The Colorism Issue

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Identity Struggles Internalized Colourism The Money In Colourism

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Asia Jackson Pearl Low

Editor’s Note

There are so many things I take for granted.

Colorism in Asian communities is one of them.

Slathering on SPF, always wearing a hat, staying out of the sun, applying mudpacks to my face; very good things with sinister reasoning.

You should absolutely take sun safety precautions - but to keep your epidermis healthy, not to keep your skin light. The roots of colorism in Asian communities are myriad, ranging from lighter skin being a status symbol to simple proximity to whiteness. The solution is equally multifaceted. Educating yourself on the roots of colorism. Refusing to use skin whitening products. Starting difficult conversations with your friends and family. Calling out colorism when you see it. Embracing a different standard of beauty. Realizing it’s alright to be unfair and lovely.

Colorism can feel as Asian as rice sometimes.

We can change that; we *have* to change that.

The Asian community has much bigger issues than representation - this is one of them. Put down the fairness cream, and for the love of god, stop squeezing lemon on your face (it’ll burn your skin off!). Let’s leave colorism in 2020.

Yours, Rehana Paul Founder, Editor-in-Chief

“Pretty” by Fatima Ali

They told me I wasn’t pretty because my brown Skin wasn’t pale like porcelain Because my chocolate eyes aren’t as azure as seas and oceans Because my thick dark curly hair wasn’t thin and blonde like a barbie doll.

Now they spend thousands of dollars on spray tans Now they wear black contact lenses Now they perm their hair and dye it black.

“sometimes grief is brown” by Mikaela Lucido we like to dress up “brown” stuff it with frilly words with frillier sounds: caramel, toffee, mocha because a coffee order is easier to stomach than the swoop of your nose. that stretch of skin under the neck. we like to string ourselves up with lights because we think we need ornaments to glow. but your face over there by the window is already making stars out of smoke and you are gone now into that vast darkness littered in lights with colours we have not yet named colours we have not yet bastardized colours that could not measure up to the steady way you laughed, so sharp and shameless

Annie James

or the way you loved: winsome and true and ferociously brown.

Intrigued by the mono-disciplinary approaches to human existence, Annie James, social scientist and therapist, spent years formally studying literature, psychology, and philosophy across undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, in order to develop culturally relevant practical interventions. Amidst her practice, she works to understand and intervene in culturally rooted mental health and social issues, particularly women’s issues, colorism, and mental health stigma. Determined to offer free psychoeducation, she delivered free mental health workshops across schools in Bangalore, India for the Live Love Laugh program under an internship, and currently runs an instagram offering evidence based mental health information and practices. In private practice, she is set upon translating mental health data into several Indian vernaculars. Oddly particular about evidence based literacy, she writes poetry in her free time, incorporating academic concepts and philosophical psychology. Her current preoccupation is cultural imprinting and digital nausea.

“beauty ad” by Emmalia Ning // Ig @fakeartist.em

“Coloring a Mixed Woman Grey” by Kai Tokiyeda I was born to be kept behind shut doors but my summers, oh how they kissed my skin and named me “Grey” One side of my family, oh how they scrubbed my skin and called me “Dirty” and “Black” Words made behind shut doors meant to keep me shut in some more I missed a life of color and wisdom, scrubbing my skin clean of the summers and sunshine that colored my youth, my narrative my beautiful and radiant heritage I shine too brightly for them now I long to be like one of them now All of them A prism that reflects the colors I am, not the untouched pigment and muted words I became behind the shut doors I hope it’s not too late for me now I hope I didn’t scrub too hard I didn’t know color until I saw my first rainbow Oh, but how can you know what color you are when you were born into a sun that colored you grey?

The Money in Colorism Written by Shaina Sharma

Colorism didn’t leave with the British. And it didn’t change with Fair & Lovely’s rebranding.

The colorism discourse in South Asia has taken the shape of many valid arguments: the skin whitening products, the matrimonial industry, and the obvious link to imperial white supremacy. But in a time when we’re reevaluating the intricacies of colour prejudice, South Asians deserve more than a hasty Instagram story sharing Fair & Lovely’s rebranding to the hilariously lazy name that is Glow & Lovely. From Pashtuns to Tamils to Sharchops to Bengalis and everyone in between, the rich colour diversity that constitutes the South Asian demographic is unrivalled worldwide, and yet the desire to attain whiteness trumps them all.

But if, as is a common belief, the idea of white superiority is a remnant of the British, how and why is it still alive today? In truth, colorism is an investment. While the system that benefits the lighter-skinned was built on centuries of imperial oppression, today, colorism has been harnessed by several industries to turn a profit. Colorism preserves and monetizes a social structure with a degree of influence on everyone, from your neighbour to your favourite Bollywood star.

It is this division of people in which the economics of colorism is most apparent. As a result of internalizing constant Western and local media alike that ‘white is right,’ we turn to skin colour to judge not only a person’s apparent beauty but their social and economic status as well. A recent study at REVA University, Bangalore, showed that 50% of participants believe that those with fairer skin are generally richer and 44% believe that those with fairer skin

are better educated. What everyone should understand here is the deeply troubling dogma that is ‘the fairer you are, the more set up for success you are.’

These deep-seated convictions reveal an ugly link to casteism, which only supports the ‘colour factor’ in financial and social success.

The abolishment of discrimination based on the caste system in the Indian Subcontinent did not stunt its effects, but it allowed it to morph in ways more implicit, more subjective than before. Those employed in manual labour jobs, as well as those who live in poverty, experience long-term skin darkening and are then associated with being of lower ‘caste,’ as jobs requiring manual labour were historically reserved for Shudras and Dalits.

However, the kicker is that there is no link between skin colour and caste. While skin colour simply varies with the geographies in South Asia, the modern-day hierarchical caste system is prevalent in every corner in the region. And yet, the preconceptions that economic and social success is only achievable for those with lighter skin colours pose a barrier to a region with generally darker skin colours. The South Asian economy, carried by the primary sector, is charged by the exploitation of the hard labour of the melanin-rich and the disadvantaged workers, complete with casteist wage discrimination and trade union exclusion.

And this skew can quite aptly be portrayed in pretty much any advertisement for a skin-whitening product, where a deeply troubled dark-skinned woman is rejected by a love interest or a job offer.

She finally prevails after becoming lighter-skinned by using some cream or the other, evidenced in a Ravan-esque whitening sequence. But quite frankly, too many times has the colorism discourse in South Asia stopped at Fair & Lovely. In truth, the South Asian media is obsessed with white skin. In advertisements ranging from toothpaste to intimate parts wash to cars to even Domino’s, one could never tell just by media that India has any skin colour darker than perhaps a wheatish complexion. While this may seem only ignorant at first glance, remind yourself of the very purpose of advertisements. Advertisements are meant to influence and persuade, to inspire a change in your consuming patterns, and show you

just how much better your life can be if you use this one product.

What this means is that the media industry has recognized an ideal to aspire to - an ideal of conforming to Eurocentric appearance standards - and monetized it by presenting lifestyle products used by light-skinned commercial models. This implicitly drives home a message that “You need this to be like the fair woman on TV” or “You need that to be like the fair man in your newspaper ad.” And it works! The constant barrage of light-skinned propaganda propels the skin-whitening business to swell at a sinister 15-20% growth rate every year in South Asia. Of course, the dark irony of the situation is that the media industry grows fatter by simultaneously inflaming our skin-based insecurities and then by selling us what they deem the solution, cancerous bleach that is the dermatological equivalent to “paint stripper.

And just like most wrongdoings, Bollywood is not innocent. As an industry, Bollywood has expansive cultural influence and is intricately woven into the South Asian narrative. However, for an industry built for a South Asian audience, Bollywood upholds and protects certain colorist principles that make it somewhat inaccessible for the rest of us. From appropriating South Indian culture (let’s not even talk about Chennai Express) to the lack of Northeastern representation entirely to widespread stereotyping, Bollywood regurgitates colonial-era standards of light-skin supremacy to such an extent that even successful actresses fall victim to the industry, undergoing skin lightening treatments and other procedures to attain more Anglo features because to play the Juliet in any Bollywood movie necessitates having glowing, scrubbed white skin.

Additionally, when you have Priyanka Chopra taking on the role of Mary Kom from the Northeast or Akshay Kumar playing Arunachalam Murugunantham and Mathunny Mathews from the South, there is a systematic cultural hijacking that only further contributes to colorism in South Asia. The lack of representation is a

problem itself, but the Bollywood belief that actors with deeper or different skin tones are not as easy to market as their lighter-skinned counterparts perpetuates a frustrating cycle where Bollywood remains an exclusive, light-skinned club. Thus, we consume desi stories of heroes and heroines that feel unrelatable, and yet they are heralded as icons of India. And this is definitely in part of their socially desirable skin colour, and all the glamour it affords them.

Oftentimes in the colorism discourse, our fingers point to the British. Of course, two centuries of white colonization would leave lasting wounds in the South Asian region; however, to describe colorism as a fight of the past completely disregards the impacts felt by us today. Colorism did not leave with the British. It is kept alive today by monied interests that profit from our anxiety associated with the baseless stereotypes associated with having darker skin. In South Asia today, colorism is upheld by local industries that buy into socially constructed beliefs that to be darker would mean a lifetime of bad luck. But the good news is that the very social beliefs that these industries use to turn a profit are beliefs held personally by all of us. Unlearning generations of these beliefs is difficult, but it is not impossible. And progress alone would compel those benefiting from colorism to rethink what they are carrying onto the future.

And, well, wouldn’t that be lovely?

BIPOC and Canadian Identity: Written By Jesie Salcedo Jesiebelle Salcedo, or Jesie graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Arts in Canadian Studies with Distinction, and a Bachelor of Elementary Education specializing in English as an Additional Language in 2016. She currently works as a teacher.

To date, she has worked with many immigrant youth both in a local non-profit setting and within the school system, fuelling her passion for anti-Black and anti-racism education. When Jesie travels, she loves exploring the food culture. In her spare time, she enjoys baking up a storm for her friends and loved ones, reading, and writing to process the world around her. @jbcs11 https://www.instagram.com/jbcs11/ @jbskitchendiaries https://www.instagram. com/jbs_kitchendiaries/

Some Canadians are blind to racism, thinking extreme cases primarily affect our southern neighbours. Alongside the global pandemic, racism rears its ugly head in every corner of the country. In July 2020, a video circulated of an enraged white male refusing to wear a mask inside T&T, a Canadian Asian grocery FKDLQ 7 7 ZDV RQH RI WKH ¿UVW &DQDGLDQ businesses to implement a policy where employees and patrons are required to wear face masks in the store. Countries in Asia normalize wearing masks when they fall ill, so it wasn’t a surprise when T&T adopted this measure to protect their staff and customers.

The situation escalated as the man aggressively screamed profanities and racist slurs towards staff and customers. At one point in the video, the white man interrogated an old Asian man within the group about where he “originally” came from. In response, the Asian man held his hands up and yelled, “I am Canadian!” Insisting he was Canadian was heartbreaking and is a brutal reality for many Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) Canadians. The CEO of T&T, Tina Lee, made a statement defending the manager’s decision to leave the store and reprimanded the man’s racist actions.

Earlier this month, three individuals were photographed in the midst of attacking a gay couple in Calgary, the third homophobic assault within a week. The couple was enjoying their stroll when they were suddenly physically and verbally attacked, resulting in non-life-threatening injuries and shock. Pictures circulated on Reddit and Facebook. In the comments section, people immediately sneered racial comments about deportation and labelled them as immigrants, all because of their brown skin. Individuals who NQHZ WKH RIIHQGHUV FRQ¿UPHG DW OHDVW RQH RI them was Canadian born and clapped back at people’s quick racial assumptions. Racism does not negate the severity of homophobia.

Infuriated with this group for intentionally harming a gay couple, I also questioned why people immediately assume that brown or black skin is the mark of an immigrant. )RU PDQ\ ¿UVW DQG VHFRQG JHQHUDWLRQ %ODFN and POC individuals, our citizenship status in Western countries such as Canada and the United States is regularly challenged. For example, my Dad acknowledges his Filipino roots but insists he is a Canadian citizen.

Since entering Canada in the early nineties, both of my parents built their life together.

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Their four-year permanent residency bloomed LQWR &DQDGLDQ FLWL]HQVKLS ZLWK RI¿FLDO GRFuments indicating they passed the citizenship exam almost thirty years ago. And yet, why does my Dad need to constantly assert his Canadian identity? Is it because of his thick Ilocano accent and brown skin? ,V LW EHFDXVH KH GRHVQœW ¿W LQWR WKH ³WUDditional� narrative of Canadian society?

Suppose you were to type into Google, “what does a Canadian look like?â€? You’re blasted with white faces and sprinkles of BIPOC. Many factors play into the idea of equating &DQDGLDQ LGHQWLW\ ZLWK ZKLWHQHVV 6SHFLÂżFDOly, this view is learned in our school system.

