Today is Martin Luther King Day, a day to commemorate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and to shine a light on civil rights in America. In the spirit of shedding light on racial inequality, I am sharing my story today of being an Asian immigrant in the United States.
Martin Luther King is perhaps most well-known for his “I have a dream” speech:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
I remember growing up, we spent a long time in U.S. History and Social Studies discussing Martin Luther King Jr.’s impact and legacy on civil rights and race relations in the United States.
We spent so long talking about race inequality, but actually spent little time discussing gender. I want to take Dr. King’s dream and speech one step further today and also discuss gender.
What It Is Like to be a Female
Before we even discuss race, I want to highlight something that happened to me just yesterday that underscores the importance of gender.
Yesterday was the AFC and NFC Championship games to determine which final 2 NFL team are heading to the Super Bowl. Without going into too much detail, I posted a snarky comment on a NFL memes page about a missed call by the referees that caused one of the teams to lose the game, and thus, miss out on a trip to the Super Bowl.
I received two comments to my comment (which garnered a total of 107 likes) from two white men (based on their profile photo) that asked why I felt like I was “smart enough” to make a comment on the game when I “clearly didn’t watch football” and “who let me out of the kitchen”.
Wow.
To be honest, I see where it is coming from. Your team is being ragged on for having a fake win, and this Asian girl with an Instagram full of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content is coming into a football page making a comment. It doesn’t add up.
Yet, it also does add up. The perception and judgement we cast on others based on their gender is ridiculous, to say the least. Why is it okay for Instagram to not ban these folks from Instagram for making sexist, misogynistic comments? Why is it socially acceptable for these comments to be made in the first place?
Too often, I have had others judge me for having a fashion blog and for loving fashion and beauty as much as I do.
It is thought of to be vain, self-absorbed, and not at all masculine. It is easy to judge me and write me off as a female who understands nothing about football because all I post about is clothes and makeup. Too often, popular culture classifies the girl who loves makeup and clothes to be the “villain”. A girl is only strong and powerful if she casts aside the evils of liking cute clothes, having fun with makeup, and taking joy in looking at one’s best.
Can we please move past this dangerous narrative? I’m not shallow because I like fashion. I’m not someone should just “stay in the kitchen”. It’s time to retire this dangerous, worn out narrative.
We have no female presidents, we have no federal holidays that commemorate the life and legacies of many women in history who have changed society, and today, women are still being viewed as second-class, to a certain degree.
Dr. King’s dream is nowhere close to being realized, in part because of we bizarrely find ourselves in this odd situation where people of color are still being marginalized in society some 50 years after the Civil Rights movement and in part because comments about women staying in the kitchen are still socially acceptable.
Jes Staley, CEO of Barclays Group, stated in one of his talks that he has noticed that in Finance and Banking, the subconscious bias of not promoting women and favoring men exists.
What does this even mean? It means that it takes work and consciously working against that subconscious bias in order to erase the bias. To take Dr. King’s speech one step further, I would say that my dream is to see a day in which children of this nation will not be judged by the color of their skin or by their gender, but by the content of their character.
What It Is Like to be Asian
Let’s move on to the topic of race, and the story of why I want to write about my experience of being an Asian fashion blogger.
One of my favorite SoulCycle instructors at the NYC East 83rd Studio, Trammell Logan, started talked about his experience being a minority. More specifically, he was talking about his experience being a POC in an industry and teaching in a neighborhood made up predominantly of white Caucasians.
His point was that if we didn’t know that he is one of the most successful instructors and fitness gurus (my words, not his) whose classes are always sold out at East 83rd, then would we have the same perception of him as we do now, knowing these facts?
The answer is that many of us probably would think very differently about him, and THAT is the problem.
Similar to the issue of gender, we create this story and perception around a person immediately as we see anything about them. We don’t take the time to pause, hold judgement, and listen to someone’s story.
For all of our talk of representation, something I have really struggled with is the idea of representing who I am.
I am an ethnically Chinese girl, who was born in Taiwan, but has never lived more than 6 years of her whole life in Taiwan. My identity is that of an American, and I will always take pride in being an American.
