Cathy Park Hong is the daughter of Korean immigrants who writes the book “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning”. It is an amazing book with very thoughtful writing about her experience as an Asian America in America. Suffice to say that it is filled with racial strife and angry rants, it’s beautiful and raw and true. The book captures many of my own feelings about being brown in this country. I hear her through the pages and I see the error of my own biases against Asian Americans. As one of the reviewers says “Brilliant….to read this book is to become more human” (Claudia Rankine). I couldn’t agree more.
The particular sentence above stood out to me in the second chapter. “Of course, writers of color must tell their stories of racial trauma, but for too long our stories have been shaped by the white imagination” (Hong 2020, pg. 49). She goes on to say that minorities must have a tragic backstory with an American Dream happy ending. We must fit into a certain story, a certain box, and we must not deviate from the mainstream norm that Hetero/White/Cis people are comfortable with. Nothing too far from the norm because of course we need to keep up appearances for the way things have been for the last 100 years. Simmer down, minorities before we elect a president that makes sure your children are in cages.
What I found interesting is that her “white imagination” was placed on her while my taste of the “norm” was ingrained in me, unquestioning, simply because of our generational difference. She heard her parents speak their native tongues, they made their native food that they learned to cook on their native land, and they still wanted to uphold traditions that were practiced in their home country.
My parents on the other hand, were born in the United States; both in Los Angeles in fact. I went over to either grandma’s house to hear Spanish spoken. It was only spoken in my house if my parents didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. Being the recovering chismosa that I am (if Chismosas Anonymous was a thing, I would be there), I learned Spanish real quick to understand what my parents were saying.
My paternal grandma owned a pupuseria and my maternal grandma worked a myriad of jobs that by the time my little sister came around she was on her way to retirement. That is who I heard Spanish from; this is who I heard broken English from. When I was younger I only tried to understand Spanish but never spoke it. I was always afraid of my butchered Spanish accent when I spoke it. Even now, translating my thoughts to words to translating someone else’s words to my thoughts is so exhausting. After a long day of Spanish my tongue feels like I’ve chewed gum all day. Tired and in desperate need of water.
When I traveled for the first time I asked someone how they decided to learn English and if they were embarrassed about their accent which they replied “No, I wanted to be able to speak to those around me so I said ‘fuck it’”. If you want something bad enough you say “fuck it”. So when the opportunity came up to work with my favorite professor in Mexico you best believe I said “fuck it” and I took my little broken Spanish ass to Mexico. I would have that bubble-gum- chewing-mouth all day if it meant I get to connect to where my family is from. That experience taught me I was an outsider. They called me “guerra” aka white girl aka American. Up until that point I identified as Mexican and Salvadorian but I wasn’t. Those were my roots but I was a part of the branches.
And here I am.
One generation away from the struggle of assimilation to the white imagination. Trying to slide into the norm undetected as the hard working immigrant that came for the American Dream! The charge for the American Dream is your dignity. My grandma told me this story once of how she tried to help an older white woman get on the bus and the woman looked up at her and said “get away you dirty Mexican!” She had to hold her tongue, be more polite, and move on as if nothing happened because god forbid you’re the angry minority.
The white imagination was all around me growing up. The actresses, the messages on tv, and the way we all needed to look exactly the same in the 00s. This shaped me to an abiding young lady who proudly sang the national anthem to an angry woman who understood why Kaepernick took a knee. I didn’t grow up angry, I became angry. The veil that was pulled over my eyes and I had to be taken off. I didn’t have to endure suppressing my rage while trying to take the damn bus to get to damn work. My rage came from recognizing that even though they said “affirmative action” and “women can do anything” I was still held back and tokenized because of gender and race.
This year has uncovered all the ugly truths beneath the surface of “all men are created equal”, the crimes against humanity that were always there but ignored because it was our privilege as a nation to do so. We cry out for change and they give us bandaids to calm us (us being BIPOC) to the next generation that they try to sell the white imagination to. The generations before came with hopes and dreams of freedom but with each passing decade, they say the injustices repeat with different names.
We (we being BIPOC, of course) are interrupting a status quo that was set down by generations of white men but was built on the backs of Indegenious, Black, Asian, Latinx folx. Now, white status quo Americans are damn uncomfortable with the idea that even though they tried to put the white imagination INTO this generation, this generation figured it out. We heard the voices of our ancestors before us. We heard the generations before cry out in injustice and we are saying no more.
Because why not? There is no other excuse to exclude BIPOC other than racism. It is to keep white people up. But why can’t we have the same access as you? Why can’t we live in the same neighborhoods? Why can’t a Black man walk his dog without getting the cops called on him? Why can’t a paletero do his job without getting harassed? Why did it take so long for a Black and South Asian woman to be elected to one of the highest seats in the country? (this one is sexism, too) Because why not America?
Love,
AC
Originally published at http://thislatinalefthome.com on November 12, 2020.
