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• NEW YORK UNIVER SIT Y PRESS • • •
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NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2020 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khanna, Nikki, 1974– author.
Title: Whiter : Asian American women on skin color and colorism / Nikki Khanna.
Description: New York : New York University Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019012043| ISBN 9781479881086 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781479800292 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Asian-American women—Social conditions. | Colorism—United States. |
Race relations—United States. | Racism—United States.
Classification: LCC E184.A75 K495 2020 | DDC 305.800973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019012043
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Also available as an ebook
For my daughter, Olivia Savitri
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• maganda • beautiful
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• I gathered
• my role models
• from television shows
• some spoke my language
• but had skin
• lighter
• than mine.
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• “that’s what you’re
• supposed to look like,”
• Society whispered
• in my ear
• “here’s how you get there,”
• “look over here,”
• “see, this is ideal”
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• white
• with a dash of
• exotic
• and a surfer boy
• on my arm
• waves of blonde.
• that is what
• I want.
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• —Cheyanne Ramón, Filipina American
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• Contents
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• Introduction 1
• Nikki Khanna
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• Part I. Colorism Defined 37
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• 1. Wheatish 43
• Rhea Goveas, Indian American
• 2. Too Dark 48
• Miho Iwata, Japanese (Permanent US Resident)
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• 3. Sang Duc Ho 52
• Catherine Ma, Chinese American
• 4. You’re So White, You’re So Pretty 55
• Sambath Meas, Khmer American
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• 5. You Have Such a Nice Tan! 61
• Ethel Nicdao, Filipina American
• 6. Brown Arms 67
• Tanzila Ahmed, Bangladeshi American
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• 7. Hopes for My Daughter 72
• Bhoomi K. Thakore, Indian American
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• Part II. Privilege 77
• 8. Blessed with Beautiful Skin 82
• Rhea Manglani, Indian American
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• 9. Shai Hei 84
• Rosalie Chan, Chinese/Filipina American
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 10. Whiteness Is Slippery 88
Julia Mizutani, Multiracial Japanese/White American

11. Regular Inmates 92

Sonal Nalkur, Indo- Canadian (Currently Resides in the
United States)

12. Magnetic Repulsion 97

Brittany Ota-Malloy, Multiracial Japanese/Black American

Part III. Aspirational Whiteness 103

13. Digital Whiteness 111
Noor Hasan, Pakistani American

14. Mrs. Santos’s Whitening Cream 114

Agatha Roa, Pacific Islander American

15. Shade of Brown 119

Noelle Marie Falcis, Filipina American

Part IV. Anti- Blackness 125

16. Creation Stories 133
Sairah Husain, Pakistani American

17. What It Means to Be Brown 137

Wendy Thompson Taiwo, Multiracial Chinese/Black American

18. The Perpetual Outsider 143

Marimas Hosan Mostiller, Cham American

Part V. Belonging and Identity 149

19. What Are You? 155
Anne Mai Yee Jansen, Multiracial Chinese/White American

20. Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between 162

Kim D. Chanbonpin, Filipina American

21. Invisible to My Own People 169

Kamna Shastri, Indian American

x • Contents
22. Nobody Deserves to Feel like a Foreigner
in Her Own Culture 175
Erika Lee, Taiwanese/Chinese American

23. Tired 177

Cindy Luu, Vietnamese American

Part VI. Skin— Redefined 183

24. The Very Best of You 187
Joanne L. Rondilla, Filipina American

25. Reprogramming 194

Daniela Pila, Filipina American

26. Cartographies of Myself 199

Lillian Lu, Chinese American

27. The Sun Is Calling My Name 203

Rowena Mangohig, Filipina American

28. Abominable Honhyeol 208

Julia R. DeCook, Multiracial Korean/White American

29. Dear Future Child 212

Kathy Tran-Peters, Vietnamese American

30. Teeth 216

Betty Ming Liu, Chinese American

Notes 221
Bibliography 233
About the Editor 243
About the Contributors 245
Index 253

