Alice How to Get Camera to Fade to Black
I am getting spit scrubbed out of my hair by a pharmacist.
It's been only weeks since the pandemic hit us. The entire nation has clenched itself into a white-knuckled panic. The phrase "these unprecedented times" is still new enough to sound alien to the masses and the urge to hoard toilet paper was just around the corner.
The spit had belonged to a woman with an impressive mullet who I had noticed staring me down before she finally launched the lawless loogie.
The setting of this loogie crime was in a chemist at a shopping centre where, ironically, I was buying meds for my complex PTSD.
Perhaps the most upsetting part of this was how unsurprised and deflated I felt. Having moved from South Korea to Sydney as a child, being an Asian immigrant meant learning how to process racism thrown your way, and learning it fast.
When someone was rude to you in public, a question always sat at the back of your mind: "Is it because I'm Asian?". I was so used to the routine now.
Taunts and teasing
Let me take you on a greatest hits tour of my experiences growing up Asian in the Lucky Country.
The taunts began straight away. Pushing the corners of their eyes back, groups of kids from school would yell "ching chong" or some other variant, until they got bored of my non-response and they'd go off seeking attention elsewhere. There was even a time when a bunch of kids formed a barrier with their arms linked chanting "Asian invasion". They tried to stop me entering the school grounds.
The teachers were no better. Some singled me out in front of the whole classroom and when I would inevitably make a mess of my English or some other mistake, the whole room would explode with raucous laughter. The teachers joined in.
I would open my lunchbox, different items of delicious things to eat lovingly packed by my mother to sounds of fake-vomiting and shrill "eeeewwws" from my classmates. Finally, with tears in my eyes, I lied to my mum and said I didn't want to eat Korean food anymore and to pack me sandwiches instead. My mum, astute and heartbroken, understood. It was peanut butter on white bread from then on.
My parents worked hard, my father died young
My parents worked as cleaners. The hours were long, the work was hard. I was only in my first year of primary school but I rarely saw them at home. I was a latchkey kid.
An alarm clock and a memorised routine got myself ready for school and there was a list of chores to do when I got home. Mum told me much later how she would often cry at work, knowing she had left me alone so much.
My father passed away suddenly when I was a teenager and my mother became the head of the household.
Her world was of the dutiful wife and mother, she was not taught or given the opportunity to cope with this new life. Her English was poor, her debt inherited and her stature was undermined. She had the enormous task of reconciling the old ways with the new. She was bleeding sepia in a technicolor world.
Then there was the hate mail
We would get anonymous hate mail stuffed into our mailbox.
"Just because you live like pigs back where you're from, it doesn't mean you should do that here. Go back to your country".
We would be attacked on the streets when speaking our mother tongue. Public transport was a gamble and forget about the idea of road tripping into regional towns.
I never felt a sense of truly belonging, not to my estranged homeland, and not entirely here in my new home.
There were hilarious moments
But there are some unique, wholesome and hilarious moments as an immigrant, though.
Mum and her endless misunderstandings of the English language (she once had a photo of me in a frame that proudly had "WOOF DOG" on it, she also misread and used a spray tan can for deodorant till I checked her underarms and it was Cheeto orange), neighbours in mum's flat gifting each other homemade sweets or fruit baskets. The people that help and listen.
For those dishing out the racism, I would say that sitting with your discomfort and reflecting is a powerful thing to do.
And a chance for growth
Some may feel that it's bad enough living through a worldwide pandemic — why add feeling guilty about white privilege on top of that — but negative feelings are just part of growth.
If you see something, say something. Side with us when we get attacked. Most of us you see getting assaulted in public spaces carry an already extensive back catalogue of trauma. We're exhausted and a kind gesture goes further than you can imagine.
My experiences, of course, will differ to other Asian people. The danger of storytelling is that often one facet is taken as the whole diamond.
It's from diverse voices we all learn and grow — to have solidarity and empowerment when our paths overlap, wonder and empathy in parts where we differ. Stereotypes and assumptions fade into the background. We all have a seat at the table.
Alice Amsel is a Korean Australian musician, artist and writer based in Sydney.
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Alice How to Get Camera to Fade to Black
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-03/racism-asian-australians-korea-covid-stereotypes/100181468