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GOLDSEA |
YOUR TRUE STORIES
[NOTE TO READERS: This page is closed to new input. You can post new true stories and continue discussions at the new improved Instant Polls & Comments area. --Ed.]
Growing Up with Racism
know every single Asian person out there has experienced some form of racism growing up. As for me, the racism I had experienced as a child has greatly affected me as an adult (I am now 21 years old). Well here goes my story...
I grew up dirt poor. My mother, my sister, and myself shared a small studio apartment with no utilities. I went to a predominantly black school, I was teased for being poor and being the only Asian at the school, but being a tomboy, I ran with the school bullies and the teasing stopped. Life was great for the time being. The only thing that mattered to me was having fun like any other kids in grade school.
When I was thirteen, my mother got married and we moved to the suburbs. The school was about 50% white and 50% Asian. There, I was teased constantly. The white kids wouldn't accept me because I wasn't white and the Asian kids wouldn't accept me because I was too "ghetto." Everyday my life was threatened and I was beat up and hospitalized many times by both white and Asian boys twice my size and strength. The crazy thing was these same kids that were harrassing me for being "ghetto" were running around school claiming to be living in the projects and "banging to survive." The teachers and administrators knew what was going on. They kept assuring me that if I "studied and became smart like all the other Korean kids," it would all stop. They even went as far as putting me in all-honors classes, which did not help. In fact, I deemed "stupid" by the kids in those classes since I was not on their level. Then again, who would? Most of the kids in these classes had intensive outside tutoring.
During my freshman year of high school, my sister was killed by a stray bullet while visiting my father. My mother went into a major depression. She lost her husband and her job. We moved back to our old home and I got a job working at a local fast food restaurant. When these kids found out I had moved, they tracked me. They would my prank call my job constantly. They even went as far as calling my manager and telling him I was hustling drugs at the restaurant. I was fired.
For the longest time, all I could think of doing was having my revenge. At school, I fell in with the wrong crowd and I eventually dropped out. Everything you could think of: drugs, liquor, having unprotected sex with different men, I did. Just to prove to myself and others that I was rough and tough and didn't give a f***.
Later, I found out that one of the boys that had put me in the hospital and gotten me fired, his parents owned a prominent dry cleaners nearby. No better payback then rob their ass. Like all attempted robberies, I was caught and locked up for two years.
It's been awhile since all this had gone down. Still, there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about it. I'm in the process of getting my life together and back on track, but it's hard. I know I can't go on blaming these kids for the rest of my life. However, I just want all the little kids reading this to know that it is not worth ruining someone's life for a few laughs because they might a little different.
Anonymous
Monday, September 16, 2002 at 21:50:08 (PDT)
[64.12.96.10]
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GOLDSEA |
YOUR TRUE STORIES
[NOTE TO READERS: This page is closed to new input. You can post new true stories and continue discussions at the new improved Instant Polls & Comments area. --Ed.]
READER COMMENTS
I admire your courage in writing this story and in getting your life back together. it is so true that what kids say and do during the school years affect people for the rest of their lives. i went through something similar to your story, and sometimes you just feel like giving up and throwing in the towel, but the fact that you made it through those rough times says something about your strength and courage. hang in there and things WILL get better!
gina
Saturday, September 21, 2002 at 16:29:35 (PDT)
[63.208.68.201]
I know what you mean. I grew up in the same situation. Moving from ghetto to the suburb was hard. All of these spoon fed a**hole kids thought they were all that, always trying to disrespect you, thinking that they were all harda**es.
I still think about all of the hard times that I went through both in the ghetto life & trying to adapt in the rich suburbian lifestyle. It's hard to move on from the bad memories; life is full of some fu*cked up sh*t, but that's the way it goes. It almost seems like the motto, "Money Talks", you either got it made or you don't. You either sink or swim, the ones who had a good childhood, raised in a successful family, usually tend to do prosper in life. Those kids only have worry about discovering their self image as they go through college & then settle down.
Whereas, those who suffer, have to struggle in order to move on. They have to work twice as hard to get over from the past. Lots of the negativity is what hinders me to move on, but I realize, I'm just gonna have to deal with it, work twice & move on. At least, living in the ghetto life gives me a better appreciation of life & the people around me, so in that case, I feel that I am twice as strong & have twice the wisdom than those spoonfed kids.
My advice to those kids: you gotta keep an open mind, don't be a little snooty bitch & look down on others. Not everyone had it made like you guys, so understand & be a little simpathetic. What goes around comes around, so just keep that in mind!
Life Isn't Always Fair!
Friday, September 20, 2002 at 20:22:50 (PDT)
[68.4.253.208]
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