Contents • xi
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• Introduction
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• Nikki Khanna
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• “Whiteness will make you win,” she tells me.
• She smiles brightly before my screen, and I watch as she tries to
• sell me a skin-whitening pill in a fifty-second Thai commercial.1 I
• can only see the Asian actress from the shoulders up, though from
• her face I can easily see that she is strikingly attractive, with ebony
• hair and porcelain skin. I glance down at my own skin, quickly
• comparing our skin tones. Without the pill, she warns, the white-
• ness she has invested in will vanish, and as if to illustrate her point,
• her skin slowly fades to black and her on-screen expression turns
• despondent and depressed with each darkening frame. The product
• name, Snowz, aptly chosen to evoke whiteness, reminds me of the
• flakes that fall from winter skies—white, pure, nearly translucent.
• The skin of the second model in the commercial, perhaps like
• snow, is bright and white as she beams with a cheery smile before
• my computer screen; apparently she has invested in the dietary
• supplement of glutathione that will prevent her, as the ad claims,
• from becoming a “faded star.” Her light skin and wide grin are in
• direct contrast to the gloomy, black-skinned model next to her. I
• am simultaneously captivated and disgusted by the ad, the juxta-
• position of light and dark and smiles and frowns, the unapologetic
• and explicit racism. I am immediately taken back to my childhood.
• Far from Thailand, or anywhere in Asia for that matter, I grew up
• in suburban Atlanta in the 1980s. As a child, I often spent weekends
• with my parents and younger brother at the local Indian grocer,
• standing among displays of colorful Indian sweets, brass statues of
• Hindu gods and goddesses, and imported tubes of whitening creams
• and bars of whitening soap stacked ever so neatly on store shelves.
•
• • 1
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 Like the two Thai actresses in the Snowz commercial, Indian models,
all light-skinned and nearly white, smiled to me from every package
and tube, promising “total fairness” and “complete whitening.” As
a child waiting in busy check-out lines, impatient and often bored
to tears, I would occasionally occupy my time by checking my skin
color next to the seven shades of the “expert fairness meter” printed
on the side of a Fair & Lovely package. Strategically holding my arm
next to the box, I felt satisfied when I found my shade; it most closely
matched the second-lightest skin swatch. I smiled.
Growing up in the Indian American community, and as a
mixed-race-part-white child at that, I already understood the value
of having light skin.
•
The 2016 online Snowz advertisement was heavily criticized both
within and outside of Thailand for its blatantly racist message and
was promptly pulled by its parent company, though skin-whitening
products like Snowz and Fair & Lovely remain popular throughout
Asia and around the world, and are only the tip of the iceberg. Skin
whitening (also called skin lightening or skin bleaching) is a multi-
billion-dollar global industry that promises consumers “translucent,”
“bright,” “fair,” and “white” skin through moisturizers, foundations,
night creams, anti-aging serums, sunscreens, lip balms, face washes,
soap bars, facials, foot creams, deodorants, and even feminine washes,
pills, laser treatments, and whitening injections. Light-skinned,
near-white models peddling products with names like Snowz, Fair &
Lovely, Bright, White Perfect, White-Light, Lightenex, Whitenicious,
Fairever, White Beauty, CyberWhite, Refined White, DiorSnow, Snow
UV, and Blanc Expert conjure images of whiteness and its explicit
link to beauty, flawlessness, and femininity. The product tag lines,
too, reinforce the message that white is beautiful and read like musty
artifacts from a bygone era: “From Ebony to Ivory” (Glutamax),
“Whatever Keeps My Skin the Purest White” (Bird’s Nest), “Reveal
Your True Inner Fairness” (L’Oreal White Perfect), “Turn Down the
Dark, Turn Up the Bright” (Elizabeth Arden), and “Dark Out, White
In. Increase Your Face Value” (Pond’s White Beauty Facewash).

2 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.1. Advertisement by Pond’s White Beauty with the tagline, “Dark Out,
White In. Increase Your Face Value.” Marketed in Asia, it promises consumers
that they can “get fairer skin right from the first wash.”

Throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East,

advertisements for skin-whitening products are aimed at consum-
ers, most notably women, who are routinely told that their dark
skin is unattractive and a social liability.2 The advertising is every-
where: splashed across roadside billboards, in the pages of glossy
fashion magazines, and on television commercials seemingly aired
on repetitive loops between regularly scheduled programming.
Across South Asia, a common theme for skin-whitening com-
mercials goes something like this: A dark woman is unhappy with
her life—she is often portrayed with a saddened look as depressed,
dejected, and discouraged. She cannot get hired, get promoted, or
find a mate. She uses said cream and, voila! She lands the coveted
job, the elusive promotion, and/or the handsome and successful
husband.3 These “Cinderella” or “ugly-duckling-to-swan” advertise-
ments4 are provocative, highly controversial, and (let’s be honest)
unabashedly racist, yet they are exceedingly effective because
of widely shared cultural beliefs that dark skin is a stigma and a

