I got up on the wrong side of the bed today. I’m grouchy. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get out of bed at 6 am. I thought it was daylight saving time at first and then I thought it was the travel to Colorado, but I feel like I should be over that. I’m just waiting, waiting for Vince and Jeremy to be vaccinated. Vince will be eligible in California April 16. Jeremy soon after on April 27. On the one hand it feels so slow, but on the other hand, it feels like a miracle. And I think I need to focus on the miracle of it all. It is a miracle.
I have been reading many articles written by Asian women about the Asian woman experience in America. How we feel invisible, or hypersexualized or mistaken for one another constantly or asked where are you from too many times. Someone even wrote on a facebook post, as an Asian woman, I’m near the bottom of the food chain. (If we are having a food chain race to the bottom, I would argue that having an intellectual disability puts you way, way further down. I don’t see any comedians apologizing for any retard jokes they have freely and abundantly made in the past.) I refuse to feel that way. Or I don’t want to feel that way. I have been given so many gifts and so much kindness from so many different types of people and the people who behave in terrible ways are relatively few in number that I just can’t constantly think that I’m the oppressed or marginalized one. I’ve found that the most odious people are equal opportunity assholes and that we can all behave badly at different times, but most of us get up and try again to be better or to right our wrongs. I know sometimes people can’t tell me apart from other Asian women, but when I started on my unit where most of my coworkers are Black, it was hard for me to remember everyone’s name and not mix people up. Everyone extended grace to me then as I stumbled through inadvertent and embarrassing mix-ups for longer than I’d like to admit. So maybe I’m the asshole. (And my parents! Just put them in front of fast action filled film with more than 5 white people and they are confused all the time.) As for asking where I’m from (which now it seems most Asian Americans take as a microaggression), I find most people ask it out of a type of kind curiosity. If you don’t ask, you don’t know. Literally, the 2nd chapter in any language book teaches you how to ask, where are you from? I’m from the Maryland. Where are you from? I’m from Mexico City. It is only in learning where we are all from that we will be able to understand where we can go together.
But I’ve gone round and round on this. Should I be angrier at the weirdo guys who hit on me (but not anymore now that I’m almost 50)? Should I be pissed when a man interrupts or talks over me in meetings (not anymore because I’ve arranged my professional life to be meeting-free)? Should I be irritated when someone isn’t satisfied when I say I’m from Maryland when they asked where I’m from (I’m mostly messing with them now when I say Maryland)? Maybe.