Yes, I was Born Here. No, I Don't Think in Chinese.
I believe at some point every writer has to deal with some type of racial article. I suppose for me, today is the day, but before I say anything further I want it to be incredibly clear that I am not at all saying that the woman I was talking to was racist. I do not want her to get hate mail nor do I want people to have this misconstrued idea that she is out to get all the Asians at U of I, and I also don’t want anyone to think that I am slamming her down or calling her up to get fired for being rude.
So without further ado, let me explain the situation of what exactly happened. I am currently an English major taking an English class on how to write film criticism. Apparently, writing film criticism is vastly different from writing your standard three prong paper with analysis and maybe .25 percent of summary.
After being taught that everything I write about needs to be heavily interpreted and analyzed, I was thoroughly surprised that there is absolutely no interpretation in film criticism and it focuses mainly on whether or not it is worth your money to see a specific movie. I turned in my rough draft to my professor and she told the class there were several students she needed to see by appointment because we still haven’t grasped the essence of what it means to write film criticisms.
Yes, your very own Erin Lin was one of them. That’s alright though, sometimes branching out on different writing can be eye opening and although I was not particularly happy about it, I definitely wrote my film review as if I had just analyzed “Wuthering Heights.”
The moment I stepped into her office, the very first thing she asked me was, “when you write, do you think in Chinese or in English?” I stopped and stared at her for around five seconds before I quickly said that I always think in English. One of the things that bothered me about that question was that I had never talked to my professor prior to that moment and it made me uncomfortable that my race was one of the first things that came between me and my writing.
The fact that she placed an assumption on me that I could speak Chinese just because I am Asian made me angry that I am part of a community that will be seen as forever foreign. The possibilities that she did not consider was that I could not be Chinese (which I am not, but proudly born from Taiwanese parents) and I could very well be Vietnamese or Thai or Filipino. I could be third generation and not know a single Chinese word, yet be visibly seen as an Asian.
The basis on which she asked that question was curiosity; she figured that if a student were bilingual, then there would be “language cross-over” and I would be grammatically incorrect in my writing because I have multiple languages running through my head. She later told me that my word choice needs improvement and that my grammar is not where it could be (fair enough). However, she then proceeded to ask me whether or not I was born here based on my poor grammar skills (excuse me!?). I told her I was born in Chicago and have lived here all my life and she responded with, “great! Then it should be no problem improving your vocabulary and your grammar.”
I left that meeting infuriated beyond belief and I wanted to do everything that I could to let all my friends know about this racist professor who clearly did not deserve to be teaching here at this university where we pride ourselves on our diversity. But I later realized that this woman’s “racism” was founded on nothing but good ol’ ignorance. She had no intention of being malicious with her remarks, but rather she did not know that what she asked could have multiple meanings and that it was not alright to assume that just because I am an Asian American on campus, I could speak an Asian language or that I was an international student.
No, the professor who has an adopted daughter from China did not hate me nor did she look down upon the students who rocked the black hair and came from a background of rich culture and value in family and honor. She merely did not know and that is the unfortunate part of what happened; I cannot be angry at her for not understanding or being aware of how poorly her comments came off, but I can come to the conclusion that it is not hate that we need to battle but ignorance.
So yes, I was born here and no, I don’t think in Chinese, but we can educate ourselves so that we can understand a little bit more about one another and instead of offending and hurting one another with words of ignorance, we will sympathize.
Recognize.
Interpret.
Tolerate.