My initial reaction to Wong’s poem was deep understanding. Not from direct experience, as I have always liked the color of my skin. However, I did grow up in a culture where colorism is prominent, where others dislike the color of their skin. My family is from Oaxaca, Mexico. A state in Mexico where the majority of the people are closely related to our native ancestors. Having “indio” (“Indian”) features is seen as ugly. Advertisements depict pale-skinned people as the beauty standard. There are products made to “lighten” ones skin. If you are born pale, you are often called “guerra,” which is of the highest compliment. Where my family is from, children are taught to feel what Wong is trying to describe to the reader. That she once longed to be white. Though I have never longed to be white. I do understand how troubling it is for others who are taught to want to be white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe what I am feeling is empathy<\/strong> towards Wong. Empathy is described as “the feeling of understanding another person’s actions. You may not condone the actions or identify with the person, but you accept that their actions weren’t wrong”. I understand Wong’s frustrations with being cast as an “other”. That she wanted to be considered beautiful and not some stereotype, though I personally do not identify with the longing to be white. I do accept that it is not Wong’s fault that she once longed for it, as it is often taught that it is something to long for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know now that once I longed to be white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Nellie Wong<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The opening line of the poem allows the reader to understand that Wong has made a revelation. There was a time before she understood what she was feeling. Now that she has had this realization, she is going to try to make the reader understand why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n to become a women, a desirable women, I began to wear imaginary pale skin<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Nellie Wong <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Instantly, when I read this piece of the poem, I thought of how many immigrants focus so hard on assimilating that they “forget” they are still minorities. People feel as though they are wearing imaginary pale skin that will protect them from prejudice. Often, being racist to other minorities, believing they too are now “white” for accepting and participating in white American culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “when I was growing up, I hungered for American food, American styles, coded: white and even to me, a child born of Chinese parents, being Chinese was feeling foreign, was limiting, was unAmerican”<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Nellie Wong<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Feeling as though the color of one’s skin or that culture is limiting to one’s Americaness spoke deeply to me. As I remember, when I was young, I longed for a “white Christmas”. When people said “white Christmas,” I did not know that people were referring to snow. I thought others longed for a white person’s Christmas, too. With lots of presents, writing a letter to Santa, mom and dad pretending Santa was real. I wanted that. I, too, then felt that my culture was limiting my experience of being American. Growing up American feels like it means white. Though the older I get, I realize the difference in perspectives and interactions of differing cultures is what makes America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “when I was growing up, I felt ashamed of some yellow men, their small bones, their frail bodies, their spitting on the streets, their coughing, their lying in sunless rooms, shooting themsleves in the arms”<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Nellie Wong<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I feel for Wong in feeling shame in her culture. I can understand this perspective, as there are things I am ashamed of that are normalized in my own culture. However, every culture has things it could be ashamed of. Humans are not perfect; instead of focusing on the wrongs people do, we must see the beauty. Which is difficult for a child to see when the grass seems to be green on the whiter side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Chinatown, in a area I later learned was a ghetto, one of many hearts of Asian America”<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Nellie Wong<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Finding out that a place that contains one’s culture so closely and comfortably is considered a ghetto can be polarizing to a child. Suddenly, the way one lives is seen as poor, ratchet, or trashy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe that the technology at play here is reality shifter. Reality shifter is described as “presenting an alternate reality in the form of an absurd or unrealistic plot, character, or story world”. The way in which the poem is set up, it feels as though the reader is moving from longing to reality. Shifting between both allows Wong to assert both judgments she’s made as well as judgments society has pushed onto Asian Americans. The absurd plot would be her actually turning white; in an alternate reality, she would be able to actually wear her imaginary pale skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poem by Nellie Wong. 1973. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding My Experience My initial reaction to Wong’s poem was deep understanding. Not from direct experience, as I have always liked the color of my skin. However, I did grow up in a culture where colorism is prominent, where others dislike the color of their skin. My family is from Oaxaca, Mexico. A state in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":931,"featured_media":11013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post-3","has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11012"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11147,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions\/11147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/immigrant-literature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Identifying What Caused My Experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Technology at Play<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Featured Image<\/h2>\n\n\n\n