In Canadian schools, the prominent narrative is the British and French monarchies slowly exploiting a stolen land at the expense of Indigenous Peoples. Traditionally, the way Canadian history is taught is whitewashed and fails to acknowledge or deeply discuss how BIPOC shaped Canada. Indigenous stories are slowly being recognized in the education system, but still have a lengthy path ahead. If stories of Black and POC Canadians are recognized, in-depth discussions are rarely fostered in classrooms. Failing to recognize BIPOC Canadians deliberately erases them from our society’s narrative.

Despite our multicultural policies, Canadians are fairly unaware of Canadian BIPOC stories. Since traditional Canadian history teaches youth that white people contributed “the most� to society, being Canadian is often associated with whiteness, labelling everyone else as “foreign.� By examining one perspective of history, a monolithic narrative is sustained as the truth. This narrow view overlooks and dismisses the perseverance, grit, and positive contributions of BIPOC Canadians.

Our education system disservices our stu-

Narrative

dents, particularly BIPOC students, by focusing on the whitewashed Canadian narrative. In reality, many stories of BIPOC linger throughout Canadian history but have yet to be shared. With my Grade 5 students, we investigated different waves of Canadian immigration and the challenges various groups encountered, particularly Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s into the twentieth century. Between 1885 to 1923, the Canadian government implemented the Chinese Head Tax to control the number of Chinese immiJUDQWV ÀRZLQJ LQWR WKH FRXQWU\ 7R WKLV GD\ the Chinese are the only group of people who paid an entrance fee upon arrival in Canada.

Shortly after dissolving the Chinese Head Tax, the Canadian government introduced the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese immigration altogether until 1947. Both of these laws enacted by the Canadian government promoted racism towards the Chinese.

Many early Chinese immigrants worked on WKH &DQDGLDQ 3DFL¿F 5DLOZD\ &35 WKH economic connection between Eastern and Western Canada. The CPR promoted nation-building, prevented northern American expansion, and encouraged Western settlement, yet some Canadians are unaware of the Chinese’s involvement. Starting in British Columbia, Chinese workers carved the CPR’s pathway into the mountainous BC interior, laboured long hours and were paid VLJQL¿FDQWO\ OHVV FRPSDUHG WR WKHLU ZKLWH counterparts on the East coast. Some Chinese workers even died due to the appalling working conditions. Most of my students were shocked, questioning the Canadian government’s actions and mistreatment of the Chinese workers. Acknowledging the Chinese’s early Canadian roots encouraged discussions on racism, broadening Canadian POC perspectives, and their contributions to society.

“bulletbite� by Riya Mathew // Ig @rimabean.art Medium of artwork: Digital

“visual confection”

by Cynthia Putri Iskandar apple in the mirror no palindromes, it isn’t clear-cut eyelashes flutter, hormones in a rut sweet honeysuckle, longing for nectar my hand kissed, you are a beggar but when the tomato mellowed no one wants the sour, savoury they want the sweet apple pie baked with the plumpest cherry lips part, but close with one another are we doves, birds of a feather your hands trickle, down my thighs all you want to hear, my mournful sighs but when the tomato mellowed no one wants the sour, savoury they want the sweet apple pie baked with the plumpest cherry isn’t she lovely, your child bride you can penetrate, with mere sight but she gazes back, the abyss stark and you shudder, you withdraw back but when the tomato mellowed no one wants the sour, savoury they want the sweet apple pie baked with the plumpest cherry tomato, tomato what am i to your eye

Dealing with

Microaggressions in the Workplace Tasia currently works in international security and peacebuilding, with a focus on Middle East, North Africa region. She plans to return to school for a Master's in global security and governance. She likes reading, playing tennis, and generally being outside.

Instagram: @kanitahlah https://www.instagram.com/kanitahlah I like to think that most anyone harbors a fantasy where they successfully confront a bigot, and the bigot is dealt satisfying consequences. In mine, a crude individual accosts my mother or a friend on the basis of their race, and I, after we unsuccessfully attempt to de-escalate as one ought, simply punch them in the face. Fortunately, both for myself and for the faces of bigots, my personal experiences regarding racism have been far more casual and without physical altercation. Think situations akin to a conversation with friends or acquaintances where someone tells a joke that is baseless in humor and offensive in taste. When such interactions occur, I express distaste firmly and clearly, oftentimes meeting success as the other party acknowledges the racist implications in their words or actions and apologizes. If they refuse, well, they have then lost the pleasure of my company.

As a white-passing biracial person, I coast through life, experiencing next to nothing when it comes to racism. I benefit from whiteness: that of my appearance, of my father, and even of my name. There have been very few times where I have had to confront forms of racism as it relates to me—as a mixed person, being asked “where are you from?” and being fetishized springs to mind most easily—and even then, the vast majority of these experiences are made because of my relation to my mother, an immigrant, and woman of color.

I say all this to emphasize that I do not croaggressions on a regular basis, and I ther face nor witness these at the office. cent HR, instances of racist confrontations

experience racism or racist micertainly do not expect to eiIf you have even a halfway deor discrimination are dealt with.

But while there are clear boundaries of what someone can and cannot say or do in the workplace, there is just as often a gray area that blurs the line between what is acceptable and what isn’t. One of the items that fall into this category are racial microaggressions - statements, jokes, and questions, made in passing and sometimes without realization of their offensive nature.

Recently, my colleagues and I were participating in a group call. It was a casual meeting, with the objective being to catch up with each other, as our socialization had been severely harmed from the effects of COVID-induced teleworking. At some point, we had begun discussing the most dangerous intersections in the world, devolving into anecdotes about poor driving. A colleague of mine interjected with his own, the difference being that he began his statement with, “Where I used to live, there was a large Vietnamese community. So there were bad drivers everywhere.” I was stunned in the moment, not knowing if what was just said was racially tinged or not. I stayed silent at the time, but since then, I have been mulling over the event. Did my colleague not realize the racial implications of his statement? Would he not have said that if an actual Asian person™ had been on the call? I should have said something, but I can’t go back in time, and I ultimately decided that I would not bring it back up.

For me, for that interaction, specifically, the window of opportunity has closed.

It did, however, get me thinking - what happens when racism is subtle? What steps do you take then, and how do you determine if something is worth bringing up to HR? Even for the most *woke* workplaces, microaggressions are covert in nature, and less likely to be treated as seriously as blatant discrimination or the use of a racial slur.

The following are three potential actions that you could take yourself in the event that you become the target, unintentionally or otherwise, of a microaggression.

Hard pause that if you or an affected coworker feel at all unsafe as a result of the event, it may be wise to forego the following actions altogether and go directly to HR.

Address the situation: If this is someone that you’ll work with regularly, it would be worth it to address them directly to assure yourself that they have been informed of the effects of their action, and will ideally be cognizant enough to not do the same again. Take the opportunity to take the individual aside and have a private conversation with them to educate them on the connotations of their words and their roots in racism.

Use your best judgment as to whether a microaggression should be called out (in a professional manner, of course) on the spot, or if it can afford to wait until some time has passed for you to have reconciled your thoughts to provide a well-attuned explanation. It may also be helpful to have some experience or confidence in having difficult conversations. If the conversation in any way escalates, or you feel that the individual brushes you off, it may be time to involve your manager.

Seek validation: You may feel unsure about your feelings on the matter. You may even be withholding permission from yourself to feel offended, excusing the actions of another on the basis of their perceived professionalism. Whether you choose to address the situation or to let it go, it may be worth it, at least for your sake, to seek support from others. They could be trusted peers - colleagues with similar authority levels as you, with whom you have a good rapport - or friends on the outside who give a full description of the events. When the comment mentioned above was made, a peer reached out to me to acknowledge it was racist. I can’t tell you how reassuring it felt to not have been the *only one* who felt that way.

Improve your vigilance: Above all else, you most certainly ought to pay attention to microaggressions that occur in your workplace even when they are not directed at you. The handling of such situations is pure emotional labor, excess mental and emotional work that is often sequestered to the victim in question. It can be demoralizing, distressing, and burdensome. The reality is that you will not face the same treatment as your coworkers on the basis of your differences in identity, whether it be race, gender, sexual orientation, or otherwise. Do not let your minority colleagues pick up this burden on their own. Address these situations as they appear, provide a support system for the affected party, believe in them when they confide in you, and continuously work to recognize your own implicit biases so that you do not contribute to another’s burdens yourself.

The prescription of actions that you can take when a racially offensive or insensitive comment or question is made will vary depending on your own personal level of comfort and on the nuances of your workplace. If you find yourself noticing that microaggressions occur on a regular basis, it may be a sign that ‘casual racism’ is more ingrained in your office’s culture than you thought, and you will have to come to your own conclusion as to whether your workplace is within salvation or if that is outside of your capabilities. While I maintain a personal belief that as individuals in society it is ultimately up to us to address racist behaviors or maintain complicity, you should not have to suffer the additional burnout that comes with deciding to educate or let go, and if you have the means, to instead consider alternative options. At this point, your best bet is to either obtain institutional support from higher levels of authority, including senior colleagues and management or if the toxicity has spread even amongst those individuals, to leave.

Colorism in South Korea and its 5HĂ HFWLRQV LQ . SRS Written by Lindsay Wong

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Every country has its own beauty standards, à Ģà Â&#x2021;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; ĢĊ Ă Ä&#x2020;Ć&#x2026;äĹ&#x2026;äĢĹ&#x2018;Í HĢ Ă Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2018;Ĺą where lookism has always been a controversial issue, colorism â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the prejudice and discrimination of those with a darker skin tone, usually within the same ethnic group â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is Ă Ä&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠ Ĺ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x2026;äŪà Ä&#x203A;äĢĹ&#x2018; Ä&#x2020;Ģ Â&#x2021;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ģ Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2018;ĹąÍ Â?Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2026;äĆ&#x2030;äĂ&#x161;Ĺ&#x2018;äà Ä&#x2020;Ģ WÍżĹ&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x201A;ÍĄ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä Ă&#x161;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;ĢĹ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2026;ĹąÎ&#x17D;Ĺ&#x2030; ÄĄĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161; industry that has gained popularity around Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä ĹŤÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x203A;Ă ÍĄ Ĺ&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2026;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161;Ĺ&#x2013;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2026;Ä&#x203A;Ĺą Ä&#x2020;Ģ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018; à äĂ&#x161;Ă Ă Ă¤Í Ä&#x203A;though darker-skinned K-pop idols (both male and female) are deemed the â&#x20AC;&#x153;sexyâ&#x20AC;? ones in their groups, they tend to receive more Ă&#x2122;Ă Ă&#x161;Ä&#x2014;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x201A; Ĺ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2026;äÄ&#x203A;Ĺą Ă&#x2122;äĂ&#x161;Ă Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2030;ä ÄŠĂš Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;äÄ&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2026; Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x2014;Ä&#x2020;Ģ Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠÄ˘Ă¤Í Pale skin is favored in the industry and inĂ&#x161;Ĺ&#x2026;äà Ĺ&#x2030;äĹ&#x2030; à Ģ Ä&#x2020;Ă ÄŠÄ&#x203A;Î&#x17D;Ĺ&#x2030; Ă&#x2122;Ĺ&#x2026;à Ģà Ĺ&#x2026;äĹ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;ÄŠÄ˘Í ÄŠÄ&#x203A;ÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030;ÄĄ in a South Korean context is rooted in feuĂ Ă Ä&#x203A; Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ĺą à Ģà Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x203A; Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030; Ä&#x2020;ÄĄĹ&#x201A;Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161;Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;ĊĢĹ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠĂ Ă ĹąÍ

Ă Ă Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Í Ĺ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x201A;äà Ĺ&#x2026;à ĢĂ&#x161;ä Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠ Ä&#x2020;ÄĄĹ&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ĺ&#x2018;à ĢĹ&#x2018; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2018; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;äĹ&#x2026;ä is the dedicated role of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;visualâ&#x20AC;? in almost äŪäĹ&#x2026;Ĺą WÍżĹ&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x201A; ĂşĹ&#x2026;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x201A;Í Â?Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x203A;ä Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; ĂşÄ&#x2020;ŪäĢ Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä ĥäĥĂ&#x2122;äĹ&#x2026; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2018; Ć&#x2C6;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2030; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ģ Ă&#x2122;äà Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺą Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;à Ģà à Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä ÄĄÄŠĹ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;ÍĄ Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2013;Ă&#x161;Ä&#x201A; Ă Ĺ&#x2030; UÄ&#x2020;Ģ ĂšĹ&#x2026;ÄŠÄĄ Â?Â&#x2021; à Ģà Ä&#x201A;Ă 'Ĺ&#x2013;ĢōĊĊ ĂšĹ&#x2026;ÄŠÄĄ Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x192;gÍ ;Ă Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2026; Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x2014;Ä&#x2020;Ģ Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ă Ă&#x161;Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ă&#x161;Ĺ&#x2018;äĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2018; Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030; Ä&#x203A;ĊĢú à äĆ&#x2C6;Ģäà Ă&#x2122;äà Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺą Ä&#x2020;Ģ Â&#x2021;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà ͥ Ä&#x201D;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018; Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x2020;Ä&#x2014;ä ĥà ĢŹ ÄŠĹ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;äĹ&#x2026; Ă&#x161;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;ĢĹ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2030; Ă Ĺ&#x2026;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ģà Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä ĹŤÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x203A;Ă Í

