A Liability In America’s Dream
In middle school when classmates shouted “chink” between the class halls saying it was a harmless joke, I would laugh along with my head held high, naive to the weight of their words. As I walked past the crowded LA street, Someone shouts from behind me, “ Go back to your country “ I turn around confused to no one, only to walk forward with my head held high, unbeknownst to the dangers I could have encountered. As I read the news of my Asian community, beaten, crippled, and killed I begged in my mind, “ keep your head high” because that’s all you can do when your identity becomes an ugly smear. Yet when my parents came home with the weight of their racial slurs and labels on their shoulders, they told me, “ At least we came home safely” with a strained smile, I forced a smile back. I beckoned them goodnight with my head high and an I love you, only to go to my room and lock the door, crying at the injustice for the rest of the night.
People who dream of America dream of a place of opportunity and renewal, where your social and economical standing won’t make you any less of a person, of an American. What they don’t understand is the moment that dream becomes a reality and you enter US soil, you sign a contract binding you as a liability, used however and whenever it is deemed fitting. The rising Asian hate has sparked doubt in the liability that many of us and our ancestors have convinced ourselves for generations was the price of our American dream. My parents, grandparents, even friends have convinced themselves that their mistreatment is justified because they immigrated. Justified because they weren’t born with the right to equality and social justice.
Yet what about the American citizens who were? What about the Asian Americans who lower their heads in the face of oppression and inequality, enduring all forms of racism and hoping it doesn’t cost them their lives? We were born here, so why must we be so afraid? Why are we labeled as a virus when the majority of us have never even contracted it? As Hasan Minaj expresses, “ I was born here, so I actually have the audacity of equality”. We were both born American, so why is my American different from yours? Why must I fight for my American self through blood and tears, while yours is given on a golden ruse? Unless as a community, we commit to sterilizing this growing infection of hate, it will eat us from the inside until our labels become our tag and title. As Nicole Tian states in her essay This Land Was Made for You and Me, “You and I are both Americans, featured differently, but committed equally to the well-being of our country. Picture Americans, you and me”. We are American in heart and soul, so let not this growing hate fester in the best part of your Asian American self.