<\/p>\n
On a recent job interview with a local bank, the Vice President spent close to five minutes expressing her surprise that I was Japanese.\u00a0 \u201cYou look Chinese..,\u201d she kept saying, as if waiting for me to get on my knees and confess that I lied.\u00a0 \u201cYour skin is so white!,\u201d she would continue, \u201cand Japanese are so brown.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she ambled along this line of conversation, mostly on her own as my only contribution was to add \u201c…I look like every other member of my family in Japan…,\u201d I was rather embarrassed at how a business professional would openly express her opinions on light and dark-skinned people during a job interview.\u00a0 Her own children, a mix of her own Filipino blood and Middle Eastern ancestry, were not given names. Instead, one was referred to as \u201clighter skin\u201d while the other was \u201cdarker skin\u201d.\u00a0 In the end, her opinions on these matters was enough for me to decline the kind job offer.<\/p>\n
Skin tone matters a great deal to too many people.\u00a0 While I was still a small child, skin color determined one\u2019s personality, status and life pattern without uttering a word.\u00a0 It granted privileges and entitlements to better schools and jobs while denying others an opportunity.\u00a0 It is the basis of identity for many, which is unfortunate because Gene Roddenberry\u2019s epic play on skin tone in the Star Trek episode \u201cLet That Be Your Last Battlefield\u201d should have been sufficient to teach the average television viewer that skin tone should account for very little.\u00a0 True beauty comes from within, and that is the basis by which we are judged is a nice sentiment, but it is the truth for only a very small segment of our population.<\/p>\n
I have lived my life as that unknown American, the one who always get stopped at borders or at checkpoints.\u00a0 While driving through Arizona with a female friend, police pulled us over to ask for my proof of citizenship.\u00a0 They never asking the same proof of my friend, a green eyed Canadian girl who was the green card holder.\u00a0 This incident might have been an embarrassing ordeal had it been the only such occurrence on our mini trip across the United States.\u00a0 However during a mini-stop at the Grand Canyon, an angry Japanese tour guide pulled on my shirt and told me that the tour bus was leaving.\u00a0 In Japanese, I informed the poor tour guide that I was an American, and not a member of her tour group.\u00a0 My friend laughed at me for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it is my face.\u00a0 I look like my Japanese grandmother and have very light skin.\u00a0 This is the backdrop for my tiny nose, the only hint of my Filipino ancestry.\u00a0 Filipinos, however, never see any of their blood in me, always shaking their heads vehemently while saying, \u201cNo!!! You are Chinese!\u201d when I tell them that we share a common heritage.<\/p>\n
When returning from Europe, customs at LAX once called a Japanese interpreter for me.\u00a0 After answering a few questions in Japanese, the poor interpreter was too embarrassed to inform the customs agent that I was an English-speaking American. Instead, we just continued on with our bizarre question\/answer session for a few more minutes until I was released onto the luggage zoo.<\/p>\n
I was also detained in Canada for several hours, a stopover on the way to Japan.\u00a0 Because I looked far too Japanese to be carrying an American passport, Canadian customs thought the best way to deal with my kind was to pluck me down into the middle of a room overlooking beautiful Vancouver bay with a bag of ketchup potato chips.\u00a0 No one spoke to me, and I simply sat still, mustering up a giant ball of hatred for Canada and their terrible selection of snacks.\u00a0 A uniformed woman finally marched in a few hours later and released me out into the public, where my sister and her friend laughed at me for several hours.<\/p>\n
There were also times when looking very Japanese worked to my advantage. Before embarking on my first trip to the Cannes Film Festival, my benefactor advised that I not learn a word of French out of fear that I would do something wacky like butcher his language.\u00a0 My benefactor\u2019s worries were unneeded, however, as the French just assumed I was Japanese.\u00a0 I was treated quite well, made friends with an amazing French woman who brought me every where to make up for the language deficit, was stopped on the street by a famous Japanese actor who warned me that the French were preying on Japanese tourists and was bowed to by the sexy Jean Reno.<\/p>\n
I love France.<\/p>\n
These mistakes with my identity and race are so commonplace that I should accept these experiences, writing them off as non-incidences.\u00a0 The whole Asian American label would even be acceptable if I could just fall in this category, but there is a large part of me that wonders if people outside of California, New York or big city even know our kind exists.\u00a0 Like others, I am always asked if I can speak English.\u00a0 If I am with someone who is not Asian, they are often asked if I can speak English.\u00a0 No one asks Glen from \u201cThe Walking Dead\u201d such questions.\u00a0 No one cares about such things in the zombie future.<\/p>\n
Being mistaken for Japanese can become annoying, and the results are sometimes inconvenient, but never soul shattering as it is for others.<\/p>\n
My best friend growing up is a stunningly beautiful half black\/half Japanese woman who did everything she could do cover up the darker skin.\u00a0 She hardly acknowledged her heritage, which was unfortunate.\u00a0 Her skin Is the color of rich chocolate, while her eyes were both wide, round and arresting with downward glances that allow her eyelashes to rest against her high cheekbones.\u00a0 With a\u00a0 bone structure so gentle and perfect, no other racial variety would provided all the beauty she was blessed with from birth.\u00a0\u00a0 I wish she understood this, because so much time was spent altering eye colors or powdering skin tones until it was reflective and white.<\/p>\n
I understood why she never appreciated such inherent beauty.\u00a0 She was a gazelle in a world filled with fences, unable to find independence without stumbling through another obstacle.\u00a0 Her grandmother did not like blacks.\u00a0 The mother of a friend we visited in Los Angeles did not like black people.\u00a0 My own mother hated her, referring her by a derogatory word for half black.\u00a0 When others cannot see beyond face value, it is a diminishing experience.\u00a0\u00a0 Pep talks and spirit lifting ego boosting chats become ineffective in the face of real, ongoing hatred.<\/p>\n
In light of all this, perhaps I should be thankful that my lighter skin, while creating some problems, does not surround me with the same sort of hatred that my friend experiences.\u00a0 Light skin has all the advantages, it seems, and I hear about it all the time.\u00a0 Except that my light skin comes partially from being quite anemic.<\/p>\n
How attractive can that be?\u00a0 Not very.<\/p>\n
(c) 2014 Slow Suburban Death. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a recent job interview with a local bank, the Vice President spent close to five minutes expressing her surprise that I was Japanese.\u00a0 \u201cYou<\/p>\n