Tag Archives: race

Our Collective Humanity

Language matters. What we say matters.

For too long, we have relied on the societal equalizer of being part of “one human race” to evade conversations of race, racism, and systemic inequities.

To say that we are part of “one human race” simply does not suffice. The phrase “one human race” causes erasure of identities, dismissal of injustices, and gross generalizations of cultures and peoples.

We can no longer seek to only “equalize” ourselves in systems that perpetuate injustice.

Our language can be an act of resistance.

America’s Unwanted Daughter

“Yellow Peril.”
“The Wuhan Virus.”
“The Chinese Virus.”

“Chink.”
“Cough into your elbow.” (Comes closer) “I SAID COUGH INTO YOUR ELBOW!” (Repeats multiple times in a train between stations, so I cannot get out).
“Get away from me.”
– What people have directly said to me on the street

COVID-19 is most definitely changing my experience as an Asian American. When I first wrote about the coronavirus “back in February” (so… just a month ago), I had no expectation that my life would be where it is today. (Did anyone though?) What I shared on video with USAToday had a greater impact than I thought it would – for better, for worse, for everything in between.

Tired of Being Asian

I am a proud Asian American, a proud Chinese American, first generation raised in America, first to go to college and earn a Bachelor’s and Master’s, currently pursuing my doctorate, and just truly so proud of my culture and who I am. To many, and hopefully my family and in some ways even myself, I am the epitome of the American dream.

This is sadly not about that.

I want to detail what it has felt like to be an Asian person in America since the outbreak of coronavirus.

Who am I to SPEAK OUT?

I have definitely uttered those words “music is universal” with nothing but good intent that we could all “speak the language of music” – but good intentions are not good enough, and I know that good intentions do not mean the actions are free from harm or wrongdoing.

A Whitened Idea of Racial Identity

American folk music, as the general music education community knows it today, UPHOLDS systemic racism – most notably, White people on top and Black people underneath them. What I think most music educators in America consider to be folk music today is a WHITENED idea of racial identity. What has been acceptable in the American music education classroom as folk music (think “This Land is Your Land”) is filled with music by White musicians but not representative of our students.