To the one currently reading this,

Hi. My name is Camille, I’m twenty-two-years-old, and I was adopted from China when I was a little under two-years-old.

I grew up in Pennsylvania in a really loving and accepting family. Never once was my adoption something that was hidden or kept a secret from me. I never felt like being different in terms of my physical features or my connection to the family was taboo or something that they were ashamed of. The time I spent growing up in my household, my questions about my birthplace and my birth parents were answered to the best of their ability; books about adoption and looking different than the people around me were stocked in my bookcase; trips to Chinatown in both Philly and New York City were always done, even if we were short on time.

And even with the most accepting and loving family, I wasn’t saved from the racism that the people who look like me experience. To my friends at my high school, I was basically the same as them. While physically I looked very different, my likes and interests were the same. Trips to Starbucks were always a must, and aimlessly walking around Target talking about everything we would buy if we had money was a constant weekend activity. And while that alone doesn’t seem like a terrible thing (the fact that my race was not a dividing factor in how people saw me), it created a weird disconnect between my Chinese heritage and my upbringing in a primarily White area.

To someone on the streets, I am just another Asian face. They don’t know that I’ve lived in America for basically my whole life or that my first language (and, unfortunately, my only language) is English. It doesn’t matter to them that I have no idea what the culture in my birth country is like or that I have no sentimental values to my birth country. They just see what they want to see: another Asian face, another person who is good at math, bad at driving, great at instruments, and probably knows some form of martial arts.

But to someone who knew me, I was the person who loved to watch soccer, eat peanut butter out of the jar, visit my favorite high school teachers during “bathroom breaks”, and just overall didn’t seem too invested in my Chinese heritage. In fact, I did tend to use my Chinese heritage (or lack of) as a way to break the ice with people. I made senseless jokes about my adoption and tried to ease tensions on it by finding ways to make my adoption have some wild origin story (for some time, I tried to convince people Steve Jobs was my father; or I escaped North Korea on a sailboat; or the story a woman at a nail salon told my mother to tell me: she had an Asian boyfriend and that is how I was born).

In the reflection I’ve put myself in the past few weeks with the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI), I wanted to know why I felt the need to make these jokes. I refused to believe I just woke up one April day and thought, “Hey, you know what’ll be fun? Making fun of my ethnicity because I’m sure that’ll get me more friends.” After many hours of just mulling it over (and endless nights crying), I finally managed to pinpoint the instances in which my need to poke fun at my ethnicity started.

One.

In kindergarten, a girl who was my assigned bus buddy asked me why my eyes looked so weird. When I asked what she meant, she took her index fingers and lifted the corners of her eyes to imitate the upward slant/almond shape my eyes have. I got off the bus and looked at myself in the mirror for a while, wondering if my eyes were, in fact, weird.

Two.

In first grade, when my parents came in for lunch on my birthday, a boy asked me why I didn’t look like my parents. I didn’t have a good answer, and he pointed out how while it was cool my parents brought in cookies for everyone, it was weird how I didn’t look even slightly like them.

Three.

In third grade, I was on the playground (notably, the swings) when a girl asked me if I knew why my parents decided to abandon me and if I was aware that my mom wasn’t really my mom. Later that day, I went home and asked my mom why she would want me since I wasn’t really hers.

Four.

In fourth grade, I was opening up my lunchbox with some leftover Chinese food when a boy asked me if it was dog meat in my lunch. I was baffled and informed him it was chicken and that I wouldn’t eat dogs because I loved my dogs, and he told me that it was just a matter of time until I got hungry and ate my pets because “that’s what Asians do”. After that, I packed anything that didn’t have meat in it to avoid another confrontation.

Five.

In fifth grade, I was made aware that my nose was not the same as everyone else’s. It’s flat and squishy and doesn’t fit the typical western beauty standard. But I never thought anything of it until someone told me that if I broke my nose, no one would notice because it was already so flat and tomato-like. After that, I didn’t want to take side profile pictures ever again.

Six.

In sixth grade, I forgot something at my house and my mom needed to drop it off for me to pick up. Later that day, I was eating lunch with a friend when she informed me that she had seen my mother in the office and said hello. That statement was then quickly followed by a “and then this girl I was walking with didn’t think it was your mom because she wasn’t Asian, and I thought it was so funny because I forget people don’t know you’re adopted.” After that, I began to find ways to let people know I was adopted within our first interactions (ie. sending a family photo or a quick “so I was adopted, which is why I have a French first name, German last name, and Chinese appearance).

Seven.

In seventh grade, moms were invited to Muffins for Moms to honor Mother’s Day and dads to Donuts for Dads to honor Father’s Day. There, it was even more apparent how much all my friends looked like their parents, and how little I looked like mine. When sitting with my friends and their parents, I felt awkward introducing them as “my mom” and “my dad” because there was that obvious difference in how we looked.

Eight.

The summer after eighth grade (right before my first year of high school), my family went on a cruise. And I used that cruise as an opportunity to figure out how to interact and talk with kids who were older than me seeing as I would soon be having classes with older kids and not just those in my grade. Instead of learning good communication skills and how to just be myself, I learned that joking about my ethnicity and blaming certain things on “being Asian” made for a great punchline and it quickly made me one of “the funny kids”.

Nine.

