Through the Eyes of the 1.9%

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in The New Political’s Winter Magazine: “Moving Forward.”

Until my junior year of high school, I never truly acknowledged my “Asian-ness”. I grew up in the two very white, upper-middle-class communities of Sudbury, Massachusetts and Dublin, Ohio. Everywhere I looked there were people who shared the same Eurocentric features as my father, an Italian man who immigrated to America in the late ’90s. So, I decided that if I wanted to fit in, I had to identify with my European side. I would eat classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, play sports with my friends and listen to Taylor Swift –– all the things I thought American children did.

At home, however, there were no boundaries to who I could be or how I should present myself. I was able to embrace both of my cultures freely without feeling pressure to conform to the majority. My halmeoni (“grandmother”) stuffed my sister and me with all the Korean food our hearts desired while my halabeoji (“grandfather”) watched Korean news on the computer. I would eat steaming sweet potatoes by the sack, but no one at school could know because they thought they tasted funny. As a young girl, I held many microaggressions against myself, my family, and my people, which held fast until I entered high school.

Baby Claire before she finds out what it means to be a person of color.

Amy Szmik, a junior studying Journalism Strategic Communications at Ohio University, found herself holding similar microaggressions that affected how she acted or wanted to be perceived by her classmates growing up.

“I was ashamed and embarrassed by my ethnicity and almost wanted to make jokes about myself so it showed people that I ‘wasn’t sensitive’ and could make fun of myself,” Szmik said. “I wanted to distance myself from my culture for such a long time, and I really regret that because I could have spent that time accepting and being proud of who I was.”

Although Dublin Jerome was not very culturally inclusive, high school was when I began to redefine my identity. Winter break of freshman year, my dad took my family on a trip to Seoul, and that became a turning point. I was able to experience Korean culture firsthand, hear the language all around me and learn the history. It felt almost as if a weight was lifted because I was surrounded by people who looked like my family and who shared our culture. From then on, there was a shift in how I addressed my Asianness. 

On state exams I would shade both “White” and “Asian” on bubble sheets, I would tell people my middle name without feeling shame, and I became more interested in cooking Korean cuisine. At Thanksgiving, my sister and I would help our halmeoni make mandu, Korean dumplings, for an appetizer. This gave us a chance to learn more about her and my halabeoji’s life in Korea. We have also always had two Thanksgiving meals, one of sushi on Thanksgiving Day and the second a traditional feast the day after.

My halabeoji passed away right after the fall semester of school began. It will be strange going to family reunions without him there, but by embracing Korean culture, part of him will always be present. He moved to the U.S. in the early 1970s, working odd-end jobs to earn enough to bring my mom and the rest of the family over. They would, a year later, wind up in Andover, Massachusetts, a small suburb with a decently-sized Asian population. From working as well-respected teachers in Korea to finding whatever jobs could support their family, my grandparents did not have it easy. Looking at what my mom, aunt and uncles have been able to achieve in their lifetimes, it is evident their struggles were not for nothing. 

While I was never that close to my grandfather, the last memories I have of him are the ones that stick with me the most. He always collected coupons and would treat my family to pizza lunches. The last one we had was the first time I ever saw him in jeans and that blew my mind. One of the last times my entire family was together for the holidays before the COVID-19 pandemic, we engaged in our usual Christmas tradition of watching “The Sound of Music”. I distinctly recall my grandparents laughing over the scene where the nuns had stolen car parts from the Nazis; it was a nice change from their usual serious demeanor. Some people may think that those of a different background do not share similar experiences, but this is not always true. Whether you are white, Asian, Black, Latinx or Native, the lives we live resemble each other much more closely than we assume.

My grandparents on their wedding day in 1956.

Being surrounded by the news of hate crimes committed against Asian Americans during the pandemic and the shootings in Georgia, which left six Asian women dead, was very draining. It felt as if there was no escape from seeing a new headline with the same rhetoric. The moment I turned on my phone there was a news article or social media thread posted about the events. I constantly found myself checking up on my family, asking them how they were handling everything. Worried that I would feel the same burnout I did during the summer of 2020 when the same stories were being shared but from a different narrative, I knew I had to find a way to step back while keeping myself informed. Reading articles and essays from Asian journalists, including Elaine Quijano and Vicky Nguyen, and listening to podcasts, like “What The Georgia Shootings Reveal About Anti-Asian Racism In The U.S.” from On Point, helped me cope with the shootings. They provided Asian perspectives on the news stories that swallowed up my feed.

Jake Boyk, a senior at Ohio University, is the vice president of the Asian American Pacific Islander Student Union (AAPISU) and is also a Diversity Leadership Ambassador for the school. He has played a role in many diversity initiatives on campus and spends lots of time outside of Baker Center reaching out to multicultural students across campus. The hate crimes against Asian Americans also affected him.

Jake Boyk is a senior and the vice president of the AAPISU. Photo courtesy of Jake Boyk.