Introduction • 3
 physical handicap in marriage and job markets. The ads mirror
the message of many societies: Light skin is superior to dark. For
women, the message is even more sobering: Those with light skin
are beautiful and will marry and be successful; if you have dark skin,
too bad for you.
In a study of 312 cultures, fifty-one were found to use skin color
as a marker of beauty, and in all but four, light skin was favored.5
Hence in much of the world, skin shade is significant and light skin
an enviable asset. According to sociologist Margaret Hunter, most
Americans have a general understanding of discrimination between
racial groups and its insidious effect on people of color, but she
notes that “hidden within the process of racial discrimination, is
the often overlooked issue of colorism.”6 “Colorism,” a term first
coined by novelist Alice Walker in 1983,7 refers to the practice of
discrimination whereby light skin is privileged over dark—both
between and within racial and ethnic communities. The bulk of the
literature on colorism typically focuses on intragroup bias—that
which occurs within racial and ethnic groups. African Americans,
for example, have a long history of discriminating against each
other on the basis of skin tone; those with lighter skin are relatively
more privileged within the African American community, while
those with darker hues are typically discriminated against by their
lighter-skinned counterparts. However, colorism also occurs be-
tween racial groups (e.g., whites who privilege light-skinned African
Americans over African Americans with darker skin) and even
between ethnic groups (e.g., Asian ethnic groups discriminating
against each other, such as lighter-skinned Japanese discriminating
against darker-skinned Cambodians). Scholar Darrick Hamilton
and his colleagues conceptualize colorism “as a byproduct of rac-
ism,”8 and Margaret Hunter argues that “colorism would likely not
exist without racism, because colorism rests on the privileging of
whiteness in terms of phenotype, aesthetics, and culture.”9 Perhaps
“racism” and “colorism” can be conceptualized as cousins or as par-
ent and child—distinctly different, but nonetheless closely related.
Colorism affects racial and ethnic groups worldwide, and its
harmful effects are well documented in the United States, particularly

4 • Nikki Khanna
for African Americans. Research shows that light-skinned African
Americans tend to have better health, greater job prospects, higher-
status occupations, higher earnings, greater wealth, and more years
of schooling than those with darker skin;10 light skin is also linked
to perceived intelligence and trustworthiness.11 Dark-skinned
African Americans face within-group bias from other African
Americans, but also bias from other racial groups, including whites,
who tend to favor those with light skin. This practice dates back to
slavery, when white slave owners privileged those with light skin
over those with dark tones; they gave them the more desirable
indoor jobs (while darker-skinned slaves labored in the fields), op-
portunities for education and skilled labor (privileges unavailable
to most slaves), and for some, even their freedom.12 In fact, during
the slave era, free blacks in America were often lighter in color than
those who were enslaved.13
Long after slavery ended, the preference for light skin
continued—even among African Americans. During the Jim Crow
era, light-skinned blacks often used exclusionary practices to discrim-
inate against those with darker skin, and they segregated themselves
physically and socially by creating their own elite social clubs, frater-
nities, sororities, neighborhoods, churches, preparatory schools, col-
leges, business organizations, and even vacation resorts.14 Qualifying
“tests,” such as the paper bag test, were used to control membership,
and only those lighter than the dye of a paper bag would be granted
entry.15 The pressure for light skin was also evident in the homemade
and store-bought skin whiteners used by African Americans during
the Jim Crow era to access light-skin privilege16—including widely
marketed brands such as Nadinola, which guaranteed black women a
“clear, bright, Nadinola-light complexion,” and Dr. Fred Palmer’s Skin
Whitener, which promised that they could be “lighter, clearer and
more beautiful than [they] ever dreamed.” Though skin-lightening
products aimed at black women are less visible (albeit not absent) in
American markets today, the bias for light skin persists: when Barack
Obama ran for his first term as president, Senator Harry Reid, then
the Democratic majority leader, predicted that Obama could become
the nation’s first black president because he had “no Negro dialect”

Introduction • 5
 and was “light-skinned.”17 He apologized for the politically incorrect
gaffe, though perhaps he hit on an uncomfortable truth: Americans,
white and otherwise, react more favorably to light skin as compared
to dark even today.18
A closer look at colorism among African Americans further
reveals that for black women, in particular, light skin is associated
with physical attractiveness19 and success in the marriage market.20
Scholar Mark E. Hill argues that light skin is more valuable to black
women than to black men, drawing attention to what he calls “gen-
dered colorism.”21 Beauty, often defined in the American context
as possessing light skin, is a form of social capital or “currency” for
women,22 and Margaret Hunter notes that “study after study has
shown that light-skinned African American women marry spouses
with higher levels of education, higher incomes, or higher levels of
occupational prestige, than their darker-skinned counterparts.”23
This “gendered colorism” is also evident in American media.
Most black actresses, especially those cast in lead roles, are light in
complexion. Hollywood actress Zendaya, who is multiracial and
light skinned, observes that because of her skin color, she repre-
sents Hollywood’s “acceptable version of a black girl.”24 Consider,
too, Halle Berry, Thandie Newton, and Paula Patton—all three
are light-skinned “black”25 actresses with some degree of white
ancestry, though black male actors tend to show comparatively
more range in skin tone (think Sydney Poitier, Wesley Snipes,
Denzel Washington, and Idris Elba, for whom dark skin is per-
ceived as more acceptable and often presented as masculine).26
Catherine Knight Steele, a professor at Colorado State University,
even finds colorism in American children’s cartoons. In her analysis
of the animated Disney series The Proud Family, which features
a black family (a rarity in children’s media), the central female
character, Penny, and her mother are illustrated with light skin and
Eurocentric features; this is in direct opposition to the father, who
is darker by comparison. Moreover, the lighter-skinned charac-
ters are depicted as intelligent, while those with darker skin are
portrayed as “clownish” and “less intelligent,” reinforcing colorist
beliefs about African Americans.27

