I am Asian. I am lucky enough that I am able to say it without being ashamed about it. I am proud to be Asian and I hope others are as well. But life wasn’t always this good, and it still isn’t the best that it could be. We had come a long way from earlier times when anyone who didn’t visibly have European descent, including people not a part of the AAPI community, was shoved into a box for people to look at and judge. These people were and are human, but not everyone saw them that way. 

“I saw people crying but I couldn’t understand why. Daddy said we were going on vacation.”

George Takei from “They Called Us Enemy”

These ideas were popularly exemplified during WWI and WWII when people were actually put behind closed walls not to be treated as a human should have been. “They Called Us Enemy” is a great manga that goes in-depth about the way the Japanese felt during WWI and why it is so impactful to the future to know their mistakes and to change their thinking. However, although apologies were accepted, nothing and no one could give justice to the events that actually happened in those cages during those years. And we as a society have moved far from that, but it is also far from perfect. I only fear that it never will be. 

Photo Cred: “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei

We are still in the cages that our ancestors were once in. It follows and traps us in expectations and stigmatized ideas that society has put on us. This absolutely goes further than the AAPI community but I will speak on my view of this. 

The walls people put around those who have Asian and Islander ancestry seem to be painted with pretty paper covering the cage with their comments that feel like a slap in the face. They think that their words are kind and that they don’t have any different feelings toward us than any other person. But their words are just reminders that we are different. Pointing to me to do math in a project because I’m “supposed” to be smart isn’t a compliment. You don’t know who I am or what I am good at. Setting unrealistic expectations for a person because everyone else like that person is good at something isn’t a compliment. These stereotypes for how I should be doesn’t “normalize” anything but make me feel like I’m not Asian because I am not only of those things. 

This box also builds around the ideals built upon by the media. With beauty standards building from animes and manga series that reach Americans, it wasn’t long until those expectations reached people outside of the community for them to create their own opinions. People start to romanticize the image of an Asian and many people have developed specific attractions to those Asian traits they observe in those media. They start to create their own characters containing their idea of these traits which often come across in the wrong way. For example, the newest Disney Channel show, “Chang Can Dunk“, builds upon the idea that Asians are often smaller than other nationalities. Indicating that they are weaker and inferior to others. Many people romanticize this trait especially toward females when it becomes something they specifically look for in an Asian partner. The interest has only helped to build upon the ideals that have been floating around and given others the wrong impression of what an Asian is “supposed” to be.

I didn’t choose to be this way. I am grateful for how I came to be and for my heritage. I didn’t ask to be born into a box created long before I was born.