Â?Ä&#x201A;ä Â&#x192;ÄŠÄŠĹ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2030; ÄŠĂš ÄŠÄ&#x203A;ÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030;ÄĄ Ä&#x2020;Ģ WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äĂ

People with darker skin tones have been Ä&#x203A;ÄŠÄŠÄ&#x2014;äà à ĊōĢ Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x201A;ĊĢ Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x2020;ĢĂ&#x161;ä WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Î&#x17D;Ĺ&#x2030; ÚäĹ&#x2013;Ă Ă Ä&#x203A; Ă Ă ĹąĹ&#x2030;ÍĄ à Úäō Ă&#x161;äĢĹ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2030; Ă ĂşÄŠÍ Â&#x2021;Ä&#x2014;Ä&#x2020;Ģ Ĺ&#x2018;ĊĢä ĹŤĂ Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2030;ääĢ Ă Ĺ&#x2030; Ă ÄĄĂ Ĺ&#x2026;Ä&#x2014;äĹ&#x2026; ÄŠĂš Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;Ă Ä&#x203A; Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2030; à Ģà Ă&#x161;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2030;Í DĂ ĹŞÄ&#x2020;Ģú darker skin meant that they worked in the sun for longer durations of time, usually doÄ&#x2020;Ģú Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ä&#x203A;Ă Ă&#x2122;ÄŠĹ&#x2026;Í `äà ĢōÄ&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ä&#x203A;äͥ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x2030;ä ĹŤÄ&#x201A;ÄŠ Ä&#x201A;Ă Ă fair skin were wealthy enough to not work in Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2013;Ä˘Í Â&#x2021;Ä&#x2020;ĢĂ&#x161;ä Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x201A;äĹ&#x2026; Ă&#x161;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2030; ĹŤĂ Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;ĂşÄ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x2018; Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠ Beauty Standards in South Korea Lookism is a serious issue in South Korea have lighter skin, people from lower classes Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2018; Ă&#x161;ĊĢĹ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;ĢĹ&#x2013;äĹ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠ Ĺ&#x201A;Ä&#x203A;Ă ĂşĹ&#x2013;ä Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2018;ĹąÍ Â&#x2021;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà wanted to imitate their appearance as they places a heavy emphasis on appearance and Ă&#x161;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ä&#x203A;à ĢĊĹ&#x2018; Ĺ&#x2030;Ä&#x2020;ÄĄĹ&#x201A;Ä&#x203A;Ĺą Ă&#x2122;ä ōäà Ä&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ĺą à Ģà Ä&#x2020;ĢĆ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2013;äĢĹ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ă Ä&#x203A;ÍĄ Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ä&#x2014;ĢĊōĢ ÚĊĹ&#x2026; Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2026;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161;Ĺ&#x2018; Ă&#x2122;äà Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺą Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;à Ģà à Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Í Â?Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; Ă&#x2122;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018; Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;äŹ Ă&#x161;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ă Ĺ&#x201A;Ĺ&#x201A;äà Ĺ&#x2026; Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x2020;Ä&#x2014;ä Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2018;Í HĢ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;Ĺ&#x2030; ĥà ĢĢäĹ&#x2026;ÍĄ is the reason why plastic surgery is a norm fair skin is linked to upward social mobiliÚĊĹ&#x2026; ÄĄÄŠĹ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018; Â&#x2021;ÄŠĹ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà ĢĹ&#x2030;Í Â&#x2021;äĊĹ&#x2013;Ä&#x203A; Ä&#x201A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030; Ă&#x2122;äĂ&#x161;Ċĥä Ĺ&#x2018;Źͥ Ä&#x201A;Ä&#x2020;ĂşÄ&#x201A; Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;Ă Ä&#x203A; Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2030;ÍĄ ōäà Ä&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ÍĄ à Ģà Ä&#x2020;ĢĆ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2013;äĢĂ&#x161;Ă¤Í the plastic surgery capital, with the highest Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;ÄŠ ÄŠĂš Ĺ&#x201A;Ä&#x203A;Ă Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ă&#x161; Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2026;úäĹ&#x2026;Ĺą Ă&#x161;Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x2020;ĢÄ&#x2020;Ă&#x161;Ĺ&#x2030; Ä&#x2020;Ģ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä ĹŤÄŠĹ&#x2026;Ä&#x203A;Ă Í HĢ Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A;ä Ě Ě&#x17E;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x201A; Ă&#x161;äĢĹ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2013;Ĺ&#x2026;Źͥ ĹŤÄ&#x201A;äĢ WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ă&#x2122;äĂ&#x161;à ĥä ÄĄÄŠĹ&#x2026;ä Â?Ä&#x201A;ä Ä&#x2020;Ă ÄŠÄ&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2030; ōä Ĺ&#x2030;ää Ä&#x2020;Ģ WÍżĹ&#x201A;ÄŠĹ&#x201A; Ă Ĺ&#x2026;ä Ă Ä&#x203A;Ä&#x203A; Ă&#x161;ĊĢĹ&#x2030;Ä&#x2020;à äĹ&#x2026;äà exposed to the West, this pre-existing social Ă Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2018;Ĺ&#x2026;Ă Ă&#x161;Ĺ&#x2018;Ä&#x2020;Ūä Ă&#x2122;Ĺą ĥĊà äĹ&#x2026;Ģ WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ģ Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2018;ĹąÎ&#x17D;Ĺ&#x2030; Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;à ĢͿ ĢĊĹ&#x2026;ÄĄ Ă&#x161;Ä&#x203A;Ĺ&#x2013;Ģú Ĺ&#x2018;ÄŠ WÄŠĹ&#x2026;äà Ģ Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;äĹ&#x2018;ĹąÍ ÂŠĂ¤Ĺ&#x2030;Ĺ&#x2018;äĹ&#x2026;Ģ Ĺ&#x2030;ÄŠĂ&#x161;Ä&#x2020;

eties were considered to be more modern and advanced, so fair skin maintained its superiority as these communities were made up entirely of white people. In more contemporary times, the media promotes fair skin as a beauty ideal, which has spawned a skin whitening industry. As a result, fair skin is still favored today.

Colorism and K-pop Idols

Colorism is a prevalent issue in the K-pop industry. Darker-skinned K-pop idols like Kai from EXO and Mingyu from SEVENTEEN have received more backlash domestically because they are naturally tan. On the other hand, some idols are praised for having milky white skin, such as Kyuhyun from Super Junior and soloist and former Miss A member Suzy. It’s clear that skin tone determines how idols are perceived.

Entertainment companies have utilized some idols’ darker skin tones to build their sex appeal, therefore resulting in their group’s increasing popularity and success. In order to defend the negative social connotations tied to darker skin, companies have deemed those idols to spearhead their respective group’s sexy image. Kai stated that SM Entertainment instructed him to be “the member in charge of sexiness” even though he protested against it. Pale skin propagates a pure image, which is how K-pop idols are marketed to fans. Meanwhile, darker skin is seen as more “exotic,” giving them a sexy and ƈäŅÚä ĆġÁúä őĂÁő ÚĩġłÁĢĆäʼn ÚÁĢ łŅĩƈő ùŅĩġ͠ Idols generally adhere to this social norm and do what they can to appear to have fairer skin. Despite her acknowledgment of having darker skin, Yuri from Girls Generation was appointed to be the brand ambassador for Dior Snow UV BB Cream.

Raina from After School has stated that she prefers to use light makeup because she is afraid that fans will deem her “not pret

ty enough” to be an idol and bombard her with negative comments. Netizens are notorious for leaving hateful comments on social media, which have had extremeěű ĂÁŅġùŖě äƅäÚőʼn ĩĢ őĂä őÁŅúäőäà Ćàĩěʼn͠ Many fansites edit their idol’s skin to be lighter in photos, propagating the idea that having fairer skin is more ideal. Fansites are an integral contributor to fan culture in K-pop. Every idol has dedicated fansites that help to promote the group, boost album sales, and upload content of the idol onto various social media platforms. The photos they take go through heavy editing on Photoshop to make the idols look as desirable and beautiful as possible. Since fansite owners are usually from South Korea, they already have colorism ingrained into their minds from a young age (because of media); thus, many believe that fair skin is superior.

The global popularity of K-pop has helped to destroy the industry’s stronghold on colorism.

International fans generally embrace their idols’ melanin and speak out against colorist values. On social media, many fansites that whitewash photos have been “blacklisted” by international fans. They encourage other fans to avoid and stop supporting such fansites and advocate for idols’ natural skin tone. Newer idols like Haechan from NCT and Sunwoo from The Boyz have not faced backlash because of their tanned skin and are praised for it.

As colorism has been so ingrained into Korean society for centuries, it will be hard for people to move past this social norm. Skin whitening is still a common practice and thriving in the beauty and cosmetics industry. However, advocacy from international K-pop fans can enable the industry to become a platform ùĩŅ ʼnĩÚĆäőű őĩ äġÙŅÁÚä àĆƅäŅäĢő ʼnėĆĢ őĩĢäʼn and to leave colorism behind in the past.

We Will Not Forgive & Forget:

The Desi-American Me Too Movement

In this wave of a high school and collegiate Me Too moveWritten By ment, Desi rapists, assaulters, and their protectors are being whether by their survivors or by various anonymous Shivani Parikh exposed, Instagram accounts. Alumni who did not feel safe coming

forward while they were still in the high school or college where their assault took place are naming their abusers too. This era is unique because now more than ever, people can petition for change, find information, and act quickly. Survivors’ supporters quickly find the workplaces of abusers and demand that they are no longer employed, publicizing photographs of them, and mobilizing others to spread this information.

Especially for diaspora South Asians, our circles are small and cross-ethnic and religious lines. In New York City, especially, some youth cross boroughs to go to school and later find themselves at different universities with the State University of New York (SUNY) or City University of New York (CUNY) systems. Dance team competitions for bhangra, raas, Bollywood fusion and traditional styles have college students meeting one another across the country. And of course, the prevalence and growth of South Asian Greek organizations mean that chapters connect and provide networks for “brothers” and “sisters.” Understanding complicity and coverups have been just as important as identifying the men that have caused harm. The bigger question is, who let them get away with it and move on into college or the workplace without them seeing any consequences for their actions?

Several things have been disturbing to me throughout these past few weeks. Many of the anonymous accounts that have been publishing testimonies have been soon thereafter deactivated for a range of reasons: They’ve been hacked.

They’re receiving threats of doxxing.

The mental health of the person running the account has been so taxed by the sheer amount of graphic content they have to sift through and publish that they are unable to continue to run the account much longer.

Their fear is palpable, and we, as the readers and followers of the account, know that if they transfer the account to someone else, the account creator might lose their own anonymity. While largely filled with young women who are affirming and supportive of the post and its submitter, these comment sections are attracting defensive and angry

young men who demand receipts or proof and question the character of the survivor.

Even more horrifying has been the response of some of the named rapists, who, rather than take accountability for their actions and make attempts to apologize, have dug their heels in through a narcissistic rationale along this lines of, “I am a supporter of the Me Too movement, and I have a mother and sister(s). Accusations like this against me are undermining the credibility of people who have actually been sexually assaulted.”

The first account that I saw (which was taken down within the same week it was created), “Telling My Story,” also named two popular Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) exam test prep centers in Queens as companies that are run by and/or have hired tutors that are pedophiles and misogynists. These organizations predominantly serve low-income South Asian families and position themselves as companies that can provide children a chance at competitive, specialized high schools and, hopefully, a stable upward mobility route. The stories in this account, and in many of the account’s offshoots, covered a wider range of experiences because they also included girls’ experiences with being molested by family members, groped by religious figures, or sexualized and demeaned in public spaces by ostensibly members of their own communities.

Recently, a pair of South Asian twins from my high school were identified by an anonymous account (without the permission of the survivor, who subsequently publicly came forward to explain how elements of the published testimony were not wholly accurate and actually re-traumatized her) as rapists while they were college students. The two were de-lettered by their former fraternity and have now deleted most of their social media accounts.

This last revelation forced me to finally pause and think deeply about how overwhelmed I feel by not having an answer to the question, “Where do we go from here?” Some Brown men have seen this movement as something that demonstrates a need for more empathy and self-education on what rape culture is and how they actively or passively perpetuate it. Yet the bulk of the response has been their swift backlash to considering their complicity and instead a desire to more fiercely cling to a propensity to replicate the same norms that for so long have insulated these rapists and sexual assaulters in friend groups, within mutual connections, in houses of worship, and even in one’s own family. They are in these fraternities, they are in these dance teams, and they are in positions of power and influence. As long as so many of them can troll behind their computer screens or their phones to undermine critical conversations and the educational content that women are laboring to create and democratize, they stand against and resent feminists who are demanding that we, our mothers, our girls, and our sisters are believed, respected, and understood.

Yes, we need more South Asian counselors, mental health providers, and social workers.

These are the people that will provide our survivors with culturally competent healing.

