What if most of us actually grew up not hating being AsAm.
What if that’s not actually a central unifying tenet of the AsAm experience.
What if the “self-hating AsAm” narrative is just what sits most comfortably for the non-AsAm mainstream editor and media consumer.
What if that’s not actually a central unifying tenet of the AsAm experience.
What if the “self-hating AsAm” narrative is just what sits most comfortably for the non-AsAm mainstream editor and media consumer.
Because, I’m gonna be really honest here, I never grew up hating being Asian. I didn’t despise my looks, my skin, my lunches, or my language. I didn’t pine away for blonde locks or blonde boyfriends.
I was - and still am - comfortably Asian.
I was - and still am - comfortably Asian.
And while I get that others may have had some sort of experience of deep racial insecurity growing up, I am so totally bored that this is the only narrative that is elevated about us - that somehow we need pop culture assimilation to learn to love ourselves. Fuck no, I don’t.
How about mainstream platforms elevate the essays by Asian Americans who don’t feel the need to apologize for being Asian American, like it’s some sort of stain to scrub out before finally resigning to living with.
Because those essays are tired and complicit in white supremacy.
Because those essays are tired and complicit in white supremacy.
This thread isn’t intended to invalidate others’ experiences. There are absolutely AsAms who grew up in like all-white suburban neighborhoods who felt a deep sense of self-loathing.
But why do their lived experiences dominate what gets published in mainstream outlets abt AsAms?
But why do their lived experiences dominate what gets published in mainstream outlets abt AsAms?
Yes. My point in this thread is that there are many ways that people grapple with Asian American identity, which is messy and complicated; yet the “racial self-hate” narrative is selectively universalized in mainstream media by editors who decide what is and isn’t worthy of print
https://twitter.com/tazzystar/status/1447527667507638273
The editorial choices to cut the Asian American as the tragically not-white serves to flatten the Asian American identity and recast it as solely relational to whiteness.
Yet as @TazzyStar there are many ways to be un/comfortable in Asian skin that remain basically unexplored.
Yet as @TazzyStar there are many ways to be un/comfortable in Asian skin that remain basically unexplored.
*— as @TazzyStar said
We don’t have to construct and dissect Asian American identity solely in ways that flatter whiteness.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
