American Racist

The first time I told my dad I wanted to stay in the United States, my dad said, “You will never survive in America.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are yellow!”

Well…he isn’t that wrong. People do push Asians into the New York subway tracks, and people need to help in #StopAsianHate!

While most Taiwanese think America is the dreamland, I only learn more and more about racism over time through news, research, and friends’ stories. For instance, one day my white female friend angrily complained to us, “Someone catcalled me and called me ‘hot mommy!’ So gross!” My black female friend responded, “You lucky girl. They never called me hot; they only ask me to buy drugs!” (With her strong and cute Nigerian accent that I cannot stop laughing)

So today, I’m going to tell you about my personal experience with racism in America.

I usually go to a beautiful yoga studio next to my house. I go there pretty often, once or twice a week. However, I gradually noticed a weird thing: everyone always chatted with each other, and they looked like friends, but not with me!

Okay okay, weirdo friends, let me clarify some other logical reasoning that might be running through your mind.

• Hypothesis 1: Asians are shy, and therefore Esther is too shy to talk to others.
• Hypothesis 2: Esther has a super average face, hence no one can recognize her.
• Hypothesis 3: Americans are racists.

Hypothesis 1 is completely wrong because Esther does seize chances to talk to her neighbors quite often. Hypothesis 2 is also pretty wrong because Esther is significantly shorter than most white people, and she is usually pretty recognizable in public as a tiny cute Asian girl.

So…unfortunately…I need to come to the conclusion: Americans are just racists. My dad is right.

One day, after a yoga class, I joined a small conversation with other classmates talking about the class. And then I spoke to a girl, “Yeah, because you are sitting in the front row today, right?”

She went, “No? I sit right next to you!”

I got a little bit confused. I laughed and left.

A few weeks later after one class, a guy approached me, “Hi! How was your week? Bla bla bla…” Who is he? He talked as if he knew me. How weird!

I said, “Hmm…have we met?”

He said, “Oh! Yeah! We chatted last week. Remember?”

And then all of a sudden, I realized that I chatted with John all the way up the stairs, and we even walked the entire block last week!

At that moment, I finally realized why I don’t have friends in yoga class, because

Okay, and I am also not so sure if his name is John because I’m not only bad at white faces but also very bad at names too…