anonymous
1.How do you identify? Have you always felt comfortable in this identity? Interpret this question however you'd like, whether it be your gender, ethnicity or nationality.
Ethnically, I identify as Chinese. My nationality is American. As for my gender, I guess you could say I take a complicated stance on this. For terminology, I like to stick with genderqueer, but I find any gender identity terms to be far too essentializing to the individual and would rather reject the notion of gender as a whole, but I realize that that is rather unrealistic (noted, I recognize that I experience a lot of privilege in being viewed as and passing easily as male). For most of my life, I have been quite uncomfortable with my identity. The three parts of me listed above don’t really jive well together culturally. Particularly living in an immigrant family that is still very much not “Americanized,” I’ve always found it difficult to find a balance between my Chinese family life and American school and social life. My parents often tell me to “be more like other kids,” but that doesn’t really work out when they simultaneously tell me to hold on to my Chinese culture, cos the “other kids” live much more “American” lifestyles than I do. It doesn’t help that my sexual and gender identities are very much taboo in my parents’ traditional Chinese conservative views. If it wasn’t clear, they’re not aware of my queerness, which needless to say causes stress in my identity.
2. Talk about the environments and communities you've been a part of and the ways in which they've affected the formation of your identity. Tell your story!
I think the most relevant story of the formation of my identity is in the contrast between my home life and outside life. As I stated in my answer to question 1, my most fundamental identity issue is in the contrast between living in a relatively conservative Chinese American family and living a very “American” life outside of home and identifying as queer. My answer to question 1 really sums up this issue, but the one thing I will add is that going to an independent school like Head Royce has actually opened up my eyes so much to the different lived experiences people have, and I really appreciate this. I think that my parents try very hard to regulate who I am and what I do, for better or for worse, because they have a predetermined image of who they want me to be in the future. I’ve found in growing up that I don’t really identify in a way that is compatible with their vision for me, and going to Head Royce, where there is a fair amount of diversity, I have been able to better understand myself. While I recognize that there is still work to do in the realm of diversity at Head Royce, I feel very lucky that Head Royce actually is pretty diverse not in the sense of having more minority students but in the sense of having different types of students. At most public schools in the Bay Area, you’ll find either mostly minority students, often even of one large racial group, or mostly white students, which is really disheartening.
3.Where do you feel most safe as a racial minority at Head-Royce?
I’m not sure if my experience can very well be related to the experiences of other racial minorities at Head-Royce, but I think that particularly within East Asian subgroups at Head-Royce, there is a lot less “unsafe” space. This is to say, I don’t think there is as much rhetorical violence (meaning negative, unpleasant, or harmful speech and/or attitudes) towards East Asians, nor do I think that the rhetorical violence towards East Asians that does exist in Head Royce is nearly as harmful as attitudes and speech towards Latino or black people. Frankly, I don’t think any place at Head Royce is distinctly unsafe or dangerous to racial minorities.
Needless to say, I do very much believe that racial minorities experience a certain amount of racism and discrimination at Head-Royce. Perhaps the more accurate question for the context of this school is to talk about environments that are conscious of racial issues and willing to engage in active dialogue about these issues and environments that are not. I think that the affinity groups are very conscious of racial issues and very willing to engage in a productive dialogue. Other than that, I think most other parts of Head Royce have a really hard time engaging in deep conversation about race, since it is such a touchy topic and seemingly not a particularly large issue at Head Royce. In my opinion, the intricacy of it is that, especially for the white community at Head Royce, it is much easier to have a discussion about racial slurs, de facto segregation and disenfranchisement, and police brutality than it is to talk about micro-aggressions, under-representation, white privilege, racially sensitive jokes and phrases and assumptions, and other things that may be considered more minor instances of racism. Head Royce definitely needs to do a better job about engaging in this kind of dialogue openly.
4. How has being a minority student at a school like HRS affected the way you view yourself?
I think that being a minority student at Head Royce has really given me a lot of perspective. I used to go to a small private school that was actually majority students of color but run by a white couple. We never engaged in any discussions of race at that school, but there was no issue of under-representation, which made for an interesting situation (though I was in middle and elementary school anyways, so it’s not like I was in a particularly apt age to have productive discussions about race anyways – though I do think discussion about race should start young). Now, at Head Royce, I am definitely in the minority, but there are actually opportunities to discuss minority issues in the world, which I really appreciate. I think that this engagement with racial issues has definitely made me a better person. Particularly in the context of the way I see myself, being at Head Royce has opened my eyes to different identities, which has helped me better explore my own identity and how I express myself and how this relates to race, gender, and class.
5. Do you feel as though individuals of your race are properly represented at HRS. Whether this is through the literature that we read, members of our staff etc...
I guess in answering this question, the phrase “properly represented” must be defined. I think that within the staff, there is distinct under-representation of Asian Americans, which I would like to see change. Within the student body, the under-representation of Asian American students is not nearly as drastic as in the faculty, but I think the student body brings up a new problem. Students at Head Royce often split up into friend groups that quite frankly seem racially divided. Even though I can find no evidence of this happening due to any notable aspect of racial preference or something of the sort, this separation of friend groups by race bothers me so much. I wouldn’t classify myself as an integrationist, but I think that at least for Asian American communities, the only way to really combat stereotypes and assumptions about Asians is to stop playing into them. The splitting of friend groups at Head Royce by race, at least for me, is most obvious when it comes to Asian students, as in it is very evident when a friend group is entirely made up of Asians. That’s not to say that Asian students can’t hang out with each other, but something really has to be up when Head Royce friend groups are basically de facto segregated. I don’t mean to offend anyone with this statement. I just want to point out what I am seeing and encourage people to talk about why this may be so and if there are any negative implications to it.
6. If you came back to visit HRS in 10 years, what would you have liked to see changed?
I think that after 10 years, I would like to see Head Royce’s affinity groups have an even larger presence on campus. How this would be achieved, I’m not sure. With the limited time students and teachers have at this school, only so much energy can be devoted to diversity work, but I believe that it can be done. Maybe it’ll be more assemblies, maybe it’ll be students being more willing to go to affinity group meetings, maybe it’ll just be a shift in the culture where students will just be more willing to have conversations about diversity issues. Whatever it is, I hope to see things get better for minority students at Head Royce so that they can express themselves more freely and excel without obstacles relating to their identity get in the way. (And of course, there are probably more things that I could isolate that I want to see change, but this is what came to mind when I read the question)
7. Tell me about a time when you felt proud of your race!
Unfortunately, I have to say that I think Chinese Americans are often some of the most racially insensitive people I know. I guess this may be just my experience, but many Chinese Americans that I know buy very heavily into their status as white America’s model minority and take it as a matter of pride, often thinking of their relative economic success as a sign of being better than other races. Asian pride often becomes Asian arrogance and neglect for others, and this ends up making conversations about race very difficult as well. Many Asian Americans I know even actively ignore racism that exists towards Asian Americans, which is frankly just ridiculous. This bothers me to no end. That’s why I really appreciate it when I see Asian Americans engaging in active discussions about race and trying to tackle the issue of racism in America. Asia Club is one such example of a group that does this. I’d really like to see more of this happen across the United States and the world.