So even my Caucasian friends wished they were different in some way from how they were.

But it ran deeper for me. I was Asian in a sea of Caucasians. And I was adopted at a time when adoption was not common—especially inter-racial adoption.

I spent all of my adolescence wanting to be the same as my friends. I didn’t want people asking me questions. I didn’t want people to think I was strange. I foolishly spent a lot of years thinking that if I did this or did that, maybe people wouldn’t notice I wasn’t like them. I spent a lot of years trying not to do things that seemed too Asian because I wanted others to realize that I wasn’t different from them.

Obviously that never worked. And the end result was simply more confusion and isolation. I spent a huge amount of energy on a goal that was pointless.

What I didn’t realize was that what I was trying to achieve was impossible, not because I’m Asian, but because I’m human. No teenager growing up feels secure. No teenager walks through a crowd of people thinking they are like everyone else. And while being a different race exacerbated those feelings, I know now that I was not unique in feeling insecure.

But I didn’t know that then. I blamed all my insecurities on my race.

That said, some of my difficulties can be blamed on race because race is not nothing. We are not a race-blind society, even as much as people with kind hearts wish it were true.

Growing up as a non-white person in America is hard. Not like third-world country hard—I didn't have to sew garments in a factory from the age of six. So, not hard like that. But it was hard nonetheless.

I don’t remember exactly when I became conscious of the concept of race. But I do remember not getting to be in The Sound of Music because I wouldn’t look like the rest of the family being cast in the show. I remember being told I could never play Annie because Annie’s not Asian. I remember someone telling me during PE in junior high that I was flexible because Chinese people are flexible (I'm Korean). I remember being told that the prettiest girls are blonde with blue eyes, and on and on…

Race is still an issue for me because it comes up a lot. I'm not saying that people of color in this country have to deal with racism every day. What I'm saying is that even if we're not being threatened or abused, we're faced with constant reminders that we are considered different. And most of the time, different means not as good.

Race relations have come a long way in a short time in this country, and I’m sure what I experienced in the 1980s and later is nothing compared to the generations before me. And I know that my experience as an Asian person from a Caucasian family was not as hard compared to what many African American people experience in this country.

But here are a few things I’ve experienced and still experience on a regular basis:

“Are you Chinese?”
“Do you speak Chinese?”
“Do you eat Chinese food all the time?”
“Do you do Karate?”
People randomly speaking foreign languages to me.
People saying “Chink” to me or around me.
People pulling at the corners of their eyes to make fun of me.
“You must be really good at math.”
 “Asian people are good at school.”
“I like Asian girls.”
“Aren’t Asian girls usually skinny?”
“Where are you from?”
“I mean really where are you from?”
“Wow, you speak English so well?”
“What are you?” (They’re asking whether I’m Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc. but this is how it’s phrased.)

And here’s when I am acutely aware of my race:

When I’m in public—all the time. Unless I am at home, I am almost always aware of being Asian.

That’s because things that bring my attention to being Asian can come out of nowhere. I can simply be walking around in the grocery store, and one of those questions or comments I just listed can come out of nowhere. 

Recently, I was getting breakfast at a hotel buffet when an older man told me I spoke English very well. Out of the blue. Zing, right to my heart. So I’m always prepared.

Sometimes I might hear something that’s not even directed at me but makes me acutely aware that being anything not-white is considered different. People saying negative things about any race around me makes me realize that there are a large number of people who think white people are superior. And even if they don’t think they’re superior, it’s just who they prefer. It’s who they’re comfortable around.

This means that they aren’t comfortable around me even though they don’t even know me. I'm already put in a defensive position around them. And the most pathetic part of it is that they don’t realize I would have done anything to be white, like somehow I chose to be Asian because being Asian seemed so much better.

Not everyone who isn't Caucasian feels this way. I feel this way because my family was white. Everyone I knew and loved was white. It was all I knew. I didn’t know any other Asian people. The few who were around our town were not American. They spoke with accents and ate strange foods. I felt different from them even though they were Asian. I felt white. Asian culture was foreign and strange to me. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror it was such a disappointment to realize I could never make the outside of me match what I felt on the inside.

The term white privilege has been thrown around a lot recently. And it has a lot of connotations that are associated with power or wealth. But for me white privilege means you don’t have to think about being white. You don’t have to wonder if people won’t like you because you’re white. You don’t have to wonder if your friends’ parents are going to get that brief but unmistakable look of surprise in their eyes when you meet them for the first time. It means you don’t have to wonder if you didn’t get that job because of your race. It means you don’t have to worry about walking into the strange bar and wonder if someone is going to say something awful to you.

It means not having to worry about meeting your future husband’s parents after you find out that they’re from the South. And even if they act like they’re okay with you, will they actually be okay? It means not having to be nervous about meeting your future husband’s grandparents because they live in Tennessee and that terrifies you. And it means not being worried about going to your now husband’s family reunion in Nashville because you know you will be the only non-white person there.

That was my reality in the early years of my relationship with Brad.

It turned out that his grandparents were wonderful to me, and I came to love them very much. But they were an older generation from the South. They used words they shouldn’t. Brad's “Big Daddy,” as everyone had called, him fought in World War II and was angry at the Japanese.

