1. “Do you eat rice with every meal?” No. 2. “Do you eat dumplings with chopsticks, dude?” I use a fork. 3. “Oh—!” 🥢🥟 Tonight I’m finalizing some interior vignettes for my picture book dummy, ‘Weird, But Good’. Growing up as a 1st generation Filipino-American in Kissimmee, FL in the 90s, I inevitably was asked obnoxious questions like these. I think I was more offended by no one knowing I was Filipino and not knowing what that meant more so than kids and people auto-defaulting my ethnicity to either Japanese or Chinese and that being the extent of their guesses. Their ignorance between these distinctions annoyed me. As I grew older I understood it was kind of unfair of me to assume kids were just plain dumb and/or mean for not knowing. But those experiences still left an impression on me. It still made me feel somewhat alienated despite being a first-born US citizen. Now though, I don’t care so much what people think of me because I’m more confident in who I am and it’s enough that I know myself more so than if others do. But I wonder if kids these days still can relate to this kind of frustration I experienced. I get the feeling they do, but the scenarios are likely presented differently. Bottom line, it sucks to feel different and weird and apart from the crowd when you so much want to be accepted and included. I think these are the feelings I want to convey in my story and I hope kids and their adults are interested in reading it, and you too. 😬 • • • #kidlitart #POC #wip #workinprogress #sketch #pencildrawing #art #illustration #processwork #childrensbookart #picturebook #PandaErica #FilipinoAmerican #1stgeneration #90s #ethnicity #identity #acceptance https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxge1qVHk7z/?igshid=17ruxik7l2f5w
