After: Jeanann Verlee’s “unsolicited advice to adolescent girls with crooked teeth and pink hair.”
When they ask how you speak English so well, don’t feel proud. When they tell you to go eat bat, tell them to go eat baby cow. When they ask if you work at the Chinese restaurant down the street, ask if you can take their order — and their money. When they harass you, push you, spit at you and blame you for COVID-19, raise your voice: Say no to racism and xenophobia, and demand a world without scapegoats and hate
“… if you don’t see yourself represented outside of yourself you just feel fucking invisible.”
—John Leguizamo, Latin History for Morons
I have felt invisible for most of my life.
I have never immersed myself in a story where someone Filipinx American was the main character. I have never watched a show that was led by a Filipinx American protagonist. I have never read a book by a Filipinx American author. I haven’t ever had a Filipinx American neighbor, not even one, in the 15 years I have lived in Seattle.
