The Different Masks We Wear

Face masks are now ubiquitous wherever we go - you'll rarely see someone at the grocery store, post office, or other public places without one. These masks are physical barriers to protect ourselves from others' germs, and to protect others from ours. But for many Asian Americans, we've had to contend with whether we'd put on figurative masks. Many of us have held in tension whether to amplify or hide our identity - to protect ourselves not from others' germs, but from their bigotry. 

First, two things are important to keep in mind. One: this isn't a story about the experience of every Asian American. It's a tension I feel myself. It may not be one that other Asian Americans feel. Two: I don't believe one group's hardship should ever diminish that of the other. Racism and racially-tinged bigotry are very different hardships from contracting COVID-19. I don't believe highlighting the hardship from discrimination should hide the fact that thousands of people are dying around this country. There is incredible suffering everywhere. Moreover, there is absolutely no denying that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting black and brown populations - much more so than Asian populations. Experts (not I) argue that these are results of decades of racism, disparate access to healthcare, among others. Those impacts are real, and highlighting anti-Asian racism should never diminish the awful history of anti-black and anti-Latinx racism in this country.

Ok, back to it.

Over the past couple of months, anti-Asian (more specifically, anti-Chinese) discrimination has grown as politicians and citizens alike increasingly blame China - and Chinese people - for spreading COVID-19. Asian Americans have had to find ways to deal with the impacts of discrimination, whether in the form of verbal or physical assault, or sheer fear and historical trauma. In response, a few weeks ago, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang wrote in the Washington Post:

"We Asian Americans need to embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before. We need to step up, help our neighbors, donate gear, vote, wear red white and blue, volunteer, fund aid organizations, and do everything in our power to accelerate the end of this crisis. We should show without a shadow of a doubt that we are Americans who will do our part for our country in this time of need."

My initial reaction was one of shock and dismay. Why would someone - an Asian American leader I respect - believe that the correct response to others' racism was to hide our identity and demonstrate we have assimilated? Are we denying ourselves simply out of self-preservation?

But as I think more about my actions, I realize that my self-righteous, ideological purist gut reaction hid the reality of how I might respond in practice. I might desire to fight relentlessly for these values and how they preserve my identity and the honor of my people. But I've also had to contend with the reality that perhaps more times than not, I've set those values aside for the sake of self-preservation.

I think back to a couple of weeks ago, when I walked up to the line outside Trader Joe's, slightly worrying (as usual) whether someone would call out my Asian-ness. But as I joined the line, I notice myself speaking even more loudly into the phone (I was on a conference call at the time), emphasizing to others that I was speaking English. I also think about the many times where I have thought to myself how walking next to my white wife might shield me from racially motivated, verbal abuse. 

Is it wrong, then, to highlight one part of my identity - my American-ness - over another - my Chinese-ness - to protect myself from verbal abuse that might come my way? At what point am I rejecting an identity for the sake of protecting myself? I don't think those thoughts or actions made me a "bad Asian." But I do think they require some introspection to understand my motivations and why I made those decisions.

And then I reflect on the times when I and those around me would openly talk about avoiding places with Mainland Chinese tourists. Or the times where I've made sure my mask was on when walking into a crowd of mostly Mandarin-speaking people.

At the time, I justified those to myself as practical concerns. But I soon realized that my mask then became not only a physical barrier. It was a symbolic barrier between me and my people. My people became the people I feared. Being "different" from them, somehow, gave me comfort. Claiming my American-ness - whether to myself or exhibiting it to others - gave me security that, perhaps, I wouldn't be treated like "them." 

So, after reacting strongly to what seemed like a ridiculous statement from Andrew Yang, I realized that oftentimes, my own desire to preserve self trumps the preservation of my own identity (which, I believe, is a first and foremost a result of my own selfishness and sinfulness, but also centuries of colonization. But I think that's for another blog post.) Of course, we do have to draw the distinction between preserving self and a fear of others. One impacts others much more directly than the other. 

I still don't believe what Andrew Yang suggested is the right way to approach anti-Asian bigotry during this pandemic. But rather than rejecting it outright, I wonder whether further introspection would reveal a shared impulse. At the very least, I think it has revealed a tension in my own heart that I hadn't been able to name - the tension between the ideal and reality; between how one can both be othered and be responsible for othering.

That tension has also elevated a critical question that I think was missed by Mr. Yang's suggestion: that we must recognize that our ability to demonstrate our American-ness is itself a privilege. I am a first generation immigrant who speaks English without much of an accent. Not all of my fellow immigrants have that privilege. I earn a salary and can leave work to volunteer or donate money to aid organizations. Most immigrants are deprived of those opportunities and lack upward financial mobility. I can vote because I had access to a good lawyer who helped me become a citizen. Civil legal aid, especially on immigration matters, is tremendously difficult to obtain for many. 

So after all that, I don't have answers. I don't have a solution to this tension. But I think it has clarified the questions I need to ask myself, and the tensions I need to address head-on.

How then, do we hold in tension our ideology and our values against the realities of the world? 

What identities are we willing to mask to preserve ourselves? 

How much does our self-preservation impact others that don't have the privilege or access to similarly preserve themselves? Does our self-preservation lead to us "othering" someone else? 

These are questions that my own sinful, selfish self would find difficult to answer on my own. It requires accountability - for a community of both Asian and non-Asian folks that recognize that tension and can ask hard questions. It requires being challenged and for someone else to ask whether that decision was made out of self-preservation, or to call out when self-preservation leads to us putting down others. Above all, it requires a just, compassionate God that recognizes our own sinfulness and can convict us when we find ourselves on the wrong side of that tension. 

I just pray that the next I put on my masks - both physical and figurative - that I'm asking myself those questions.