Waking Up to My White Privilege as a Biracial Asian American
I am biracial. I identify as Asian American. I am both Asian and white. Yet I am neither Asian nor white. This duality is hard for many to understand, but it is my world. It is my normal.
I grew up in rural Minnesota, going to school in a town of 1,200 people where I was the only not fully white kid in the entire elementary school. Later a few other minorities moved to our community, but even by senior year there were only two other biracial kids in my graduating class of 90 students.
Not surprisingly, I was bullied as a child. There were several boys whose greatest pleasure seemed to be watching me slink down in my seat as they tormented me with chants about being Chinese and hand motions in the dreaded “Asian eyes" gesture. They made sure to make me very aware that they thought I looked weird, foreign and ugly. By the way, I’m not Chinese, I’m Korean. Also, if you are not sure what this gesture is or why it’s so traumatizing to be harassed by it, just ask literally anyone of Asian descent who grew up in a country where Asians were in the minority. Or better yet, read this.
As I grew older, the tone changed. By high school, I was treated as “the Asian One" and in my…
