In this story, Ulla shares about her Chinese American husband’s multicultural upbringing. She also speaks on the critical importance of Asian American representation in media.
My husband's family fled China twice. The first time, they fled from Shanghai to mainland Hong Kong due to the Japanese invasion during World War II. The second time, they fled Mao and ended up in Brazil, where my husband grew up, by the Copacabana beach. It sounds like a wonderful place to grow up, but there were very few Asians in Rio de Janeiro, and my husband and his siblings were mocked daily. Luckily, his parents managed to have them attend an American school. The situation there was much better. It consisted of many international students and was a big mixing pot of different nationalities, so no one stood out.
When my husband’s grandmother visited, it was difficult for her to walk because her
feet were bound. The kids in the neighborhood thought it looked "funny.” When they saw her outside, they all huddled together at a spot farther away from her and pretended that they saw something very exciting to lure her over there so they could laugh and see her walk, which was horrible.
Only my husband's mother had gone to school at all, and only for 6 years. That's how it was for girls in those days. His father never went to school at all, but learned to read and write on his own. From what I understand, he began working in my husband’s maternal grandfather’s store at a very young age. He was only 5-7 years old when he started helping out with sweeping the floors, etc. He worked himself up to one day marrying the owner’s daughter (my mother-in-law) and taking over the business when the owner passed away prematurely. He was a very determined boy and young man.
Once in Brazil, my husband's parents started an import business for Chinese goods and did alright. Everyone learned Portuguese. They saved enough money to be able to send all their four kids to college in the United States, and they all worked really hard and did well in college, despite this now being their third language.
My husband is a professor at UCSD, but is starting to wind down and preparing to retire. Our son is mixed Chinese/White, and as a mother I see the racism in the society, and it hurts. Lately, the racism against Asian Americans has become more physical, but that does not mean it didn’t exist before. It often was (and is) silent racism, subtle racism, that forces Asian Americans to seem invisible in society. It’s as if a lot of the people in charge of media and entertainment want to erase Asian American existence, especially the boys. An Asian American young man or boy in commercials, or as the hero/leader in any movie or show, is extremely rare. They are almost always given small, subdued roles, which is extremely upsetting and needs to change. This is why it’s so important to stand up, be visible, scream and make noise. For our children, for their future, and their children's future!
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