Me Love You Long Time

Out of all of our reading thus far, When I Was Growing Up by Nellie Wong was the most compelling for me. I've never heard an Asian American woman complain about the stereotypes against her, and so somehow that made them true in a way. I believed that she would SUBMIT to such abuse, and so I became a perpetuater of her oppression. Me, of all people! It's difficult to admit when your wrong, but I have never even deeply thought about the way Asian American women are portrayed before reading this poem. I've always been concerned with myself, with women in general. As I was reading her reveal herself, I could only imagine all the pop-ups I've seen that say, "Do you like Asian chicks" "Barely 18 and Japanese" "Japanese girls and candy" or the horror stories of mail order brides. I hate that they're treated this way, like dolls and not people. I wish we could respect and admire Asian beauty as a delicate culture rather than poke and probe at it with barbaric perversion. I wish we could respect Asian women as women, and not treat them like children because Western body types are bigger and rounder than the stereotypical Asian body type. Why do we not stereotype Asian men the same way? Why don't we have male order husbands? I've never met an Asian woman who wasn't respectful, proud, and intelligent, and these are the attributes of Eastern culture. Nothing about the Eastern tradition is submissive or childlike.