6 • Nikki Khanna
 Gendered colorism is further seen in the music industry as
light-skinned black women take center stage. In a 2018 interview
with Ebony magazine, Mathew Knowles, father to American pop
star Beyoncé, asks, “When it comes to Black females, who are the
people who get their music played on pop radio? Mariah Carey,
Rihanna, the female rapper Nicki Minaj, my kids [Beyoncé and
Solange Knowles], and what do they have in common?”28 The
answer: light skin and Eurocentric features. His daughter, Beyoncé,
is known for her light skin and long, blonde, straight hair. While
black male performers typically show a range in skin tones (some
examples include Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Usher, Kanye
West, and Drake), black female vocalists are overwhelmingly
light-skinned. Perhaps then it is not surprising that some of these
women, such as Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, have been accused of
lightening their skin; there is value in doing so.
The bias for light skin is even found in mainstream media outlets
accused of photoshopping black and brown women to appeal
to the white masses (for examples, see the unnaturally lightened
hue of actress Gabby Sidibe on the cover of Elle in October 2010;
recording artist Beyoncé in a print ad for L’Oreal in 2012; and
actress Kerry Washington on the cover of Instyle Magazine in
March 2015). Moreover, colorism within the African American
community is well documented in research and in documentaries
such as Dark Girls (2011) and Light Girls (2015), which give voice to
African American women and the discrimination they face within
the African American community—particularly from other black
women. The coin of colorism, however, is two-sided; it involves
dark-skinned women who feel negatively stereotyped and rejected
by light-skinned women for being too dark, and light-skinned
women who feel rebuffed by their darker-skinned counterparts for
not being “black enough.”29 Negative stereotypes, valuations of
beauty, and perceptions of black authenticity are intimately inter-
twined with skin color in the African American community.
In addition to the extensive literature on African Americans
and colorism, there is a burgeoning body of work on Latinx30
populations in both Latin America and the United States.31 Light

Introduction • 7
 skin in these communities is similarly privileged, and skin tone
affects one’s life chances and opportunities. Latinx populations
show wide range in skin color, and studies suggest that, as with
African Americans, light skin is linked to better mental and
physical health, more years of schooling, higher occupational
status, and higher income. Light-skinned Latinos in the United
States also tend to live in more affluent neighborhoods with high
property values, are more likely to marry “higher-status” spouses
(those with higher levels of education, income, and occupational
prestige), and are considered more attractive than those with
darker tones.32 Perhaps this explains ex–baseball slugger Sammy
Sosa, a native of the Dominican Republic, who over the course
of several years went through a very public shift in skin shade—
from deep brown to nearly white. When asked about the transfor-
mation, Sosa reportedly remarked, “It’s a bleaching cream that I
apply before going to bed and whitens my skin some,”33 suggest-
ing that darker-skinned Latinxs face many of the same pressures
as African Americans.34
Moreover, although colorism occurs within Latinx communities,
skin-color bias also stems from other groups, including whites. A
2015 study by sociologist Lance Hannon, for example, finds that
whites are much more likely to view light-skinned Latinxs as smart
as compared to those with darker skin—a phenomenon he labels
“white colorism.”35 This is problematic given the power of whites
in American society, and Hannon writes that in the school context,
for example, if whites equate lighter skin with intelligence, it may
impact the level of expectations white teachers have for Latinx
students. This light-skin-equals-intelligence bias likely also influ-
ences hiring, promotions, pay, and even access to political power.
Raquel Reichard, a Latina feminist and scholar, observes that “from
state and local officials to Congress to the current 2016 presidential
candidates, most Latino politicians . . . are light-skinned or straight-
up white-passing. Just take a look at the Latino politicos getting the
most media attention right now, Republican contenders Ted Cruz
and Marco Rubio.”36 Arguably, their light skin makes them palat-
able to American voters.

