My Stereotypes, Myself

Today was a day of Asian stereotyping.

First, I went to the bookstore and read a chapter from The Price of Admission: How America's elite class buys its way into elite colleges -- and who gets left outside the gates. The chapter was entitled "Asians, The New Jews" (paraphrased).

The chapter describes how Asian college applicants are held to a higher admissions standard than other races (like Jews in the early 20th century) because there is a bias against them based on stereotypes that label Asians as: "quasi-robots that just do what their parents tell them to," quiet, shy, only good at math and science, and generally not socially interesting.

And then I went home and read a book my friend gave me for my birthday entitled More than Serving Tea, which discussed common Asian female stereotypes like: quiet, submissive, compliant, and inferior to men.

I don't know why I felt so overwhelmed after hearing all these stereotypes. After all, I've been aware of them before. But there I was, feeling dizzy, claustrophic, boxed in, and...well...labelled.

Luckily (or naively) for me, I had never experienced being prejudged based on my ethnicity because I grew up in Silicon Valley, home of the Asian American immigrant community where my highschool was at least 20% Asian (if not more). No one had preconceived notions of who you were, and I felt completely unfettered by any identity markers, except those particular to myself.

But now, having moved out of that haven of Asianess, and into the great wide world of, well, Non-Asianess, I realize that I am not a tabula rasa to strangers. I am, apparently: submissive, quiet, shy, quasi-robotic, and good at math and science. I am soft-spoken, obedient, hardworking, and let's not forget, as socially scintillating as paint drying.

And that bothers me because...like all stereotypes, they're kind of true, especially in my case.

p.s. No, that's not a picture of me in younger years.
p.p.s. Happy New Year!!!!!