September 13, 2016 - 20:31
summer 2014
"you've never heard of Jayesslee? you're so white", my friend lincoln laughs, watching as i douse my wontons liberally in sweet chili sauce.
"i am not," i respond, poking him with the clean end of my chopstick. "stop saying that."
"so. white," he mouths silently at vinnie, who pretends to be oblivious of our conversation.
i stick my tongue out at him.
it's lincoln and vinnie, my asian-australian friends, who first introduce me to the world of immigrant-asian millennial media. they send me CAMM links, gasp in disbelief when i claim i've never had my "Kpop phase". they instruct me carefully about Asian Youtubers (jayesslee, wongfu, nigahiga) and school me on Studio Ghibli.
and i learn it all. i am hungry for this community that i never realized i had, for myself reflected in the media.
***
i'm not sure when, exactly, i became conscious of the fact that people in advertisements and movie trailers frequently looked like me. i am from portland, after all -- for a very long time, whiteness (for me) went unmarked and unquestioned. black, brown, golden skin; these were the different ones. white? white was normal. white was in the newspapers and in the magazines and even in the disney movies i watched as a little kid. but somewhere along the line (high school?), my sister and i began to watch for people who looked like us. and we began to realize how very scarce they were.
as a person of color, there are resources available to me. there are artists to be proud of and musicals to watch and interviews to hear and podcasts to download. i am thrilled (still) about the presence of actors of color, of writers of color, of really any people of color in any sort of legitimate representation on issues that i care about. heck, even about issues i don't.
is that sad? maybe.
***
this doesn't even begin to dive into the actual content of the media, or the multiple ways in which race is portrayed. that would, after all, be too much for me to try to cover in a single reflection.
am i still "so white"? is that a choice i make? or is it simply that -- well, that's what most of the media provided to me looks like?
and this week,
like every week,
i found myself browsing through the news. clicking on any article about a successful asian-american, or covering the asian-american experience, or by an asian-american author. i click on it. i click on all of it. it is never enough to satisfy my hunger.
i am starving for words from people who look like me.