8 • Nikki Khanna
Colorism and Asians
Though research on colorism in the United States has grown
in recent decades, especially as it pertains to African American
and Latinx populations, less attention has been given to Asian
Americans, for whom colorism is equally pervasive and deeply
entrenched. Colorism exists in just about every part of Asia
and affects Asian diasporas, including most Asian American
communities—most notably affecting those descended from
South and Southeast Asia (e.g., India, Pakistan, Cambodia,
Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia), as well as
those from Japan, China, South Korea, and other parts of Eastern
Asia. The preference for light skin is deeply rooted both in Asian
ethnic cultures and in European colonization, which makes Asians
rather distinct from other racial groups, and throughout Asia, light
skin typically functions as a marker for wealth and class, caste, and
proximity to whiteness.
Because colorism among Asian populations is understudied
and, until recent years, nearly absent in public discourse, this is
often surprising to many non-Asians—even to some scholars well
versed in colorism. In her 2013 article, professor of law Trina Jones,
an African American woman, writes about her own surprise when
first learning about colorism in Asia, and when reflecting on her
first visit to Asia, she writes that she began to notice a “fascinat-
ing phenomenon—the ubiquitous presence of skin-lightening or
skin-‘brightening’ products . . . in grocery stores and at cosmetic
counters in department stores [in Asia].” Describing her own
unfamiliarity with colorism in Asia and the skin-whitening practices
there, she adds, “As an African-American academic who had
written about skin color differences among African Americans, I
was familiar with the conventional use and sale of skin-lightening
products by and to the African-American community. But these
new products were directed at a different market. I did not give
much thought to the significance of skin color differences among
Asians and Asian Americans. I erroneously and naively assumed
that skin color was a nonissue within these groups. My 2001 visit

Introduction • 9
 to Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, and Hong Kong began to open my
eyes.”37 Jones is not alone. While colorism is pervasive across Asia,
this fact is unknown to many non-Asians.
Nonetheless, most of Asia has a preoccupation (and perhaps an
obsession) with light skin. Japan, for instance, has “long idolized
ivory-like skin,” as sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn notes—skin
that is “‘like a boiled egg’—soft, white, and smooth on the sur-
face.”38 Historically, Japanese women shielded themselves from
the sun and covered their skin with thick, white pancake makeup
because white skin has long been linked to social perceptions of
beauty, sophistication, and high social class. The adulation of white
skin is reflected in an ancient Japanese proverb that translates to “a
fair/white complexion hides faults,” which suggests that as long as
a Japanese woman possesses light skin, she can be forgiven for any
shortcomings.39 The connection between light skin and whiteness
is common in the Western world, though writer and blogger Seimi
Yamashita asserts that the preference for light skin in Japan is not
associated with Europeans nor with a desire to be Caucasian, and
has existed in Japan since the Heian Era (from about 794 AD to
1192 AD), when rich, noble women remained indoors, protect-
ing their light skin.40 In fact, according to Eric Li and colleagues,
white skin is tied to Japanese racial identity and Japanese notions
of beauty, which, they argue, are seen as “quite different from and
even superior to Western whiteness.”41
While deeply rooted in Japanese history, the preference for
light skin continues today. “Bihaku,” a Japanese term coined in the
early 1900s with the emergence of whitening products, translates
to “beautifully white.”42 The pressure to be bihaku can be seen in
modern Japan in the wide range of skin whiteners on the market,
on roadside billboards that exclusively showcase light-skinned
Japanese women, and even on online dating and matching sites
where the younger generations use apps to edit their profile
photos to make their faces look brighter and whiter.43 Moreover,
as in ancient times, light skin continues to be a sign of high social
class, while darker skin is perceived as unattractive and associated
with lower-class people who work outside in the sun. Even in

10 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.2. Skin-whitening products line a supermarket shelf in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Whitening products are popular throughout Asia, and frequently sold
in Asian food markets across the United States. Source: Shutterstock.

modern-day Japanese American beauty pageants, the preference

for light skin is evident in the “no tanning” rules for contestants
because dark skin is, in Japanese society and Japanese American so-
ciety, linked to the peasant class or those who work in the fields.44
According to sociologist Rebecca King-O’Riain, some contestants
even rub lemons on their faces to try to lighten their skin.45
The association of wealth and light skin, according to scholars
Joanne Rondilla and Paul Spickard, can be found in other parts of
Asia as well, such as Cambodia, the Philippines, and Taiwan. One
Cambodian respondent in their 2007 study described the connec-
tion, saying, “[People] want to look whiter because it’s associated
with wealth and status,” and another respondent, Taiwanese, simi-
larly claimed that “light skin is the standard of beauty in Taiwan. . . .
Wealthy people tend to be light skinned, while darker people are
associated more with low socioeconomic status.”46 In Taiwan, more
than half of all women pay “big money” to lighten their skin,47