But what more are we willing to do in the meantime? Online sexual harassment training is being rapidly clicked through with people sharing the answers to the “quizzes” at the end, so they do not have to pay attention. Title IX protections for sur are being eroded by United States Secretary of Education Betsy Devos. South Asian fraternities haze and appropriate Black Greek traditions, while they are overall modeled on the base cultures of Interfraternity Council fraternities. They provide hunting grounds for college men who are theoretically of high character, seeking to uphold our cul

tures and create spaces for brotherhood for our communities’ future leaders.

What are we willing to fearlessly demand, beyond these fruitless calls for men to, simply and only out of their good conscience, start evolving? Can we commit to seeking that these Greek organizations are dismantled? If that is beyond our imaginations, can we ensure that our brothers, cousins, and sons avoid these organizations and their members until the stigma alone has them naturally disappear? Can we require that consent training and sexual harassment education is not a single hour or single-day event, but are ongoing conversations?

In our communities beyond college, traditions and a culture that mandates respect for elders make it rarely safe (let alone culturally viable or sanctioned) to address the immigrant “uncles” in the community who are dangerous and threaten women’s bodily autonomy. The mobilization against Dr. Ferdous Khandeker MD was a unique example of how girls have told not only their own stories but those of their mothers’ as well. There are no easy solutions, but something that has shaped why these testimonies against Dr. Khandeker have been so delayed is because we have not yet normalized a reaction to these revelations in which men are the recipient of our anger and righteousness for raping, assaulting, and molesting instead of our women being ashamed of being the recipients of this violence. There is more stigma and labeling for the survivors and what others will think about their family’s values and honor instead that has so many still feeling justifiably scared and silent.

I don’t foresee a near future where men will start to hold one another accountable - not until they see that we do not accept the organizations and physical and digital atmospheres they create, making us feel unsafe and unheard.

It is not lost on me that I recently wrote a piece about radical love and an ethics of care when it comes to empathizing with South Asian men - but this was as it relates to mental health and our need for collective liberation. Until they are mutually committed to seeing our oppression under cisheteropatriarchy, a system of male, straight, conforming-to-assigned sex system of power, and we are moving forward together with Brown men’s uncompromising reciprocal investment in our freedom, we must continue to hold that accountability and de-platforming assaulters is not punishment, but actually a form of community care.

It is not lost on me that I recently wrote a piece about radical love and an ethics of care when it comes to empathizing with South Asian men - but this was as it relates to mental health and our need for collective liberation. Until they are mutually committed to seeing our oppression under cisheteropatriarchy, a system of male, straight, conforming-to-assigned sex system of power, and we are moving forward together with Brown men’s uncompromising reciprocal investment in our freedom, we must continue to hold that accountability and de-platforming assaulters is not punishment, but actually a form of community care.

Perceptions of Paleness Written By Katrina Romero Tran

Katrina Romero Tran is an educator, writer, and aficionado of ridiculous memes. When she’s not surrounded by stacks of middle-school English essays to grade, she enjoys reading, binge-watching YouTube, and eating her way through Asia. She strives to empower and foster a greater sense of understanding, empathy, and clarity in herself and those around her.

“Ang puti puti mo, Ms. Katrina! Ang puti, puti mo talaga!” Auntie Claude crooned as she approached me, wanting to stroke my pale forearm, something I indifferently attributed to months of being mostly inside during the COVID lockdown. “Your skin is soooo creamy and so light! Naka maganda ka, talaga!”

For much of my life, this has been my reality: elder family members and community members commenting on my light skin tone and how white it looks— how beautiful it makes me. It’s nothing my siblings hear, who take after Dad’s much darker caramel shade, having deepened into various shades of almond and leathery chestnut after years of whiling away weekend mornings playing tennis with his kaibigan (friends) at the local high school tennis courts, no visible bottles of sunscreen in sight.

No, apparently I take more after Mom and by proxy my grandfather, a Filipino of Spanish-Chinese descent who bore a fair complexion, a man who died long before I was born. To my family, Grandpa was handsome, a man with a tall-bridged nose, “talino” or smart...a man admired by both his family and the community he lived in. Reflecting on these words now, it almost seems as if his skin color somehow correlated with his luck in life: his brains, looks, privilege, and opportunities.

I never heard these same comments made about my Grandma, a darker-skinned Ilocano woman, who dressed hair for a living and whose sarcasm I seem to have inherited, despite only meeting her twice. It was my Grandpa who embodied the moniker of looks and charm in our family, at least according to my great-aunts.

It is a sort of paradox when reflecting on my childhood as a Filipino-American growing up in Los Angeles, where many of my white peers equated pale skin with being undesirable and thus set on weekly treks to Torrance Beach and Manhattan Beach to bake out in the sun for a few hours, garnering golden tans that would eventually fade at the end of each summer. These were the same skin tones that my aunts and cousins fought so furiously to scrub off with their Likas whitening soap, skin tones that my Auntie Mely would caution her daughter Hazel against acquiring when she would run out in the late morning sun to bike around the narrow strip of our backyard, bordered with kamote and sayote leaves as well as my Mom’s prized roses. On the contrary, the skin tones that my family aimed to acquire were the ones showcased on The Filipino Channel (TFC), where celebrities would dance and sing on stage with skin tones that I could only describe as whiter than a white person, shades of lightness that certainly wouldn’t be lauded on this side of the Western hemisphere.

At best, my lighter skin tone made me feel special like I was a beautiful, pretty Miss America. At worst, it had me feeling like an animal on display for people to gawk at, for middle-aged white men to eerily comment “Maganda Ka” in grocery aisles and for others to questioningly ask me, “So what are you, actually? You don’t LOOK Filipino.”

This whiteness and attention to light complexion was only part of a culture of code-shifting that I didn’t retaliate against when I was younger, but rather learned how to juggle depending on who I was with. As I grew older, I started to question Mom by asking about why we didn’t go out and get tans, why we needed to slather sunscreen on ourselves and bring out the payong (umbrella) before walks, while my friends lay out in the sun for hours. I rarely received answers that I found acceptable, but more often was tut-tutted along as it wasn’t something to question, as if the quest to maintain pale skin was all part of an unwritten rule of being Filipino, of what it meant to be Asian.

I was told that pale skin was akin to being part of the upper class, while it was fabled that darker-skinned Filipinos were affiliated with those who toiled in the field, working for their living instead of having others work for them.

It’s an explanation that although I found fascinating while I was younger, cringe to consider now. How can I possibly ignore the implications that this statement makes about people with darker skin? It’s disheartening to hear for me, so I can’t imagine the realities of generations of people who have been constantly berated, degraded, or even killed because they weren’t considered “beautiful.”

When I consider it all, I cannot speak to the realities of skin whitening in Asia; I am no expert, but overall I am aware that beauty standards are created of and within a society.

However, I know how building up certain definitions of beauty often means that someone is going to get cut down, left out, and ultimately hurt. For myself, despite having lighter skin than many others around me, the rest of my body didn’t correspond: from my unmanageable thick, coarse, curly hair, to my heavyset body (I was at least 20 pounds heavier than the petite Filipino girls in my class) and overall painfully shy demeanor contributed to years of feeling outcast and alone amongst a primarily slender, Filipino peer group. Being lacking in any type of preconceived notions of beauty results in sore feelings, self-pity, and a raw de

sire to want something that the body is not capable of. It is a sort of pain that can do damage internally and for a long time.

When I consider what is meant by beauty construed through skin tone, when I think about how something like skin color has caused division, a sense of “other,” and the indirect damage it causes for those who feel the need to invest time, money, resources, and stress into looking a certain way for fear of criticism, shame, retaliation, I realize how much skin color truly does matter, despite some people claiming it doesn’t, despite other people claiming that color is something not to be seen. At least for me, it’s important to recognize how much damage this has done, as well as to acknowledge the responsibility we each bear toward one another to build each other up on what’s on the inside, while openly celebrating what is on the outside, whether skin is light, dark, creamy, mottled, and everything and anything in between.

I am but one person, a Filipino-American on the cusp of two cultures, but more primarily an American one these days. As anxious as it has felt these days to be who I am (I tense up when walking around my own neighborhood, fearful of what racial slurs could potentially be thrown at my Chinese-American husband and me in these days of COVID), it is important to continue the push toward respect of all people. For humanity’s sake, it is important to maintain the utmost respect and dignity toward others, toward everyone I encounter. It is essential to continue to educate myself on the injustices that exist to equalize those societal gaps. If my Grandpa was truly as great of a man who everyone says he was, then it is my responsibility and duty as his granddaughter to use our luck, our talino, to use these lessons to help make this world even just a little bit better.

“My Color” By Saakshi Philip Those moments in a conversation Where you try to recall a certain movie character you’re reminded of, Where the first words you manage to form Are colors.

But oh no, You aren’t using the color yellow to describe a person As happy or chirpy or bright You’re using the color black And placing a label on that character As if the color of their skin defines who they are.

When you look at me The only color you should be noticing Is the ravishing brown color of my eyes Which shimmer in the spotlight of the sunlight.

My brown skin is not the first thing That should cross your mind about my character.

The first thoughts that come to your mind About my exterior look Are basic pieces of proof of the stereotype That people can’t seem to look past.

If you’d actually focused on my eyes You’d see the wonder and joy that fills them, The sadness and worry that encircles them And the anger that causes them To simultaneously scrunch up with my nose.

When you think of my culture And how I am associated with it, You should think of the festivals that ignite my joy, The traditions that build my character And how the way I dress or speak Simply reflects the way I was brought up.

Everyone says that diversity should be celebrated.

Where’s that enthusiasm when people of color Are discriminated against?

And why does this happen?

Because you choose to follow the ideas of a stereotype?

Where’s that enthusiasm when people are taught to be silent Because of their gender, identity, or culture?

You claim that diversity is celebrated through movies and shows and whatnot But it’s all a mask That you force onto the screens so that you aren’t criticized.

The only color you should notice Are the beautiful specs of blue in my eyes, The kind that reminds you of the ocean Or the variations of green in my eyes, Which you could look through And picture a forest almost to its most intricate detail.

The color of my skin does not define who I am.

My eyes can tell you that story.

The Matter of My Skin Written By L Ly

L Ly is a designer based in Australia. Their dream career is something that will allow them to use their creativity and skills to make real social impact. In their spare time, they love reading, writing, cooking, watching films and working on art/design projects. When not in quarantine, they enjoy snowboarding, traveling and trying new food.

The thing about Vietnam is that with colonialism by both China and France, and it’s proximity to South-East Asia, Vietnamese people are extremely diverse in physical appearances.

Some people look far more East Asian than others, while others look slightly Eurasian.

Vietnam, however, like the rest of Asia, is also a society that values fairer complexion despite the diversity in skin tones and physical appearances. The desire for paler skin tones can be seen through the widely available whitening products in stores, the prevalence of skin bleaching, and how covered up the typical Vietnamese woman is when she heads outside.

It is a culture that reveals the remnants of a colonial past that prized Eurasian appearances and whiter skin tones, over-celebrating diversity, and inclusiveness.

For myself, being part Southern Chinese/ Cambodian in heritage, I was one of those individuals in Vietnamese society that was tanner than most. Growing up tanned in a culture envious of those who are fairer is no easy task.

After 20 or so years, I was finally able to be comfortable in the skin tone I was born with.

But for the most of my life, being tanner than most Vietnamese individuals have meant that the Vietnamese adults around me treated my darker skin tone as a manner of inadequacy as if I was somehow responsible for the amount of melanin I possessed. It didn’t help that in the sweltering sun of Southern Vietnam that persisted all year round, that I would gain a darker complexion from playing outside with

my friends. It was so entrenched in Vietnamese society that it became a manner of ridicule and jokes. Playing power rangers with the children on my street, they would assign me the black power ranger as if to play mockery on my darker skin tone. My family would joke around that I was from Africa when I was curious about the continents of the world. It seemed that colourism was entrenched in an unspoken merit system. Vietnamese people had in regards to someone’s success or likeability, and by being born with a darker appearance, it’s as if I was already given a minus in life.

When I moved to Australia when I was 7, the cold winters of Melbourne kept me mostly inside, covered up. When I got paler through less sun exposure, the comments quickly changed to how much “better” I looked with lighter skin. When I got older and went through puberty and returned to Vietnam as an older teenager, relatives who haven’t seen me in years said that I used to be “ugly and dark,” but now I looked a lot better with a lighter skin tone. It provided my teenage self with the gratification and validation of my skin tone I never received as a child. I felt as though I had finally sought approval about a complex I had never been able to change. The inadequacy remained entrenched in me as I got older, I wore sunscreen every day even in winter (and still do, but now it’s for skin health purposes). I hated going to the beach to tan because I didn’t want to get any darker. I bought whiten

ing soaps from Filipino grocery stores, hoarded whitening creams from Vietnam. I remained deeply envious of friends who were paler than I was, even though I knew how toxic those whitening products could be. It was as if gaining social status and approval was more important than my health. But eventually, I realised, no matter how hard I tried, there was no way I would ever be as pale as those models on the whitening ads blasted on television. I would never be as pale as Korean pop stars, that I would always be seen as inadequate for my darker skin tone. It became that as I moved through life successes, that I realised the only approval, I was still looking for was from myself. The comments have already stopped, and I was no longer chastised for being darker, the only voice that told me I was inadequate for being tanned was my own voice. I had been trained to be my biggest critic by the merit-based Vietnamese community that had raised me. I had never questioned the criteria they had set onto me, the insatiable list of things to be, or how to look. I had simply taken those criterias on as my own criterias, using it to measure my own self-worth. Only to realise much later in life, that such criterias would make me never feel enough as I am.

