It’s a feeling even before we reach college, before we learn of “Pan-Asian American identity”, the “model minority myth”, and “reactive subculture”. It doesn’t come from books, it comes from the looks. It’s that one you get when you step into your first elementary school bus full of blue eyes, it’s that one you get when you pull out those rice balls, mom just had to pack you for lunch, it’s the look we’ve always gotten after we stepped off that boat. And sometimes it’s the one you get from staring at that person in the mirror that will never change, as much as you might want them to. It is a condemned life. We are the tools of their entertainment. We are the butts of their jokes. We are trapped within our prisons.

But there is hope. There is a way to change the world. It’s time to get some clarity.