Beyond Ethnic Loneliness by Prasanta Verma

Author:Prasanta Verma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Marginalization;people of color;loneliness;ethnic loneliness;cultural isolation;immigrant experience;south Asian immigrant;Asian immigrant;immigrant community;racism;cultural alienation;minority experience;racial trauma
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2024-01-09T09:43:33+00:00

Perhaps our betweenness, this exiled identity, is the place we truly begin to live.

CAMOUFLAGE

Some species of octopuses are masters of camouflage. They can change color and texture. A specific species, called the mimic octopus, is a master shapeshifter and can even change its shape to mimic other sea creatures.19 It’s probably the world’s best camouflage artist. Why hasn’t Marvel created a sci-fi octopus-type superhero creature with these extraordinary shape-shifting and camouflage capabilities? Having just one of these abilities would transform anyone’s life. Both together? That would be a winner.

For the person of color, having these abilities would mean we could transform into any number of different ethnic identities. But alas, we do not possess such abilities and instead we may have built barriers—invisible walls sprouting protective thorns—to keep others from rubbing too close. From the outside it may appear that some of us are managing well as we try to mask or hide, attempt to fit in or assimilate, and thus give up part of our identities. In the United States, the ideal is white, and people of color live with that ideal haunting us, reminding us we don’t fit.

Sara, a biracial woman living in Indiana, who is Filipina (from her mother’s side) and white (from her father’s side), felt the loneliness of disbelonging when she was in high school. She and her friends read magazines and watched TV shows and movies with pop stars, all of whom were white. All of Sara’s friends were white as well; she didn’t have Filipino friends in her small Midwestern town. Back then, she thought she would never fit the white ideal of beauty because she could never look like those stars they admired. Sara said that as an adult, watching Never Have I Ever episodes, in which the main character is an Asian girl, transported her right back to high school. It reminded her of when her friends would go to her house and see how different it was from their stereotypical white American households, such as how in her home they wore slippers inside the house and how they ate rice and spicy food.

For years, I rejected my ethnicity and dreamed I could transition out of my Brown skin and step into a costume of white. In my imagined white world, I wasn’t singled out. I was automatically accepted and included. Others looked at white-self me and knew me in a way I wasn’t known being Brown, where I didn’t have to explain myself or attempt to force my way into belonging. I wanted to change my skin color, my hair color, and my name. I fantasized about this white self and imaginary world when I was Brown. My white world was sparkling, gleaming, pristine, perfect.

But this world wasn’t real. I allowed these hallucinations to eat away at my own flesh, leaving my own true self to disintegrate, and what would be left surely wouldn’t be white. I couldn’t shed my old skin like a reptile, with a glowing white covering

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