By Chloe Lee

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This piece describes the long journey of how I found acceptance and gained pride in my cultural identity through narration from my six-year-old self to now.

“Who wants to be Rapunzel?” 

My six year old self looked around as I watched everyone’s hands immediately jump up in the air. Suddenly, my hand jumped up too; it was as if conformity had put a spell on me. 

“Wow! So many people to choose from! You! Right over there!” 

I watched the actress walk closer and closer as my mind started filling up with thousands of anxious thoughts. As if time slowed down, the lady’s finger steadily pointed in my direction. Gradually, everyone in the room turned their head to place their eyes on me. Me. The only person of color in the room. The fish out of water. The elephant in the room. The only non-white girl. Chosen to play Rapunzel. 

Before I knew it, I stood up. My legs shook as I walked to the center of the room. Eyes had formed on the back of my head as I felt the glare from all the mothers watching me. I felt uncomfortable, wondering if they were thinking why an Asian girl was picked to be Rapunzel and not their white daughter. 

“Who’s ready for the new song of the week?”, my middle school chorus teacher enthusiastically asked.

I sighed as I looked around the white, dull classroom. Subconsciously, my legs started to fidget anxiously on my seat while I watched the clock move slower than a snail. It’s not that I didn’t like chorus class. In fact, it was the complete opposite. 

I’ve always enjoyed singing; I’ve always loved how the notes glided out of my throat and made me feel like I was flying. They made me feel at home. Thus, I was so excited to be a part of the chorus in a new school, but this excitement quickly turned into disappointment. Even after moving to a fairly diverse town during my middle school years, I always felt misplaced in chorus class. No one took the class seriously, I was still the only Asian kid in my class, feeling eyes still forming on the back of my head just like that little girl who dressed up as Rapunzel.  Worst of all, I started to experience microaggressions.  

“We are actually going to try something new this week. Instead of singing songs, we are going to look at different songs from different cultural backgrounds and analyze them!” 

Right after, a paper was handed to me. It was a traditional Chinese song. 

It’s hard to explain what happened next.  

I can still vividly remember the scene happening in slo-mo. The obnoxious class clown opening his mouth pointing at the paper yelling some intolerant, xenophobic, prejudiced statement about Asian people. I could feel the glare from everyone watching me while I instantly turned my head down so no one could see the tears forming on the back of my eyes. Even though the details are unclear, I can still feel the mixture of emotions- the sudden feeling of discomfort, embarrassment, awkwardness, ashamed, the list can go on. I just wanted to run away and never come back. 

It took me weeks, but eventually I built up courage to use my voice, but not the voice I used to sing my heart with. At the end of the year, I told my chorus teacher I would need to switch classes the following year because I hadn’t been feeling comfortable in the class. 

To this day, my memory is still foggy about the incident. A part of me has tried to forget about it, push it out of my brain. Regardless of how hard I try, it’s hard for me to accept closure. It haunts me that I resorted to running away, that I never confronted him, that I quit chorus and essentially quit singing. Whenever this agonizing feeling comes back to me, I wish I could erase it from my memories forever.  

There are other memories I hold onto, like my trips to Korea every summer. Growing up, I always loved running on the beach with my cousins while waiting to eat dinner. Whenever I close my eyes, I imagine the humid air smacking me right in the face. There’s something about being in a place where everyone looks like you– the same color skin, the same color hair, and the same culture. A sense of peace–except once I open my mouth and everyone hears my American accent, that all goes away. Eyes yet again form on the back of your head, and soon enough you feel the glare of everyone watching you. It’s the whole nightmare again, I’m back to being little Rapunzel on stage. 

I wish I could tell little Rapunzel it gets better. Moving out of the white centered town leaves you to an expansive world you never knew of. You find new people, new experiences, new surroundings that make you feel at home. Your life becomes filled with connections that last more than a lifetime, memories that make you taste familiarity, and a sense of pride that you constantly talk about. 

Process

This piece took a lot of thinking and a lot of reflection to complete. Originally I had written the piece to be a personal essay/memoir about my appreciation for my Korean and Taiwanese heritage. However, I slowly realized I wanted to write about how I gained that exact appreciation and the experience it took. I had to really rely on my memories to bring this piece alive.

Something I learned and will definitely apply in the future is that it is totally okay if your piece is not what you originally thought it would be! The writing process can definitely be confusing and difficult, but it is so rewarding in the end.