S1:E11: I Wanted To Be A White Girl
In this episode I tell my story about growing up as an asian american and feeling an identity loss.
Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to Mental Breakthrough, a memoir podcast about owning our most vulnerable stories so we can live a life of authenticity.
I’m Maryann Samreth, the woman behind the pen name, Sincerely Miss Mary. Together, I take you through my healing journey as I share stories of moving through pain to get to the other side where the light shines again.
In this season, I carry you moment to moment, starting with a tumultuous breakup, then multiple breakdowns, and eventually a breakthrough.
I share stories of how my gift of writing guided me through the darkest moments of my life, leading me to reconnect with my Cambodian ancestors and break the cycle of generational trauma.
There is power in storytelling and sharing our vulnerabilities with the world. It opens doors to cultivate deeper connections with others on the same journey so we can heal as a collective.
By sharing my truths, I pave the way for others to feel safe sharing theirs. We all have a story to tell. Stories that can be someone’s silver lining. Stories of hope.
Episode Intro:
In this episode I talk about my experience of growing up as an Asian American. There was a lot of shame, assimilating to whiteness, and also confusion of my identity.
It was a constant battle of not being asian enough or being too white. I never felt like I belonged anywhere until I met one of my best friends in 4th grade. This friendship gave me permission to accept myself in ways I couldn’t get to, alone.
Surrounding yourself with people who celebrate your multicultural background and love you because of it is so important in cultivating authenticity in this world.
Today, it’s pretty hard to Asian in America, and seeing on the media the attacks happening towards our race…it’s heartbreaking and frightening that people have so much fear and hate in their hearts.
It makes me angry and so I just channel that rage into fuel to continue raising my voice, taking up space, or telling my stories.
The past year, I have joined so many Asian American communities and met so many people who have had similar experiences as me...drifting apart from our heritage and then reconnecting with it later in life.
It took me a lot of work to get here, but I am finally able to say I’m so proud to be an Asian American, and I will never stop being myself in this world.
Episode 11: I Wanted to Be a White Girl
At six years old, I wanted to be a white girl. I wanted light hair. I wanted blue eyes. I wanted pale skin.
I would stare at the mirror and hysterically cry because I knew I could never change my almond eyes, my button nose, or my dark hair. At six years old, I had convinced myself that to be beautiful, I had to be white, and so began the shaming of my Asian heritage.
I was born and raised in a predominantly white suburb of Chicago, where I was 1 of 5 Asian kids in my elementary school. Calling my childhood whitewashed was an understatement. My first few hours of kindergarten were spent in ESL before the teachers quickly realized I was fluent in English and immediately pulled me out. In third grade, someone started a rumor that I looked like Pocahontas, and for the rest of the year, that was my name, even though I am 100% Cambodian. The constant reminder that I was a minority in school began to shift the way I saw myself.
I began to see myself as less worthy of not being white. I shamed my culture because it wasn’t like the rest of the kids. I wanted to eat a casserole instead of rice. I wanted to go to a Christian church instead of a Buddhist temple. I wanted to speak only English instead of Cambodian. I started heavily assimilating to whiteness, that is until I met my best friend, Jenna.
Jenna was the quintessential white girl I fantasized about: tall, light hair, blue eyes. She was a life-size Barbie. I remember the day we became friends. It was the first day of fourth-grade lunch, and I was sitting by myself until she sat next to me and began to talk to me. I was awestruck that a white girl wanted to be friends. From that day forward, we were attached to the hip. She was my partner in crime for choreographed dance routines to building a rock collection. We even bought matching fake hair buns and Limited Too silk pajamas.
Her endless curiosity towards my Cambodian culture dissolved the embarrassment I had for it. The first day she came over to my house, I was extremely self-conscious. I was embarrassed I shared a room with my Grandma, but to my surprise, she could care less. Instead, she wanted to know her. Even with their language barrier, Jenna would still find a way to communicate with her. She complimented her traditional Khmer sarong and fearlessly ate any Cambodian food she made her. I have never met anyone that loved my Grandma’s infamous eggrolls as much as her. She loved our food so much she called it gourmet, and that pushed me to see the beauty of the food I ate.
She savored the language I spoke with my family. Every time I spoke Cambodian, she would attempt to say a few words to learn it. I use to hate speaking Cambodian specifically in public and around white people. I feared my family getting made fun of or judged, but Jenna loved the language and wanted to hear more of it. She made me feel unique for being bilingual.
The things I hated about my culture were the same things that captivated Jenna. Her openness and willingness to learn about my family allowed us to take up space unapologetically in our white neighborhood.
