During one of the first office days at MMHF, I went down to ask some foundation staff if they could help us translate some documents. We started talking, and they asked me: "How are you related to Eddie?" (Eddie is another Duke student who was here for a month, administering the WSH survey and setting up the groundwork for our interventions; he left shortly before we arrived.) He also happens to be Asian. We are not related.
And then again--in reference to my first blog post on race--this happened just yesterday, during our first visit to a primary school for an education talk...
Teacher/administrator: [to me] "From Korea? Or Japan?"
Me: "Neither..."
T/A: [laughs and moves on]
Later, poor Sophie was confronted by two other people from the school who asked her how I could possibly be American. After she tried to explain that people of different ethnicities are American citizens (and gave up), they then asked her to employ them.
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A girl that went on the trip last year was African-American...and got it much, much worse. She would get completely ignored or teased, making me glad I actually stood out. I'm Taiwanese-American btw!
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