It’s been a while, but something happened today that really inspired me to write.
I was just at In-n-out, coming back from a weekend in Tahoe and chatted a bit with the people in front of me. They had just gotten out of football game and were slightly inebriated, but what really struck me was how quickly one of the me began assuming things about me and my friends because of our physical appearance.
Strike 1.
“You’re both Chinese right?”
No, my friend here is Vietnamese.
“You speak Chinese.”
Like it was a statement. I do, but I wish you wouldn’t tell me as if it was something I wasn’t already aware of.
Strike 2.
“I have these coworkers that speak Chinese, they’re from Japan. Same thing. Don’t you understand each other’s languages?”
To be fair, Americans are pretty horrible at geography, but I found it upsetting that he had never heard that Chinese and Japanese were separate languages before that point.
Strike 3.
“You speak English very well for being Chinese.”
I think my face had fallen at the point pretty blatantly and I had tried my best to compose myself and explained that I was born in America. (I proceeded to ask him if he was born in America as well and commented on his grasp of English)
I was disappointed to say the least. The irony was that this man was around his late 20’s or even 30’s and had told me he was Latino and that his parents were from Mexico, yet he couldn’t understand that I could come from an immigrant family as well. But I realized that my discomfort with the situation was misplaced. It wasn’t this man’s fault that he was ignorant or that I might’ve been the first Asian-American he’s ever talked to. And instead of being heated over the prejudiced bias of his assumptions and his questions, I had the responsibility to educate him and to help him realize what it really means for America to be diverse. I hope that I had an impact on the way that he sees Asians in America, takes this experience, and in turn, educate others in his community.
At the same time, society as a whole also has a responsibility to increase diversity in all communities and to provide access to quality education at the foundational levels so that the general masses and low-income/minorities do not become ignorant and racist populations of America. There has been a lot of white vs. black racial conflicts and tensions lately. But it isn’t only the white communities that are at fault. Minority communities themselves need to understand each others’ backgrounds and not become the hypocrites they so passionately hate in our institutions. Minorities need to break down the walls between themselves before they can tackle the corruption and discrimination of the majority. How can you beat and change the system when you don’t even understand the people on your side?
I really believe that ignorance is a choice.
Educate yourself and all those around you.