Day 442: asian eyes

i’ve been reading more literature around race, and much of it seems to fall into the tragedy of believing those identities as Truth, of viewing all of life through that singular lens and flattening ourselves into narratives. there’s another way, a way that leads to liberation rather than separation, and that’s letting go of identity entirely.

however, letting go of identity becomes much easier after making peace with it first

the path: unhealthy identity → healthy identity → no identity

even though i feel there’s a crucial piece missing from our current dialogue around race and identity, i’m learning a lot from reading various takes and perspectives. as someone who went through a period of being a self-hating asian in college, this passage hit especially hard:

A fascinating little-known fact about the Korean War is that an American surgeon, David Ralph Millard, stationed there to treat burn victims, invented a double-eyelid surgical procedure to make Asian eyes look Western, which he ended up testing on Korean sex workers so they could be more attractive to GIs. Now, it’s the most popular surgical procedure for women in South Korea.

- Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

may we all learn to love ourselves, just as we are