Half Japanese, Half Polish, Autistic, Living in Primarily White, Rural Area
Hey, I live with a Japanese mother and a Polish dad in the Northeast US. My mother has lived in the US for 20 years, and both of my parents are nurses; I speak Japanese with my mother. When I was 8, I was diagnosed with autism, which frankly explains a lot. I have also been masculine presenting ever since I can remember (my parents have tried a lot to get me to try anything else, which has not worked), and am attracted to women.
I always wanted to look like a Disney prince, my standards were Humphrey Bogart movies that my dad showed me, Hirai Ken, who was a Japanese singer that my mom liked, and perhaps most fucked up of all, Groucho Marx. Honestly, even being AFAB and pressured to a certain degree, my parents were so busy with dealing with symptoms of my autism (ie, frequent meltdowns, refusal to socialize, difficulties with authority, taking me to get evaluated) that I either never felt pressure about my looks, or was oblivious to pressure due to my inability to recieve social cues. However, aside from this, I don’t know if had any reason to recieve pressure: while not white passing, I am light skinned, thin (? I’ve been described as “built like a tank”), and have features that’d be seen as conventionally attractive. My parents have always wanted me to grow my hair out, but I’ve always kept it at like, disheveled crew cut to chin length. Aside from that, I’ve always liked being muscular, and really like building upper body strength; whenever I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve worked out my arms, shoulders, etc.
My sister is darker skinned than I am, has features that she has a lot of insecurity about, and has said she envies my features. With that in mind, either I haven’t received pressure in terms of my cultural beauty standards, or I was oblivious.
On really special occasions, I’ll cut my mom some slack and let her put some makeup on me for a day.
Clothing
I dress like a dude going to an informal job interview. My mom and dad have expressed a lot of wishes for me to present more feminine, I used to get bullied for not presenting feminine, but I never really stopped dressing like this. On family holidays, or more formal events in Japan, my mom had my sister and I wear a kimono or a yukata.
Culture
My mom celebrates Hinamatsuri, where we just… put up the dolls, eat chirashi, have a good time. We also celebrate Shogatsu, which is literally the New Year, and on that morning we eat osechi. My mom used to have a big get together every year with all of her Japanese friends, where a bunch of Japanese ladies partied, ate food, drank alcohol, and live streamed this big music show thing that Japan has every New Years. I still don’t really know it, because the kids, including me, just goofed around, watched cartoons upstairs, and stole food. They’re really warm childhood memories, and I remember being really happy.
My dad is culturally Catholic and celebrates Christmas and Wigilia; I like the beet soup, my sister hates the beet soup. Both of my parents put a lot of effort into the holidays they do celebrate, but they don’t celebrate a lot.
Daily struggles
Middle school, or as I like to call it, that time I learned that people didn’t like me. I grew up around a lot of hicks, and I did get kind of picked on in elementary school, but kids mostly left me alone. In middle school, I was on the receiving end of a bunch of shit both stemming from the fact that I was the only racial minority, and the fact that I was so blatantly autistic. All I ever talked about was birds, and I got (weirdly) a lot of Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima jokes, because hicks are not creative, and threats to leave dead birds on my desk.
In high school, I was no longer bullied because I became violent and started intentionally playing up that persona so that people would leave me alone, which stopped in freshman year. Sophomore year onward, no one really talked to me, and I didn’t talk to anyone back. I thought this was normal and okay for me until I made friends in college.
Nowadays, in my workplace, it’s just day to day tasteless shit. I work as a line cook in a seaside restaurant, and line cooks are going to be line cooks. “Sorry I don’t speak Asian,” “Do you eat X,” nothing downright horrible, except those couple times where it was like, “You’re like a mix of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.” I don’t really get massively upset about it, but when I chose my crowd, that shit isn’t going to happen.
I get fetishized by people due to my race, which sucks, but I’ve been told that I come off as so brusque that it turns people off. And I don’t mean Stoic Asian Brusque, I mean crotchety old man who complains until people go away.
Dating and Relationships
I’m attracted to women, but I don’t date, I don’t like dating, I’ve just started acclimatizing to having an actual social life. I am sexually active, and I never felt any insecurity about it. Sometimes my parents make snide remarks about it, but even then, I honestly just never could find it in me to care.
I’ve never felt insecure about my attraction to women; it’s just always been something I was aware of, and my parents know. They don’t really care, but they both don’t really want to talk about it. Sometimes I wish I could talk about crushes and stuff, and on occasion I feel like I’m missing out on the whole “Talk to parents about your romance life” thing, but it’s no big deal.
Food
Uh, fish, rice, vegetables, sometimes mixed all together. Sesame oil, teriyaki, soy sauce mixed with some kind of oil, a lot of stuff. My mom mixes Japanese mayonaise with ketchup and dips raw vegetables in them. I do that with cauliflower. Also, she likes celery dipped in miso paste mixed with mayo, my sister likes cucumbers soaked in soy sauce. I have no goddamn idea if this is ordinary.
We go out for sushi on special occasions.
Home/Family life/Friendships
My family is isolated for a number of reasons; for various personal reasons, neither of my parents are in any real contact with their extended family. My mother is an introvert, and feels that she doesn’t always connect to her Japanese friends, and my father is a grumpy shut in. I have a very close relationship with my mother, though; she vents to me a lot, she accepts me in all regards, and she’s the most stable person in my life. She put a lot of time and energy into teaching me Japanese, tons of effort into making sure I got support for my autism (it didn’t work well, but she probably just, drained herself over me). My dad and I are very similar in personality, and so we’re very abrasive towards each other, but good friends. My father was physically abusive to me when I was younger, but he also essentially tutored me.
