As I got older, I realised that people saw me as other things - sometimes Korean, sometimes Japanese, sometimes just Asian. When my family moved to a more affluent white neighbourhood, I started to see myself as 'other', this amorphous category. I didn't even know what 'not other' was, but I knew I wasn't it; I wasn't what was normal.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the experience of racial identity and feeling like an outsider due to societal perceptions.
In this quote, Jenny Zhang discusses how her understanding of her identity evolved as she grew older, particularly in response to the way others categorized her based on her ethnicity. Moving to a predominantly white neighborhood led her to recognize herself as 'other,' prompting a sense of alienation as she navigated her identity in a context where she felt she did not belong to the 'normal' or dominant cultural group.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about cultural identity at a diversity workshop.
Mothers have always held such symbolic weight in determining a person's worth. Your mother tongue, your motherland, your mother's values - these things can qualify or disqualify you from attaining myriad American dreams: love, fluency, citizenship, legitimacy, acceptance, success, freedom.
Young people want you to be real with them.
There are a hundred places where I fear To go, --so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
My mother taught me something at a young age - she said 'you are the company you keep.' To define yourself by some label or some level of resources - that's pretty shallow.
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.
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