Your AA 'Coming Out'

[kimpossible]

As a kid, I hated my brown hair and flat eyelids. I remember once in grade school, there was a baton majorette with white blonde hair and blue eyes. I wanted to be her *so* badly.

I endured slurs from white family members, school kids and freaks on the street. At one point in high school I bought every teen girl magazine in sight, determined that I was going to change my look to fit in. (The result was some really bad permed and highlighted hair. I should post it sometime. What a beaut of a picture that is.)

Later on, as an adult I had separate issues with rice kings and their associate ilk, but somewhere I found my pride and through a lot of introspection came to peace with who I am and how I need to be.

How did you find your pride? Did you always have it, or was it a struggle?

[deez nuts]

It wasn't that difficult for me. I grew up mostly in minority neighborhoods. The junior high school and high school I went to had a high asian/Chinese population. It was just natural that we congregated together and since a lot of their parents were first generation asian/chinese, we had no problems relating and finding our identity. I mean by junior high school the asians already separated into cliques e.g. the Chinese clique, Korean clique etc etc. It was a good thing and a bad thing, as you can imagine. Lots of inter asian tension, especially between the Chinese and Korean back then here in NY.

But I can see where you're coming from since you're half and half. Kids are mad cruel at that age. It always seemed cruel to me how the "pure" asians treated the hapas and how the white people treated them, as well. It seemed they had a more difficult time finding their identity. I remember, I befriended this half chinese/half caucasian girl in high school and I took a lot of slack for it. But I was just like it fuck it, she's cool, I'll hang out with whomever I want. Then my senior prom came around and I took this half japanese/half caucasian girl to the prom, took a lot of shit from the chinese girls, because she was half white and japanese (heh 2 strikes in their book). At that point, I kinda realized there is a fine line between asian pride and inter-asian prejudice.

So I basically learned more about the bullshit amongst asian people themselves than about my own identity, which came fairly easy.



<!--EDIT|Chasiubao_Boy|Aug 25 2002, 12:32 PM-->

[tapestrybabe]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Aug 25 2002, 01:08 PM
How did you find your pride?
this is gonna sound really lame....
but i think i discovered my pride and strong korean identity thru click2asia. Never in my lifetime have i associated with so many asians... than when i was going thru my c2a phase and my ny club i use to lead. And it all just bled into other things.... my participation in korean organizations.... my introduction to korean music, its language, its food, movies, etc... it all just had a rippling effect on me...

and i thought it all would be just a passing phase..
but 2 years later... i still have an interest in all these things....



<!--EDIT|tapestrybabe|Aug 25 2002, 02:01 PM-->

[Saiko]

Since I'm one of the very few Asians at my school, I was proud of being unique. My auburn hair, my brown slanted eyes, and all that. I'm not really proud proud. I'm not ashamed, but I don't go around going "HEY! I'm Asian! Latch onto my ass!" I don't care either way. It's just more of a, "Cool. I'm different."

[thaite]

Well, as a hapa myself, I grew up with all the accompanying issues. Didn't have much Asian pride, just a permanent scowl on my face.

[achtungbaby]

It's weird, sometimes I think my pride came looking for me. I grew up in a predominately white neighborhood in So Cal. When I was in elementary school, I remember no one had ever even heard of "Korean"...it was always, "You Japanese? Chinese? Well what the hell is that?" So my surroundings, combined with my parents' desire for their children to speak perfect English without any accent, made me about as white as bread. Up until high school, I was pretty much your stereotypical dumb jock (who was Asian) -- and then this sudden series of events:

having to quit the football team because of my shitty grades;
getting dumped by my (white) girlfriend;
going to my best friend's Korean church because I had so much free time (no sports or gf);
a book report on Martin Luther King, Jr.;
the LA Riots; and
one year later at the annual KASCON conference in S.F., watching Elaine Kim's film Sai-i-Gu, and along with the other thousand or so people in the room, balling my eyes out.

Presto! Instant AsIaN pRyDe.

