Chiyoko,
USA.
I am one quarter Japanese. I have auburn hair, light brown eyes, and freckles. I am five foot nine, and my skin is paler than even my white friends’ skin. But my name is Japanese, which leads people to ask me where I’m from, no, where I’m REALLY from. I’ve been called J*p, Chink, Chinky eyes, squinty eyes, and J*p Bi***. A White boy came up to me when I was thirteen and asked me for oral sex, because “that’s what you people like to do, right?” I have been told to my face that the only reason I’m doing well in school (I’m seventeen and starting my second year of community college) is because I’m Asian. Even when I was in second grade, white people would come up to me with their eyes pulled to side and asked how I could see like that. White people have come up to me and called me Ching Chong Lingalong instead of Chiyoko. White people are the ones calling me names and making me fear for my safety in middle and high school. But what truly surprised me is how Japanese people treat me. I met a Japanese woman at my garage sale, and when I spoke some Japanese to her, she was surprised, but was genuinely interested in me. She told my mother that she picked a good name for me, and that I seemed to be a good daughter, making my mother laugh and tell her that seem is the operative word. Whenever I meet a Japanese person, they encourage me to study Japanese, to go to japan, and take good care of my grandmother. I am more white than Japanese, but white people have hated me all the time. I am not a racist, it is my defense mechanism.
