Not quite racism, but close enough

One night this week, I experienced the closest relation to racism during my time at Mizzou. Now before I proceed with this story, I want to remind to reiterate the purpose of this blog, based on a previous blog post: "...to express my views on being a Filipino-American because you can only base someone's success on an individual basis... This is my method of expression." 


I live in an apartment complex just a few miles off campus and all of its limited parking spots are routinely filled on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, due to the most popular social activities for the college age group - parties. As a legal drinker, I had celebrated the induction of one of my fellow roommates into this esteemed age bracket on Wednesday night, so I was not planning on attending any of these parties the next night. One of my friends, whom I've gotten to know quite well through an Asian organization on campus and is Chinese-American, called me because she was at one of the house parties nearby. Needless to say, I was convinced to throw on some jeans and stop by her friend's house to meet some new faces for a short while. There we went, two olive-tan-skinned girls with long, straight black hair and similar outfits, walking down the block to the home of a friend of a friend - whose house was packed with several other Mizzou students. It never crossed my mind that they were all white and my friend and I were both Asian-American, because these odds are not unusual. 


The moment we were in sight of the dozens of guys standing on the porch leading to the front door, I could sense the judgement. It sounds dramatic, I know, but I didn't even want to make eye contact because I felt like I knew what their eyes were doing already. They looked us, up and down, smirks on their faces, making under-the-breath comments that gave me bad vibes. We were barely given enough room to squeeze by the crowd of them to get inside the house. As we walked by, I heard a couple of them snicker to each other, "Damn Asians..." 


I was speechless. 


My actions probably contribute to the Asian/Asian-American stereotypes present in the United States. I did nothing. I didn't even acknowledge the comment to my fellow Asian friend. I just let it go, as if it didn't happen, and those guys will never know how they offended me and how wrong their actions were. We learned in Cross Cultural Journalism that Asians/Asian-Americans "are invisible to themselves and invisible to the media," according to Dr. Perry, because we rarely speak up and are rarely seen in our media. I contributed to that generalization, a generalization that I've hated ever since Dr. Perry mentioned that in class.