IBARW

[mutecornett]

I've given this shpiel a few times but I'm still figuring it out as I go along, so--let me tell you about my experience of being Chinese-American!

I hated being Chinese-American. I wanted to be whiter than white: I studied European history, took an interest in Latin and Greek, built up an impressive vocabulary, secretly read British literature

Comments

[arboretum]

huh, that pretty much describes my experience growing up too.

[mercuriosity]

I feel you, especially with regard to the obsession with European culture. I was very Eurocentric in my interests for much of my life, and looking back now I wonder how much of that was just, you know, bias absorbed from growing up in a Western environment, and how much was aspiring to be as European as possible because I somehow knew it was desirable.

Not that I ever seriously aspired to an acting career, but in my young mind being able to play a princess on stage or in a movie was the next best thing to actually being one; and I remember feeling disappointed that I would never get that chance, I would never get to wear beautiful fairytale dresses and pretend to be a princess from way back when, because I didn't look like a princess from way back when