Growing up Asian in America can look like a lot of different things. For most of us, it means that all of our “American” experiences of watching Spongebob and eating Kid Cuisine were often intertwined with things from our Asian identity. The combination of both identities, even when they’re in direct opposition, contributes to both the Asian diaspora and this new idea of “Asian Americana.”
For many, navigating this newfound Asian American identity seems to disconnect us even further from our roots. “I was the first of my family to be born in the US, as well as an only child, so that means I was the first to navigate growing up in American culture while also feeling disconnected from Chinese culture, with no one to talk about it with until adulthood,” Belle Zhao tells Kindergarten. The very idea of being “American” seemed to negate our Asian culture, which only isolated us further as children.
As Asians, we all come from different countries and distinct cultures. And yet, as Americans, we’re often lumped together into a single category. This means that being Asian American has allowed us to experience much of the same media, food, and sometimes general life experience. This age-old and problematic American ideal of the “melting pot” pushing us towards a more homogeneous society, is extremely evident in Asian Americana culture. We couldn’t be more dissimilar, yet to Uncle Sam, we all belong in a single box.
For many Asian Americans, food is a love language. As children and grandchildren of immigrants, we look to food from our motherland to comfort us and make us feel closer to our ancestors. “My grandma would visit me during my school lunches to bring me fresh dishes, such as [the Filipino dish] sinigang, that other people wouldn’t understand or would find weird. A lot of times the food I brought to school was looked at weirdly, and at some point I remember signing up for school lunches so that people would no longer judge me,” Airis Encarnacion tells Kindergarten.
Oftentimes we felt alienated from our white peers because of our food choices. As much as we loved fruit roll-ups and Hot Cheetos, our favorite after-school snacks were lychee jelly, shrimp chips, and cheese ensaymada from the local Filipino bakery.
“I never brought [my favorite snacks] to school, aside from one time my mom brought me boba and this kid named Sam teased me for it. He had never seen a straw so big, and it was confirmation bias for how weird I am. His loss,” Belle says. Ironically, the way we felt ashamed of our favorite Asian snacks as children is almost in direct opposition to how mainstream they’ve become in recent years.
Today, certain aspects of Asian culture have become far more celebrated by non-Asian audiences. Whether it’s Sanrio or Japanese designers, the things we loved when we were younger are no longer just “Asian things.”
Despite the recent rise in popularity of Japanese clothing brands like Hysteric Glamour, Airis has noticed how this hasn’t translated to the West’s overall understanding of Asian culture, “It seems like the Western eye continuously views Asian culture as this primarily aesthetic genre. Instead of viewing all the intersectionalities in our cultures.”
Similarly, Asian American media is extremely nuanced as well. Although representation is far more abundant now in our adulthoods, that sinking feeling of being reduced to a stereotype seems to linger regardless. Especially after being disregarded by Western media for so long.
“I grew up with an erasure of Asian-American narratives and because of that I never had the same level of confidence in comparison to others because they truly believed they could be whoever they wanted to be or pursue whatever they wanted to do. For me, I felt like my goals as a kid were limited because I was Asian, so I never dreamt big,” Claire Saul recalls.
The Western TV shows and movies we frequented as children seldom captured our experiences. That feeling of otherness began to seep from our academics to our free time too.
Luckily for many Asian Americans, Asian media seemed to distinctly belong to us. Shows like Pucca were not only cute and entertaining to watch, they didn’t constantly remind us of how dissimilar we were from the main characters. “[Pucca] was playing all the time and I was completely drawn in by the cutesy art style. I thought the dynamic between the two main characters was the funniest thing,” Alexis Salum tells Kindergarten.
Characters like Hello Kitty, Domo, and Hamtaro became our idols. No matter how often they were disregarded as silly Asian things by our peers, we loved them regardless. We read their mangas, watched their shows, wore their t-shirts, and had their cute faces printed on all of our school supplies. Whether or not they were understood by the Western world didn’t matter to us, they belonged to us.
No matter how badly we wanted to be accepted by our peers or assimilate into white American culture, our Asianness always played a factor. We ate bland school lunches to feel more like our white peers and left our favorite meals at home to eat in private. This juxtaposition, although overwhelming as children, has formed us into who we are today.
Through the isolation we felt, we looked towards each other for comfort. After all, there’s nothing more comforting than being your authentic self around your friends. “I’m very grateful to have grown up in a very diverse setting and environment. I never felt made fun of or isolated by peers, especially since many were Filipino as well. When we went to each other’s houses, we knew the expectations of parents, house rules, food, etc,” Alexis says.
The food we ate, characters we loved, and alliances we made with each other make up our Asian American childhoods. Although the term “Asian American” has been stretched and bent from all angles, its meaning lies within our distinct commonality and ability to forge our own paths. If we’re all the same in the eyes of the American melting pot, at least we have some things in common before the rest of us melts away.
Kindergarten 