In an excerpt from the collection 'My Life: Growing Up Asian in America,' Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence writes about her experience growing up Black and Asian
First grade. I am 6 years old, taking my first standardized test at Shepherd Elementary School in Washington, D.C. Next to “Race,” I check “Black.” At 6, I already know what they think about me. What they think about us. I see the white schools when we drive across Rock Creek Park to play against them in basketball—with their sparkling hallways, their fancy, shiny gyms with the school mascot printed on the half-court line, smiling up at us, taunting us, making us feel small.
At 6 years old, I already know what they expect of me. I know the future they have written for me. I see how the world thinks of us, how they treat us—what they give us versus what they give them. Who they prioritize, who they forget. I see the lines drawn around my life, the lines carved through my city, the lines going back centuries that shape my world, that tell me I am not smart, I am not valued, I do not matter.
A classroom full of Black second graders stares back at my Asian mom, waiting for an answer, as my mom searches for words.Seventh grade. I am 13 years old. Riding the chartered city bus that carries us Black kids across the park to our middle school on the white side of the city. On the way to school, this drunk white man gets on the bus, belligerent, angry, yelling. He calls us all the N-word, tells us we’re all going to hell.
One day, this Asian kid in my class comes to school wearing a T-shirt covered in cartoon animals wearing chains and grills, riding in a lowrider, eating fried chicken. When I see him at the lockers that morning wearing the shirt, my stomach drops. I stare at the T-shirt, at the twisted reflection staring back at me . . . and I know that shirt is talking about me. About us. This is what they think of us. This is how they see us. Like that white man on the bus. Like we’re animals.
The kid in my class wears the shirt to school again. And again. And again. Every time he wears it, I don’t know what to do. I think about what I’d say, plan it all out in my head. A couple times, I almost say something. But when I see him at the lockers in the morning the next time he wears it, I can’t do it—I just pass by like nothing’s wrong. Every time, I hate myself for not saying anything. I feel like my silence is permission, like my silence somehow makes it OK for him to wear that shirt.
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