AANHPI Heritage
Although I am now living in Japan, I identify as Asian American. Taking some time to jot down thoughts at the end of a very difficult month to celebrate AANHPI (Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander), because it is important to honor our heritage this month, and every month. Like many others, my Asian pride is relatively new, but I believe we can collectively give energy to the community by sharing our stories.
When my parents and I arrived in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s, we settled into an apartment at the border of Prospect and Crown Heights. At that time, the block we lived on was majority Black, and poor. After the relative success my parents had with ceramics in Japan, we entered a new phase of economic hardships upon arriving in the US, like many immigrant families. There weren’t other Asians in the neighborhood, except at the corner store, and I remember kids on the block taunting me. It would take me decades to understand racial dynamics in the US but I was already being played in a system that would keep us apart, distracted and powerless.
In the first weeks at the apartment, I heard a loud commotion outside the door and opened it to find a police squad with shields and guns drawn. They yelled at me but I didn’t understand English. I shut the door and hid in the room farthest away from our door. In some ways I was fortunate to attend a public school in Manhattan, but the subway rides could be perilous. More than once, I was touched inappropriately by strangers, and once witnessed young men chase each other from car to car, shotgun in tow. I learned from an early age that being in America meant being in danger.
Many of us have not chosen the path ourselves, but were brought to the US by parents, grandparents or many generations ago, in search of “a better life.” In my case, my parents wanted to be artists in New York City. But after five years of money problems and not being to cope with family life, my mom went back to Japan. My dad followed a few years later. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, they were gone and I was living with a roommate.
I lived in survival mode for many years, which meant being in denial when racial slurs were flung at me; and trying to ignore/ erase my identity by only associating with white people. Even though most of my friends were good people, they could never fully relate to my experience as a non-white person in America. Undeniably, there were few, who looked down at me because I was Asian.
Eventually I reconciled the relationship with my parents, and began visiting Japan. But those trips could also be confusing, as I didn’t have great language skills, nor understanding of Japanese society to fully fit in. I still struggle with this, but have come to accept it is my life journey to straddle both parts of my identity. Thankfully my hometown has always had a sprinkling of people from other parts of the world, which makes the people here a bit more open-minded.
For many years, many of us faced the pain of a bisected identity alone—the feeling of neither belonging here nor there. But by finding each other, we can provide comfort in the collective confusion, pain, and celebration of the blessings of being both.
I’m proud of us for upholding Asian beauty through the lens of our own eyes (especially acknowledging sexy Asian men). I’m proud of us for breaking boundaries of what Asian women should be, as told to us by our families, as well as America. I’m proud of us for standing up to represent our own culture. I’m proud of us for using our wits to survive in America, and then revising our tactics to form better allyship with other Black and Brown people.
Image description: Yuki is sitting in her Engawa, which is a hallway on the outside of a traditional Japanese home, looking outside on a rainy day. She is wearing a green top and Monpe (loose pants) made from a Komon Kimono featuring Kiku (chrysanthemum flowers).