WEEK 7 RACE

The first time I was semi conscious of my own race was at a ridiculous young age. The first day of Kindergarten during lunch I remembered so vividly a conversation brought up by a young black boy. He started declaring how he believed in God and continued to ask everyone else if they believed in God as well. For my bewildered self at the age of 6 this was the first time I even heard the term God. I had no idea who are what God was, and later the night asked my older brother to explain to me what the boy in my class was talking about. My brother explained because explained that our family believed in someone else named Buddha and that I shouldn't worry about it. And that was when I finally grew conscious of my race. I realized the next time I went to my family temple, all the children there had the same olive yellow skin tone as mine, and the same black hair as mine. And I also realized in my Kindergarten class there was only one other boy that shared the same physical traits as me. Two years the later the same boy that I finally recognized as a fellow asian, started calling me a "twinkie" and a "banana".

I took this as an endearing term and continued the rest of elementary school days chasing him around the playground. It wasn't until middle school I realized the term was used because I was "yellow on the outside and white on inside". This revelation grew alongside me the rest of years of education. I realized I grew up in a predominately white area, and attended a school that had cumulatively only five Asian students per grade. I recognized my role as the token Asian friend, to my white friends and learned to embrace the term of being a "twinkie" because what was wrong with being white?. I disliked being held against typical the Asian stereotypes such as bad driving and having high intelligence in computer programing or mathmatics.
But now I am proud to say my perspective towards my own race has changed. The fact that I had been brought up so suppressed by the dominant ideology by fellow friends have made me more curious about my own culture and race.