By Abbey Zhu ’18, Feature Editor

Picture this. It’s your first day of high school at a town you just moved to this year, and you’re a Chinese girl walking down the school hallway brimming with middle-class white teenagers. Someone stops you to introduce himself.

“Hi! My name is Bob. I’ve never seen you around before. Where are you from?”

“Oh hey. I’m _______. I just moved here from New Jersey.”

Bob gives you a quizzical look. “No, like, where are you really from? Like where were you born?”

Your eyebrows crinkle, lips turning downwards as your voice wavers ever so slightly. You respond with a question: “New Jersey?” But this isn’t the first time someone has asked you that; your parents have heard this question since the day they immigrated to the United States. You and your friends have endured it countless numbers of times, and together, you tell others to stop. But nothing changes. So people tell you to “Just ignore it! Some people will never learn.” Yet each time you hear the question that inspects you – strips you of your citizenry and trivializes your heritage, you feel a twinge of fear. Are you proud to be Asian?

I asked a few students what they thought the word “microaggression” meant. An anonymous sophomore stared at me with wide eyes and said, “Um, I don’t know. Sorry.”  Another stated, “Really chill, on-the-DL racist comments.” Similarly, a junior responded with, “Low-key racism.”

When people ask Asian Americans where they’re “really from,” they are uttering a microaggression that is not only offensive, but also suggests that people who look “different” do not belong in the United States and are therefore not true Americans. The University of California defines microaggressions as being “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”

Exhibit A: “Oh my gosh! This test was so hard even though I studied really hard. I got a B and I’m so happy. How’d you do?”

“Oh um, I got an A.”

“That’s just ‘cause you’re Asian.”

Dismissing people’s hard work and attributing their success to their ethnicity undermines their abilities as human beings. It adds to the stereotype that all Asians are naturally smarter and more hardworking than others. People might try to prove that Asians have genes that make them more intelligent than the rest of the world, but these genes would not give every Asian a free pass to Einstein-level genius. They would not guarantee that Asians always put their best effort into their work. Many argue that Asians are naturally smarter because Asian cultures prioritize education. But how do cultural values justify racism on the institutional level such as in the job or school admissions process? This seemingly harmless (even positive) stereotype labels Asians as intelligent, but it places them at a significant disadvantage in the real world.