When I was little I got used to the fact that I’m on the short side (both my younger sisters have been taller than me for most of our lives) but I wasn’t okay with my body type (muscular! I could probably body-build if I weren’t lazy :p). I wanted to be petite and light and flimsy and girlish. (You know the character Lessa from Anne McCaffery’s Pern series? She was tiny and “fiery” and got hefted over men’s shoulders and ravished and stuff.) I wanted to be heft-able and ravish-able too. Instead, I got dropped by 2 guys at a camp counselor “team-building exercise” last year; I *warned* them I was denser than I looked ’cause of the muscle and bone, but apparently that concept didn’t sync with my “girl” identity. And if you’re not “petite” you aren’t “fiery” either, you’re just bitchy or opinionated. >.< And, I guess, droppable.

Now I’m slowly getting used to the idea that if there’s going to be romantic carrying in the relationship, I’m going to either need a strong guy or to do it myself (I like the thinner guys, so the latter’s probably my best bet.) Sigh. If I swooned like a romantic heroine I’d have to settle for the hero dragging me off in a fireman’s carry or something… not terrible sexy. :p

Hope you’re still reading comments on old posts!

sbg: You’re right, you don’t fit with the assumed standards of “beautiful” looks and behavior. But I think you sound great, and I share some of your “non-beautiful” traits.

Sara and Katie: Thanks for bringing up this issue. I’m not quite in the same situation as you - I am fully Chinese - but boy do I see myself in your words. I’ve lived all my life in rich, mostly Christian, and overwhelmingly white suburbs. I’ve absorbed the dominant white way of viewing the world, including its treatment of race and racism. My transition to anti-racism (the real stuff, not the feel-good “colorblind” approach) was relatively recent because I was so indoctrinated. My family and I have experienced racism, sure, but I certainly didn’t notice some of it, or consider it very important, due to my absorption in the dominant perspective.

I have this essentially White acculturation and much of White privilege but a strong sense of being Not-White, with little positive identity to replace it. At least that’s how I feel on bad days.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Is this white privilege? No, I don’t think so, because any privilege we experience is temporary and contingent - dependent upon us toeing the line and not causing a fuss, and especially not drawing attention to our non-whiteness. The approval we receive stems from our distance from our non-white heritages, which allows the white people around us not to feel threatened, and perhaps even take comfort in the idea that we are people of color who agree with their racial attitudes. But being more in touch with our non-dominant cultural backgrounds, or turning to anti-racist activism, would cause us to lose this pseudo-protection. It is, I would say, similar to the “privilege” women experience when they obey cultural rules of femininity and subordinate themselves to men; that is, they certainly gain some benefits, but are not in a true position of power.

That’s my take. I’d appreciate any further thoughts either of you have.

As for body image, definitely got/get exoticized a ton. For many, though, there’s weird disjunct because I’m pretty big and sharp-tongued and Asian women are, naturally, all tiny and demure. I truly hate our cultural obsession with (and refusal to admit to the obsession with) White features. I hate that I try to dress in ways that make me look “long” or “lean” (read “skinny”) and that I feel compelled to bleach facial hair. I feel like this thrall to Whiteness pervades even the most innocuous things, like the language of what “accentuates your best features.” What might those features be? why, big eyes, or long legs, a small narrow nose and high cheekbones, a small waist or an ample - but not too ample - bosom, something that seems suspiciously akin to a laundry list of Nordic features. This argument can get infinitely reductive, I know. It’s just…always getting under my skin.

I am white.

Except I’m not. I’m actually biracial, half Pinay, with an entire family (a really huge one, actually) of full-blooded Filipino/a.

I can’t relate to them at all. (Except for the food, which is really good.) I can hardly understand my own grandfather, not because his English is bad, or because his accent is especially heavy, but because I haven’t learned to listen to people with accents period. And so we don’t talk, because I feel embarassed if I have to ask him to repeat something more than once, and I think he either picks up on my embarrassment or gets embarrassed himself.

I am white. I was raised primarily by my white father in a primarily white town. I was one of fewer than ten “ethnic” kids in my entire educational experience, from kindergarten through my senior year in high school. All my friends were white; my entire life was white.

I never saw myself as different from them. I was so whitewashed that it’s hard for me to see — that, well, when I think of “normal” or looking “normal,” what I actually mean is “normal for white people.” Even now when I look in the mirror, I don’t particularly think of myself as looking Filipina — even though I have an obvious Pinay nose, and have darker skin, and have hair that does nothing particularly well except existing. Even my mum, who’s fully Filipina, didn’t strike me as being “different.”

I don’t know where I’m going with this actually. I’m just — I don’t know, trying to learn how to relate to my Pinay identity, I think. Because it hasn’t been an identity for my entire life, and yet I’m just now beginning that the rest of the world will look at me and see a Filipina (or an Asian) girl, not a white girl. It never occurred to me that being expected to know Japanese, or to eat dogs, or be great at math was specifically because I was different; I mean in high school, my friends would laugh off my smarts as being in my genes, but it never … really sunk in, I guess. Because I didn’t think of myself as Filipina.

Do I have white privilege if I identify as white and think of myself as a “normal” (i.e. white) person? Even if I’m obviously biracial, if not wholly Filipina?

That might be off-topic — sorry — this has just given me a lot to think about.