I, too, was eager to entangle myself in Jenna’s white culture. She gave me my first experience of eating dinner at a friend’s house, which was a foreign concept to my family. My strict parents were always opposed to it until they finally caved after months of my begging. I remember every detail of this dinner–ravioli pasta and a side of green beans. It was an earth-shattering contrast to my daily meals of rice and fish. From that day on, I wouldn’t shut up about pasta until my Grandma surprised our family with homemade spaghetti Bolognese.
Pets were also a foreign concept to my family. My first interaction with pets was with Jenna’s two Tabby cats and one Shih Tzu. Her love for her pets ignited my obsession with animals. For Christmas that year, my mom made me rewrite my wish list because I only listed animals. Eventually, my mom let me get gerbils, and I have Jenna to thank for that.
As kids, we integrated our cultural differences that broadened the views our families had for each other. My Asian heritage didn’t deter her from getting to know me like other people in our neighborhood. She was magnetized by it. I am grateful to have had a friendship that nourished my acceptance of my ethnicity at a young age. Jenna paved the way for me to love my multifaceted identity. She never let me forget about my Cambodian roots from day one. Together, we celebrated it. Looking back at our friendship, I realize Jenna loved all parts of me before I did. Without her, I would continue to stray away from my culture just to blend in. She made me feel proud to be a Cambodian Asian American.
Jenna is still my best friend today. We are celebrating over twenty years of friendship founded by the complexities of our cultural differences. A week ago, when I told her I was writing about our friendship, I asked her if she remembered why she chose to sit next to me at lunch in 4th grade. She said it was because she thought I was beautiful and wanted to learn about my Asian background. I began to cry because I had equated my Asian features with ugliness at that age. I would never have fathomed a beautiful white girl thinking of me as the same. Her broadened view of beauty for a nine-year-old girl sparked a friendship that changed my life.
Our friendship was rare for a 90s kid. I didn’t face racism in the same way my parents did. Jenna’s desire to immerse herself in cultures outside hers expanded her humanness as a white woman.
Racism begins with a lack of knowledge about someone on a human level. It is easier to judge and hate a person when you have not taken the initiative to get to know them past their physical appearances. Ignorance can lead to fear. Fear can lead to judgment. Judgment can lead to hate.
At nine years old, we built a blissfully raw and honest friendship, naïve to the attempt of systemic racism, tearing us apart. At nine years old, our association challenged the status quo. I want to see a world-embracing every race in the same way my best friend did. I do not know how to dismantle racism, but I hope curiosity can be an initial step.
Curiosity can lead to knowledge. Knowledge can lead to acceptance. Acceptance can lead to love.
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background or his religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
NELSON MANDELA, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
In today’s movement, Gen Z’s and millennials are unionizing to redefine America– a country that no longer tolerates racism, but encourages acceptance and love.
We are amplifying people of color to dismantle the white patriarchy utilizing race as a hierarchy. We are raising our voices and calling out injustice within our family, friends, and employers.
We are encouraging society to do the inner work of educating themselves on systemic oppression like the Asian Model Minority Myth so we can move away from our whitewashed history. We are using curiosity to unlearn what we were taught and to rebuild an anti-racist mindset.
Voluntary ignorance is no longer an option if we want to be better and do better. We must keep questioning, keep learning, keep growing, so we can actualize an inclusive nation where people of color are seen, heard, and loved.
The visible corruption of our country is cultivating a generation of future leaders who have a sense of urgency to do things differently. Mixed with our high functioning ability to navigate social media is a movement that is creative, contagious, and powerful. I have met so many thought leaders, especially Asian Americans raising their voices unapologetically.
Our generation is tapping into the significance of our voices to become the change we will see in the world. With our strong-willed nature and our relentless hearts, we will get there.
We have woken up to our power, and we are never going back to sleep.
Outro:
We all have a story to tell and I want to thank you for listening to mine. I’m Maryann, the woman behind the pen name, Sincerely Miss Mary.
I hope this episode helped you learn a little more about who I am and the struggles I faced as an Asian American. Thank you for listening to my story and being a supporter of my work.
All of you listeners, give me the strength to continue to do what I do by sharing my most vulnerable stories. I hope I have inspired you to be you in this world. You deserve to feel worthy of everything that makes you, you.
Thank you all for listening to my story. If you liked this episode please leave me a review. You can follow me on TikTok and Instagram @sincerelymissmary and download my free breakup workbook that also works for friend breakups, link is also in shownotes.
I will talk to you all next week.