Introduction • 11
 some paying as much as three hundred to five hundred US dollars
per session with dermatologists who promise white skin—these
appointments may include prescribed pills, skin-whitening injec-
tions, and in-office treatments with chemical concoctions for the
face and body. Rondilla and Spickard argue that customers are not
necessarily seeking whiteness (in other words, to be Caucasian),
but rather they often want to look like “rich Asians.”48
In China, skin whiteners account for one-third of all facial
skin-care products,49 and as in Japan, skin color is a signifier of both
social class and beauty. A popular Chinese adage passed through
the generations is, “One white covers up three ugliness,”50 suggest-
ing that white skin compensates for physical unattractiveness. In
a 2018 study of women and culture-based meanings of skin color,
one respondent, Chinese, observed that “if you are white, you are
beautiful no matter how you look. . . . Whiter skin color automati-
cally upgrades you.”51 Thus, white skin is not merely an indicator of
physical beauty, but is perhaps its most significant measure.
Chinese women traditionally whitened their skin by swal-
lowing crushed pearls or by applying white chalk or rice powder
to their skin,52 though contemporary women can purchase
whitening products that are routinely advertised by light-skinned,
multiracial, Asian-white models; go to whitening salons that
hype laser-operated machines promising to lighten one’s “entire
body . . . in just one hour”;53 or simply whiten their online faces.
A Chinese company whose app makes its users appear thinner
and whiter in their “selfies” was valued at nearly five billion
dollars in 2016, though critics charge that the app imposes “an
ideal of pale skin” on consumers, especially women.54 The fixa-
tion on white skin is also apparent on some Chinese beaches
where female bathers don full body suits and “face-kinies”—
brightly colored rubber face masks with holes for the eyes,
nose, and mouth, which are designed to protect their skin from
the sun in a culture that has a “terror of tanning.”55 Face-kinies,
popular in China, can also be purchased for day-to-day use
to shield one’s face from the sun’s rays. Even beauty pageants
in China glamorize pale skin, and, according to Gary Xu and

12 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.3. A Chinese woman wears a face mask or “face-kini” in
Lhasa, Tibet. Face-kinies are primarily produced in China and
are designed to protect one’s face from the sun’s UV rays.
Source: Shutterstock.

Susan Feiner, they reinforce “the standardization of beauty

features based on Anglo-European norms”56 and an “imitation of
whiteness.”57
Some argue, however, that as in Japan, whitening in China is not
about mimicking Eurocentric ideals. Ye Tiantian, blogging in 2015
about her own experiences with colorism, says that for her, it is not
about imitating white people: “It is true that I cannot represent all
of the consumers in the skin whitening market, but I am pretty sure
that I and most of the people I know buying these products are not
trying to make ourselves look like white people. We don’t want to

Introduction • 13
 be white,” but adds, “I cannot tell you for sure that it has nothing to
do with white privilege.”58 At least, she posits, that is not the whole
story behind the skin-whitening market in China. Chinese women
have been lightening their skin for centuries, and the practice dates
back to the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC), when having a white com-
plexion was seen as noble and aristocratic.59 Even today, people
lighten their skin because they do not want to be perceived as poor.
Light skin implies social status, and scholar Evelyn Yeung further
argues that even the consumption of whitening products “can be
a display of wealth. . . . [b]ecause cosmetics are considered luxury
items,” signifying to others one’s disposable income in China’s
growing consumerist culture.60 Rae Chen, who describes herself
in an op-ed as a “light-skinned Chinese woman,” similarly views
colorism in China as more of a “status symbol than a racial one,”
though she admits that, regardless of the motivation, the message
remains that light skin is superior to dark.61
Other Asian societies prize light skin not simply because of its
link to social class but because of their colonial roots and history of
European conquest, when Caucasian standards of beauty became
embedded in the psyches of the colonized. In 1952, French psychia-
trist Frantz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks, argued that
colonization has had a deep impact on the human psyche, and Pal
Ahluwalia further explains that “the effects of colonialism perme-
ated the black body and created a desire to wear a white mask, to
mimic the white person in order to survive the absurdity of the
colonial world.”62 Performative whiteness was arguably a survival
technique for the oppressed and a tool for the upwardly mobile
to access status, and in postcolonial Asia, perhaps aspirations for
whiteness have lingered.
This colonial legacy can be seen in the ways in which whitening
products are routinely advertised to the masses. In the Philippines,
the mass consumption of skin-whitening products is, according to
Joanne Rondilla, a reflection of its colonial history (the Philippines
was colonized by Spain and then the United States for over four
hundred years) and the controlling images of the media, such as
television, film, magazines, and the Internet, which, even today,

14 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.4. Print advertisement for Lancôme’s Blanc Expert, featuring actress
Emma Watson. Light-skinned Asian women, multiracial Asian-white women, and
even Caucasian women are used in the advertising of skin whiteners across Asia.