“Vietnamese people had regards to someone’s success or likeability, and by being born with a darker appearance, it’s as if I was already given a minus in life.”

The effect of colourism went beyond the Vietnamese community. When I went into University, I learned about the concept of “Jungle Asian.” A concept whereby those of South-East Asian backgrounds were considered uncouth or dirty. I couldn’t help but feel that such a concept was rooted in colourism, the idea that

Asians with darker skin tones were somehow less sophisticated than those with lighter skin tones from East Asia. That their lack of refinement meant they were lesser or in-superioThe experience, alongside my long time struggle with my tanner appearance, made me feel ashamed of being Vietnamese.

I flouted being half Chinese as if it gave me a symbol status that would make me feel more superior. Only now do I realise how wrong that was, that I would feel so ashamed to be a member of a community so resilient and hardworking, striving to build a community after being devastated by war. It was absolutely so wrong for me to disassociate myself with a community that has raised me and given me values that I am proud of, in fear of being seen as lesser or inferior by the wider community.

As I got older and became more comfortable with who I am as a person, and with the growing Black Lives Matter movement, I realise how blatantly entrenched and wrong colourism is and how it affected my life. How it was a system designed by European colonisers to oppress and disenfranchise the very people that lived on the land they stole by force. How white supremacy played a role in a culture that valued the European ideals of beauty and those of European heritage. How this affected the local colonised community and how they perceived beauty. I no longer care how dark I get in the summertime, nor do I care about whitening products anymore. Because my dark skin tone is not a matter of being inadequate in a society that tells me I’m not enough. My dark skin tone makes me diverse and makes me who I am. There is nothing wrong with looking South-East Asian; it is a heritage I am proud of, and it makes me a large chunk of my identity. I hope one day the culture will change, but for now, I can only hope to tell other young girls out there worried about the darkness of their skin to realise that they’re enough just as they are, not tanner or paler, but enough exactly as they are.

“My Shades of Summer Skin”

by Abigail Calimaran My summer skin is a shade of shortbread.

Mother stops calling me beautiful After afternoons spent by the pool.

She grew up hating her wet-sand skin — It’s two shades darker than her sister’s.

She says, “I want you to love yourself.”

She smiles sadly when I tell her, “I do.”

My summer skin is a shade of syrup.

Friends tell me it’s beautiful while Their shoulders are peeling and red.

I say back with a smirk, “I don’t burn.”

An Asian woman is set on fire.

The sun is much kinder to us than people’s hate.

My summer skin is a shade of sepia.

It will fade in the fall.

It will wash away in the winter.

My mother will call me beautiful again.

I’ll look at my yellow skin and smile When my boyfriend calls me buttercup.

His sister slathers herself in Jergens Natural Glow.

Meanwhile, I’ll think of more shades of summer skin That start with the letter S.

“crowd control” by Emmalia Ning // Ig @fakeartist.em

“我好想念你“ by Chaewon Kong IG @chaewonkong Medium: Performance Photography

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Flayerâ&#x20AC;? by Marina Ali Thick skinned and well built, I am made for every fight.

I bruise and cut But my skin is my protection.

I am so formidable That I can get out of touch; Everyone else can be mere mortals.

Yet the Flayer finds me.

It compromises me When It peels back every layer, There is nowhere to hide I can only cower before It. The horror of the Flayer Keeps children and fools afraid, A scary campfire story, But the wise will know The Flayer peeps in sight.

It creeps in the space closest to me.

The Flayer exists in my chest.

It occupies the shadow in under my nails And hides on my back, Disappearing every time I turn around.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;one summer i came home half a shade tannerâ&#x20AC;?

by Catherine Xia than i was before. i had not noticed, but my mother most certainly did. as i exfoliated my legs that evening with a scrub, removing the excess dead skin and trying to see what else i could remove along with it, i kept thinking that if i just scrubbed hard enough that maybe i could get rid of the stretch marks that litter my thighs and hips or maybe if i just scrubbed hard enough i could get rid of the dirt that tanned my whole body that much darker. of course, it does not work. it removes the dead skin, but nothing else. as i apply a milk toner that says it will lighten and brighten and whiten my skin, i play the fool. the toner does not mean it literally, it is just advertising healthy looking skin that just so happens to be fairskinned. but as i spill the toner onto a white cotton pad,

i keep thinking that if i used enough toner that all of the blemishes on my face will disappear along with all of the redness that distracts my skin from its ideal fairness. i keep thinking that if i used enough toner, i may look the same color as the bottle it came from. of course, it does not work. i buy into the lies my mother has bought into. she tells me that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alright. that if i just stay inside, i will naturally get lighter. fairer. whiter. and as a result, i will get p r e t t i e r. of course, this works. i lose the barely-there tan that i had unwillingly achieved. and yet, to my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dismay, i still attract unwanted attention. she wonders why it is not enough that i fall under the same foundation range as them. of course, it is not enough. she buys into the lies that i have bought into.

Miss Demure: â&#x20AC;&#x153;M

Illustrated by N

Monkey’s Paw”

Natalie Obedos

â&#x20AC;&#x153;seventeenâ&#x20AC;? by Devika Bahadur // IG @db_artartist Medium- digital (paint tool sai)

“An Ode to the Color Yellow” by Lee Therese Insta: @nat_lee__therese

this skin of mine yellow gold turned to sun burst let’s the sun paint it the color of her ancestors’ earth looks like the pale daffodil of a harvest moon and she glows let the light hit this skin watch it refract like citrine turn yellow jade in the summer shade a shapeshifter expert in gold tones perhaps this skin is royal in a way this skin, Mother Nature color of the sunset and plumeria color of her Mother and Father this skin rich like honey welcomes the buzz of the bees and the warmth of spring slow moving and sweet look at the dandelions dance in the wind they say they are weeds but i think they are sunspots in the grass i think Mother Nature decided this green needed more color this white needed more tone this skin marigold tinted wheat field tinged lantern light glow to quote the song“and it was all yellow”

Brown Sugar Beauty: Renouncing Internalized Colorism Written by Mikaela Roasa

I think, for the majority of my child- er skin is considered ugly. I love the hood, I wanted to be white. feeling of the sun kissing my skin and being outdoors on a summer’s day, esI was born and raised in a fairly con- pecially when I was a child. But when servative province in Canada, not only I would return to my house, my mom the first-born but also the daughter of would often take one look at me, frown, Filipino immigrants. There was always and say: “you’re too dark, anak. It an expectation from my parents that doesn’t look nice.” When I was younghovered above my head, encouraging er, I didn’t think twice when she would me to pursue bigger and better oppor- constantly chastise me; I just accepted tunities than what they were afforded it. My mom didn’t intend to be hurtin their youth. Like many immigrants, ful or prejudiced, but rather unconmy parents believed that the best way sciously recited the same beliefs that for their children to succeed in life in she was also taught as a child. Despite a foreign country was to assimilate and this, I couldn’t ignore the fact that these blend in with everyone else. So what words followed me in my youth. Somedid they do? times I’d walk past a mirror and stop to carefully examine my skin, considering They decided to enroll me in a French these beliefs. Oh yeah, I guess I am too immersion school for kindergarten un- dark now, I’d think to myself. til the end of high school.

When you’re a young Filipino girl in a As you can imagine, my classrooms school of mostly white people, it’s hard growing up were predominantly white. to avoid feelings of alienation. It’s bad Most of my close friends throughout enough being a teenager and having to my childhood were fair-skinned, some navigate the awkwardness and uncerwith striking blonde hair and blue eyes. tainty of puberty, but coupled with inCompared to my brown skin and un- ternalized colorism; you’ve got a smorruly black hair, they looked nothing like gasbord of self-esteem issues. For so me. However, I didn’t really think much long, I came to understand and equate of it in the early years of kindergarten beauty with whiteness. And therefore and elementary. It wasn’t until the fifth began to resent my brown skin. Uningrade when suddenly one’s physical tentionally, I would compare myself to appearance was paramount that I be- my close friends, who would typically came aware of it. Suddenly everyone catch the eyes of the boys in our class. around me was talking about who they Why couldn’t I look like them? I used to found the most attractive and their ce- wish that my skin was lighter or that my lebrity crushes. At the time, there was hair wasn’t deep dark brown so that I an abysmal amount of Asian represen- would look more like my friends, who tation in the media, especially Filipino reflected the dominant beauty ideals. representation. There weren’t many I desperately wanted to fit in and be young girls and women who looked like seen as gorgeous as I saw them. Maybe me that I could look up to. Magazines, then the boys I secretly had crushes on advertisements, TV shows, and movies might just like me back, as childish as were saturated with thin, white wom- that may seem. Was it true? Did having en that highlighted them as the ideal darker skin make me unattractive? standard. As a result, I had an extremely rigid perception of beauty and how I These insecurities greatly impacted my saw myself. relationships with my friends, partners, and, most importantly, myself. How was There’s this belief in Filipino culture I expected to radiate confidence in my that being too tanned or having dark- own skin when I was taught to resent

it? Even now, as a 21-year-old woman, I still have some days when I need to remind myself to unlearn the internalized colorism that I have grown to tolerate instead of critiquing the violence that these beliefs perpetuate. Luckily, as I’ve matured and grown throughout university, I began to truly admire the skin I was born in and see the beauty in my Filipino heritage. Finally, I was surrounded by a diverse friend group who understood the same grievances that I experienced at a young age, who reassured me that I wasn’t alone. It gives me a lot of hope and pride to see more positive Asian representation in the media, proving that they can be beautiful in many ways. While I now refuse to accept Eurocentric beauty standards that tell me that my melanated skin isn’t beautiful, I recognize that this is an ongoing process of unlearning and challenging head-on.

In the meantime, I will bask in the radiant sunlight on hot summer days and marvel at the way that it makes my skin look like dark brown sugar, every moment thinking about how much better I am for it.

Interview with

Asia Jackson

Written by J. Faith Malicdem

J. Faith Malicdem is a sophomore studying journalism at Emerson College and is Overachiever’s Outreach Manager. She is also the creator and curator of the PieFace Column. Aside from writing, Faith has many creative endeavors, including film photography and music-making. She hopes to further media coverage on mental health as well as music and the arts.

INSTAGRAM: @johannafaith THE PIEFACE COLUMN: https://www.piefacecolumn.com/ “I don’t expect you to memorize everything!” Asia reassured, as I nervously announced that the tape had begun rolling.

based on her self-taught coding talent at őĂä Áúä ĩù äěäŪäĢ͡ ʼnĂä őĩĩė Á ƈěġ łŅĩàŖÚtion class and realized she loved creating.

Despite our being in the same time zone and being essentially an hour away from each other (perhaps an hour and forőűͿƈŪä ġĆĢŖőäʼn ūĆőĂ Zĩʼn Ģúäěäʼn őŅÁùƈÚʹ͡ Ćő őĩĩė Á ūääėΎʼn ūĩŅőĂ ĩù ŅäʼnÚĂäàŖěĆĢú͡ ĂäŅ àäÁŅ ġÁĢÁúäŅ úĩĆĢú ÙÁÚė ÁĢà forth to attempt to arrange our impending äͿġääőĆĢú ŖĢőĆě ƈĢÁěěű͡ őĂä àÁű ūÁʼn ʼnäő͠

΋`ű ÚěÁʼnʼnġÁőä Áʼnėäà ġä őĩ Ùä őĂä ěäÁà ÁÚőŅäʼnʼn ĆĢ ĂĆʼn ƈĢÁě łŅĩĔäÚő͡ ÁĢà H ūÁʼn ěĆėä͡ ΍gĂ ūäěě H ěĆėä ÙäĆĢú ĆĢ ùŅĩĢő ĩù őĂä ÚÁġera too, what a concept!’” She explained.

