Asians in the Library

Me and my friends in high school. We're all Asian. I am tall.

On Thursday I was walking my friend to the library and I asked her where she usually studied. She said, "I study in the Asian Collection." We went up there and I saw that it literally was an Asian collection. It was like I was at UCLA or back at my high school in Hawaii. I wondered why all of these Asian people studied at the Asian Collection section of the library. Was it just a funny joke? Or did they crave the company of fellow Orientals?

I am half-Chinese and half-Caucasian. I study in the Social Science section of the library because it is quiet and I have access to computers. I am also a Social Science major, so I feel like that is my designated area.

I come from a high school that was probably 80% Asian, 15% Polynesian, and 5% Caucasian. My high school's reputation was "nerdy Asians." (Our rival high schools were Punahou, or "rich haoles [white people]," and Kamehameha, or "good-looking Hawaiians"). Coming to BYU was a huge culture shock for me because of the abundance of Caucasians. I had never been a "minority" in my life and I still feel very uncomfortable with the word because where I come from multicultural kids like me are everywhere.

I've struggled with my new minority status until very recently. Previously a lot of my classmates said what I considered to be insensitive things about my heritage. The most common thing I get is people mistaking me for being Filipino or Hawaiian. When they find out that I'm Chinese, they say things like "Oh, but they [Asian or Polynesian races] are all the same anyway, so why make the distinction?" I'm offended because I feel like everyone's heritage matters. Even when Caucasian people say, "I'm just white," I disagree and ask them to be more specific. I've learned some cool things about people this way. For example, my home teacher's ancestor was William Bradford, the first governor of Plymouth Colony.

Now I have changed my attitude. Whenever people say something offensive I don't take it to seriously. Mostly I try to make a joke out of it. I'll say something stupid, like, "It's cause I'm brown?" [This is actually really enjoyable because I could never get away with saying that I was brown back home. People would ask what a haole girl like me was talking about]. I think that this is a healthier way to respond. I now understand that not everyone was raised in Hawaii, race conscious place where mistaking a Tongan for a Samoan could result in a beating and marrying a Japanese person as a Korean could get you disowned from the family.

A few weeks ago, studying in the Asian Collection would have been comfortable. It would have felt like home. Nonetheless, I have a new perspective now. Just yesterday this Mexican boy thought I was saying something mean about him being from Mexico when I was really just clarifying that he lived in Mexico and wasn't just ethnically Mexican. I said to him, "Are you kidding me? I wouldn't make fun of you. Us minorities have to unite!" He then gave me a high five. I'm doing well so far.