How relearning Mandarin helped me challenge my internalized white supremacy. By Tiffany Zhu Tiffany Zhu is a Chinese American designer based in Brooklyn. She currently builds things at the ACLU and is passionate about civic tech’s ability to change how citizens engage with their communities.
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My therapist asked me a few weeks ago, “What parts of my racial identity do you reject?” We had gotten on the topic of my loneliness. I paused. It didn’t have anything to say off the top of my head. I have always been proud of my heritage, I thought. As if objecting to her question, I started listing things I was proud of: I’m proud to be Chinese American. I often refer to my thick, straight, jet black hair as “my baby.” I know how to make a mean tomato and egg. I am tenacious and able to hunker down in hard times. Then something came to the tip of my tongue: I love that I am ar-
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ticulate. I said it without thinking. It slipped out as an afterthought, as if it was the obvious punctuation on things I loved about myself. My therapist tilted her head and looked at me, implying that it was a weird thing to say and I should dig into it. Words started coming out of my mouth like free association: I have always been articulate. I like that I know big words. I was always good at writing and public speaking (not that you’d know it from the way I was defending myself). I could form incisive opinions about Jane Austen and Shakespeare.
I had a way with language and of speaking that was unique to me and my voice. My therapist raised an eyebrow, “What does this have to do with you being Chinese American?” Indignant, I started saying “Well you know, no one ever thinks an Asian kid can be an eloquent speaker. I invested in learning how to have a voice and how to use impactful words that convey both meaning and feeling.” To myself, I was reminded but too ashamed to say out loud that the most important thing to me was that I didn’t have an accent. One of those awful, embarrassing accents.
