Anna's Blog on Anti-Asian Sentiments

My dad was born to two Chinese immigrants, but he was born in Minnesota and grew up in Missouri, so he is 100% percent American. My mom, on the other hand, grew up in Belgium, and immigrated to the United States when she was in her 20s, so she has a noticeable Flemish accent. From their first interactions, any person would know that my mother is not of this country. Yet, in their professional lives, my dad, on multiple occasions, has been told to “go back to his country”, while my mom has only ever been kindly asked as to where she is from. In this country, someone who clearly grew up somewhere else, like my mom, is more accepted than someone American born, like my dad, solely because of what they both look like.

As for me, I have a Vietnamese coworker, and my boss often calls me by her name, or calls her by my name. At first, I ignored it, as I was new to the job, but as it continued to happen I brought it up to my boss on one such occasion. Cheerfully, he responded that we “look too similar”. I have reddish auburn hair, and she has much longer, dark black hair. There is at least 5 inches of height difference between us, and our personalities and mannerisms could not be more different. The only thing that we truly have in common is that we both have Asian-presenting features. While this in no way threatened genuine emotional harm to either of us, it was disheartening for me to realize that he got us mixed up because our race was the only quality he felt was significant and distinguishing about us.