I remember hoping. 

Hoping that you would accept me. 

Growing up, I fantasized about fitting in with the crowd. In fourth grade, I made sour faces at my banana leaf rice dumpling lunch and called it “gross” in front of you, knowing that my mother woke up early to pack it for me. In sixth grade, I laughed with you when in actuality, you were laughing at me. In ninth grade, I refused to wear my áo dài to school on Vietnamese Lunar New Year, for fear that I would be laughed at. 

I tarnished my culture, swallowed the bitterness of blatant racism, ignored the stereotypes—I’ve internalized it all. And in all honesty, I still do. 

Doing the things I love are harder for me now, more than ever. This includes playing the piano and doing martial arts—activities that are typically associated with Asians. It’s as if I’ve secluded myself inside a checkbox and from then on, people view me as the typical model Asian. I’m seen as nothing more. 

Through my internalization and my self-loathing, I relate to the older Japanese-American boys featured in They Called Us Enemy.

Based on those comic strips, it’s not hard to see that the boys feel some resentment towards being Japanese in their game “War.” They quarrel over who gets to be American and feel defeated when they’re chosen as Japanese. 

And frankly, this page hit me the most. It struck a memory that I’ve been repressing over the years; it called me to reflect on how much I’ve internalized. But no more. 

From now on, I promise that I will embrace my ethnicity to the fullest possible extent. I will stop whitewashing myself just for the toxic hopeful feeling that I might be accepted. From now on, my respect is to be earned. From now on, I accept you, not vice versa.