Pain and Privilege

As roots grow over centuries of nurture and support, so do our identities – as peoples and cultures evolve and shape each other. Each of our identities become nuanced, with every experience and story unique from another. Yet, many of those stories are beautifully interconnected as if they formed an intricate tapestry. Those are the stories I’m hoping this communal journal will explore.

The first is mine – a story shared by many Chinese Americans, and a story that holds both pain and privilege in intractable tension. This story, oftentimes, is one of privilege. It’s one that, whether we’ve chosen it or not, many of us enjoy. It’s where we can often choose to be accepted as if we were white. It’s where we’re thought of as smart and hard-working, earning the moniker of the “non-threating,” or “model minority,” or the “good” immigrant. It’s where many of us can walk into a conference room and be thought of as a trusted partner, not as the person bringing them coffee. It’s a privilege earned on the backs of generations of pain and suffering, but it’s a one that is often hard to accept because so many of us have experienced so much pain.

This story is one that started with – and still holds – incredible pain. This is a story that started with slavery on the railroads, built on decades of inadmissibility because of the color of our skin, amplified by the indignity of red-lines and ghettos, and continues with the whimper of invisibility. It’s a story of invisibility, where we feel lost in communities when conversations about race focus on the black-white binary. That invisibility has forced many of us to assimilate – we choose to associate with black or white culture, and in that process, we give up our own. We do so often not because we desire it, but because it’s necessary. It’s necessary because otherwise, we’re not heard and our voices are represented only at the wet market, not in the halls of power.

Yet, this is not the story of every Chinese American, and definitely not the story of every Asian American. But for those of us that share both this pain and privilege, it’s this tension that places us in a unique space in this country. It’s an immense responsibility. It’s the responsibility of a people that understands what it means to be othered and rejected, but yet have the access to speak truth to power. It’s the responsibility of those that have experienced so deeply the piercing pain of racism, but yet, are a people associated more often with the Ivy League than the criminal justice system. It’s a unique place – to be welcomed by the majority but to understand the minority.

But it’s also a recognition that we need space to grieve, to understand our own pain and that of our ancestors. It’s an acknowledgement that when we strive to be included, we deprive ourselves of the space to see where we’re not. It’s an opportunity to see that oftentimes, we try so hard to earn a seat at the table that we simply accept it even when that seat is at the very back.

This is a tension that swings so often like a pendulum. We swing back and forth when we process our pain and privilege, it’s so tiring to do both in balance. It’s hard work, but it’s necessary work because if we don’t find our own humanity, it’ll be that much harder to see that of others. If we don’t embrace our unique stories, our pain leads us to see others with anger, and our privilege blinds us from the pain of others. When we own our humanity, we’ll find the humanity in others, and that’s where we can bring our full selves into community.

Here’s to us, to our roots, and to community.