My sister and I are polar opposites; she’s academically driven, I’ve always been hyper focused on one subject, capable in others but had ADHD/autism related problems with attention and motivation. She’s feminine presenting, I’m masculine presenting. She’s motivated, I’m like a garden slug with four limbs. She’s socially adept but highly anxious and dances around topics that upset her, I’m completely socially inept, but relaxed and blunt. She’s active in the community, I’ve just stopping being a shut in. I love her to pieces, even if she is pretty Type A. She’s got an amazing sense of humor, gets heated about defending her family, IDK everything about my sister is great. We’ve fought a lot, we’ve had a lot of funny moments.
Identity issues
I know that my sister is insecure about her position among other Asian Americans, but a lot of my lack of issue flat out comes from how much I’ve isolated myself due to bullying. I don’t have a social frame of reference because I was deprived of one, and I’ve continuously deprived myself of one because I don’t really know how to go about getting one.
I still get anxious when I have to actually bring up how I was targeted for the things that made me different, because for a long time, it felt like acknowledging the lack of control I had in those situations. Being targeted for things that I couldn’t help made me a pretty angry person, but as of about a year ago, I feel like I’ve started to confront how that anger wasn’t unanimously a strength, and recognizing how my coping mechanisms affected me.
However, I also villainized myself a lot. I didn’t want to acknowledge my lack of control in being bullied for my race and disability, and through high school I started considering myself a naturally “bad” person, and after becoming violent stopped people from bullying me, I sort of developed this Scary Persona so people would unanimously leave me alone. I used that to justify acting violent, standoffish, loudly negative, and irate to most people. I also justified cutting myself off from people I liked to “protect” them. It took a lot of introspection to start recognizing that my anger based coping mechanisms weren’t a complete strength, but also that I wasn’t bullied because I was an inherently bad, dangerous person.
However, as a result, coming to terms with the fact that I was just targeted for my race and disability, not because I was scary and A Bad Person, has both made me more nervous and allowed me room to try to lower my defenses, and be more bubbly and friendly again.
Micro-aggressions
Assuming that my mom is homophobic, assuming my mom has an accent, assuming I’m an exchange student, getting mistaken for other Asians, people thinking I’m a tourist, “What are you,” “Wow your eyes are big for an Asian,” your general cuisine jokes, “Your English is AMAZING!”
Misconceptions
I’m a lot stronger than I look, mostly because I’m on the short side, and wear clothes baggy enough that my shoulders tend to get concealed. I know the misconception of Asian people being physically weak, so it’s always a little funny whenever I’m in a situation where I can startle people in that regard.
I have been mistaken for an exchange student a loooot, to the point where people have remarked at how amazing they thought my English was.
I may be good at math, but I hate it. I’m a Latin language major, I love Renaissance art history!
I’m not pale as shit because I’m half Japanese. I’m just like that.
Self Esteem
Honestly, in spite of everything, I never felt bad about myself as a person. I’ve always liked how I looked, presented, and how I acted. I’m coming out of an angry period in my life. My racial identity was never something I resented, because I love my mom, I love my culture, I love my looks, but the bullying that came as a result made me paranoid, closed, and socially isolated.
Things I’d like to see less of
If you aren’t an LGBT+ Asian person, can we please lay off the homophobic Asian parent trope?? Maybe it’s so personal for me because my mom has been such a pillar of support in my life, and because I’ve basically never seen a supportive Asian parent on TV in regards to that, and I’m not saying whether it’s truly prevalent or not, but the Homophobic Asian Parent thing is so deeply saturated in media about us that if I have to see it again from someone just using it as a plot device, I’m going to blow a fuse.
Submissive, quiet, stiff Japanese AFAB people. Even stoic. I like relaxed, suave, lazy, or visibly angry, impulsive, irate Japanese representation, and that doesn’t even mean disconnected from the damn culture.
We don’t all speak with an accent.
Sometimes English is the first language. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you learn both at once and are at ease with both. Linguistic nuance would be appreciated.
Asians being an auto genius at everything.
Things I’d like to see more of
Japanese AFAB people being allowed to be angry. I mean scary angry, I mean massive, terrifying, monstrously angry. Not Dragon Lady graceful, I want to to see us knocking shit off tables, punching holes in the drywall, I want terrifyingly flawed. Don’t let other prejudice get involved, either; if your angrier characters are all inexplicably darker skinned, or not thin, that’s suspicious.
Not all of us are waif thin. I am pretty broad shouldered. In a similar vein, not all Japanese people are the same skin tone. There’s a tone of physical diversity.
Japanese AFAB Byronic Heroes!
Japanese GNC people, particularly AFAB! Butch lesbians, NB people, transmasc Japanese people.
Japanese characters who express those without feeling isolated from their own culture! Japanese characters who love their culture without falling into the stoic stereotype, just being a person interacting with it.
Happy Japanese LGBT+ people, or at least Japanese characters who aren’t that conflicted about that aspect of their identity. Bonus if they love their parents, and vice versa!
Happy Japanese families in general!