"Don't ask for an easier life; ask to be a stronger person."

yours truly, age 2.

I never really fully understood racism until I got to Junior High school and kids slung derogatory names at me.

Chink.  Gook.  

They would stretch the corners of their eyes, making them look small, thin and slanted, mocking the typical Asian eyes.  Or talk to me in broken English.  Or put their hands together and bow down at me.

Kids can be so cruel.

I cried every day after school for nearly a year.  I cried myself to sleep, praying kids would stop torturing me.  Even worse, I prayed I would wake up and look "normal" like all of my other classmates.  At one point during my childhood, I despised my parents for adopting me.
 

In my school district, you were either Caucasian or African American.  Any other race and classmates would torture you until you went running down the hall, crying to the Principal's office.  Over time, it eventually got easier to be accepted as Asian, but I secretly hated being a different race than all of my friends and even my family.

I was an abandoned baby in South Korea, left in a basket at a bus stop and brought to an orphanage by an elderly gentleman.  I have no records of my birth parents and I have no way to trace them.  Rejected.  Not even my own birth parents wanted me. 

Over the years, I've learned to grow a thick skin.  People make racist comments and sling racist jokes at me like it's nothing.  Boys date me because they've never been with an Asian girl.  Or boys won't date me because I am Asian.  All I've ever wanted was to fit in.  Since when did it become so hard to be accepted and treated equally?

My internal issues of rejection and abandonment never surfaced until lately.  I'm becoming more aware of the way people [outside of my friends circle] talk to me and treat me.  I'm learning that there are more people in this world - more than I noticed - who base someone on the color of their skin, rather than the goodness of their heart or the adversity in their soul. 

I've always hesitated to tell my story.  Abandoned right after birth. Adopted. Abandoned again by age 20. Cancer survivor by age 25.  My story isn't glamorous.  It's not made up of butterflies and rainbows and glitter; it's dark, deep, painful, emotional and heart breaking.  And even after all of these years, it's still embarrassing to talk about.  For years I've always portrayed a sense of strength and resiliency.  Nothing really seemed to phase me.  But as I get older, the strength deteriorates and the vulnerability becomes more apparent.  It gets more difficult to take those racist jokes with a grain of salt. 

"The past has left its stain
Now I feel the shame
I'll seize the day
If you take away
The chains of yesterday."

- Lifehouse -