Member-only story
This Is Us
I Can’t Protect My Parents From Racism, and It Hurts
On anti-Asian hate, allyship, and protecting our moms and dads
Like many thoughtful humans, I’ve been overcome with rage as I witness story after story of Asian American elders being pushed, kicked, and slammed into the ground just because they had the audacity to walk to church. But as an Asian American immigrant, I also felt something more.
Bizarrely, even though I would never engage in such hateful violence, I found myself feeling responsible.
I know I share this feeling with other immigrant children who have carried the burden of holding our parents up when they have been dismissed in their new country as being stupid, greedy, and unworthy. As being “less than.”
“You think I’m a dummy because I don’t speaking English?” my father would rage at me when I came home from school. As a five-year-old who was struggling to learn the language herself, the thought had never crossed my mind until then.
“I graduated from Ewha Women’s University, the oldest women’s university in Asia,” my mom growled at me when a child pulled their eyes tight at the sides and spat at her feet, running away yelling over her shoulder, “Chinese, Japanese… ”
