Extra studying, extra homework, extra-extra-curricular activities—what does it actually mean to be an Asian-American student in a predominantly white-dominated culture? There's no doubt that most people struggle at some point with their own issues in relation to school, but Asians have their own set of struggles, especially if you have super traditional parents like I do. No matter if you're Chinese, Japanese, Korean or anything else, you probably relate to these 11 things.
1. People assume that your parents are super strict.
Which okay, most of them are (in my experience anyways) but they still love us. Some just have a little higher expectations than others.
2. No one can spell your f**king name.
Okay, so this is one I won the lottery on—it's pretty difficult even for non-Japanese people to mess up "Aiko." But if you lost here and got stuck with "Xu," "Qinglan" or God help you, the last name "Nguyen," have fun telling people how to spell and say your name almost constantly and watch the teacher struggle with it all year.
3. People assume that you're super good at math.![]()
When the teacher gets to a tough problem in your calculus class, everyone turns and looks at you. I can't remember the number of people growing up asking to copy my math homework in high school or just straight up cheating off me. Jokes on you, I can't count.
4. You've totally had someone assume you can't speak English.
Despite going to high school in America.
5. On that note, you've probably had someone expect you to be impressed by knowing one word of your language.
No, being able to say "konichiwa" does not count as knowing Japanese.
6. Someone has asked you where you're "really" from.
"So where are you from?" "Detroit." "No, like, originally." "Detroit?"
7. You know the meaning of the word "discipline."
Your parents probably set pretty high expectations for you from a young age (see point 1) so you know that skipping a party to study isn't an impossible task.
8. You've probably had someone assume you played the flute, violin or piano at some point.
Doubly frustrating for me because I actually do play the violin.
9. Whenever you're eating traditional lunch, someone is ether totally disgusted...
Yeah, it's raw fish and it smells weird, get over it.
10. ...Or they're absolutely fascinated.
I'm not a zoo animal, chill out.
