Categories
Asian-American reflection

“Not American Enough.”

My most recent birthday party, where I blended in with my Asian friends.

For those of you who frequent my site, you probably already know that my Asian-American identity has defined a lot of my life. Only in the past year have I been examining this aspect more and more, considering I am constantly reminded at school and now in my company of who I am, what I am.

Today I was writing a post over at TAOpivot talking about international students not having enough American friends. As always, I add pictures to my posts to give a little visual; yet, I found myself looking through all my photos from over the years, trying to find photos that didn’t include me with foreign nationals.

I exclaimed out loud to my intern and my colleague, “I can’t use pictures of myself with my international friends, because I don’t look American enough!” They nodded and agreed with my statement.

And that’s how it stands.

This doesn’t discourage me from continuing on with my company; I feel that, as an Asian-American consulting with foreign nationals (mostly from Asia), they may find me more relatable to them and their situations than one of my caucasian counterparts.

It can go both ways, though: as I had written about my conversation partners, they could also think what I exclaimed today: that I’m just “not American enough.”

Categories
Asian-American politics

Asian-Americans & Civic Engagement

Introduction to the NAAAP event.

Last night, I went to my first NAAAP-Colorado event about civic engagement and how we Asian-Americans should get involved into politics somehow. One of the speakers, Sam Thomas, told us how we should all rally around a cause that is near and dear to each of us; we don’t have to side with any political party. We just need to reach out and be heard.

Even though the event was held at Katie Mullen’s with lots of distractions around, I got fired up listening to Mr. Thomas. I was reminded at this point how, back in late April, I had a colleague tell me, “You should really lobby the government about job opportunities for foreign nationals.” I had never thought of involving myself in politics until that point. Immediately I imagined myself speaking in front of Congress about my cause–advancing security for foreign nationals who are legally here in the US to work, study, etc.

One thing Mr. Thomas said to us all last night especially hit a chord inside:

“I stay involved in politics because I know those who came before me had to fight to get that seat at the table. Don’t stay silent because you know there were many others who fought to be heard before.”

So, so true. We Asian-Americans cannot sit back and let society take us along for the ride. We must stand up and be vocal, too. We cannot hide behind our model-minority facade. Screw all the stereotypes about Asians being quiet–we are LOUD and PROUD and need to be HEARD!

One thing that strikes my nerves (besides issues for foreign nationals) is the discrimination we get as well. I admit, sometimes I play the race card to try to get things my way. But I hate how, even with the despised “model minority” stereotype set upon us, we are still demonized along with other minorities. How come crime reports with minority suspects have to lump us all together? And make the public think that only “dirty immigrants” will soil the American system?

There will always be good and bad people, no matter the ethnicity. We need to stop with the name-calling, pointing fingers, etc. We need to dig deeper than skin color/ethnicity to see what the real problems are in the world.

Categories
family feelings Who I Am

And so it is.

No fear in standing before others.

I broke the news to my parents last night about my big life decision.

At first, they were bewildered, perhaps slightly angry. But then they calmed down, or psyched themselves out, with words of encouragement for TAOpivot ‘s future success and that I don’t need an advanced degree to have my own company.

I was expecting much worse of a reaction, but thank goodness for clients rolling in already (slowly, but surely). Still, I spent the day today anticipating a phone call from my dad, angrily spewing “WHY DID YOU LEAVE SCHOOL” to me. But, he didn’t.

Even if my dad decided to blow up at me, I need to learn to not be so sensitive. A lot of times, I worry about telling my parents many things because I worry about what they’d think and say to me. I suppose I have these same fears with other loved ones as well; I worry too much about what they may think if they knew everything about me.

In the end, though, I know I cannot control how others think of me; I can only control my reactions, my thoughts, etc. There’s only so much life to live; I’d rather spend my time working on TAOpivot and other things I enjoy than worrying about others’ opinions about me.

Categories
rant restaurant

Thoughts on Restaurant Service

Places put effort into their decor; however, what about their service?

During this past week in Indiana, my sister reminded me of our restaurant days; she worked the longest at our parents’ restaurant and has a lot of colorful stories to share from that experience. She got me tuned into restaurant service quality by her complaints over the service at all the restaurants we went to.

I have to admit, the first impression I got when I arrived in Indiana and went to a couple of restaurants was that service was rather sub-par. The first night, we went to Steak N’ Shake and the server didn’t bring me a glass of water even though I requested for it. Luckily I could quench my thirst with the cherry limeade.

Over and over during the past week, I was appalled by how slow service went….during non-peak hours. The worst experience we had on my visit was at an Italian restaurant: the server came and took our appetizer order….and then FORGOT ABOUT US. Oh! We were sitting there munching on the paltry portions of the bruschetta and looking around the restaurant: customers were slowly trickling in, but it wasn’t SLAMMED (i.e., it wasn’t a landslide of people walking in). At one point I turned to find our server just standing in the back of the restaurant with hands on her hips. Uh…..

What made this situation even worse was that the server FINALLY came to our table and even told us to our faces, “I TOTALLY forgot about you guys!” Wow, way to make us feel appreciated. You don’t tell customers that you forgot about them; you can definitely forget about their service then!

After that terrible meal, I told my sister she should make a list of things servers shouldn’t say to their customers. One thought she had during the week sums up the whole list for now:

“These servers don’t realize that we grew up in the restaurant industry. When they give us excuses, we can definitely see through their BS.”

Now, after reading this post, you may be more alert with your next outing at a restaurant/bar/etc.

Categories
Chinese Culture learning life love

Relationships, Residual Trauma

Flowers in my hair, hoping to attract that perfect mate…(taken at the Swedish Midsummer’s Celebration, late June 2012)

This thought had been circling around my mind all day yesterday: how parents protect children so much….but in the end, they cannot protect us from heartache [in relationships].

I will go ahead and be transparent: I never had a boyfriend until the age of 25 (just two years ago). And that was a roller coaster trauma of a relationship: alcoholism, secrets, manipulation … I’ve torn the chains away from that relationship, yet residual pain still seeps through.

And all this time I think about how, well, if only my parents could have protected me from ever letting that happen. Yet, they couldn’t. I can seek comfort in them over things, but they cannot fix everything for me. After all, how old am I now? I can’t just go crying to my parents like a four-year-old with a booboo. I need to suck it up and learn from my mistakes, no matter how big or small.

Sometimes I wish that I could have an arranged marriage. Then I wouldn’t need to deal with this constant searching, seeking, “you’re not good enough”, etc. etc. I find myself these days trying to protect my feelings by telling others how I am all about “no attachments” for the time being. I find that I often fall too fast too quickly…only to be hurt. I care too much and then I … end up hurting myself.

Of course, by telling myself “You cannot get attached,” I still do. And it hurts; every time I fall for someone new, I see them walk away with another woman. Someone better than I am? I can’t say, but my mind twists the situation that way. I always hear the same, comforting words of “You’ll find someone better.” And I hype myself up with this thought, but it only lasts for a little bit. Then I’m back to feeling like I won’t find a nice guy. It’s a vicious cycle for me.