Easily Palatable
Born into a progressive, left-leaning city as a queer minority, I haven’t faced any horrible hate crimes yet. I consider myself lucky to be living in a state where the queer community is so prevalent; in fact, most people around me are well-educated about queerness, or are queer themselves. But that’s not to say that hate crimes targeting queer people are unheard of where I live. My friend once shared with me a revolting experience he had in the gem of Manhattan: the NYC subway. Peacefully commuting home with his boyfriend on the 6 train—a block away from campus, no less— he was assaulted in the city of progress. An unknown man went up to him, socked him in the face, and yelled, “you are unnatural.” Holding his face in his hands, he reeled back. He was a 5’11 white man, but at that moment, he was terrified. An audience was growing. The man scrammed after realizing that the pedestrians around him were glaring. I was utterly disgusted hearing this, but still unsurprised. While New York is mainly progressive, there are hateful people everywhere you go.
I grew up in Flushing, New York with my low-income immigrant parents. Flushing is a Chinese-predominated neighborhood where Asian grandmas, night markets, and bustling culture thrives. I have never in my life felt racially isolated or targeted there. How could I? Everywhere I go, I see street food vendors and barbecue carts. Chinese supermarkets. Herb stores. Loud conversation in Mandarin— grandmas who don’t know how to use the receiver. I am constantly reminded that I have received a sheltered upbringing. But my upbringing was also marked by comparisons, speech awards, and relentless attention. I was raised by a devout Buddhist mother and a father who could not possibly care less about religion. Straight 4's on my record card traded me cut-up watermelon and beef broth soup every night. I was grateful for how I was raised; it taught me diligence, humility, and hunger. Despite my already stellar marks, my mother enrolled me in every prep school in Flushing during summer.
I didn't have a hobby. I loved to draw, but the most I did with that love was doodle on the side of my math homework quietly. When I enrolled in Hunter College High School at the age of 11, I saw a world beyond grades. Upper east side Manhattan wasn’t the most diverse place to go to school in, but it was unbelievably liberal. I traded straight A’s for loud friends and a social life. By 9th grade, I figured out my gender and sexuality. Female, woman, she/her. It’s convenient. I now understand my sexuality as fluid— bisexual is the most digestible way to put it. I don’t mold my identity to suit those around me better, but I’ll label it with conventions in mind. I’m okay with that. Once a people pleaser, always will be.
Manhattan is loud, bold, and very white. Though my school’s demographic is 40 percent Asian, I still don’t feel at home. My classmates are all filthy rich, and though they don’t dress like it, it’s wildly obvious. Surreal is the only word to describe it— taking English II with the next generation of CEOs. I only just got comfortable with my Chinese identity, and now I’m made to mold into the persona of a social butterfly for Manhattan. It’s a chore constantly rewording and marketing my identity for others when I don’t have it figured out yet myself. White America sees me completely differently than my Chinese community. And like I’m made to, I conform to it. It’s simply my duty as a Chinese-American.
I always check the "Chinese-American" box on my official records. While I never really knew what it meant to be in the intersection of these two identities, I've always been taught to recite the words. Female, Asian, 5'4. That's what the world perceives me as, and that's the label I'll take at face value. I’ve internalized it as an unchanging fact by now.
Ivy Lin is a rising junior in high school and a Next Gen Summer Civic Fellow based in New York. She is a Chinese-American with a passion for cultural studies, digital imaging, and visual art. She draws, paints, and reads in her free time.