I bleed red, white, and blue, and I love everything about this country and our culture. Not every aspect is great; I’m not about the hatred and the prejudice, but I have so much love for the people of this country. I am not scared to say that I am proud of our history being a democracy, and I am not scared to say that I am proud of our people.
Oh, there have been mistakes… there has been pain and torture and the worst sort of treatment you can give to a fellow human being, let alone a fellow citizen. But I’m not the type to shy away from talking about how much I love our country. The fact that I can sit here, write this message, and talk about this is a testament to why this country is great and why we need to keep working at this.
This brings me to my point.
Why is it that I often find that it is so hard to connect to my fellow 20 to 30 year old American women without being boxed in to a stereotype? Why is it that there are so few Asian Influencers?
YES, they exist, but let’s be real for a second. There are not that many. Looking through my Instagram, the majority of the Influencers I see do not look like me at all. What is even worse is that the Asian influencers out there that have made it and are successful are not actually the ones that I relate to most.
They cater to a very specific audience type, which is great and exactly what they should be doing, but unfortunately, I do not fit into that audience. Once again, I am on the outside looking in and finding it hard to find an influencer who looks like me and is catering to my interests.
I am boxed into racial stereotype because social media dictates that we have to judge others on first impression. We have this idea of being All-American, that you embody what America is with our culture. I would love it if our image of what All-American means doesn’t have to equate to being white and blonde.
As a blogger of Asian descent, I have to work twice as hard to attract the audience that I want.
I see often that many other Asian girls follow me and then unfollow me because they realize that I am all about things like that they may not relate to. Mostly I find that this happens when they realize I take joy in certain epithets of American culture. They just don’t relate to me because that is not what their life is about, and I am okay with that.
Part of the reason why recently I decided to focus more on solely fashion and beauty is simply because trying to grow a following with lifestyle content is next to impossible when you’re judged base don your race and categorized into a box of stereotypes that you don’t fit into at all.
Racism Towards Asians in Today’s Society
Dolce and Gabbana was recently outed to be racist, and I say that quite literally because I don’t believe for a second that those screenshots of Stefano Gabbana being racist were fake. WHY is it that NO ONE at Dolce and Gabbana thought that those ads are okay and that Stefano’s habit of being rude, condescending, and racist, is okay? WHY would anyone want to work under THAT? Yet, they are one of the biggest names in the luxury fashion industry.
Another incidence of blatant racism was displayed by Miss USA 2018, Sarah Rose Summers. If you don’t know what happened, the Instagram account Diet-Prada has documented the whole thing. There are also a plethora of news articles on this, including ones from CNN. Long story short, Summers was making fun of fellow contestants from Asian countries, perpetuating the horrible Asian stereotypes that we have.
Somehow, despite the blatant ignorance and racism that Summers displayed, it seems that we have all forgotten about it, and Summers still continues to get the fame and wealth that she doesn’t deserve.
It’s impossible for me to understand why white people and other non-Asian people found it okay to “forgive her” and to tell us off for giving her grief for her racist and ignorant comments.
I don’t have an answer to any of this though I wish I did. I wish I knew how to make sure that Asian influencers aren’t judged upon their first appearance for not being blonde with blue eyes, but I don’t. All I know is that I want to talk about this, I want to put it out here, and I don’t want to be scared of the backlash.
There are going to be people who read this, roll their eyes, and think that I am just complaining or putting the blame on someone. Again, I am going to reiterate, this isn’t necessarilyanyone’s fault and no one person is to blame. All of the influencers in this space have worked their butt off to get to where they are, and I am not going to discredit their hard work. They earned that. I just wish that Asian influencers who work just as hard can get the recognition they deserve.
My takeaway from all this is that I will live my life from a place of love and respect to all.
Love and respect, to me, starts with understanding one another through the acceptance and celebration of our differences.
There are two quotes by Dr. King that I find vastly underrated.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
The time is always right to do what is right.
I find that these two quotes are a motto for how we should all be living our lives. No longer will I be silent about the fact that race relations is extremely important in this country, and no longer will I be silent about how sexism and misogynistic comments need to be left alone in the past.
For me personally, I don’t know a better way to honor Dr. King today than by writing this post. I hope my story helped you better understand my journey, and I hope my story helped shed light on a very serious issue in our society today where we are still being judged based on our gender and race, rather than by our character.
