The invisibility of growing up Asian in America

As a first-generation Asian American growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was taunted by others who would pull up the corners of their eyes to a slant, call out ching chang chong, and put on an exaggerated bucktoothy grin while dancing around like a monkey. Comments like “I chink it’s getting nippy in here” when I walked in the room. Spit on as I walked to school. I still remember going to class with phlegm pooled and oozing through my hair, and how much I dreaded walking by that one house each afternoon from where the slurs would inevitably come from people who always seemed to be hanging out in the open garage. My sister still lives in the house we grew up in, and I think about this every time I drive by. 

Like many, I shrugged these experiences off. It was simply part of growing up Asian in America. Ask any of your Asian American friends. Really, any of them. We all have similar stories. 

Many of you may not have realized this was our reality. As Asian Americans, we’ve been conditioned all our lives – by society, by the model minority myth, and beyond – to keep our heads down and work hard. Don’t complain, never rock the boat. Abide by Western social norms and assimilate, assimilate, assimilate. This, we were told, was our best chance of fitting into a world our immigrant parents hoped would one day accept us. 

As Asian Americans, we’ve been conditioned all our lives – by society, by the model minority myth, and beyond – to keep our heads down and work hard.

Don’t complain, never rock the boat. Abide by Western social norms and assimilate, assimilate, assimilate. This, we were told, was our best chance of fitting into a world our immigrant parents hoped would one day accept us.

So we kept quiet, not wanting to draw attention to our differentness and, frankly, embarrassed to have been called out for it. The last thing we ever wanted to do was worry our parents, who worked night and day and had sacrificed everything so we could have a better life. The only option was to hold it in and push through.

The racism in our daily existence

Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve all heard the references to kung flu and China virus. I’ve been cursed at, mocked for not speaking English when my mask muffled my speech, called a gook and a stupid Asian tourist, and told to go back to your country. Perhaps because I’ve spent most of the pandemic outside the Asian-heavy Bay Area, I regularly get mistaken for the staff when I pick up Asian take-out food. People sometimes look startled when they hear my perfect English, and occasionally compliment me on it. I was born in Queens.

Over the holidays, my car was intentionally vandalized by three white and privileged teenagers, whose parents leapt into action to sweep the incident under the rug. The car is now totaled. It prompted me to forbid my own teenagers to walk the dog alone after dark – and eventually to move out of the neighborhood. 

To these people who hide their racism behind their Americanism, we are invisible and we are the same. They look, but don’t see us. We are all lumped together, despite the fact that Asia is home to 2,197 languages from 20+ countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent – and we are permanently foreign, no matter how long we have been here. I have lived my entire life in America, yet I’ve never felt more foreign than I do today. Not unsafe, per se, but uneasy. Unsettled. And I am afraid for my family, especially my aging parents.

To these people who hide their racism behind perceived patriotism, we are invisible and we are the same. They look, but don’t see us.

. . . And we are permanently foreign, no matter how long we have been here. I’ve lived my entire life in America, yet I’ve never felt more foreign than I do today. 

Maybe these stories are surprising to you. Maybe you remember doing some of these things as a child, but felt it was in harmless jest. Maybe you continue to do or observe these things today. No matter what your past experience has been, now we must all come together to put a stop to this kind of behavior and rhetoric. 

In the past, I’ve largely kept my head down, grateful that the racism I’ve endured did not result in the violence that has been pervasive with other people of color. But the escalating attacks on the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community are disturbing. Violence towards AAPIs has simmered for years, but recent assaults demonstrate a new level of vitriol, with Asian Americans violently attacked, slashed with box cutters, assaulted, and gunned down.

Anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise again

Since the onset of the pandemic, there’s been a dramatic rise in attacks against #AAPI community members. In 2020, anti-Asian hate crimes increased by almost 150% while all hate crimes fell by 7%. From March 2020 through February 2021, 3,700+ incidents of discrimination against Asian Americans were reported to Stop AAPI Hate (and keep in mind that hate crimes often go unreported). 

But anti-Asian hate crime has actually been growing for years. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the rate of violent crimes committed against Asians doubled from 2015 to 2018, well before the COVID-related surge. 

When the #MeToo and #BLM movements began, many who were not in the affected groups were surprised to learn of the pervasiveness of the discrimination. Then communities leapt into action and real change has begun. We must shine that same light on AAPI hate and address the racism deeply ingrained in our society. 

Do your part to stop anti-Asian racism 

Speak up, speak out, and take action. Share your stories. Ask your Asian American friends about their stories. Amplify voices. Donate to organizations like Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Stop AAPI Hate. Ask your local, state, and federal government to support their Asian American constituents now and always. Take a stand against bigotry anywhere you see it and encourage your networks to do the same. Support businesses that live these values and do not support businesses that don’t. We cannot let hate win.

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Mallun Yen is the founder of Operator Collective, a new model of venture fund and community created to open the venture ecosystem to the people it needs most: tech leaders from diverse backgrounds with deep, present-day experience building the most successful companies in the world. Its limited partners include 130+ ultra-talented operators who have decades of experience building, growing, and running the world’s most admired enterprises — from Zoom, Stripe, and PagerDuty to Salesforce, Slack, and beyond. Operator Collective launched its debut $50M+ fund on December 11, 2019.

Follow Operator Collective on Twitter @OperatorCollect and on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/operator-collective/.

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#StopAsianHate #StopAAPIHate