So I know I don't usually post this kind of content, because I don't enjoy starting racial discourse, but I think this really needs to be said.
Hi. I'm Phi, and my parents are Chinese, though I was born in the United States and have lived here my entire life. I'm Asian, and I've been harassed, called a wide variety of racial slurs, made fun of online, and degraded. I've had others invalidate my opinions and my issues countless times because of my ethnicity, and I'm still in high school.
Thankfully, my experiences with discrimination have never escalated to physical levels, but there are so many people out there who have been punched and kicked and hit with various objects, including bricks and metal pipes, and killed just because of their ethnicity. Just because they lived. Just because they existed.
This isn't only an issue in the United States, but I'm going to just discuss the U.S. right now since that's the part I'm most qualified to talk about.
Our country's Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal". This is the foundation upon which this country was built, and yet almost 250 years later, we still don't have equality.
People of color have fought long and hard battles against discrimination in this country. Many, too many, have lost their lives for this cause, but we still don't have equality.
I'm Asian. I've been told that I'm not a person of color because Asian people, on average, tend to earn higher salaries than white people. Now, I raise you this question: Why do you need to earn less than a white person in order to be classified as a person of color?
This is an example of oppression. Of discrimination. The mere belief that Asians aren't people of color speaks volumes about how we are treated in this country.
We are objectified. We are fetishized. We are silenced because people believe that none of these things are happening to us. We are scapegoated and harassed and murdered. We are made out to be 'perfect', expected to have 'perfect' grades and 'perfect' lives.
I'm Asian. Every time I hear about another Asian murdered, another Asian shot or beaten or shoved to the ground on the streets, I think that could happen to me. That could be my mother. My father. My brother. My grandparents. My family. Every time I hear about another anti-Asian hate crime, I'm so immensely grateful that it wasn't a member of my family or any of my friends that was the victim, but at the same time, it could have just as easily been. Every victim was someone else's mother. Someone else's father, or sibling, or grandparent.
Every victim of these hate crimes is a person. They have friends and family, parents and children and siblings. They have lives, and they have worked tirelessly to maintain them.
Asians are not a virus. We are not objects to be fetishized, and we are not scapegoats. We are human, too. We are your friends, your neighbors, other members of your community. We are Asian, and we are people.
So please, next time you enjoy phở or sushi or kimchi or dumplings, sit back and take a moment to think about where that food came from. And please, don't participate in these hate crimes, because we are also human, and we deserve equality too.
