Jhon Smith
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- Dec 19, 2014
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- 187
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Dear Madam:
Maybe I should have let it go. Turned the other cheek. We had just gotten out of church, and I was with my family and some friends on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We were going to lunch, trying to see if there was room in the Korean restaurant down the street. You were in a rush. It was raining. Our stroller and a gaggle of Asians were in your way.
But I was, honestly, stunned when you yelled at us from down the block, “Go back to China!”
I hesitated for a second and then sprinted to confront you. That must have startled you. You pulled out your iPhone in front of the Equinox and threatened to call the cops. It was comical, in retrospect. You might have been charged instead, especially after I walked away and you screamed, “Go back to your fucking country.”
“I was born in this country!” I yelled back.
It felt silly. But how else to prove I belonged?
This was not my first encounter, of course, with racist insults. Ask any Asian-American, and they’ll readily summon memories of schoolyard taunts, or disturbing encounters on the street or at the grocery store. When I posted on Twitter about what happened, an avalanche of people replied back to me with their own experiences.
Follow
Michael Luo
✔@michaelluo
Well dressed woman on Upper East Side, annoyed by our stroller, yells: "Go back to China...go back to your f---ing country."#thisis2016
6:29 PM - 9 Oct 2016
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Gene Park
✔@GenePark
I've been shouted this many times, even in supposedly "post-racial" Hawai'i. https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785155341839458304 …
8:16 PM - 9 Oct 2016 · Philadelphia, PA, United States
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David Kim @davidmkim
The last couple years - even in this "multi-cultural" NYC - I've felt less and less welcome. I was born in Korea, but I grew up in the US. https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785178347760418816 …
8:16 PM - 9 Oct 2016
But for some reason — and, yes, it probably has to do with the political climate right now — this time felt different.
Walking home later, a pang of sadness welled up inside me.
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You had on a nice rain coat. Your iPhone was a 6 Plus. You could have been a fellow parent in one of my daughters’ schools. You seemed, well, normal. But you had these feelings in you, and, the reality is, so do a lot of people in this country right now.
Maybe you don’t know this, but the insults you hurled at my family get to the heart of the Asian-American experience. It’s this persistent sense of otherness that a lot of us struggle with every day. That no matter what we do, how successful we are, what friends we make, we don’t belong. We’re foreign. We’re not American. It’s one of the reasons that Fox News segment the other day on Chinatown by Jesse Watters, with the karate and nunchucks and broken English, generated so much outrage.
My parents fled mainland China for Taiwan ahead of the Communist takeover. They came to the United States for graduate school. They raised two children, both of whom went to Harvard. I work at The New York Times. Model minority, indeed.
Yet somehow I still often feel like an outsider.
And I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. Perhaps, more important, I wonder whether my two daughters who were with me today will always feel that way too.
Yes, the outpouring of support online was gratifying.
View image on Twitter
Follow
Bill de Blasio
✔@BilldeBlasio
@michaelluo - Shouldn't have to affirm it, but EVERYONE belongs in NYC. What doesn't belong here are comments like you heard today.
10:23 PM - 9 Oct 2016
But, afterward, my 7-year-old, who witnessed the whole thing, kept asking my wife, “Why did she say, ‘Go back to China?’ We’re not from China.”
No, we’re not, my wife said, and she tried to explain why you might have said that and why people shouldn’t judge others.
We’re from America, she told my daughter. But sometimes people don’t understand that.
I hope you do now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/n...-to-china.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Sincerely,
Michael Luo
Maybe I should have let it go. Turned the other cheek. We had just gotten out of church, and I was with my family and some friends on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We were going to lunch, trying to see if there was room in the Korean restaurant down the street. You were in a rush. It was raining. Our stroller and a gaggle of Asians were in your way.
But I was, honestly, stunned when you yelled at us from down the block, “Go back to China!”
I hesitated for a second and then sprinted to confront you. That must have startled you. You pulled out your iPhone in front of the Equinox and threatened to call the cops. It was comical, in retrospect. You might have been charged instead, especially after I walked away and you screamed, “Go back to your fucking country.”
“I was born in this country!” I yelled back.
It felt silly. But how else to prove I belonged?
This was not my first encounter, of course, with racist insults. Ask any Asian-American, and they’ll readily summon memories of schoolyard taunts, or disturbing encounters on the street or at the grocery store. When I posted on Twitter about what happened, an avalanche of people replied back to me with their own experiences.
Follow
Michael Luo ✔@michaelluo
Well dressed woman on Upper East Side, annoyed by our stroller, yells: "Go back to China...go back to your f---ing country."#thisis2016
6:29 PM - 9 Oct 2016
- https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=785155341839458304
1,9851,985 Retweets
1,6141,614 likes
Follow
Gene Park ✔@GenePark
I've been shouted this many times, even in supposedly "post-racial" Hawai'i. https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785155341839458304 …
8:16 PM - 9 Oct 2016 · Philadelphia, PA, United States
Follow
David Kim @davidmkimThe last couple years - even in this "multi-cultural" NYC - I've felt less and less welcome. I was born in Korea, but I grew up in the US. https://twitter.com/michaelluo/status/785178347760418816 …
8:16 PM - 9 Oct 2016
But for some reason — and, yes, it probably has to do with the political climate right now — this time felt different.
Walking home later, a pang of sadness welled up inside me.
Sign Up for the Race/Related Newsletter
Join a deep and provocative exploration of race with a diverse group of New York Times journalists.
Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
You had on a nice rain coat. Your iPhone was a 6 Plus. You could have been a fellow parent in one of my daughters’ schools. You seemed, well, normal. But you had these feelings in you, and, the reality is, so do a lot of people in this country right now.
Maybe you don’t know this, but the insults you hurled at my family get to the heart of the Asian-American experience. It’s this persistent sense of otherness that a lot of us struggle with every day. That no matter what we do, how successful we are, what friends we make, we don’t belong. We’re foreign. We’re not American. It’s one of the reasons that Fox News segment the other day on Chinatown by Jesse Watters, with the karate and nunchucks and broken English, generated so much outrage.
My parents fled mainland China for Taiwan ahead of the Communist takeover. They came to the United States for graduate school. They raised two children, both of whom went to Harvard. I work at The New York Times. Model minority, indeed.
Yet somehow I still often feel like an outsider.
And I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. Perhaps, more important, I wonder whether my two daughters who were with me today will always feel that way too.
Yes, the outpouring of support online was gratifying.
View image on Twitter
Follow
Bill de Blasio ✔@BilldeBlasio
@michaelluo - Shouldn't have to affirm it, but EVERYONE belongs in NYC. What doesn't belong here are comments like you heard today.
10:23 PM - 9 Oct 2016
- https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=785214142487601152
1,4231,423 Retweets
2,9052,905 likes
But, afterward, my 7-year-old, who witnessed the whole thing, kept asking my wife, “Why did she say, ‘Go back to China?’ We’re not from China.”
No, we’re not, my wife said, and she tried to explain why you might have said that and why people shouldn’t judge others.
We’re from America, she told my daughter. But sometimes people don’t understand that.
I hope you do now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/n...-to-china.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Sincerely,
Michael Luo
