Yellow, but not coloured enough
Yellow, but not white enough
Slanted eyes and monolids are things to be joked about, don't worry, no one would mind
Ching chong, they mock, you must have eaten all the cats and dogs
Culture and identity split and destroyed so you can fit in
Chopsticks traded in for countless knives and forks
Mother tongue foreign on the tongue that strives to sound like them
Dark hair dyed light so you don't stand out, don't get singled out as different
Shame bubbles at how your parents stumble over simple English, how everyone pretends to smile only to laugh behind raised hands
Shame over your roots so you hack and chop until you don't know who you are anymore, because you belong neither here nor there
Laughing awkwardly and pretending not to be offended at jokes made in ill-taste about people like you, because you're not like them, right, your friend asks, mockingly
It's all shame and wanting to desperately fit in, to be accepted by people who only see yellow skin and stilted accent and where are you really from?
It's never seeing people who look like you in the media and entertainment, it's being quiet and complacent in the lack of representation and diversity
It's eventually finding pride in being different, that there are people like you and you can be different together
It's embracing faded cultures that remind you of home, and finding your voice to say here I am, here we are
It's being at peace with being Asian, and for once, realising that it's ok
