I'm in the throes of Heme-Onc block, with my next exam fast-approaching on Tuesday. But I couldn't help but read some articles posted on some of my favorite blogs--most notably, the controversy over the white male poet who'd been using a Chinese pen name. Or rather, a name that belonged to a female Taiwanese-American high school classmate of his.
This morning, I came across a very well-written essay by Jenny Zhang, an Asian-American poet, published on Buzzfeed. She detailed exactly
why the controversy rankled her so much, including a lot of background about her own experiences as an Asian-American writer. I can't say I've experienced what she went through in those writer's workshops where her peers--mostly privileged and white--would repeatedly lament that they wish they had a more "diverse" or "exotic" background, or comment that Jenny's works would be more likely to be accepted/published because of her race. (It reminds me a lot of a girl whose college essays I edited, who bristled at how people readily downplay her achievements and her Yale acceptance because of her Latina surname, nevermind the fact that she worked her butt off to get where she is now.)
But as Jenny Zhang points out, these people just want the "exotic" name, and not the baggage of being a minority in a country where presidential candidates openly talk about mass deportation of immigrants and derisively talk about "anchor babies." (My parents were in the US with graduate student visas when I was born. Am I an anchor baby? Am I any less "American" than somebody whose parents were born here? If you think you can decide that for me, fuck off.)
Well, when I got to the comments at the bottom of the article, that's when my anger REALLY took off. These were comments I'm now used to at this point, and I see it anytime I read an essay about race and privilege. Basically, they called Jenny Zhang a whiner and why is she complaining, people use pen names all the time, this is bullshit, blah blah blah.
No. NO. You really don't get it, do you?
Which is fine! I don't expect you to fully understand the experience of being Asian-American. What I DON'T understand is why you insist on dismissing someone else's point of view. How hard is it to simply say, "I don't think I can fully understand what it's like to be in your shoes, but I respect and acknowledge that you feel this way." Really, is that too much to ask??
//end rant