[princess]

for the first few years of elementary school i was surrounded by all white kids. all the kids i saw in magazines and on tv were white, so i naturally longed to be able to make myself look like them. in 5th grade it kinda hit me because i was learning more and more about my heritage and my relatives. after that it just kinda progressed and now...well...here i am :)

[kasia]

the discovery of takeshi kaneshiro and alex to. hotter than any white guy i knew at the age of 15 :)

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Aug 25 2002, 09:08 AM
(The result was some really bad permed and highlighted hair. I should post it sometime. What a beaut of a picture that is.)

Man, doesn't anyone want to see my 80s hair? :o

[karizma]

>> hey i wanna see lol...i had a bowl cut =).

>> ive always had pride in me...i grew up around asians and am still surrounded by asians...i guess i lucked up by not growing up in hickville

[deez nuts]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Aug 28 2002, 10:55 PM
Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Aug 25 2002, 09:08 AM
(The result was some really bad permed and highlighted hair. I should post it sometime. What a beaut of a picture that is.)

Man, doesn't anyone want to see my 80s hair? :o
Haha sure H.H. if you wanna give me more material to work with :lol:

Yah bowl haircut, looking back now was funny stuff

[princess]

i once gave myself a haircut and my mom salvaged it by turning it into a bowl cut. ahhh i hate those pictures

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by Chasiubao_Boy@Aug 29 2002, 05:05 AM
anyone want to see my 80s hair? :o
Haha sure H.H. if you wanna give me more material to work with :lol:
[/quote]
Hmm. Yes. I believe a collage may be in order after sifting through some photographs. What I'm left to wonder about my whole hair fiasco is which is more sad? That I had the hairdo? or that I thought it looked good?

[Saiko]

Oh god. The bowl cut. Bad memories.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Saiko@Aug 30 2002, 10:29 AM
Oh god. The bowl cut. Bad memories.
bowl cuts. *shudders*

[deez nuts]

Well look at the bright side. At least it's not a mullet. Just speaking in general, not like I would ever sport a mullet <whistles innocently> :rolleyes:

[Faithless]

Always had the pride, and didn't know it.

My white friends, whom I hung-out with, noticed that I kept a relationship going with many Asians in school.

But it wasn't until junior college was my eyes really opened. I had never seen so many Asians in one place in my life, accept for C-Town/J-Town. And they could relate to shit I related to and vice versa.

[coagulated fat]

Originally posted by thaite@Aug 25 2002, 12:03 PM
Well, as a hapa myself, I grew up with all the accompanying issues. Didn't have much Asian pride, just a permanent scowl on my face.
foshizzle

If anything I have WHITE pride because so many of my friends are Asian and I'm always surrounded with Asian pride. Sometimes because of ODing on the Asian pride some of them will have a superior attitude towards other races. I have to stick up for my daddy and myself -- hence, White Pride.

& I liked my bowl cut.

[BeTheReds]

I think the realization that I was Asian came when I was in High School after joining the Volleyball team. Volleyball on the East Coast anyway is an Asian dominated sport.

Before then, I was pretty white, and I went thru the same things where people in elementary school didn't know what the hell Korea was or that it even existed.

There isn't any one event that makes me realize, damn, I have a lot of pride.

I was the only one crying when I saw that 4-19 movie. Maybe it is because the rest of the Asian American Studies class in college were all filipinos and ABCs. Tho it didn't really make me all prideful.

Studying Korean history in college opened my eyes about a few things, and made me hate Japan. I hated it so much that I changed my major to Japanese and decided to move to Japan. Haha.

I don't know. I guess the whole pride thing kicks in when I make friends with Korean people and there is a bond that I can't really explain, but is not there with my white friends.

[Emperor_Mike]

I found it when I started doing research into the origins of my family in the fourth grade for a project. The only three cultures I share lineage with that had significant bearing on history were the Chinese, Russians, and Dutch and since I'm predominantly Chinese, I tore into that part of my work with a ravenous appetite for knowledge. I learned a lot and had much to be proud of about my Chinese ancestry.

[teaz0r]

i think i was born with it.