Julie Kim looking cute, Summer 2017
This summer my friend Julie went into the depths of remote Montana to do a graphic design internship. Well, she didn’t actually go into the heart of Montana, but 8 hours driving distance feels like a lifetime and the closest Target was at least 2 hours away so that’s pretty out there if you ask me. Julie is third generation Korean American and as the trees got taller the isolation got heavier as the majority of the people around her were white. One day she was talking with someone and the person had grown up as a child of a missionary mom and dad in an Asian country. Within the conversation that person flippantly said to Julie, “We are like opposites! I grew up in Asian but I’m white and you grew up in America but you’re Asian.”
*deep breath*
Yikes.
I think situations like these serve as markers to bring up dialogue around problematic things that white (and other) people believe or think are true.
- This comment erases history and lived experience. Because Asian countries are influenced by globalization and racial hierarchy, white people living in Asian countries are in a powerful position and further bring western values into the country. Also, APIA’s face discrimination and racism in America which does not happen in the same degree or for the same reasons in other countries.
- This points out that people think that Asian Pacific Islander Americans are not American and don’t belong in the United States. It clearly shows the narrative the narrative that Americans are white and people must be white to be American. It also points out the idea that the API person should go back to an Asian country, just as the speaker came back to America. Which is not what should happen.
Send Julie Kim some love! Her website is full of her graphic design projects (she is in her senior year at the University of Washington) and personal projects that light up the gloomy, rain filled Washington days.