Bullies and Boxes
Macy is an adopted Chinese 21-year-old whose journey and community has always been her own. Her story recounts an incident of anti-Asian hate and realizing the gravity of this racism in society.
Macy's Story
“It’s those fucking Chinese girls’ fault that we’re in this mess to begin with.”
“Yeah, it’s my fault individually that we’re in this pandemic,” I silently retorted as I shuffled my sister down the pier toward the restaurant. A group of five or six white adults were loudly heckling behind us.
My mind raced—did any of these people have a gun? I was appalled and freaked out. I didn’t know what these people were willing to do. I didn’t know what they were capable of.
At the time, I stood just over five feet with my straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail. I was often mistaken for a teenager despite my 20th birthday having been just a few months earlier. My sister, moving quickly beside me, was a few inches shorter than me, looking like a child in the seafoam t-shirt she got earlier on the family trip. We were definitely out-of-place in this South Carolina beach town.
As we kept walking, my fear boiled into anger. Of course these people were targeting two young Asian girls who weren’t going to fight them! But would they say that to a grown man who was Asian? UGH. Pick on someone your own size!
My face was hot, and my body shook. We reached the restaurant where my dad, an average-built white man, was waiting. He noticed immediately that something was wrong. We told him what happened, to which he blurts, “Don’t tell your mom where they are.” My dad was the level-headed one who kept my mom in check. He knew that if our mom learned the people who bullied us were only a hundred feet back, there was bound to be a physical altercation. My mom—a white woman, fierce and tough from years of getting into bar fights—joined us at the restaurant. I tried to hold back, but my teary eyes gave away my distress. She snapped, “Where are they?” She was ready to go to war. “They’re like two miles back, Mom. They’re probably long gone by now,” I lied.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had never experienced any of the anti-Asian hate I had seen on the news—until that moment. I was always taught to watch my back and be vigilant as a young woman, but this time, I could not believe that I was getting harassed for my race.
I was shocked. It finally felt real, like people don’t like us right now. People actually blame us for this pandemic!
Heated and rattled, we made our way into the restaurant and approached the host stand. Thank goodness it had only been words and nothing worse.
My dad composed himself and faced the hostess, “Table for four, please.”
About Macy
Macy, a third-year psychology student, was born in China, adopted by her parents, and raised in the very white, western suburbs of Illinois. Growing up, Macy didn’t have any connection to Chinese culture. She didn’t know anything about the language, cultural practices, or traditions. She didn’t go to Asian grocery stores or shop at H Mart, like lots of other Asians she knew. She didn’t understand what it was like to have immigrant parents or Chinese parents because, well, why would she? Her parents weren’t Asian.
Macy and her sister were both adopted, though they were not biologically related. Despite being complete opposites, Macy and her sister could spend infinite amounts of time together. Since Macy went to college in Minnesota, away from home, they played a lot of online video games with each other. When Macy wasn’t hanging out with her college friends, playing video games with her sister, or reading, Macy enjoyed mixing music on her computer. She liked the patterns of it, being able to see the wave form of the music. The patterns were reliable, like her family, and she liked that stability. It gave her the confidence to do more things, be a little bolder.
Macy never felt shame or insecurity towards being adopted. But growing up, she realized that other kids didn’t see her as them. The white kids didn’t see her as white, and the Asian kids didn’t see her as Asian. All the other Asian kids could relate to each other and would point out ways that Macy did not fit in with them. She had kind of hoped there would be a sense of community since there weren’t that many Asians in her hometown, but she didn’t find it. Rather, there was passive judgment where other Asian kids would act like she was somehow less than them for not experiencing certain “Asian” things. It was as if she was less Asian.
Fortunately, Macy’s closest friend from high school was also adopted and Chinese. Her name was Roxi. When she was with Roxi, she didn’t have to explain the context of being adopted because Roxi knew exactly what she was saying. Macy could vent about stupid things. She could be seen and heard in the same way that she saw and heard Roxi. Despite Roxi being an only child and ruminating a lot more on being adopted than Macy, the two complimented each other, and both found comfort in one another.
In college, Macy’s friend group became a lot more diverse, with notably more Asian friends. It was nice to have people who understood what it was like to be a minority in America. With her quippy humor, she occasionally ribbed her white friends about reparations and was constantly pushing conversations about race in her nursing courses.
In her free time, Macy didn’t get involved in Asian student groups. She felt she might get rejected by other Asian students again. Would they see her as one of them or not? It seemed like there were these arbitrary boxes that most people fell into. But for Macy, she just didn’t. She wasn’t just Asian or just American. She wasn’t just Asian American. She was always adopted Asian American or adopted Chinese. Why did she need to fit into a box that only ever felt like either/or? Was it really so important that she find a community where everyone had similar experiences to her? In thinking about these questions, Macy reflected:
I have friends I value. I have a family who loves me. Just because I don’t fit in with these identity boxes doesn’t mean that I am alone. I have a community, and my community doesn’t need to look like me. I don’t need to fit in with the Asian kids. I don’t need the white kids to view me as white. The people I have in my life, that’s community. It is mine.
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