Boys I Know by Anna Gracia

Author:Anna Gracia [Gracia, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2022-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When I’d agreed to a long weekend in Washington over Lunar New Year, I’d expected to miss the festivities altogether. But the minute I’d met my host, Amy—a sophomore violist from the Bay Area—she asked if I celebrated the holiday, and when I confirmed that I did, a look of relief swept across her face. She explained that she and her friends had made plans to go out to celebrate long before I had booked my visit.

After that it was impossible not to notice the number of Asian faces we passed on campus. It was strange, but in a good way. Like for once, I didn’t have to wonder when people stared at me if they were doing it because I was the only nonwhite person they’d ever seen. Wendy used to laugh and claim she assumed they stared because she was beautiful. Yes, really.

A quick appraisal of Amy’s and my respective outfits shelved that idea. If anything, they were staring at her. I don’t know how she wasn’t freezing cold in nothing more than paper-thin, above-the-ankle pants and a cropped motorcycle jacket, but she looked so fierce I nearly walked into a garbage can because I kept stealing glances at her.

“It seems like there are a lot Asian people here,” I said, hoping she didn’t notice my awkward stumble around the trash. “What are the demographics of the school?”

Amy shrugged but kept walking, her demeanor all business. “I don’t know the specific breakdown; you’ll have to take an official tour for those kinds of stats. I can tell you it’s nowhere near any kind of majority, but we have a decent number of international students here from Asia at least. It’s still mostly white. You’ll see, the main cafeteria is all pizza and burgers and white people’s versions of burritos with french fries and stuff in them. All the ‘Asian’ foods are stuffed in one corner, and even that’s just cafeteria food without any real flavor. Most of us just eat out for authentic stuff. There are some good spots around town if you know where to look.”

My mind tried to wrap itself around the idea of a cafeteria that even offered Asian food. The closest we had at Pine Grove were crispy noodles at the salad bar. If this is what “mostly white” looked like to Amy, I wanted her to come to Iowa for a day and watch my friends make gagging noises over my dried squid snacks while they happily downed corn nuts that smelled like sweaty feet. That was what it was like being around mostly white people. We didn’t even have a burrito place in Pine Grove, french fries or no french fries.

It hadn’t occurred to me until right now that I’d been using “white people” as shorthand for “Midwestern,” where Kraft Singles were considered a food category and people were wary of anything new that seemed “weird.” Being surrounded by so many Asian people and listening to Amy talk about growing up

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