`ű ĂäÁŅő ʼnėĆłłäà őĂä àÁű ĩù͡ Áʼn HΎà ĂäÁŅà amazing things about Asia from my friends and colleagues at Overachiever, but once she hopped on the Zoom call with a bright smile and a welcoming ‘how ARE you?!,’ my nerves calmed. ʼnĆÁ UÁÚėʼnĩĢ Ćʼn Á ěÁÚė ÁĢà ;ĆěĆłĆĢĩ ġäŅĆÚÁĢ ÁÚőŅäʼnʼn ÁĢà ƈěġġÁėäŅ ÙÁʼnäà ĆĢ Zĩʼn Ģgeles; however, being a military brat, she’s resided all over the world. While in college studying computer information systems

Asia decided to drop out of college because it wasn’t the place for her, and she őĂäĢ ÙäúÁĢ ÁÚőĆĢú͠ DäŅ ƈŅʼnő Ùĩĩėäà úĆú ūÁʼn ĩĢ `ĩàäŅĢ ;ÁġĆěű͡ ūĂĆÚĂ ūÁʼn ĂäŅ ùÁŪĩŅĆőä show at the time. However, she pointed out őĂÁő ÙĩĩėĆĢú ÁÚőĆĢú úĆúʼn ÚÁĢ Ùä ĆĢÚĩĢʼnĆʼnőäĢő͠ She hadn’t gotten any gigs for a long łäŅĆĩà ĩù őĆġä ÁùőäŅ `ĩàäŅĢ ;ÁġĆěű͡ ʼnĩ ʼnĂä ƈĢÁěěű ʼnÁĆà͡ ΋ʼnÚŅäū Ćő͡ HΎġ úĩing to create my own opportunities.

That’s when I started doing YouTube.”

While Asia has already made impressive strides in Hollywood and the YouTube Community, one of her most impactful startups was the #MagandangMorenx Movement.

“I started #MagandaangMorenx in October 2016, and October is Filipino American Heritage Month. I only had around 4,000 subscribers at the time… I was trying to brainstorm ways to celebrate the month because I felt it wasn’t as celebrated, especially within the Filipino American community. I wondered: ‘How can I get this community engaged in something?’” said Asia.

Throughout her brainstorming process, she kept thinking of the time she lived in the Philippines, and how she was made fun of for having darker skin. “I observed my friends and family also being bullied for their skin color,” she added. “No one was really talking about this.

What if I just started this conversation?”

On the day the hashtag was introduced, Asia managed to get 30 people talking about colorism on Twitter. In May 2017, for ʼnĆÁĢ ġäŅĆÚÁĢ ÁĢà ÁÚĆƈÚ HʼněÁĢàäŅ DäŅitage Month, when the hashtag was reiterated online, there were around 15 to 20 thousand tweets. AJ+’s interview with Asia about the hashtag received 8 million views on Facebook in 24 hours, which helped the movement garner more attention.

“I never thought that something I created on the internet would have that big of an impact. I was only speaking authentically about my own experiences. I wasn’t trying to make it go viral, it was just me trying őĩ ƈĢà Á ūÁű őĩ ÚäěäÙŅÁőä őĂä ġĩĢőĂ͡ ÁĢà for some reason, it resonated with a lot of people, and now here we are,” said Asia.

Since then, there has been more conversation online about colorism and the notion of decolonization. When visiting the Philippines ùĩŅ őĂä ƈŅʼnő őĆġä ĆĢ ƈùőääĢ űäÁŅʼn ĆĢ ̠̞̟̦͡ ʼnĆÁ found herself swamped with skin-whitening products. But when returning in December

of the following year, she only saw one ad for a skin-whitening product in three weeks.

Asia then spoke on the current status of the movement: “I do think things are changing, but I also think that we still have a lot of work to do. The younger generations are ŅäÁěěű ÚĩġĆĢú őĩúäőĂäŅ őĩ ĂÁŪä őĂäʼnä àĆƆcult conversations because everyone’s realizing how outdated these standards are.”

Upon being asked about how her biraÚĆÁě ĆàäĢőĆőű ĆĢƉŖäĢÚäʼn ĂäŅ ÚÁŅääŅ Áʼn Á łŖÙěĆÚ ƈúŖŅä͡ ʼnĆÁ ʼnĂÁŅäà őĂÁő ĂäŅ ĆàäĢőĆőű ĆĢƉŖäĢÚäʼn äŪäŅűőĂĆĢú őĂÁő ʼnĂä àĩäʼn͡ from the content she creates to the roles that she chooses to audition for.

“I like to post a lot of educational content on Instagram and Twitter. I like sharing things about Black and Filipino history—especially Filipino history because I feel like Filipino Americans are so disconnected from their history. Knowing your history is really, really important.”

Asia has landed auditions for characters who are mixed but were mixed with Black and white. “I’d still audition for them, but I knew that if I were to get the role, it just wouldn’t feel right. I’d want to have a conversation with the producers and ask if we could make one of the parents Asian,” she explained. “There aren’t a lot of Black Asians in Hollywood. There are some of us, but there are a lot more people who are mixed with Asian and white, or Black and white.”

Given her position and her identity, she ƈĢàʼn ĆĢőäúŅÁě őĂÁő ʼnĂä ʼnłäÁėʼn Ŗł ÁĢà Ŗʼnäʼn her voice to inspire these types of changes.

As a military brat, Asia found it espeÚĆÁěěű àĆƆÚŖěő őĩ úŅÁłłěä ūĆőĂ ĂäŅ ġĆŰäà identity, as she was forced to adapt őĩ àĆƅäŅäĢő őűłäʼn ĩù äĢŪĆŅĩĢġäĢőʼn͠

Finally, upon her arrival in Long Beach, ÁěĆùĩŅĢĆÁ͡ ʼnĆÁ ùäěő őĂÁő ʼnĂä ūÁʼn ƈĢÁěěű ÁÙěä to become more comfortable with her racial identity because of how diverse the city is.

She was surrounded by so many other mixed kids who were comfortable in their racial identity, and it’s what encouraged her to be the same way. “It’s my favorite place I’ve ever lived, and I’ve lived in Toyko!” she giggled.

It wasn’t until she reached the age of twenty when she fully doubled down on her identity. “I woke up one morning, and I just got tired of people trying to tell me who I was,” Asia recounted. “It’s really important as a mixed person, or as someone who has a marginalized identity, to own who you are. If you don’t own it, more room opens up for people to tell you who you are. So, ƈúŖŅä ĩŖő ūĂĩ űĩŖ ÁŅä ÁĢà őĂäĢ ĩūĢ Ćő͠Ό

#MagandangMorenx #MagandangMorenx #MagandangMorenx

“When I was living in Great Falls, Montana, which was the whitest city that I’ve ever lived in—I was the only Black girl in my entire grade. I felt very ostracized because I wasn’t white. But then, when I moved to the Philippines, I was ostracized because I was Black. I didn’t feel like I was fully Filipino just ÙäÚÁŖʼnä ĩù őĂä àĆƅäŅäĢő ūÁűʼn H ūÁʼn őŅäÁőed. Then, when I moved to Houston, Texas, where my school was predominantly Black and Hispanic… people would tell me, ‘You’re not really Black. You’re mixed,’” shared Asia.

Critically examining history by educating and seeking out Canadian BIPOC narraWLYHV ¿OOV D GHSULYHG JDS LQ RXU HGXFDWLRQ system. We need to normalize Black, IndigHQRXV DQG 3HRSOH RI &RORXU DV &DQDGLDQV WRR EHFDXVH RXU DFFRPSOLVKPHQWV KDYH EHQH¿WHG RXU VRFLHW\ %\ LQFOXGLQJ WKHVH VWRULHV D ZHOO URXQGHG YLHZ RI KLVWRU\ LV FUHDWHG one where BIPOC Canadians can see verVLRQV RI WKHPVHOYHV FRQWULEXWLQJ SRVLWLYHO\ 6KDULQJ %,32& VWRULHV LQIRUPV &DQDGLDQV ZH DOO KDYH ZRQGHUIXO WDOHQWV DQG VNLOOV WR RIIHU DQG VSDUNLQJ LPSDFWIXO FKDQJH IRU RXU communities and the world lies within us.

Links to Current Events Mentioned in Article: 7 7 6XSHUPDUNHW (QFRXQWHU DQG 5HVSRQVH KWWSV ZZZ \RXWXEH FRP ZDWFK"Y $/5=B DU IHDWXUH \RXWX EH IEFOLG ,Z$5 =M 7.8EDEH-E4W;G=IY<85TTV9 JRI=7 <1( <1; 7 =LZ T H 58I$ KWWSV ZZZ WKHVWDU FRP QHZV JWD WW VXSHUPDUNHW FHR PLVVLVsauga-mayor-bonnie-crombie-condemn-racist-anti-mask-incident-caught-on-video.html +RPRSKRELF &ULPHV KWWSV ZZZ FEF FD QHZV FDQDGD FDOJDU\ KRPRSKRELF FULPHV FDOJDU\ VXVSHFWV LG Further Learning on Chinese Immigration in Canada: KWWSV ZZZ JRY EF FD JRY FRQWHQW JRYHUQPHQWV PXOWLFXOWXUDOLVP DQWL UDFLVP FKLQHVH OHJDF\ EF KLVWRU\ EXLOGLQJ WKH UDLOZD\ KWWSV ZZZ PKVR FD WLHVWKDWELQG &KLQHVH5DLO:RUNHUV SKS

Colorism: An Adoptee Perspective Written By Molly Sawdy

In the fall term of my junior year in college, I studied abroad through a language-intensive program in Nanjing, China. I opted to stay with a host family not only to further strengthen my language skills but also because I wanted to experience what it might have been like had I grown up in China. I was adopted at ten-months-old from the province of Jiangxi and grew up in the New England area. During my semester abroad, I was able to get a snapshot of societal expectations for living as a young Chinese woman in Nanjing.

Molly is a transracial adoptee from China and grew up in New England. She will be an incoming first year clinical psychology doctoral student at Suffolk University.

Outside of school and work, she enjoys long distance running and exploring new places.

Twitter: @MollySawdy

Having spent a lot of time enjoying the summer weather prior to starting the fall semesWHU ZKHQ P\ KRVW IDPLO\ ĹľUVW VDZ PH P\ VNLQ ZDV GDUNHU WKDQ XVXDO , UHPHPEHU VWDQGing in the kitchen with my host grandmother and her commenting on my skin tone. What she said translated to â&#x20AC;&#x153;dark skin is unbecoming.â&#x20AC;? The word choice of unbecoming was telling because it implied that having darker skin, especially as a young woman, was considered less desirable and less attractive to society as a whole. I wonder what my host grandmother would have thought had I responded that looking sun-kissed or tan was actually a very desirable trait in the US. This moment was one of many where I saw a contrast between the American culture I grew up in and the current culture I was experiencing.

Over the next few months, I noticed trends and statements that further supported my host grandmotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comment. Often while walking around the city, I would see locals carrying an umbrella. The purpose of the umbrella was not to be shielded from the rain, but rather to prevent exposure from the sun that would darken the skin. Every time I saw a young woman carrying an umbrella on a sunny day, I thought back to the sentiment my host grandmother shared with me at the beginning of the semester.

The term colorism, referring to the prejudice that favors people with lighter skin over those with darker skin, was a term coined in the early 1980s. However, it is important to note that this phenomenon existed long before Alice Walker coined the term. Given I had grown up in predominantly white environments in New England, the time I most frequently experienced colorism was when living abroad in Nanjing. For example, on nearly a daily basis, I was asked, â&#x20AC;&#x153;ä˝ ć&#x2DC;Żé&#x;Šĺ&#x203A;˝äşşĺ?&#x2014;?/Are you Korean?â&#x20AC;? or where my â&#x20AC;&#x153;ć&#x2022;&#x2026;䚥/homelandâ&#x20AC;? was. I felt that due to my relatively darker complexion and not looking like the majority Han Chinese JURXSĹ&#x160;LQ DGGLWLRQ WR QRW VSHDNLQJ ĹśXHQW 0DQGDULQĹ&#x160;P\ HWKQLF LGHQWLW\ ZDV FRQVLVWHQWO\ scrutinized. No matter my answer to the question, oftentimes, the inquisitor left the conversation in disbelief since my answer of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Americanâ&#x20AC;? or â&#x20AC;&#x153;adoptedâ&#x20AC;? challenged their way of thinking of what an American student looked like or the stigma adoption carries. Only when I told them I was from the province of Jiangxi did they partially accept the conversation.

5HĹśHFWLQJ RQ WKLV UHSHDWHG VFHQDULR , FDQQRW KHOS EXW WKLQN RI WKH IDPLOLDU PLFURDJJUHVVLRQ many Asian Americans face as the perpetual foreigner in the US when asked, â&#x20AC;&#x153;No, where are you really from?â&#x20AC;? Colorism is not a phenomenon limited to Nanjing but rather exists throughout the world as a multi-layered entity that is intertwined with other isms such as class, gender, language, and race. As conversations about racism and anti-racism become more prevalent amongst family, friends, and in the community at large, it is imperative to also address the role colorism plays within the context of experiences of prejudice for people of color.

Pearl Low is an Oscar Winning Afro-Asian Story Artist, Comics Artist and Illustrator and muralist, based in Vancouver, BC. Most of her works are rooted in themes of self-love, acceptance and Chinese-Canadian and Caribbean-Canadian experiences. Low primarily works in animation for TV and Feature film working on titles like, “Hair Love (Sony Pictures Animation)” and, “Craig of The Creek (Cartoon Network). Currently she is working at Dreamworks Animation. Low has also self-published an autobiographical comic called, “TENSION” that explores how to love and accept one’s own curly hair, through the lens of an Afro-Asian woman.

Charlotte Drummond is a part of Overachiever Magazine’s Editorial and Outreach teams.

