Not Chinese. Don’t really fit anywhere.
Brandon Milard
o,
Somerville, MA.
Me with my parents at graduation in 2012.
Vietnamese, torn between remembering or not.
Thien Kim Ho,
Somerville, MA.
I grew up in what seemed like a movie representation of my own race. My mother was a nail technician. I don’t know if she still is. My father probably still is an engineer. I don’t know whether I had “tiger parents” or if they were just plain mean. I suffered a lot from their treatment. I was called names, deemed worthless, and the police didn’t help when my father tried to strangle me… Of course, I was forced to take piano lessons. I needed a talent because every white person out there would “always look down on us.” Let’s not talk about how playing classical piano is impossible for me because I’m too nearsighted to see any sheet music, no matter how big it’s blown up.
Outside of home I was made fun of, living in a suburb with predominantly whites, of course it happened. “You’re Chinese, right?”, “moo goo gai chicken,” middle schoolers would yell. Even the circle of friends subscribed to stereotypical humor about how I MUST HAVE BEEN really good at MATH and was also a NINJA.
I estranged my parents, and decided to forget my second language but I always have this nagging in my heart that says “please hang on to your heritage.” Growing up, my parents insisted that yelling, anger, hitting, and more, were part of the Vietnamese culture, something I do not want with me. Maybe someday, I will be able to appreciate that part of me and I will be able to say “I’m Vietnamese!” without cringing.
I’m Slavic; more than just “white”.
Nicholas Ellis,
Somerville, MA.
Being referred to as simply “white” strips me of my ethnicity, of which I am very proud. I look Slavic, I am Slavic, why should I be OK with being referred to in any other way? My people were also slaves, in fact the word “Slave” comes from an old French or Medieval Latin term for Slavic people (who were enslaved), and Slavic history is fraught with conflict and micro-cultures. My mother and grandmother were treated terribly in Yugoslavia and also in America, as new immigrants, but they persevered with no help, despite the judgement and predjudice they faced. To be made to feel as though I have no culture, past, ethnicity, simply because my skin is light strips me of my ability to be proud of my people, without having to apologize for it. We (everyone, not just me) are more than colors and shades, and we all have history and culture of which we should be proud. I am Slavic, not “white”.
I want to be like you
Michael Manning
Somerville, MA
I was bused in 1969 to a school in Roxbury, Mass., and was myself discriminated against because of the color of my skin. I was white and most of the students were black. I couldn’t understand their anger with me, I didn’t know that I had done anything. All I knew was that I wanted to be just like them. Eventually I had friends in school who were black, the few that would dare to have a white friend. I can still hear them saying, ‘Mike’s okay’ as kids would try to fight with me. As if I, of all whites, was alright. I had to confront an anger, a discrimination, that I didn’t even understand, that I was not responsible for, that I couldn’t possibly overcome. It was an intensely formative experience. No matter how I was picked on I never stooped to using any of the language that was in the air in those years. What they didn’t know was that I wanted to be them for so many reasons, their smiles, the way they played and ran, the smell of their skin and hair, even their anger, which was so present.
White people can choose blissful ignorance.
Zoe Miller
Somerville, MA
