Member-only story
I Am Not Your Fucking Model Minority
We must abandon this dangerous and insidious remnant of colonialism.
My father is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He came to this country in 1967 from Nara, Japan. He met and married my mother in 1969, in Florida. Five years later, they gave birth to my older sister.
“Oh, bless your heart! Did you get her from Vietnam?”
My tall, blonde-haired, green-eyed mom would hear this frequently from Southern busy-bodies peering into her stroller to find a tiny infant with black hair and almond-shaped eyes. It’s amazing how a seemingly innocent question, even in a post-Vietnam America, could erase my mother’s biological parentage in just the span of six words:
“Did you get her from Vietnam?”
They meant well.
They always do.
I have been called every anti-Asian racist name in the book. Like many of my fellow Asian-Americans, it started on the playground. Nearly 40 years later, I’ve learned to let (most) of that baggage go and none of the racist attacks hurled at me in my life are worthy of re-uttering back into the Universe.
