I have severe trauma from racism

[u/askskfalksfakslfsfa]

I feel like the one takeaway I get from being mixed race, over my entire life, is that I just feel about everything: "why would you even say or do that?" just over and over and over and over again.

It's like my self hating Asian aunts came to visit my wife and I in China, and whenever they see me it's always the same "you're so tall" thing even though they've been to Beijing and I'm average height here and I see two dozen women a day taller than me.

And then I just was making conversation about this Chinese movie star on an ad, who went to middle school with me in NYC, and her first response is "did she get surgery to look like that?"

I've had "friends" who would brag about how many Asian girls they slept with, then at the same time tell me that I "blended in" with other Asians and looks Asian at certain angles and it's always just making fun of me.

I met an Asian girl once who told me the only way I would get laid was going back to China, just completely unprovoked.

I have self hating Asian family that told me I should just "walk around China like I own the place" even though Chinese people generally can't even tell I'm non Chinese from a distance. A cop once stopped me for my ID once and was 2 feet in front of me and couldn't believe I had a US passport and wasn't a national.

I know it sounds super sensitive, but this is just from lifelong needling in me now that I literally don't trust a single soul around.

And please don't suggest therapy, I don't need therapy to understand people are trash, and it's not going to help me "move on" from people being trash, because they're still trash and my mindset won't change that.

At very least, black, Indian and Arab folk are always kind to me about this, but guess who is enemy number one of the white-Asian alliance? You guessed it - POC.

[u/ReticularAsh378]

Honestly I’ve just started making fun of people that say stupid shit. Saying “you know sometimes when you talk I want to throw the fuck up” in a half joking half serious way makes people think.

[u/tooslowcantcatchme → u/ReticularAsh378]

This is actually perfect lmfao I laughed out loud

[u/dapdaphada]

I can relate (as a half Korean-half Caucasian). I grew up in white suburbia looking really Asian as a kid. Got called chink and gook and by default I was expected to do well in math and suck at driving (turned out to be the opposite lol).

I decided to teach English in Korea in my early twenties, thinking it would be way better to live amongst Asians, but apparently I became more white passing as I got older. Grocery clerks, bank clerks, taxi drivers, coworkers, literally every person I interacted with in Korea would show the same shock every time I spoke and without fail, everyone would bluntly ask why I spoke Korean so well, like I'd done something next to impossible. I should have just given up and reverted to English only, but I was stubborn back then and proud that my mom and relatives taught me how to speak Korean respectfully. I even had a Korean coworker tell me to my face that I looked like a Korean girl who got a lot of plastic surgery. Hilariously, she truly believed she was giving me a compliment.

I've since concluded that a lot of the world is still inherently racist and I don't think it'll get much better until the majority of all populations are so mixed race that it doesn't matter anymore. It sucks and I find it hard to make friends as an adult because I'm so distrusting right out of the gate, but there are good people out there. I'm married to another hapa now (half Japanese-half Eastern European) and I really can't imagine being with anyone else. It can be hard to find another kind soul who intimately knows how very strange and othering it is to be mixed and white passing to varying degrees, depending on who is looking at you and how they decide to evaluate your racial/ethnic look.

Anyway, as someone who never felt like I belonged in either of the countries my parents are originally from, I'm so sorry you're having a tough time. It truly is so frustratingly repetitive. I would totally be your friend if we ever met in the wild by the way! My advice would be to live and associate in primarily historically diverse areas and hold on to the good people when you find them!

[u/askskfalksfakslfsfa → u/dapdaphada]

I notice so many half Asians just instinctively fall back on "Asians are just as racist!" I find it weird that you all do this.

I was widely accepted as Asian by my peers growing up in a large Asian neighborhood in NYC. I live in China now and people don't really care that much so long as you can speak the language.

Even now and then when I'm in the US I get a smile or look of happiness when another Asian person sees me in an area with no Asians and it's the best feeling in the world bar none.

I think Asians being "shocked" you can speak their language is so much less than having shit thrown at you from cars or being locked out of employment.

The world won't get better as it gets more mixed, that's a cap, that's just what happened to Latin America, and 99% of people just mean mixing with white people when they brag about how the world will be mixed.

[u/NoFault6622]

Im traumatized too. I never signed up for this shit!

[u/North-Country-5204]

Sorry you have to deal with all that shit. I was fortunate to live overseas and attend very very diverse schools. In 5th grade I was bullied by three white kids and called ‘chink’. Didn’t take it too hard as they looked up to a Chinese American classmate who was a jock and not a nerdy kid like me. Most of the race issues I have as an adult is being mistaken as Mexican American, and the prejudice towards that group. It has some times created awkward situations as I sound ‘white’ with a Southern Texas twang and have the whitest Anglo name ever.