She is an Indian-American student and writer from Los Angeles, California. She is currently attending Emerson College, and studying Writing, Literature and Publishing. At the moment, she is working for multiple on-campus publications as a part of their writing and copyediting teams. In her free time, she loves reading, taking pictures of plants, getting emo over female singer-songwriters, and hanging out with her dog.

INSTAGRAM: @charlotte.drummond

Interview with Pearl Low Written By Charlotte Drummond

It was the early evening of July 22 when I called Pearl Low, who was on the other side of the continent in British Columbia, Canada. I had just wrapped up a late lunch with a college friend in a tiny town in the panhandle of Florida while she was settled at home in Vancouver, wrapping up her day.

Although I couldn’t see her face, I could hear her smile through the phone, her soft and soothing voice calming my nerves. My parents, who were both born and raised in Canada — my dad from Montreal and my mom from Toronto — always told me that there is an invisible force connecting all Canadians. We always find each other, and when we do, we are immediately put at ease. Although I don’t recall mentioning my Canadian ancestry to Low, the comforting vibes consistently flowed throughout our conversation and never stopped.

Pearl Low is a 25-year-old artist based in Vancouver, BC, her work ranging from storyboarding for animated films and TV, to writing and illustrating comics, to assembling art exhibitions. Some of Low’s previous work includes storyboarding for short animated films such as Hair Love and Canvas, and has her own self-published autobiographical comic called “TENSION.” Her earliest introductions to art were through the cartoons that played in front of her when she was little. She recalls memories of watching Pokemon and Looney Tunes, the colorful plots and characters embedded in her childhood. Her first Studio Ghibli film was Kiki’s Delivery Service, and she vividly remembers the feeling she had after finishing the movie.

“I think at that moment I was like, ‘Well, I also want to create something beautiful like this,’” Low says. “From then on, I...started doodling and practicing drawing on my own time.”

But it wasn’t until Low was in high school that she started considering animation as a viable career path. She found that the best way to get to know more about the industry was to talk directly with the people who work behind-thescenes. “[One animation convention called] SIGGRAPH came to Vancouver one year,” Low elaborates.

“It was really inspirational for me...They reiterated how awesome the animation industry is, and [that] it’s hard, but it’s really worth it. They told me how many years they’ve been in it. And I was just like, ‘Wow, this is a real thing!’”

As a storyboard artist, Low is encouraged to draw all types of styles and to capture the original concept and design of the creator.

“I didn’t really start thinking about personal style [until around my] second year of college,” Low admits. “It’s hard to because in animation...because when you work on a show, you’re not going to be drawing in your own natural style, you know? It’s a constant battle.”

“I find that my strength and style is actually storytelling,” Pearl continues. “I speak with images.

And you can tell the way that I storytell [from] how it looks. I think [that’s] more important to me, developing the style of how I [tell stories].”

Whether they are working on an episode of a cartoon or a feature-length film, the storyboarding team has the job of sketching out each shot of the project to form a cohesive story, visually and narratively. Cooperative collaboration is a huge factor in the process.

“You get to talk with your peers and brainstorm about what certain shots may be a good choice to put in, or why this character is acting a certain way and [their] motivation behind it,” Low says.

“The most fulfilling [of the storyboarding process] is sharing my perspective [while] getting to collaborate with others. To create something brand new for other people to enjoy. I think that’s really powerful.”

Low grew up in the predominantly white city of Vancouver as a mixed Black Chinese woman, primarily raised through her single mother’s Cantonese culture.

“There was a weird kind of disconnect between how I felt culturally,” Pearl admits. “[In college,] I took a more deliberate look at how I identify...and what kind of validation I was seeking from both communities. Before college, I really just drew light-skinned characters, Asian characters. I didn’t draw any Black characters. I was so immersed in Cantonese culture, and my friends reflected that, my environment reflected that, and my style of art, of what I chose to create, also reflected that.”

And when referring to how she wrestled with her mixed identity, Low replies, “I think I’m just at a point where I don’t really care anymore. Before it used to really affect me, but now I’m kind of like, ‘Yeah, this is who I am. And this is how I navigate my community that I belong to. If you don’t like me, that sucks, but I will not be interacting with you.’”

“Because there’s a point where it’s hard to interact with somebody who’s committed to misunderstanding you.” She continues. “So I keep on moving and participate in my cultural spaces how I would like to now. And it’s a nice place to be because I don’t feel insecure about my identity as much anymore.”

While Low pours a lot of her artistic energy into animation and other collaborative mediums, she also makes sure to invest her time and talents into personal projects. One of her collections, labeled Food Studies on her website, displays detailed sketches of a variety of Chinese baked and dried goods. Low teamed up with two Chinese organizations, Chinatown Today and Hua Foundation, to guide people through Vancouver’s Chinatown in different ways.

“I work with [these] organizations... to help with the preservation of Chinatown because it’s going through a lot of gentrification right now. We’re trying to bring awareness to Chinese culture, [as well as] the significance of Chinatown,” Low says. “[For] Chinatown Today, they wanted to make a baked goods guide to give to folks who may not be familiar with Chinatown a guide where you could basically go scavenger hunting for Chinese baked goods. [For] Hua Foundation, I did a bunch of illustrations for them to help in [their] efforts to educate people about the culture of herbal shops in Chinatown.”

As for her upcoming projects, Low’s first mural will be featured at the Vancouver Mural Festival, which

runs from August 18 to September 7. She is also currently working on some animated features for film and TV, so stay tuned! Low’s flow of creativity isn’t stopping anytime soon. “[For a while] I didn’t really value my voice and perspective because others didn’t,” Low states. “A lot of times, I was in environments where it wasn’t encouraged for me to speak up or share my opinions and ideas. There’s a lot of anti-blackness that I grew up around too. There [was] no kind of encouragement for me to step into my own. [But once I got to] my early twenties, I definitely was taking intentional actions to develop what I like and, how I like to story tell, all these different [kinds of] self-development. And that was really powerful for me.”

Full mural for Vancouver Mural Festival

You can find Pearl Low and her work on Instagram (@fumichun), Twitter (@fumi_ chun), Facebook (@TheArtofPearlLow), and her website, www.pearllow.com.

An Artist’s “Labor of Love” aka the Asian Failure Written By Cindy Tran

Cindy Tran is a rising high school senior and aspiring book editor. Here interests include playing Animal Crossing into the ungodly hours of the night, reading until dawn, and breaking the strings of her violin. She is a 2020 GrubStreet Teen Writing Fellow and her works have been featured in Reclamation Magazine, Ogma Magazine, and Boston Teens in Print. She spends her time as an editor for the Kalopsia Literary Journal and the Young Writers Initiative and also somehow still runs the book review blog she’d started as a joke in middle school. When she’s not writing or pursuing one of her other strange interests, you can find Cindy meticulously uncapitalizing all of her words for the sake of symmetry or planning out her life in a worn black Moleskine journal.

Instagram: @cindytranwrites https://www.instagram.com/cindytranwrites/ ; Website: cindytranwrites.wordpress.com When we say that art is the “labor of love,” what we really mean is that it doesn’t pay the bills.

The logical question then, for all the parents, grandparents, and spouses of artists out there, is this: Why do artists risk it all (read: their financial stability)? Alternatively: What is it about art that makes the choice so easy for them? Also: Just...why?

If you asked me a year ago what I wanted to become when I grew up, I’d immediately tell you it was to be an aerospace engineer. And then when you’d ask me what exactly an aerospace engineer did, I wouldn’t really know what to say, other than maybe, “They, uh, build rockets?” So I’d launch into a detailed account of my obsession with the cartoon Voltron: Legendary Defender and how it made me want to work in the space industry because of, uh, rockets… and flyable rocket lions…?

I will also not mention how Yuri On Ice made me want to become a late-blooming Olympic figure skater. Or how Miraculous Ladybug made me want to be a top-secret vigilante dressed in tight spandex and black cat ears.

But to tell you the truth, I said I wanted to become an aerospace engineer because it was my way of compromising with what seemed inevitable. Everyone told me I was going into STEM. Engineer or doctor, that’s what Asian parents always expect, right? So with my fear of blood putting an abrupt halt on what could have been a promising career as a doctor, I had one option left: Engineering.

And what could I possibly want to engineer, other than a better future for myself? Flyable robotic lions. Therefore: Aerospace.

I was doomed from the start, truly.

In my defense, it wasn’t entirely my fault. It felt like I didn’t really have a choice, with a certain relative breathing down my neck about joining his engineering company, and peers straight up laughing in my face when I mentioned considering writing as a career.

Engineering meant that I would be financially stable, and the family’s pride and joy. Writing was a hobby, something silly to pursue in whatever downtime I managed between studying for my exams.

So I did it. Junior year of high school came around. Instead of taking the creative writing elective, I’d been eyeing since I entered my school as a wide-eyed, idealistic seventh grader, I barely glanced into the writing classroom when I passed by on the occasional walk down the hallway. I put down Physics. Advanced Precalculus. AP Computer Science Principles. I went to my classes, and I studied diligently, and I worked hard.

I hated them all.

After a full year of Physics and wondering how on Earth I’d fallen so deeply into the hole of circuits and batteries, I realized why my stomach hurt whenever I opened my binder, why my shoulders tensed when my math classmates moved on before I really understood the problem, and why I was so miserable when I opened my agenda at night to see all of the problems that couldn’t be solved, not by someone like me.

“It felt like I didn’t really have a choice, with a certain relative breathing down my neck about joining his engineering company, and peers straight up laughing in my face when I mentioned considering writing as a career.”

This is what your future is going to look like, the voice in the back of my mind told me. This is what every night is going to be like. Tear stained, frustrated fists, shoulders hunched by the weight of the world’s expectations on me.

See your friends, how fast they solve these problems? How well they do on exams? Who are you to amount to anything? You’ll never be good enough. Not now, not in the future, not ever. Never good enough.

My only relief was opening my notebook for AP Writing.

Rather than suffocating under the weight of a blank problem set, seeing a clean canvas for my writing was a different story entirely. The cursor was a luring invitation, my words the salve that swept over my wounds, and writing felt like spilling my heart out onto the page.

There were no wrong answers.

But, you see, that’s not the end of the story. The story is still unfolding as I sit here at my computer, writing up this next chapter of my life.

What I’m trying to say is that when we artists say that our work is a “labor of love,” we really mean it. We’re not doing this for the money. Hell, we’d hardly survive on the money—we’re notoriously underpaid, most of us even less than minimum wage.

So if we don’t work for money, what for? What is it about art that makes us open up, that lets us risk it all?

It’s love. It’s the “love” in “labor of love.” Because yes, it’s hard work. Sometimes I feel like my junior year self, only now I’m hunched over the computer, wrestling with an essay that just won’t get itself together. A piece that is a ball of string impossible to untangle.

But I do it.

I sit down and do it. Believe it or not, I struggle, and sometimes I shake in frustration because god, why is it so hard, but I do it anyway. Out of love.

When people ask me now what I want to do with my life, I can tell them, with more certainty than ever before, that I want to be a writer. I want to write, and maybe in the future, I’ll become an editor for a publishing company or a literary magazine, but the door’s wide open.

That’s not to say that my realization alone makes it any easier to “let down” everyone that had high hopes for me.

My grandmother definitely does not appreciate my artistic endeavors. She strongly believes that my time is better spent studying for a “real” career, and sometimes she speaks so extensively about these “real” jobs that I begin to feel guilty for wasting all of the opportunities there in front of me. I spiral into the thinking that perhaps she’s right, perhaps I am wasting my life harboring a fruitless tree. But then I think about the joy I feel when I pull up a blank page on Google Docs when I open my eyes in the middle of the night with an idea that finishes the puzzle of a story I’ve been working on, and I know for certain that I love it. I love writing.

I hope that one day she’ll come around when she realizes that writing, while it’s not something that will grant me the money to spend carelessly like my uncles and aunts and parents, is something that makes me incredibly happy.

For now, though, I’ll just keep writing and hoping that one day, my relatives will walk into a Barnes and Noble to see a familiar name on the shelf, and they’ll think to themselves, “She did it.”

“sometimes grief is brown” by Mikaela Lucido we like to dress up “brown” stuff it with frilly words with frillier sounds: caramel, toffee, mocha because a coffee order is easier to stomach than the swoop of your nose. that stretch of skin under the neck. we like to string ourselves up with lights because we think we need ornaments to glow. but your face over there by the window is already making stars out of smoke and you are gone now into that vast darkness littered in lights with colours we have not yet named colours we have not yet bastardized colours that could not measure up to the steady way you laughed, so sharp and shameless or the way you loved: winsome and true and ferociously brown.

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Anti-Blackness in the South Asian Community Written by Anuja Parikh

Anuja is University of Florida graduate currently working as a Study Abroad Advisor in South Carolina. She helps university students achieve their study abroad goals and explore the world by telling them about her own travels teaching in Thailand for several years post-grad. Her passion in international education is increasing access for marginalized student populations to engage in education abroad opportunities. When she’s not hiking or pestering her Thai cat, Jingjo, she’s browsing Google Flights for her next travel adventure.