In one of my high school courses, we learned about the One-Child Policy that was implemented in China. And while that was an important factor in my adoption, it brought up some weird feelings on why I was put up for adoption. Was I dropped off at the orphanage because I was a girl and my birth parents wanted a son? Was I dropped off at the orphanage because I was a second child and I would be killed if I was discovered? Was I dropped off at the orphanage because I was born out of wedlock? Was I dropped off at the orphanage because my birth parents couldn’t support me and they wanted me to have a better life? Because of that, I began to resent the adoption. I resented being different, I resented not knowing anything about my past. I have no idea when my real birthday is. I have no idea what illnesses I am more susceptible to because of my genetics or what quirks I’ll have because of my nature and not my nurture.

Ten.

In one of the years I was on the high school swim team, I was asked if I see half of what other people see because I have a monolid. Before that, I had never wondered if I would see half of what everyone else who has a double lid sees. How would I even know? I’ve had the same eyes and lid type for my entire life, so obviously I was seeing all of what I saw.

Eleven.

In one of my literature courses in high school, I was sitting next to this boy. One day, while we were doing work, he turned to me and informed me that his brother wanted to marry an Asian woman because when Asian women “open their legs while having sex, their vagina gets tighter because it’s sideways.” At that moment, I realized that 1) my school did a terrible job teaching this kid about basic anatomy and that 2) Asian fetishes were real and weird. It began to make me wonder if people were friends with me because they actually liked me, or if they were friends with me just because I was Asian. And while that version of a fetish isn’t sexual, there is still platonic fetishizations of people (ie. all the girls who really want a “Gay Best Friend”).

Twelve.

In one of my years at high school, I suffered from a really bad concussion and was unable to attend school fully. That particular semester, I had a math class. And due to my concussion and my half-day attendance, I was unable to understand the information as well as I could have had I been with a fully-working brain and a full attendance. Because of this, I was often behind in class and didn’t understand the course material. The easy thing would have been to ask for help from someone, but it had been made clear to me that “Asians are so good at math, you guys don’t even need a calculator to do this stuff”, so I felt that I couldn’t ask for more support because I was supposed to know this just due to my ethnicity. I wasn’t allowed to be bad at math or not understand equations and formulas because I am Asian, and Asians are all great at STEM courses.

Thirteen.

In a past relationship, I was referred to as “Chinese Takeout”. I don’t really know what the point of that was — I knew that this person had dated someone who’s family ties could be traced back to another country, but they were never referred to as “Italian Takeout”, even though getting Italian food as takeout is pretty common. It made me hyper-aware of the interracial relationship, of the fact I was a different race than they were, of the fact that as much as I wanted to be White, as much as I wanted to look like everyone I’ve grown up around, it was something I could never achieve.

These thirteen instances are the only ones I remember vividly. If asked, I could tell you the names of the people who said and did each of those things to me and which room and class I was in. But I have a strong belief that people can change, and that we all say and do stupid and hurtful things when we’re young. I don’t hold anything against those people who have said these things to me. I myself cannot say I am a saint when it comes to being sensitive with my words.

But in the past five years, I’ve realized that I live in a country that doesn’t want me here. Policies and views candidates have had on immigrants, the LGBTQIA+ community, and women are filled with xenophobia, hate, and the need for control. To me, the rights for a human to exist without fear should outweigh anything and everything, and policy should reflect that. America is often referred to as a melting pot—but it’s a melting pot where all are welcome as long as you are a straight White man. It is a place where they accept and crave Asian food, but they will not accept and love the people who make it for them. It is a place where the act of two girls kissing is seen as hot but only if it is filmed for the enjoyment of the male eye. It is a place where the freedom to practice your religion was a key factor in the country’s origins but still there are places in the United States where people are murdered and attacked for their religious beliefs. It is a place where all men are created equal but when one man murders six people, he just had a “bad day” and is taken into custody alive, but when another man is walking home from a convenience store, he is seen as “sketchy” and ends up losing his life.

The rise of hate crimes against the AAPI community these past few weeks has brought to light just how much this country doesn’t want us here. We belong to America just as long as we give you the food from our cultures and as long as we teach your kids martial arts and as long as we build your railroads. We belong to America just as long as we cut your hair and paint your nails and act as if the way you speak down to us isn’t degrading. But we don’t belong to America when a pandemic happens and the first major breakout is traced back to China. We don’t belong to America when there is a world war, and even though it’s happening on two sides, only one side is punished and forced into internment camps for fear of “national security”. We don’t belong in America if we can’t fully speak the language without an accent, even though that is evidence that the person is smart enough to learn another language and live in a place where they have to translate everything inside their head rapidly in order to partake in conversations.

To the person reading this, if you are uncomfortable at all, I apologize. My intent is not to make you uncomfortable but to maybe help give another perspective on how the rise in AAPI hate isn’t new. It’s something that has been around for years, even if not to the scale that it is today. And it’s something that has impacted all people who look Asian. Adoption does not save me from experiencing racist comments from people. Adoption does not save me from people on the streets calling me “China”. Adoption does not save me from being hyper-aware of the people who walk by me and bracing myself for a rude comment or remark. And I feel like that’s something that people close to me often forget. To them, I’m just Camille. My race has nothing to do with me as a person and it doesn’t take away from how they see me. But to a stranger on the street, that doesn’t matter at all. They don’t know my name or my history, they just know I’m Asian and that’s all they feel the need to know.

So to the person reading this, I’m asking you to just try. Try to understand that your Asian friends are scared. Try to understand that just because they may not have faced physical attacks for their race, they may have experienced verbal attacks. Try to understand that we as a nation need to do better. We need to do better for the people who come to this country because of the opportunity. We need to do better for the people who have lost their lives because of the color of their skin. We need to do better to make America the nation with liberty and justice for all.