I found this week’s theme and reading to be incredibly empowering and validating. Too often, we are made to believe that microaggressions committed against us which we see and vocally identify are simply misunderstandings, well intended, or overreactions on our part. However, as Prof. Valverde explained in her article, they still have emotionally and physically detrimental effects on us, and that isn’t something we can or should just “get over” or blindly forgive. The study of social engineering in order to create a system that is designed to use us while pushing us down is rarely discussed outside of ethnic studies courses, and this further reinforces the idea that perhaps we are overreacting. I’m glad for the topics discussed and lectured upon which bring this issue to the conversational forefront: the system is more insidious than they want us to think. While it may be considered gauche by some to speak on our negative experiences with the system in the modern day, we must critically examine why that is the case. As touched on in Prof. Valverde’s article, her reaching out to others in a similar situation, rather than isolating her, helped her find a community of people with similar experiences — women of color also encountering an academic glass ceiling — who then empowered her to achieve her goal.
For me, one of my most vivid memories of discrimination occurring in my childhood was the time we were driving across the American border into Canada to visit my maternal grandparents. My father forgot his passport in our luggage in the trunk and went to get it. The border police found this suspicious and pulled us over. They took an awfully long time rummaging through our luggage, while they let the white folks stopped at the station go before us, even though they arrived after. After forty five minutes or so, they finally came back to give us our roll of chả lụa which we had bought only the previous day, which had been professionally wrapped, as it came from a Vietnamese grocery store. For those not familiar with it? It’s ham. They gave us back our HAM with a massive bite in it — they even bit through the banana leaf wrapping! The white male police officer was very aggressive in giving our things back, messed up and thrown about. He said, “Never bring this into Canada again.” We had to drive back over the border to throw it away. It was supposed to be a gift for my grandmother.
I wonder if he remembers, and if he’s very proud of it. Did you get the threat, sir? Did you secure the nation?
For me, one of my most vivid memories of discrimination occurring in my childhood was the time we were driving across the American border into Canada to visit my maternal grandparents. My father forgot his passport in our luggage in the trunk and went to get it. The border police found this suspicious and pulled us over. They took an awfully long time rummaging through our luggage, while they let the white folks stopped at the station go before us, even though they arrived after. After forty five minutes or so, they finally came back to give us our roll of chả lụa which we had bought only the previous day, which had been professionally wrapped, as it came from a Vietnamese grocery store. For those not familiar with it? It’s ham. They gave us back our HAM with a massive bite in it — they even bit through the banana leaf wrapping! The white male police officer was very aggressive in giving our things back, messed up and thrown about. He said, “Never bring this into Canada again.” We had to drive back over the border to throw it away. It was supposed to be a gift for my grandmother.
I wonder if he remembers, and if he’s very proud of it. Did you get the threat, sir? Did you secure the nation?
Question: What do they (white people / the people in power) really think of us? Are we a threat or are we subservient losers? If we're so subservient, what are they so afraid of?
References:
Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde. “Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia.”
Pham, H., & Pham, K. (2010, February 8). [Cha Lua Gio Song Vietnamese Ham]. Retrieved January 11, 2019, from http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2010/02/cha-lua-vietnamese-ham-recipe.html
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