When I was about eight, during one of my dad’s yearly road trips, his car broke down somewhere in New Mexico. We went to the nearest town and tried to get it fixed at the local Ford dealership. No big deal, right? My dad turns the car into them, they fix, and we go along our way. Except that is not what happened that day. The transaction started out fine -- that is, until the mechanic saw me and my brother. He muttered something under his breath and proceeded to ignore my father and help another customer. My dad was able to report the employee and got his car fixed regardless, but even though he tried to make it seem like no big deal, we all knew it was. I heard what he muttered under his breath. Two words: “dirty blood.”
This wasn’t the first time I noticed stuff like this, especially going on road trips with my father. You see, my father is white, and my brother and I are both half-Japanese-American. It was common that people would tell my dad how nice it was of him to take in foreign exchange students. When he tries to tell them that he is our father, they often told him how nice it was to adopt us. And let's not forget about when the Japanese bus tours come around. Others, especially other tourists, would try to lead us into the tour group. I used to find it hilarious when I opened my mouth to speak and see their utter shock at my fluent English.
My whole life I have dealt with stuff like this simply because I am half-Japanese-American. Not to mention the fact that everyone expects that I am good at math, the high expectations of academic excellence in general, and so forth. On the other hand, I have been told that I am not Asian enough, sometimes because my grades aren’t good enough, or when I'm told that I'm overcompensating for only being half-Japanese-American by liking basically anything that has to deal with Japanese culture.
For instance, one day I had an East-Asian-American lady chew me out because I was “presenting” myself as stereotypically Asian and I wasn’t Asian enough to do that. I was just nervous -- I had my arms crossed and I bowed, something that I have done my whole life, and been taught to do for as long as I can remember as a sign of respect. I have also been told I am not Asian-American enough for not liking enough Japanese cultural things, and have been called banana.
I have always identified more with the Japanese side, mainly because I have always been more accepted by the Japanese-American side of the family. I wasn’t treated as much of an outsider like me and my brother were by our father’s side. We were the “Jap cousins.” So it goes without saying how harmful it is to sometimes be treated as a watered-down version of my ethnicity, especially when I have to deal with the racism of being Japanese-American but not being accepted by some as not a real a real member of that culture.
I’ve been called “small-eyed,” “Jap,” “Chink,” and so forth during my time working at Fred Meyer by customers. Often when that happened, I’d be too embarrassed to say anything to anyone about it, especially my coworkers. I was once stopped at the Canadian border for three hours as they searched my car, and my phone, and told me afterwards that they were making sure I wasn’t “trying to sneak my kind over the border.” Even worse, when I tried to open up to some friends afterwards about it, they waved it off and said that statistically, the illegal border across the Canadian border is Asian, therefore they were justified in the way I was treated.
No matter what, I lose, because I have to deal with the racism that comes with being Japanese-American, and have to deal with the scrutiny of being too Asian, or not Asian enough, all because I am biracial. In what way is that OK?
