The Minority Experience

"That's it, I give up! I'm never going to learn."

Says a close friend of mine after another conversation on the Asian-American culture. This one is triggered by an awkward conversation the night before, and we were trying to explain the nuances and reasoning in the Don't Take the Last Piece of Food rule. Of course, no topic stands on its own, so we eventually went into the conversation of what it looks like when someone else takes the last piece, the grace that white people have in not understanding our rules, but also how what a child does reflects on his or her parent's raising the child well rather than that child being good or bad.

My default reaction is to encourage him that he's doing well, to look at how much he's learned in the past year. But my South Asian friend interjects:

"But see, that's what we deal with every day. We can never choose out of your culture. We just have to learn, make mistakes, and do what's uncomfortable with us. We always have to learn."

She speaks truth.

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"It's a white man's organization," a fellow Asian-American reminds me. He tells me it's hard, but you learn. They tell you to report, to tell everyone how good a job you're doing. And it's awkward, but you do it.

I guess that's the truth even as we move towards multi-ethnicity. That though we are growing, we are still minorities. I think of the way we just systemically function on majority culture, in fund development, in numbers, in strategy. And as an Asian-American, I find myself applying a filter to what I hear. Does this apply to me? How is it different for who I am?

In conversations like these, it's not uncommon to hear the response, "Oh yeah, it's like that for me, too." I used to wonder why this always triggered my defensive reaction, but over the past year, I've learned. Yes, everyone has differences, and we don't always apply to what the speaker is saying up front. But I've also learned that the minority experience is different...that sometimes, someone from majority culture connecting to your experiences invalidates yours, because it's not the same.