I Hate my Body Because I am Asian.

The only thing I remember that I wanted to be growing up, was to be white.

When we pretended to be our favorite characters, for some reason, I always wanted to choose the white girl with blue eyes in whatever girl group, even if there was an Asian passing girl in the group. I especially remember wanting to be Cloe from Bratz instead of Jade or Bloom from Winx Club instead of Musa. For two Halloweens straight, I was proudly Hannah Montana in my cheap blonde wig. I just wanted to be the extraordinary pretty blonde, fair girl. But I was a Filipino with dark brown hair and eyes and tan skin, born and raised here in America. 

Winx Club characters together: Aisha, Musa, Stella, Bloom, Flora, and Tecna

I Literally Don’t Know What Race I Am

This is going to sound really weird, but I am having trouble figuring out how to identify: as white, mestiza, both? I really don’t know. My brother took a DNA test and we’re ¼ indigenous to the South American region. Is that enough to consider myself a woman of color? Does the one-drop rule apply to mestizos? According to 23andMe, we’re 63% Spanish and Portuguese. I think about this a lot. So much so that I’ve even been recommended to a therapist who focuses on race.

Here is where my confusion stems from: race as a social construct and race as an identity. I read something on twitter that basically implied there is no such thing as “white-passing” because race is a social construct so whatever race society sees you as, that’s what you are. I try to apply that to myself, but there is not a social consensus on what race I am. 

Spank Me, Daddy!

Content warning: spanking, physical punishment, parenting

When it comes to parenting, there is perhaps no concept more divisive than the use of spanking as a form of punishment.  From conversations with my peers, I have heard a wide variety of opinions on the matter, from what classifies as spanking to whether or not corporal punishment should be administered to children at all. Based on my experiences, those who were spanked as children view the act as an entirely normal part of childhood and even commend their parents use of corporal punishment, while those who were not spanked cannot imagine why someone would put their hands on their child in order to teach a lesson.

As a woman, I am only skin deep

These days, I find myself more and more annoyed when random people (mostly of the male variety) ask me where I’m from. There seems to be no genuine interest in inquiring about me as a person.

Hair Removal: Only $25 and a Few Years of Shame!

As someone who spends $25 on threading her eyebrows, among other things, every month, Matthew Immergut’s Manscaping: The Tangle of Nature, Culture, and Male Body Hair struck a chord with me. Body hair removal is connected to capitalism – I could have told you that a long time ago, while shelling out money for shaving cream, razors, and those monthly threading sessions. I could have also told you that hair, and lack thereof, for women is policed by nearly everyone, from boys on the playground making fun of your “unibrow” or “moustache”, aunties telling you that you should wax your legs every six weeks instead of using a harsh razor, by friends telling you that the extra hour spent straightening your hair every morning is “totally worth it! You look SO much better!” Even today, there are countless memes all over social media about how vital it is to get a perfect eyebrow arch and brows that look perfect, but not too perfect. However, reading Immergut’s Manscaping helped me continue the process of fitting together all those fragments into one larger picture that reflects not only my experiences, but the way that Western society treats body hair on brown women as a whole.

The New and Improved Racism!

Let me start this off with I like to joke that my skin is so white that it glows in the dark.  I used to work at a jewelry store at the airport.  One of the things about working retail at an airport is that you meet a lot of different kinds of people, some of them great, some of them awful.  Here’s my witness of new racism.

Alright, Let’s Be Honest America: Black Women’s Bodies Are “Inappropriate”

I know what you’re thinking.

“Oh my god, how could to title your post that?”

Feeling My Body

Lying on the cold ground outside of Penn Station on Thursday night, surrounded by activists chanting “We Can’t Breathe” as I chanted those very same words myself, I felt my body. I couldn’t say how many times it has happened other than to say that it rarely does, and if you asked me to describe the feeling now, I couldn’t for the life of me. I call it a feeling and not an experience because that’s what it is: a feeling. Everything else seems like an experience in comparison. The magic in feeling my body is that I am not in control of it. It just happens to me. It feels as though there’s a shift in my being in which I go from experiencing my body through my consciousness to actually feeling my body, being my body.

A gruesome comment that filled me with rage

It’s amazing how you can get along quite well with someone until you realize they proudly blurt out their views that make you want to instantly kick them where it hurts.

I’m known generally as the nicest person in the world. I hate conflict, and when I’m in a conversation with someone, I feel an incredibly strong obligation to smile and listen. Last week I had an extremely gigantic exception.

I was racing onto campus from work to go to the Michael Brown discussion in the Women’s Center when I encountered one of my classmates from History. We both laughed about how last minute we are when it comes to writing papers, and all was fine and good, until he said:

“Did you see the protestors up there for Ferguson?” I had no idea he meant it in a bad way.

I immediately got excited that there were protestors and asked where they were, and that’s when he snapped and exclaimed:

“What are you excited for?! My brother is a cop, and he has to deal with this stuff all of the time! I’m tired of people calling racism. It’s annoying. It’s not like black people are slaves anymore. They have their freedom, they just need to move on.”

In the midst of his “argument,” I immediately snapped, and yelled “You don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about! You have no f******* idea!”And proceeding to race to the Women’s Center with tears drowning from my face.

Did he assume I’d agree with him because I was white? Did he really believe I’d go along with his absurd comments? It made me lose a lot of hope for my generation until I made it to the Women’s Center and found people as outraged as I was, and had sophisticated arguments as well as insightful thoughts. I didn’t feel so hopeless and alone after that, but it did make me realize more than ever that there is still a fight to be won. We are still in a society that holds particular standards for race, beauty, wealth, and power. We need people to get angry and aware if we want to be and see changes in our country. Until then, I hope that guy in my history class knows why I went from nice to outraged in .00006 seconds right in his face.

No indictment.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it. No indictment? No charges? Part of me wasn’t surprised, but the other part of me, the optimistic part, was crushed.