Chink?! (a work in progress)

It happened five years ago as I was walking home from school.  It was about this time of year; the sun was shining and it was a nice day out which was probably why I was walking in the first place.  My house is situated halfway up a hill, almost two miles from my high school and by the time the driveway was in sight I really worked up a sweat. I could feel a nice squashy V-shaped sweat impression on my back, and thought about how nice it would be to finally get inside, peel off my clothes and take a nice cool shower.  With my driveway about fifty feet away a pickup truck rumbled past me, carrying two white males sprawled out in the truck bed.  I made brief accidental eye contact with one of them as I pushed my glasses back up my nose, then I looked down to grab my keys.  One of them shouted something and as I brought my head back up the truck disappeared behind the curve.  I blinked, feeling confused.  My mind quickly processed what had just happened, and then I blinked a few more times to hold back tears as I caught up with my own thoughts and emotions.

Chink.  He had called me a chink.  For an instant I tried to deny it but (unlike the clip below) I knew deep down that there was no mistaking what he had said and that it had been aimed at me. He called me a chink.  I tried to reassure myself and thought to myself, “That’s stupid.  I’m not even Chinese!”  And then I immediately felt really stupid.  It’s not as if it would’ve made a difference if I really were Chinese.  Besides, even fellow Korean people have mistaken me for Chinese.  I don’t have anything against Chinese people but it’s annoying to be mistaken for something I’m not.

Still, it hurt to be called by that epithet.  I had been called slanty-eyed and made fun of for the way that “Asian languages” supposedly sound to non-Asian ears, been teased for my food, for my clothing, my height—but that was the first time I had been called by that word, and the first time one was directed at me so forcefully.  I’ve grown up in a pretty well off community, where I was rarely the only Asian student in my class and one of my best friends was the co-resident of the Asian Culture Club at my high school.  I didn’t have to go through what my grandfather or parents went through.  In today’s world, to be Asian is to be good at math; a generation ago someone would’ve said that we all knew kung-fu (or karate, because really what’s the difference?)  And certainly I don’t have to face the dilemma my grandfather did when he first came to America; he was in the south and had to decide between using the “white” bathroom or the one for “colored people”.  Mind you, my grandfather had pretty fair skin and wouldn’t have considered himself colored, but he still knew that there wasn’t something right about using the white people’s restrooms.  (I don’t know what he actually ended up doing; maybe he just held it in?)

image source

As I went in my house all I could hear in my head was that word, and kept asking myself “What? What?” and feeling hatred well up inside me.  I hated the man who randomly hurled such hate at me.  I hated myself for being so think skinned, and letting it get to me.  I hated that I was feeling sorry for myself, knowing that far worse words and actions had and have been inflicted on people, and that I was giving it so much thought.

What had that shouter to gain?  He already had the upper hand many ways: he was in a car going 30 miles an hour, I was walking; he was a man, I a teenage girl; he was white and I was, well, not.  He already had those things going for him.  We didn’t know each other.  Why had he chosen to shout at me? That was one of the big things that bothered me, too.  At least Alexandra Wallace (and I can’t believe I’m defending her) had specific grievances with the Asian people she knew and she directed her hate toward them in a very clearly delineated way.  But this person-- what had I ever done to him, aside from unintentionally look at him, or happen to be walking as he was driven by?  It sucks when people publicly and flagrantly act racist, but these little random personal attacks can be just as effective, just as damaging.  Institutional racism sucks but can be dealt with to a certain degree. But how am I to defend myself from such a random impersonal attack?  I can’t help but take it personally.

I haven’t thought about this incident since it happened.  I never told anyone about this until just recently, when thinking back on the fact that May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.  Even as I write this I get indignant and upset.  But I’m glad that it still makes me feel this way; it means that I haven’t become complacent and reminds me how to get legitimately angry.