And not because it's mid-winter and I'm horribly pale:
I went for drinks with coworkers Friday night and was confronted with something interesting I'd never really thought about before. As always, I've forgotten the context of the conversation but it came up that I've always people thought people looked at me with questioning looks on the street because my ethnicity is visually ambiguous. Is she Filipino? Hawaiian? Possibly half white? What's the other half? It's not a good or bad thing but merely an observation on my part since I know people like to try and label everyone so that they can mentally process them, as humans are prone to do. So it was to my surprise that both coworkers said they've never thought of me as anything other than white or it's possible that they just haven't thought about me in any ethnic context at all. How interesting! Much of my consciousness involves ethnic identity and whether that's something that has been projected on me or just how i've evolved...I have no idea. Was it the chicken or the egg? As I'm writing this I think that perhaps it's because this is the first time I don't have any Asian coworkers in my immediate vicinity so I'm not compelled to make the Asian jokes or discuss my ethnic background? I don't know and ultimately it doesn't matter except to point out to me that i've never been aware of the possibility of being thought of as 'colorless.' Colorless. I'm just the Barb. Not the Chinese Barb or the Swedish, i mean, Swiss Barb. It's my lesson learned. Happy New Year all!
2 comments:
I feel ya. Once a white friend said something to me along the same lines. She said something like, "I never thought of you as anything!" (as in, it never occurred to her to think of me as Asian or "ethnic"). I remember feeling slightly offended at the time. But I guess that out of context (without other Asian Americans around, as you said), and for people who don't think about ethnic identity a lot, it's understandable!
Hmmm...I don't remember wondering about your ethnicity at all, my first impression was you must be from the west coast, since you had blonde highlights, wore sandals, and seemed very laid-back. -- y
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