idealize light skin and Western standards of beauty.63 Companies

advertise how their product will “whiten” skin and promise that
their product will make one’s skin “pure,” “fair,” “white,” or “trans-
lucent,” literally calling upon European standards of beauty. Other
key terms in whitening advertisements—“flawless,” “radiance,” “pu-
rify,” “brightness,” “clarity,” “luminous”— according to Rondilla,
“imply a Eurocentric beauty standard that is imposed on Asian and
Asian American women” (emphasis added).64 This beauty standard
is further reflected in the use of light-skinned Asian models (often
multiracial with white ancestry) and even European models who
are the face of whitening products in print and commercial adver-
tisements across Asia. From 2011 to 2013, for example, Caucasian
actress Emma Watson, of Harry Potter film fame, was the face of
Lancôme’s advertisement campaign for their Blanc Expert skin-
whitening serum, which was advertised in Asian markets.65 She
received widespread criticism for her role in advertising the prod-
uct, though Caucasian women have long been employed to market
skin whiteners to Asian women across Asia.

Introduction • 15
 Vestiges of European colonization are also evident in the
Philippines in marrying practices wherein darker-skinned
Filipinxs are encouraged to marry lighter. Joanne Rondilla and
Paul Spickard describe this practice of “marrying up” as a way to
access social status and power, but also whiteness itself.66 One
interviewee explained, “My father suggested I have children with
my White ex-boyfriend so he could have mestizo [multiracial]
grandchildren. I think years of this colonial way of thinking and
all the American propaganda has made it so that my father (and
most other Filipinos) think that everything ‘American’—White
American—is superior.”67 The preference for whiteness is even
seen among those of Filipinx descent living in America. Professor
of psychology Kevin Nadal describes situations where he wit-
nessed multiracial black-Filipinx Americans being teased or called
“egots” (a derogatory term for black people), while multiracial
white-Filipinx Americans were praised for their light skin and white
heritage. According to Nadal, many Filipinx Americans are proud
of their identity, though they still carry a “colonial mentality” in
which all things Western and white are seen as superior to anything
Filipinx.68
In India, too, centuries of European colonization have left an
indelible mark. In Bollywood (India’s multi-billion-dollar film
industry), the light, near-white actors and actresses who grace the
silver screen are not reflective of the brown masses. The blue and
green eyes and light skin of Bollywood’s elite reveal a society that
is obsessed with lightness, though historians are divided over why.
For some, the obsession is rooted in India’s caste system, a rigid
form of social stratification rooted in Hinduism that dates back
centuries.69 Jyotsna Vaid, professor of psychology and women and
gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin, explains that the
Sanskrit term for “caste” also means “color,”70 and historians have
long speculated whether colorism is deeply embedded in Indian
culture and Hindu religion. Indeed, dark skin in India is frequently
associated with the lowest castes and connotes dirt and evil.71
Assistant professor of law Neha Mishra argues, however, that
while the two lowest castes, the Shrudras and the Dalits, are indeed

16 • Nikki Khanna
the darkest-skinned people in India, linking skin color and caste is
a gross oversimplification.72 There are varied degrees of skin tone
in most castes, and skin color is more location-specific than caste-
related; those in the northern regions of India tend to have lighter
skin than those in the south. Moreover, Jyotsna Vaid contends that
there is “nothing in the ancient Vedic texts or religious scripture to
suggest a favoring of lighter over darker skin,”73 and Lori Tharps
similarly challenges the notion that colorism has ancient roots in
India when she observes that “there are Hindu gods and goddesses
with dark skin who have long been considered both beautiful and
benevolent, crushing the theory that in India dark skin has always
been associated with negative characteristics or inherent evil.”74
For many historians, Indian obsession with light skin is un-
equivocally linked to, or at the very least exacerbated by, centuries
of British colonization—when Europeans held power, status, and
esteem over their darker subjects. British colonizers made “invidi-
ous comparisons” between light-skinned and dark-skinned Indians,
asserting that the former were more attractive and intelligent than
the latter,75 and they empowered lighter-skinned (and sometimes
part-white) Indians during their rule, further elevating lightness
and whiteness in colonial India.76 According to Tharps, the British
granted them prestigious positions in government, industry, and
education, while those with dark skin were left with menial jobs,
often in roles subservient to their British masters. Accordingly,
Tharps writes that “whether or not a belief system that favored light
skin over dark was already in place before colonization, the British
took a giant step in institutionalizing colorism.”77
Though British rule ended in 1947, the preference for all things
European arguably remained, including European physical traits
such as light skin, and this preference is clearly evident in modern
India. “Fair” and “lovely” are terms that are nearly synonymous and
are forever linked in India’s most popular whitening cream by the
same name. Skin whitening is big business in India, and its ubiq-
uity is seen in the glut of whitening products on the market, from
face creams and soaps to deodorants that whiten dark underarms
and feminine washes and creams that lighten brown nipples and

