Growing up, I always felt different. I didn’t want anyone coming over to my house to play, worried they’d think there were weird smells coming from the kitchen. My grandma might offer them a strange snack. I didn’t want the questions about why we didn’t wear shoes in the house, or to have to explain the reason my grandma and aunts and uncles all lived with us.
Tired of being asked whether I can see, or having kids pull their eyes back in an effort to slant their eyes, I remember standing in front of the mirror with scotch tape, trying to make my eyes look bigger. I would have done anything to not be Asian.
These are the things I never talked about — certainly not with my family.
But decades later, I am not that same person. I have found my place, my voice, my sense of belonging.
That’s thanks, in part, to motherhood. It would crush me to think of my 11-year-old daughter walking around with all the shame and loneliness that I carried. We have an open dialogue about everything and anything.
My daughter, Claire, is so confident in who she is. She’s given presentations at school about Tet, also known as the Lunar Year. She can’t wait to visit Asia. She’s obsessed with anime and would love to go to Japan. (As a kid, I wanted to go to Paris and London). She has worn the traditional Vietnamese ao dai to class and likes using chopsticks with her leftover noodles or rice for school lunches. All things that would’ve had me wincing. She’s even willing to learn Vietnamese phrases and tries to teach her dad, who is Cuban American. In fact, she makes fun of him for incorrect pronunciation. “Papa, that’s not right,” she’ll scold, as she giggles. “He’s saying it wrong, Mom.”
The world is a different place today. We celebrate diversity and pride in our cultural richness and traditions. We’re allowed to fully embrace all parts of us. For the longest time, I…
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