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THREAD: By now you’ve prob seen this iconic photo from Denver (H/T Alyson McClaran) of an apparent first responder in scrubs counter protesting a Trump supporter who wants to lift the lockdown. The photo doesn’t capture that this was a racist exchange. What the WaPo reported:
“...a supporter of President Trump in Denver jeered at a counterprotesting medical worker from a silver Dodge truck. ‘This is a free country,’ she said, before telling the medical worker to ‘go back to China.’” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/04/21/trump-wants-lift-lockdowns-other-countries-attempts-show-why-us-isnt-ready/
Here’s what this reporter interaction meant to me. I grew up in an Asian-American family, where becoming a doctor was heavily encouraged. For the seventh grade, my mother bought me a life sized replica of the human brain and a medical textbook on the human anatomy.
Left unsaid by my family, but always under the surface, was the implication that becoming a doctor would more firmly establish ourselves as real Americans, as “the model minority”. We could ‘redeem’ ourselves in the eyes of a nation that ‘took a chance on us’
But here is the reality: The interaction captured in the Denver protest photo lays bare that, unless you have white skin, you will always be seen as “not from here” by a significant chunk of this country.
Instead of despair, I find liberation in simply acknowledging this. May all Asian Americans strive to whatever calling your hearts desire, we will never please the racists, but we can build a life and make a difference in the United States, no matter the haters.
Who knows, we might even save our haters’ lives despite their own efforts to endanger themselves. #NotYourModelMinority
Final tweet. Support our communities’ organizations fighting against anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander discrimination in these times: @NAPAWF @AAAJ_AAJC @NQAPIA @aaldef @APIAVote @APALAnational to name a few! #NotYourModelMinority
