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Feeling really vulnerable posting this, but I wanted to open up about how long I struggled with embracing my ethnicity. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of thinking how much more beautiful and “cool” I’d be if I had blonde hair and blue eyes. That thought breaks my heart. I wish I could go back and hug younger me and tell her she was already enough. I also made this video because being Asian feels like it’s suddenly become a “trend.” And while it’s nice to see appreciation for Asian culture, it’s hard not to question the performative support, especially when just a few years ago, Asian people were being randomly attacked and blamed for COVID. Where was that energy then??? Anyways, if you’ve ever felt ashamed of where you come from or wished you were someone else, please know you’re not alone. I promise you, life feels so much better when you learn to accept that it’s okay to be different, and that being Asian is actually so incredibly cool :)
Transcript
I hate being Asian. You see, when I was younger, I hated my small squinty eyes and dark hair because every ad, every magazine, and every movie that I watched, white girls were always the cool ones, the pretty ones, and the ones that everyone wanted to be. Asian characters on the other hand, well, they worse always awkward, nerdy, or weird. The message was clear. To be rank it girl, you had to be white. So I did everything I could to be more like them. I bleached my hair. I only dated white guys. I only shopped at Brandy Melville and refused to wear traditional clothes. I even labeled myself as an LA girl, even though I grew up in Taiwan and had only been there a couple of times. I spent my entire childhood wanting to be white. And for a long time, I thought I was doing a pretty good job at blending in. That was until my worst fear came true. I got racially profiled for the first time. I was walking down the street in LA when someone yelled, hey, no back to your country. I thought I bad figured out how to be American enough. But in that moment, I realized that to some people, I never would be. And for the next ten years, I I hated being Asian even more rank would constantly hide parts of myself that I considered to be too ethnic. However, everything changed when I went off to college. I felt
