The text I chose that addresses intercultural encounters and examines identity is an episode from the “Chatty Broads” podcast called “My Experience as an Asian Transracial Adoptee & Survivor”. In this episode, Kailee, the guest, talks about how her identity has changed throughout her life and her journey with self-hatred rooted in racism. Kailee is Korean, but got adopted by white, American parents when she was just 4 months old. She lived in a predominantly white town, and even mentions that in her whole high school, there were only 3 other Asian girls and 1 Black girl. This had a severe impact on her identity. Kailee says that she refused to identify as Asian, and throughout her adolescence, verbally said she identified as White. She was offended by her parents’ attempt to teach her about Korean culture as a child.
Kailee faced an internal conflict: “I looked at my life through a white lens… and so I have a lot of insight from the oppressing side and also from the oppressed”. Since American culture is rooted in white supremacy, Kailee from a young age subconsciously viewed White Americans as the One, and minorities, specifically Asians, as the Other. As such, she did not want to be associated with them. As a teenager, she worked at Abercrombie, and she explains that she used to hate when Asians walked into the store. She would be annoyed when they had broken English and even says she felt disgust towards them. Kailee felt better about herself by thinking she was above the other Asians.
This identity crisis that Kailee faced while growing up was rooted in internalized racism. She hated the fact that she was Asian. Kailee mentions that one of her self-hatred mechanisms was to tell guys at a party that her name was sushi, just to get their attention. This podcast episode was extremely insightful and I recommend that everyone gives it a listen. Kailee is extremely vulnurable and honest about how she dealt with being Asian in a predominantly White community. I thought it was so eye-opening how she admits to having disgust for people from her own race and she was basically in denial over identity. The most important takeway from this is that everyone has some sort of internalized racism, just because of the way oiur society works. The first step is recognizing it and unpacking why you think that , and then educating yourself to think differently. This is the only way to be truly anti-racist.