I know I can’t represent All Asians Everywhere any more than Jubilee could. I can’t give everyone everything they want and need in art, in stories. But I hope that those who don’t find what they need in my stories will find it elsewhere, that we’ll keep working toward having a variety of superheroes to choose favorites from.
This is a big piece of why I’ve been hesitant to jump into beautiful Charleston. This is why I’ve felt the weight of so much sadness as the excitement of making a home in a new town has begun to subside.
Sometimes, when I want to find out whether or not my students have actually read their assigned Emma pages, I mention that I’ve been compared to Miss Woodhouse. Those who have read past the first page look absolutely horrified, and their expression is a perfect reflection of mine when I came to the sentence that gave me the first inkling the man I was convinced was my destiny was not.
In the image, Necib is poised, strong, beautiful, and unapologetic. She belongs there: both her skilled feet and her painted hands. I thought of the young athlete I'd been and wished I could have seen something similar when I was still a child.
Black students will be expected to primarily form friendships with other Black students (and those Latin@s who can’t or choose not to pass as white) through the challenges of Shared Minority Struggles. You might also try sitting at the Korean Table in the dining hall.
When my family and I light joss sticks, prepare food offerings, and burn paper gifts (mostly replicas of clothes, houses, and cars) for our ancestors in return for blessings such as wealth and good health, it has always seemed to me that what we do approaches worship not so much as it does a highly pragmatic, reciprocal relationship tempered by remembered bonds of love and affection.
The fact remains that my first Korean drama was also the first time I saw a) two reasonably well-rounded and developed, human Asian characters b) falling in love on screen c) in a way that was not filtered through the Western world’s view or "understanding" of how Asian characters should act.
Some critics were calling Finn, among other things, comic relief, a token, and a coward. I don’t make a habit of arguing with people’s opinions, but what you’re not gonna do is flatten this character because he doesn’t fit your narrow expectations.
Last year, a couple in Florida – presumably hoping to distinguish their $45,000 adoption crowdfunding campaign from others like it – came up with a gimmick they referred to as the “Baby Draft”: If you donated, you could vote for your favorite football team, and the adopted child would be raised as a fan of whichever team got the most votes.
Noah is a multiracial Korean American. Nicole is a Korean American adoptee with multiracial kids. They both have a large number of white relatives and, to date, have not managed to turn a single one of them even a little bit Asian.
Regrettable Things Our White Relatives Have Said to Us, Or Why Having an Asian Person in Your Family Does Not Make You "Less White"