So I worried—would he associate me with being Japanese simply because I was Asian? Would he say things in front of me that I didn’t want to hear? What would I do? How would I react? If they treated me badly, would my husband stand up for me and defend me?

I didn’t know.

I came to love Brad's grandparents as part of my own family. In fact, I love his whole family dearly. And I probably didn’t have to worry so much. But I did. Because things have happened before.

And that’s not something my husband—being a WASPy Caucasion man—has ever had to worry about. It doesn’t even occur to him that I have to worry about these things. And it never crossed his mind to worry about dating me because of what his family might think.

But he has that luxury.

So that’s what I think about when I hear white privilege. It simply means that people who are white in this country have the choice to think about race or not think about it. They can say, "don't worry."

I have to worry.

I have to worry when there are public leaders who are racist. I have to worry when policies in this country appear to be limiting people's rights.

Because when they're talking about not wanting foreigners, not wanting immigrants...how far will it go before people are telling me that I don't belong here? I wasn't born here. Sure, I didn't choose to come here, but that doesn't matter to some people. There are people who think that African Americans should go back to Africa even though their families have lived here for generations. They were brought here against their will, built much of this country with their blood and sweat, and there are still people saying they don't belong here.

And it's not a small number of people who feel this way. It's millions.

I have friends who want to brush off my concerns, saying that stringent immigration policies would never apply to me, and I shouldn't worry. But that's because they have the luxury to assume everything will be all right. Because nobody will ever tell them they don't belong here.

I feel as if I have lived a bit of a split life. I was raised in a white family, but I don't have a white face. When I'm apart from my family, people assume things about me because of how I look. And I don’t even have an Asian-sounding name to indicate to people that I am not white. People hear my name (both my maiden and married names) and/or hear my voice on the phone and assume I’m Caucasian. There’s often an uncomfortable moment of surprise when I meet people for the first time, where I can tell they’re figuring out that my name doesn’t match my face. It doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but I have often been greeted with, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Asian” (accompanied by uncomfortable laughter).
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And as much I've had to deal with not being white in America, I wonder what other non-white people go through. Because let’s face it, I’m one of the whitest non-white people I know. I don’t identify with Asian culture at all. I am culturally and behaviorally as “American as white bread” as they come. I don’t have any Asian cultural history or influences. Yeah, I like Hello Kitty, but I think that’s because most girls like Hello Kitty.

With the benefit of age I am slowly but surely starting to come to accept myself. I no longer avoid Asian-ish related things in an effort not to bring attention to the fact I’m Asian.

I care less now what other people think. And I’ve also realized that other people aren’t as worried about me as I am worried about myself, so I’m sure many people aren’t noticing me at all, which is comforting.

Honestly, that’s all I’ve wanted most of my life. To just not be noticed in the crowd—to be like everyone else.

I know I will still hear hurtful things. I know people will still say stupid things to me. But it’s fine. People say stupid things to everyone. And nobody’s life is without hurt.

That’s the ultimate lesson that I’ve learned. We all want to be happy. We all want to be accepted. We all want to be loved.

In the most important ways, we are all the same.

***

Mara's mom here. I went back and forth on whether to add to Mara's piece because it's such a powerful essay and definitely stands on its own. But, here I am, with a few things to say. 

First, reading this didn't make me feel guilty as a parent—I'm fortunate that guilt is not something that's part of my emotional repertoire. That said, I want to apologize to Mara for assuming that she wasn't struggling with being Asian just because we lived in a liberal and progressive town (although a predominately white one), and just because I thought love was all that mattered. It never occurred to me to ask her if she was encountering any difficulties growing up here. After reading this piece, now I wish I had.

In fact, I'm suddenly feeling naive about the state of race relations in this country in general, especially after watching the events in Charlottesville. And not just race relations, but prejudice against people based on their religion or their country of birth. Even in this liberal town of mine, we're dealing with a recent incident of anti-semitism, something that I thought, in California at least, had been left behind years ago. (My parents were faced with anti-semitism in the 1950s in Los Angeles, both at some restaurants and when they tried to buy a house there, but I've personally never experienced it.)

And so, Mara, I wish I had been more aware of the fact that you were being raised in a white family and that almost everyone around you was white. Part of the reason I may not have paid attention to it is that my brother was adopted—as a white baby into a white family—and so the issue of race didn't arise with him. As a result, with Mara, I focused on joy of adoption...not on her experience of being the only Asian in a sea of white faces. 

I have a lot more I could say, but I'll restrict myself to one other thing. I want to comment on Mara's explanation of white privilege. It's the first time it's been explained in a way resonates with me. Prior to reading her piece, I'd balked at the phrase because I never felt privileged to be white. 

But Mara nailed it. White privilege means that I have the privilege of not having to think about race when I go to a restaurant or a store. I have the privilege of not wondering if I didn't get a job because I wasn't white. I have the privilege of not wondering if I wasn't rented an place to live because I wasn't white (something I recently learned happened to my African American daughter-in-law, Bridgett, resulting in my son having to find apartments for them when they lived a conservative community in southern California). 

So now, I get it. I get it Mara. I get it Bridgett. Love may not be enough but it's what I have to give and I love both of you with all my heart and would do anything for you. I think you both know that.

Mara (with her mom and brother) becomes a U.S. citizen at the Federal Courthouse in Sacramento