“Seeing the hate crimes being shared throughout the media caused me to be scared,” Boyk said. “They made me fearful that the next victim of these horrific hate crimes could be me, or my family.”

Szmik was in Chicago when the attacks occurred and saw a procession of cars with anti-Chinese sentiments displayed on them. This event on top of the shootings affected how she saw herself and highlighted the importance of finding a safe space amongst her peers.

“It was hard to see and honestly is probably why I’m so angry and irritable now,” Szmik said, “It’s something that, unless you’re a person of color, you could never understand the fear. I already wanted to get involved with other Asian students and people, but I think the fact of needing a community who could understand was so important.”

No group of people should fear that they will be targeted because of who they are, which is why representation on campus matters. A student can feel debilitated by their emotions if they lack a support system of other students with similar backgrounds and experiences. When students are given an outlet to share their cultural experiences with others, it makes the campus a more inclusive environment and allows students to see life from different perspectives. Students who come from multiple backgrounds may especially benefit from this because oftentimes they feel that they do not fit in even within their own bubbles.

Szmik is a senior strategic communications major. Photo by Claire Del Vita.

“I’ve struggled with my ethnic identity my whole life,” Jhasmin Glass, a freshman double-majoring in Strategic Leadership and Management and Business Pre-Law at Ohio U, said. “Being multiracial in itself is difficult. But being both Black and Asian is a whole other ball game. Not only are both minority communities, but they’re communities at odds. With the constant tensions, I always felt like I had to choose between the two as if both identities couldn’t exist together.”

The AAPISU is just one of many multicultural groups on campus that offer the small percentage of minority students at Ohio U a community where they can be themselves and feel a sense of belonging. The organization was founded in the fall semester but has already made an imprint on AAPI students at the university. Having a group of people who look like me, grew up in similar environments as me, and share the pain brought on by the hate crimes against Asian Americans earlier this year has impacted how I view my ethnicity.

“I decided to join the AAPISU because I wanted to be a part of a community where I feel like I belong,” Boyk said. “I believe the most impactful aspect of being a part of a multicultural organization is connecting with other individuals who are also passionate about fostering the values of diversity, inclusion, and respect.”

I tell my tight-knit group of friends on campus all the time how much I love them, but that there is something about being friends with other Asian students that is just so refreshing. My friends understand because the majority of them are white and have always seen themselves represented in their communities and the media.

Glass is a current freshman. Photo by Claire Del Vita.

“Community is vital for a person’s well-being,” Glass said. “In order for students to be successful, they need to feel supported both academically and socially—-finding others with similar identities plays a huge role in social support networks.”

Being part of the AAPISU has not always been a positive form of representation, even within that community there can be assumptions about where you are from. While I and other members of both the AAPISU and the Athens Asian American Alliance were waiting for the Homecoming parade to begin, many of us were asked by another member which professor we had for Chinese. He had made a racist assumption that we were Asian so we had to be Chinese, one that occurs so often. Although it may seem small to someone who is not part of the AAPI community, when a statement like this comes from within your hub it can feel extremely invalidating. It seems as if you do not even fit in amongst the people who you are “supposed” to. 

“Marginalized groups need a place where they can share their authentic experiences without fear of invalidation,” Boyk said.

By emphasizing and appreciating the diversity not only within the university but also within its Asian population, other students will hopefully not have to undergo the same experience.

Karolin is a senior majoring in History. Photo courtesy of Alexis Karolin.

On a Friday night after playing sand volleyball for a club social, a few members of the AAPISU and I started to share our experiences growing up Asian compared to college life. While our family life differed somewhat, some of us hailing from biologically Asian or mixed families or having been adopted into white ones, we all had cultural struggles. The AAPISU, and other multicultural student organizations on campus, have given students a place to connect to their cultures in a way that they have not before. When only 1.9% of the entire student body is Asian, most of these being international students, that is so important. Alexis Karolin, a senior studying history at Ohio U, said that through the AAPISU she has been able to make friends who look like her and share her life experiences.

“I was adopted when I was eight months old, and my parents are white,” Karolin said. “Growing up, I never felt fully comfortable as a Chinese person or as an American. Culturally, I identified with white middle-class society, but I knew I would never fully fit in because of my race. I also never felt comfortable in a Chinese or even a Chinese American community because I did not grow up speaking the language and my immigration experience is not the common experience of most Chinese Americans.”

There is no one student narrative or one student experience. We are such a diverse body of people with different cultural backgrounds. Making sure everyone has a place or group on campus that they feel accepted and represented in is so important. For students like me who have felt pulled in two directions their entire lives, representation on-campus shows us that we do not have to be one or the other. We can feel a sense of belonging by being our full selves, without having to pick between being white or being Asian.

“There is no conventional AAPI experience because many people within our own community are so diverse,” Karolin said. “I don’t have to fit into either specific group, white American or Chinese American. I can create and exist in my own multicultural space.”