Colorism in the South Asian community – what a topic to unpack. Growing up as a first-generation American, a daughter of Indian immigrants, in a predominantly white area of Florida, came with its challenges. My brown paper bag lunches were mocked for their ‘strange’ smells, and people laughed when I mispronounced words or spelled words in the British fashion as opposed to American. I was too young to understand that colonialism was the real one to blame. Despite these negative encounters, one ‘positive’ thing my family always told me from a young age was, “At least you have your mother’s genes – at least you’re light-skinned.” And I clung to that because this repetition hammered the idea that ‘light is good, dark is bad’ into my head, and I wanted to be good.

“My brown paper bag lunches were mocked for their ‘strange’ smells, and people laughed when I mispronounced words or spelled words in the British fashion as opposed to American. I was too young to understand that colonialism was the real one to blame.”

Enter high school. I started to get curious about boys. I liked them, and I wanted them to like me back. One of the first boys that I racked up the nerve to approach hit me with a line that I will never forget. “I don’t like brown girls.” All I could think in my head was, “But I’m not brown-brown, I’m light-skinned, can’t you see?” as if my so-called light skin was something to be proud of. I think about this moment as one of the defining moments of my early life because, for the next handful of years, I was constantly fearful of being ‘too brown,’ for fear that I would never find someone to like me.

This fear hit the biggest roadblock when I began my high school career, running cross-country, and track. If there’s anything we know about Florida, it’s that it’s an extremely sunny and hot place to live. Running post-class at the peak of the day’s sun would do little to maintain my light skin that was already too brown for boys. I obsessively purchased SPF 100 sunblock, hoping this would do the trick, and I would privately lather on layers before practice. Unfortunately for my high school self, the Florida heat won the battle, and I watched my watch tan line grow more and more drastic. I listened to my teammates make comments about how dark I was getting, comparing their arms next to mine. I endured dinners where family members said that I looked more Black than Indian, spitting out the word ‘Black’ like an insult.

I am blessed to have developed past this stage of self-hatred, though I’m ashamed that it took me until early adulthood to begin questioning the framework set in place by my family, classmates, and friends. In conversations surrounding racial justice today, we are seeing more and more information being disseminated surrounding the context of using the term African American vs. Black. Many Americans have defaulted to using the term “African American” because this is seen as being more politically correct and polite.

Why? Because again, anti-Blackness is pervasive. Black is seen as being a ‘bad’ word, with many people not realizing they think this because of their own internalized negative association with Black people. This is all begs the question, is being Black bad? Is being dark-skinned bad?

For many South Asians, the answer would be yes. Post-colonial British beauty standards left their mark on Indian culture even after India gained independence, paving the way for skin-lightening creams like the newly rebranded Glow and Lovely to gain market success. This success led to marketing campaigns reinforcing the notion that light is good, and success is tied to being light-skinned, poisoning the minds of generations of Indians. For those in the Indian community that is now aware of the falsities carried out by these marketing ploys and understand the complex history of colorism in our culture, it’s time to challenge those around us. It’s time to challenge our families, friends, the brands we buy from, and the status quo.

Colorism in our community not only affects the mental health and stability of young Indians, but it also leans into anti-Black sentiment. By accepting colorism in our community, we are doing nothing to advance critical conversations surrounding race in America that our family and friends desperately need to engage with and be educated about. Black is good. Brown is good. Acceptance of being our own authentic selves and being comfortable in our skin is the first step. The next step - we must do better and do more to challenge colorism for the next generation, for our darker-skinned community members, and for the eventual end to anti-Blackness in our community.

I am blessed to have developed past this stage of self-hatred, though I’m ashamed that it took me until early adulthood to begin questioning the framework set in place by my family, classmates, and friends. In conversations surrounding racial justice today, we are seeing more and more information being disseminated surrounding the context of using the term African American vs. Black. Many Americans have defaulted to using the term “African American” because this is seen as being more politically correct and polite.

Why? Because again, anti-Blackness is pervasive. Black is seen as being a ‘bad’ word, with many people not realizing they think this because of their own internalized negative association with Black people. This is all begs the question, is being Black bad? Is being dark-skinned bad?

For many South Asians, the answer would be yes. Post-colonial British beauty standards left their mark on Indian culture even after India gained independence, paving the way for skin-lightening creams like the newly rebranded Glow and Lovely to gain market success. This success led to marketing campaigns reinforcing the notion that light is good, and success is tied to being light-skinned, poisoning the minds of generations of Indians. For those in the Indian community that is now aware of the falsities carried out by these marketing ploys and understand the complex history of colorism in our culture, it’s time to challenge those around us. It’s time to challenge our families, friends, the brands we buy from, and the status quo.

Colorism in our community not only affects the mental health and stability of young Indians, but it also leans into anti-Black sentiment. By accepting colorism in our community, we are doing nothing to advance critical conversations surrounding race in America that our family and friends desperately need to engage with and be educated about. Black is good. Brown is good. Acceptance of being our own authentic selves and being comfortable in our skin is the first step. The next step - we must do better and do more to challenge colorism for the next generation, for our darker-skinned community members, and for the eventual end to anti-Blackness in our community.

We Just Want to All Fit in, Right?

Written by Chau Tang

Chau Tang is a Beauty Columnist for Overachiever Magazine. She graduated from Cleveland State in May 2019 with a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and a minor in Marketing. She loves to read about beauty, news, and political issues. Other than writing, she enjoys reading, watching Netflix, boxing, hiking, and photography. She wants to write about beauty, news, arts and entertainment and political issues. She also enjoys listening to podcasts about various topics like politics and true crime. A couple of fun facts: She was born and raised in Cleveland, can speak English, Vietnamese and a bit of Mandarin Chinese. She’s an only child and is an avid video gamer.

From the moment we were born into this world, there were a set of rules we had to follow.

Those rules decided how we should act, speak, and behave. Girls should marry boys, play with dolls, dress up, be great with household chores, dress in girls’ clothing, and shouldn’t mix with boys’ clothes and accessories. Girls should be flattered if a boy likes you, sit in a well-mannered position, and dress appropriately. Boys should be manly, never cry, only dress in boys’ clothing, flirt, and marry girls.

Rules For Boys: Marry Girls Never Cry Only Dress in Boys’ Clothing Flirt with GIRLS Play Sports and Be Assertive Rules For Girls: Marry Boys Play with Dolls Dress Up Be Great with Household Chores Only Dress in Girls’ Clothing Don’t Dress in Boys’ Clothing Be Flattered When Boys Like You Sit in a Well-Mannered Position Dress Appropriately

Personally, I’m a girl who likes to skateboard, box, dance, play sports in my free time, wear men’s clothing and accessories, plays video games such as Call of Duty, average with household duties, played with dolls and also cars but secretly wanted a Buzz Lightyear toy, dressed up as Disney Princesses for Halloween but also wanted to dress up as Harry Potter, not super into dresses but I’m more of a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl.

Society also has rules when it comes to marriage. Growing up, we’re taught to stay out of people’s business, but it seems like the government and society isn’t doing that. They’re trying to control our lives, it seems.

People love to flaunt around the phrase, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” The government loves to make those kinds of rules, so the LGBTQ+ individuals can be afraid to come out.

It’s like, the more they try to limit LGBTQ+ representation, then they might have cured being gay so they can be “straight.”

News flash, I’ve seen straight couples in romance movies and tv shows growing up, but I’m still gay. It seems like you haven’t cured me, and I’m sure you can’t cure it since it’s a natural feeling. It’s natural to have feelings for someone you actually like. The same goes for whatever gender you’re attracted to.

The government has tried to ban same-sex marriage, not allowing LGBTQ+ couples to adopt, etc. Now, same-sex marriage is allowed, and LGBTQ+ couples can adopt. Of course, not every country feels the same. There are some countries such as Poland and Greece who do not recognize same-sex marriage.

LGBTQ+ individuals would also like to marry the love of their life and be happy. Why bother living if you’re not allowed to be happy?! Why bother living if it’s for the sake of others? We need to start living for ourselves!

Those rules are exhausting to follow. Especially when it only puts people in a box. If a man cries, he’s seen as a sissy. If a girl likes to box and/or wrestle, she’s seen as too manly, and no boys will “want” her. These are damaging to peoples’ minds. Even if the older generation doesn’t think so. We’re supposed to live our own lives, but it seems like we are robots in their minds. Like we need to be controlled in order to be deemed as “normal.”

So what if a girl wants to wear guys’ clothing? As long as she’s rocking it with confidence, what’s the problem. If a boy wants to dance, and that’s his passion? Let him express himself. If a boy wants to wear makeup, then let him. Better yet, let’s not wait for permission in order to do something that makes us happy. See, our whole lives, we’re taught to think of other people first to see how they feel about our actions. So, if a girl likes a girl, it’s seen as “unnatural.”

You’re “supposed” to be with a boy in order to make their lives easier. If we’re constantly having to second guess our actions in order to make them happy, then it’s a big slap in our face because no one gives a damn about how it makes us feel. Oh no, as long as the world seems normal, everyone needs to follow the rules and not be who they really are or do what makes them really happy until they’re dead. We might as well be if we can’t say or do what we truly feel.

There are a lot of TV shows and movies that are relatable while breaking the “norm.” These are the kinds of shows we should continue to see on screen and have a conversation with our families.

I recently watched Love, Victor on Hulu, the Love, Simon spin-off. It takes place in the same universe as Love, Simon, so if you’ve seen the series, you’ll notice the references. Victor is a high school teen who’s not out to his family. He does have an attraction to boys, but he’s not ready for the world to know who he really is. It can be scary having these feelings because most people won’t see it as normal when really, love is love. Victor happens to be dating one of the most popular girls at Creekwood High to hide his identity. See that? He’s dating a girl to be seen as normal when he’s secretly into another guy just to make everyone around him comfortable.

A lot of LGBTQ+ individuals have also dated the opposite gender to hide their true identity.

Most likely, they’re afraid of coming out because it’s hard to know how people will react. I’ve also dated plenty of guys to hide the fact that I am just romantically interested in women.

I’ve been talking to this guy who’s perfect. He’s sweet, loves to skateboard just as much as I do, loves anime, loves the Asian culture, is super respectable, and he’s into me. I should be into him too. Truth is, I haven’t felt a romantic attraction or connection to him or to any guy.

Maybe I’m not bisexual. Maybe I’m just gay. Saying, “I’m gay” seems so much scarier than saying, “I’m bisexual.” My attraction to girls is just more powerful. There were many times where I wanted to date a girl, but I was afraid of coming out to the world again. I shouldn’t be afraid, but everyone makes it so much harder to be myself. I have to worry about my parents’ image, what our Asian culture and community think, what other religions think, what society thinks, and it’s insane that I have to think about them first. I’d rather think about myself first. That may sound selfish, but if I’m not happy, what’s the point of living?

We’re so worried about everyone else’s comfortability that we don’t worry about our own.

Whenever other people make racist jokes, harass other people, and make gay jokes, some are worried about speaking against those kinds of jokes in fear of thinking, “Oh, are you gay or something?” Or say, “It’s just a joke.” Or will even say, “It’s not wrong if it’s true.” That kind of behavior is something no one should have to tolerate.

Growing up, people will say, “Be true to who you are” but when we do, they say, “Oh, don’t be like that.” It’s like we have to hide until the end of time, and it’s tiring. Not every girl wants a boyfriend, and not every boy wants a girlfriend. Not every girl wants to wear dresses or participate in dance. Some girls want to skateboard, box, wrestle, play sports, etc.

We shouldn’t have to follow any set of rules. We should be who we are and say how we feel without fear. It’s not fair to any of us. Everyone is so worried about the labels, but no one is worrying if they are even good and genuine. We’re so caught up in peoples’ image of us that we just focus on that, but we don’t focus on who we are as a person. Stop taking on the burden of everyone else’s emotions when we should think about ours first. If everyone is comfortable and happy but you, then what’s the point of living life? We should be able to express ourselves freely without hesitation.

untitled by Emmalia Ning // Ig @fakeartist.em

“Nativity’s Blush” by Annie James Ivory muslin parting for a newborn: As a biped extrudes from an eggshell, A frangible opacity splinters for A drape of walnut, pecan, peanut.

In amniotic waters, a blush musters.

A waddle of an aviary, in nidus and in fugere, Disappears with their filial imprint; Dazed infants tenderly scrunch into Depressions of cedar, maple, birch.

Associating eyes eat away at a color.

Under a translucent banner of birthing waters, Progenitors endured by bands of melanocyte, Parents forfeit by bearing fluid.

Persons index by fairness: Gouged and wielded from epidermal layers, Great chocolate, mocha, creme Graze an ire borne of witnessing irreverence Uniform in surges outwards, eroding a shell wall.

Should organelles cease in function, Foliage-givers and brine-replenishers notwithstanding, Free they might they be in forewater hues of gossamer, transparent, clear; Forever however does melanin thrum away, sun and eyes caught alike, Say, in what terrene waters are we laid to rest once we pass?

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