Imagine this: None of your teachers look like you, none of your history classes even skim over your culture’s history, and the only time you see representation in your school is when you look in the mirror.

This is how I have felt in my time at predominantly white schools, specifically in elementary and middle school. 

Due to the lack of understanding I have faced, most people get parts of my identity incorrect. Right here, right now, I want to clarify my identity, even though I know it won’t be the last time.

Here are the facts:

I am a second generation immigrant child. I am Asian, and I am Korean. My grandparents were born in Korea when it was one country, but were then labeled North Korean once the country split. My dad and his family immigrated to Canada early in their lives.

That is who I am, and no one can take that from me.

Yet for reasons that continue to bewilder me, people have tried to put me down and ignore these facts about who I am. 

I attended the same school from kindergarten through eighth grade. In my graduating class, there were just two Asian people including myself and only a handful of other kids who were not white. 

Due to this, it was nearly impossible for me to connect with my peers about race, as no one understood the injustices that I have faced as a mixed-race, Asian woman.

One of the hardest things that I have encountered as a mixed-race student in a predominantly white school is that there is such a lack of understanding of the lives of those who are minorities that there tends to be a lot of inappropriate questions, and no one seems to realize what it is like to be on the receiving end of them.

Going back as far as first grade, when I would tell people that I am North Korean, I was faced with the same question every time: “Isn’t that the bad one?”

I was seven years old at the time. How was I supposed to know which side was “bad” and which side was “good?”

I couldn’t even fathom that I was from the “bad” one, so I would just tell people that they probably had it backwards, and that it is the other one. While I did learn more of my history later, it never took away the hurt that I felt whenever someone asked me that question.

In my opinion, it feels similar to asking someone if they are from the “bad” one when they are descended from pilgrims who took the land of the Native Americans when America was first colonized. No one asks that question to them, so what gives someone the right to ask that of me just because I am of Asian descent? 

Later, in middle school, I started to become more aware of the racism in the world and the offenses happening in my own school.

Yet when I tried to bring that up with my friends, they objected, “but that doesn’t happen here, right?” They meant our school, the same one where students started laughing when someone with an Asian accent spoke on a video we watched in class.

Not wanting to cause an argument or be an imposition, I corroborated their statement, despite the fact that racism existed in this community. To me, that moment was my chance to call out all of the racism that I had seen over the years, but rather than standing up, I stayed quiet. I could have stood up for everyone at that school who kept quiet, but instead, I felt that I let every racist statement get swept under the rug.

It was me ignoring the microaggressions, the downright racist statements, and every moment of representation that was denied to my community and myself. 

There was another time in sixth grade during our world history class where we were discussing injustices, specifically racism. One kid then spoke up and asked, “Why don’t they come here?” insinuating that we don’t have racism, systemic or otherwise, in this country.

Both myself and the one other non-white kid in my class turned to look at him instantaneously only to see that he was serious.

It was ridiculous.

Being sheltered is one thing, but saying that if you go to one place, you will escape racism is something different.  

One of the most profound moments that I have experienced is when we went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. I was with my three best friends — all of whom were white — when we walked through a segregated bus.

It was always apparent that I am different from my white friends, but seeing the colored section of the bus made me realize that if we were still segregated, my life would be completely different. 

In all the years that I spent with them, I never felt further away from them than in that exact moment. I could vividly picture myself sitting in the back, away from all of the people that I knew. 

It was like watching a movie as I imagined my life in the time of legal segregation. I could see myself not being able to go to my middle school or my high school; I could see myself sitting on the back of the bus; and I could even picture my parents not being able to marry because of the stigma circling interracial marriages.

That feeling of knowing that my life would be incredibly different due to the color of my skin in ways that it never would for all of my friends, teachers, and classmates was the most isolating thing I had ever experienced. 

The first time that I saw people like myself roam the halls of my school was the day that I started at La Salle. While this school is also not perfect in regards to race, it has made many moves to try to be a more inclusive place. 

We have things that I never dreamt would exist earlier in my life, such as Roots Week and the AAPI Affinity Group. I am still sometimes surprised by how many faces I see in my classes similar to my own.

Now when I look in the mirror, it isn’t just my reflection that looks back at me.

Across my education, while I have had a lot of isolating moments and felt alone more frequently than I wish I had, I still had a good experience.

My education has been incredible — I definitely would not be where I am today without what I went through — and I made friends that I still talk to today.

While this is not meant to call anyone out on something that they may have said or done, I do want to make a point about what the impacts of these experiences have been on me. 

I’ve had a lot of doubt in myself and my identity over the years, especially when it comes to my appearance. Quite a few people have told me that I don’t look that Asian to them, and that’s always made my heart fall a little. 

Another thing that arose quite often was that people of color would be grouped together. People would confuse someone who is Chinese for someone who is Japanese and wouldn’t correct themselves, just allowing for everyone to be stuck under the umbrella term of “Asian.” 

Overall, I think that the thing that I would want to improve the most when it comes to race in places like my elementary and middle school is accepting someone of their race — even when they are like me and are mixed — and for there to be an acceptance of individuals for who they are, rather than placing them under umbrella terms that makes them one of the many rather than their own person. 

It wasn’t just this though, as — at least in my opinion — there seemed to be a systemic checklist of what you needed to be or what you needed to have to consider yourself as a part of a certain race. It felt as though you had to act, look, or sound a certain way to be a part of a community you were born to. 

Personally, most of my struggles with my identity have come from this checklist of sorts that defined what it meant to be of a certain race. In that school, there wasn’t anything helping me to accept my identity, as everything and everyone only fit one box. 

I’m from more than just one box or one race, yet I always felt like I had to be one or none. 

For so long, I felt like I had a foot in both doors, leaving me in a place where I would always be on the outside looking in. That state of being defined for who I was for so long, and while I have worked very hard to find a place for myself, these experiences and defining moments are still something that guide me, haunt me, and change me to this day.