Reminding Myself What I Stand For

By Alison Fong

It took one memorable weekend to reawaken my senses and remind myself what I stand for. With my two suitemates busily working on their SMG group projects, I immersed myself into personal reflection and revelation through two culturally inspiring activities and an email.

Has this ever happened to you? A stranger catches your eye and asks to you in a curious manner, "Where are you from? How do you speak English so well?" It happens to Asian Americans. I had learned better than to allow a stranger to injure my pride as an American. When confronted with this situation, I got frustrated. "Idiot, where are you from? How do you speak English so well?" Instead, I smiled at their ignorance and said, "I'm from Boston. I grew up here and have spoken English all my life."

I had once considered myself an Asian American progressive, a true believer of change and progress. Having grown up in a relatively liberal community, I have never faced any harsh incidents of racism. The extent to which I had been prejudged was defined by such incidents of ignorance rather than outright racism. The stranger's seemingly innocent question has the undertone of "you don't really belong, you are a foreigner in this country," which is sadly uninformed and insensitive. When I learned that my Chinese ancestors were part of the great American railroad project in the mid 19th century, I realized that we Asians were just as "American" as the Irish. My birthright as a citizen of the US.

I viewed myself as someone who would never, ever let anyone step my pride because of my race. However, to my disappointment I realized this weekend that the personal promise of dignity that I made years ago was a memory that is only finally coming back to me this weekend.

I went to a radical Asian American book reading on Friday night. I sat among a small group of radicals with buzz cuts. We watched a Sri Lankan lesbian perform several rap poems, and then listened to Fred Ho, the editor and a contributor to the anthology, speak. I admit, I felt out of place in my preppy outfit and was a little skeptical of the Asian America Fred advocated. As I left, I laughed at his unrealistic solution to changing society, my head shaking in elation. I stopped laughing when I realized that the society I saw through my eyes was much more bleak. At some point I had the energy, the imagination to believe that I could personally impact the state of Asians in America. When had I turned so cynical? As I stood shivering in the cold waiting for Bus #1, my lips turned purple.

Perhaps, this was exactly what I needed: As part of BU's world fair 2000, I attended my first Asian Student Union event the following evening–a comedy show by a really good-looking guy, Eliot Chang. I laughed a lot, including at the bit of Asian American humor he weaved in his act. In a workshop on Asians in the media that followed, he threw out some names, one of which included Vincent Chin. Someone in the audience reminded Eliot that many in the largely Asian audience might not know who Vincent is, and I twitched.

My senior year of high school, my friends and I started an Asian Awareness club, the first of its kind. Its emphasis was not on the culture of Asians overseas, but dedicated to us, the ones here, us Americans. I remember telling my friends and anyone who would listen to me about the story of Vincent Chin. But my high school days are gone. I am a Junior in CAS, today, sitting in the Ziskind Lounge laughing at Eliot's jokes, and I twitched at Vincent's name. Do you know who he is?
I received a forwarded email from my friend at SUNY Binghamton. I hate forwards, but I opened this one because the title read, "BinghamtonHATECrime." In February, several Asian American students at Binghamton were assaulted and called racial-laden names by several University athletes. It appeared that the Binghamton administration was slow in their response to the incident; it took them two weeks to acknowledge the incident. And when they did, they made no mention of the racial slurs, slurs that are a piercing insult to the Asian American community as well as anyone who believes in racist-free community.

This e-mail came only as a mild surprise to me. I had heard about the incident before. And ever since the summer of 1995, when participated in an internship at the Chinese Progressive Association, I discovered that in the very America I live in, hate crimes do occur to Asian Americans. Did you know that in the 1980s, a Chinese American man was batted to his bloody death in Detroit by two men laid off by their car company? Vincent Chin was his name. This is an oversimplified recount of the story, but here goes: His killers blamed Japanese car companies for their situation, and in a fit of perverse, drunken anger, murdered Vincent. I don't know how in their minds they associated anger towards a Japanese car companies to Vincent. As an Asian American, I do know that we have a long way to go.

Hateful incidences occur not only to Asian Americans, as you know, but to many other groups of people. In addition, they happen here, yes, at BU. Even in my safe little nest at BU. I got a call from my roommate, and she told me that someone had vandalized our door on the third floor of Danielsen Hall. A disgusting stick figure with slanted eyes was depicted on our door. Derogatory words of a racial nature were also written. We called the BU police.
No matter how much I would like to forget the incident, the irony of the event is branded in my head: Our door was defaced on Valentines Day of last year. It ruined the lovely day I had been spending with my boyfriend and clouded it with the thought of hate.

In the week to follow, we anxiously waited to hear from the BU police. My roommate and I even conducted our own investigative work. And we waited and waited, but we never got a call back. And we didn't do anything about it.

Today, more than a year later, I reflect on this past weekend and let to the inspirational words of Fred and Eliot reawakened my Asian pride and my optimistic stance on Asian America. I promise, that I will never again let cynicism and inaction get the best of me. In regards to the horrible day that February, I am writing in regret that I didn't do more to follow through on the case, on a personal level as well as a societal level. Maybe the perpetrators wouldn't have gotten away. If I would have alerted more of the BU community to the incident, maybe several students would have altered their "it would never happen at BU" attitudes.

I finally called the police this morning to find out about what happened to our case: It was closed five days after the incident happened. The detective told me that someone from my dorm admitted to writing on our door, but not the racial stuff. And they couldn't find out anything else. When I asked why no one called us, he said that it wasn't their procedure. Where was the BU community when we needed them? It wasn't there for my roommate and I. We called the detective and left messages, but they never respond. The painter who had come to coat our door with a fresh layer of paint gave us sympathetic nod the day after the incident. But our RA didn't stop by until days after it occurred. And today, I vow never again to sit back and just wait.

Alison Fong is a Chinese American and is a student intern for legal services that provide free legal assistance for low-income Asians. She is also an undergraduate majoring in sociology at Boston University.

"...I discovered that in the very America I live in, hate crimes do occur to Asian Americans. Did you know that in the 1980s, a Chinese American man was batted to his bloody death in Detroit by two men laid off by their car company? Vincent Chin was his name."


Photo of Vincent Chin. He was beaten to death by two White men angry that they were laid off from their job.