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As someone who went to an elementary school that was diverse in people of all different backgrounds, I was always with people of all different races and nationalities. Everything seemed sunshine and rainbows until an instance from when I was in fourth grade, that opened my eyes to the blatant racism from a nine year old. She wrote "f*cking ch*nk" in her comic. I was in absolute distraught when I found her comic strip. Instead of owning up to her wrongdoings, she blamed it on others and found it funny. It just goes to show how prejudice again Asians is engrained in so many people's childhood. It was absolutely disgusting to see people laugh at a derogatory racial slur. Since then, I have moved out of that neighborhood and moved to a predominately Asian neighborhood. Since the move, I have not faced any injustices against my nationality. However, I am sure there are people out there facing injustices on the daily. A message for them is to stay strong and I, we, are all here for you.

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Growing up East Asian in America has influenced who I am today. When I was younger I attending an almost all white elementary and middle school. This experience made me feel ashamed to be Asian. I wanted to fit in and ignored my culture. I remember being embarrassed of the food my mom made me or embarrassed when my grandpa picked me up from school. I should've been happy to  have my grandpa do that for me but all I had thought of was what my classmates thought. I would hear their racist views that were influenced by their parents in school and didn't want to be the one that they mocked. I ignored my Asian culture just think that I belonged. Even with abandoning the culture that was so important to me to make others more comfortable, they still treated me differently and made stereotypical assumptions of me. Today I rebuilt those connections with my Asian culture but with constant hate-crimes occurring I feel as if I need to abandon the ties that I worked so hard to recreate just to satisfy others and keep myself safe. It's so sick that people use this virus to fuel and justify their racist beliefs. Why are you attacking those who go though enough instead of standing strong together and beat the virus that has no correlation to race. Why attack others just because you cant accept that there are others different from you. What is the point of these hate crimes? It doesn't make problems disappear, just incites fear on the innocent.

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Growing up as a Chinese girl in white America has influenced my childhood and now teenage years to a massive extent. The emphasis on feeling mentally and physically different from people who didn’t look like me segregated me into another category. I always felt out of place as humans tend to stick to familiarity, and to them I was not of that familiarity. Being scared of opening my lunchbox or introducing my culture was out of the question. I didn’t and still don’t feel like I belong in a place. Now, with anti-Asian assaults and xenophobia on the rise, I feel unsafe anywhere. I’ve took extra precaution buying non-lethal weapons for my family and myself for the “what if’s.” Growing up non-white is hard in America, and the whole Asian community can feel the pain I feel when I say we want the same equality that is our birthright here in America. We deserve more than being viewed as inferior or “exotic” people. We are not all good at math, we are not all talented musically or academically, we are not all dog eaters, we are not your stereotypes. We are all normal people who want to live in peace. To fight for something we deserve is a disappointment as Asian Americans. I am proud of who I am. To all my Asian Americans, I hope you are all as proud as I am for my heritage, I remember feeling ashamed which is a regret. We are one forever and always.

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As someone who's elementary school was predominantly Chinese, the transition to middle school caused change to what I thought of myself. I started interacting more with white people and faced jokes that were racist even though I brushed it off at the time. I had some of my friends at the joke making jokes about small eyes, which I didn't have the courage or will to tell them it wasn't funny. A lot of it also was due to hating that I was Asian and wanting to be white. I surrounded myself with white people and neglected my culture. I was uncomfortable wearing anything had Chinese words on it due to wanting to be more white. As a result, I found myself losing my ability to connect with my culture and my ability to communicate in Chinese has decreased. Even now, I still have some of that self-hate in me. Ultimately, accepting who I am hasn't been easy for me and is still something I'm working on. Being in a high school that's more diverse helped me not only appreciate other cultures but also try to embrace my own.

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Student from Highschool for Dual Language & Asian Studies

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Student from Highschool for Dual Language & Asian Studies

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Growing up East Asian in America, it means a lot. There have been multiple instances where I’ve experienced racism in all kinds of forms. Ive unanimously been called the model minority, and it hurts. It hurts how normalized racism against my race and I really wish to fix this. Being called the c-slur, random people telling me ni hao, to pulling their eyes back purposely to mock me. But there were also times where people were very respectful! When brining my cultural food into school, no one made fun of it, I actually got more compliments. In general, just growing up Asian, I don’t see much representation. It’s weird how every time I see someone who looks like me in a movie or anything, my first thought is always, “oh she’s Asian, that’s surprising.” This is always my initial though because again, we don’t have representation. Or the fact that we aren’t taught Asian-American history at all. Probably other than the Japanese-Americans held in internment camps, I wouldn’t think others would know what the Chinese exclusion act is, the Chinese massacre, and many other Anti-Asian-American “events” that happened in America. Seeing as the former-president called my people the Kung-flu and the Chinese virus, it really hit at that time that, was there any people on my side other than my own community? In conclusion, growing up East-Asian in America has definitely brought me happy and sad times however all we can do as humans now is true to make the world a better place.

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growing up east asian meant being prideful of my heritage but simultaneously being ashamed. it meant fueling my pride with my shame whenever i or my peers were faced with slurs, gestures, and insensitive jokes that were swept under the rug. it meant standing up for myself whenever i could because my culture and background were nothing to be ashamed of. hiding my heritage was not a conscious effort, but was a result of the looks that i got when i spoke with my parents on the street, when i ate my packed lunch, when i did not understand that i looked different. i have since then learned that the hurtful actions of others do not define one’s self. our culture should be shared and embraced and not hidden. our traditions, food, and actions should not be turned into comedy, but be appreciated. we need to stand together and fight for who we are.

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Growing up as a Chinese American, I’ve always felt this need to hide my Chinese culture. I was afraid to be mocked, judged, and made fun of. I ultimately began to try to distance myself from anything under the umbrella of being Chinese. From being called racial slurs to having racial gestures made towards me, I’ve been aware of the anti Asian rhetoric since I was in elementary school. I still remember when my dad had told me, “nobody cares about us here, they will never like us. We will be discriminated against as long as we are Chinese.” It had hurt to hear him say that because what he has said is frankly reality. We are underrepresented in the media despite the constant hate crimes made against the people in our community. It is disgusting and degrading. I’m glad that some people are beginning to talk about the struggles of Asians in America, however, why did it take the murder of innocent people and countless violent  attacks to ignite this conversation when anti Asian racism is nothing new. I struggled growing up in America as a Chinese American, and I still do

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I, myself, have never personally been the victim of racism for being East Asian. For me I have always been proud of my cultures; being both Chinese and Korean. I was lucky enough to grow up around and find people who respect and enjoy learning about my cultures. I grew up with the support of my culture from my family and embraced it throughout my life. I have been lucky enough to have been able to do this, yet I have friends who have not had the same privilege as I. I have been at NEST+m for my entire K-12 school career and have only had people who did not put me down for who I am. Even now, in college, I have been surrounded my supportive people. I am lucky in this sense. I have friends who have not been. And so when it comes to Asian American struggles as an Asian American myself, it was about the immense empathy and my ability to relate to it. And yet just hearing, reading, being directly told about these things happening and going on is draining as well.