Tiffany

There was someone in the street who yelled, “Go back to your country!” And I remember thinking, “This is my country…” I think I was 11 years old. I think I just grew up with so much shame around being Chinese because when I was little people would pull their eyes and say stupid stuff. And always ask me why my English was so good. And one time I threw away my lunch because I was ashamed that I had Chinese food and to this day I regret it and I should say sorry to my parents. Because that is a big thing in Chinese culture – you don’t waste food, ever. So, like to throw it away was very bad, it’s a really bad thing.

I don’t think there was an obvious or specific time when a white person said to me, “I’m better than you,” but me feeling inferior is something I’ve internalized my whole life. Where did this idea come from? Maybe it’s because all the movies and stories were about them and I read their history so I think I just always thought, Oh, I need to fit into this piece of the world that I landed in. I was born in America but maybe I’m supposed to play a supporting role in this bigger narrative of who Americans are and I’m just fortunate to be part of the diversity of it. It’s really interesting because I think it’s just so, so subtle that we don’t really know how this happens. Because even Allen would tell me when we were dating, “I think I feel like you deserve to be with a white person, like someone better than me”, and I was like, “Allen, there’s no one better than you!” For my friends who dated white people, I would think “Oh, you landed a white guy! Oh, you’re better! You dated outside our culture, you transcended our culture…. You did better.” But now, I don’t think that anymore.