As an Asian American immigrant child, growing up in the South in a predominantly white suburbia can play tricks on you. You are kind of like one of them, but really, at the end of the day, you are not.
I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, but hear me out. And listen, I am all about looking at things in a positive lens and giving people the benefit of the doubt. I really do try to see the good in people and the (shit) world we live in. But every once in a while, a dirtbag comes along and puts a damper on my whole positive outlook sitch.
Before I go into it, I do have to point out, I, myself am a hypocrite. Because as an adult, a parent, a minority, I choose to live in a predominantly white neighborhood and am raising my kids in an affluent area because public schools are better. It’s an unfortunate, hypocritical situation but I’m selfish when it comes to my kids and that’s that. I’d like to think we are adding diversity to what would be a no, few Asian family subdivision, but maybe it just helps me sleep at night.
Anyway, yesterday at a playground down the street from our neighborhood, a white man asked, “are you celebrating oriental new year?” I’m honestly not surprised at this point because the ignorant people have always existed even before the MAGA craziness but dumbass comments like that still get me. Again, giving someone the benefit of the doubt, he may truly not know what he is saying, but…you know what? Fuck it, you should know. In the climate we are in, you should educate yourself before opening your mouth. It’s white privilege not having to think twice about spitting out an ignorant comment to a minority. It’s white privilege to be completely oblivious to what’s coming out of your mouth is not okay because you think you are genuinely curious or want to be “cultural”. Also, just because we are Asian, assuming automatically that we’d celebrate Lunar New Year is racist. And if you are truly just curious, work on your delivery.
Look, I have a lot of white friends. Some of my closest friends are white. But white people cannot possibly understand, even if they think they do, what it’s like to be not white. It’s sad but also the reality is, I very carefully choose who I surround myself with, especially when those people are white. If I can control the situation, I don’t waste my time on people who don’t align with my views that really hit me deep in my core. Being able to say, agree to disagree on these important topics is white privilege I do not have. There are so many crazies out there that when I meet people, I vet them on social media to see if they are MAGA bigots. Is this too hard to swallow? If so, that’s white privilege in my eyes. Because you don’t do that, or have to do that. But I do. Because I don’t want my children targeted. Because I don’t want my children around that toxicity. Because I want to keep my children safe.
What a somber Lunar New Year post but I always feel the need to share when shit like this happens. Again, I feel guilty for a lot of things, I feel like I should be doing more but awareness is better than nothing. So I write and share for whoever wants to read/listen. And for those curious, Lunar New Year is celebrated by many Asians in different Asian countries who also follow the Lunar calendar. It’s not just Chinese New Year and certainly NOT Oriental New Year. Because we do not have family nearby, we don’t do much more than wearing Hanbok and send greetings to the grandparents. Sometimes we eat rice cake soup. But if we did have family locally, we’d spend time with our family and our kids would bow to the elders for allowance money and have a traditional Korean food feast. These are some of the things I did when I lived in Korea. Perhaps we will start our own family tradition since the kids are older.
Anyway, Happy Lunar New Year! On a happier note, love seeing my kids learn about the holiday at their schools, even at Theo’s daycare! That gives me a sliver of hope that our community is filled with less dumbasses. Now I shall spam you with ridiculously cute pics of my kids in Hanbok (Theo has outgrown his and we need a new one lol).
-m
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