Introduction • 17
 vaginas.78 The national obsession with light skin is further reflected
in the multitude of advertising billboards that use European mod-
els to advertise Indian products to Indians in India,79 the creation
of Facebook apps that allow users to lighten their skin color in pro-
file pictures (such as one marketed by Vaseline in 2010),80 and even
in the practice among some Indian couples of seeking Caucasian
egg donors so that they can have light-skinned, blue-eyed babies
through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).81 Seeking light-skinned donors
seems to be a trend according to some IVF specialists in India, and
one father who conceived a daughter via IVF with a Caucasian
donor egg reveals at least one reason why: “There is no denying
that it is easier to get fair girls married.”82
In South Asian cultures where arranged marriages are common
(such as India, but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka),
parents often seek light-skinned partners for their children. Hence,
as with African American women (described earlier), light skin,
especially for South Asian women as compared to men, is an asset
and is just as valuable as, or perhaps even more valuable than, one’s
educational background and social class. In fact, a survey of nearly
twelve thousand Indians by the online Indian matrimonial site
Shaadi.com reveals that in three north Indian states, light skin is the
most important criterion when choosing a mate.83 Further, in an
analysis of marital advertisements that appeared in India’s Sunday
Times on a single day in 2013, skin tone for prospective brides was
mentioned 40 percent of the time, though it was never mentioned
in ads for prospective grooms, illustrating the gender asymmetry
in colorism in Asia. Moreover, of the ads for females that described
skin color, none included terms that indicated dark skin, but rather
they used terms such as “fair” and “rosy.”84
Just as in South Asia, skin color is valuable social capital in
South Asian American marriage markets. Growing up, my parents
subscribed to the India Abroad, a popular newspaper that serves
the Indian American community. Out of curiosity, I often sat at
the kitchen table scrutinizing the matrimonial section, where
Indian parents placed ads similar to those in India for their sons
and daughters in hopes of finding them suitable mates. To make

18 • Nikki Khanna
their adult children sound attractive, parents advertised their
children’s prestigious educations, high-status jobs, good family
values, caste, and, quite often (especially if they were advertising
for their daughter), their “fair,” “light,” or “wheatish” skin color. In
the marriage market among South Asians, fair skin, or skin that is
the color of wheat, is an indicator of beauty and represents tangible
“symbolic capital” for women in marriage negotiations.85 Some
recent examples of matrimonial ads:

NI parents seek alliance for daughter 1979/5”4’ slim/very fair

accomplished hotel professional in Florida, can relocate. Send bio/
photo. (India Abroad; ad placed on May 4, 2018)

Hindu Punjabi parents seek suitable match for beautiful, fair, slim,
and homely, 5’6”/1980 US born and raised MD daughter. Email
Biodata/Pictures. (India Abroad; ad placed on May 21, 2018)

Aristocratic reputed Hindu Business Family, settled US, over 30

years; seeking educated, well-placed, business professional for
their very fair and very beautiful, US citizen daughter 31, Graduate.
Email: bio/photo. (India Abroad; ad placed on June 8, 2018)

Men’s ads do not typically advertise their skin color, yet they don’t
hesitate to ask for light-skinned brides.86 For example,

Seeking fair attractive girls 32–35; for USA born handsome groom
Height 5’10”. Operating a multi-million dollar investment/manage-
ment business. From well-established family. Email/photo/biodata.
(India Abroad; ad placed on May 25, 2018)

Social activist Fatima Lodhi, who was raised in Pakistan, describes

the pressures to whiten her skin because of those who told her, “No
one will marry you.”87 As in other parts of South Asia, Pakistani
women face intense social pressure to have light skin—what author
Maria Sartaj calls a “hideous complexion complex” suffered by the
entire nation, but suffered most of all by women. She observes that

Introduction • 19
 dark Pakistani women, like herself, are mocked and devalued, and
argues that dark skin is treated like a “disease” in Pakistan.88 Clearly,
Pakistan is not alone.
Furthermore, the literature on colorism typically focuses on skin
color, though colorism can also be extended to include other traits
that approximate European notions of physical beauty. Blue eyes
in Asia are prized, and this was made quite obvious to me grow-
ing up. My north Indian great-grandmother had blue eyes, as do
many of my second and third cousins, many of whom live in India,
and this has become a source of family pride, probably because of
their uniqueness amid millions of dark eyes (let’s face it, blue eyes
stand out there), but conceivably also because of their connection
to whiteness. Some of our family conversations: “Perhaps one of
our ancestors is European?”; “Maybe a great-great uncle was from
Germany or Eastern Europe?” In my family, there was great interest
in and even excitement at the thought, and certainly Eurocentric
features, such as light eyes, are adored. I was not immune. I, too,
wanted the light blue eyes that were so coveted in my community
and in my family. If my great-grandmother had them, and my white
mother had them, why couldn’t I?
Eye shape and nose shape also matter, and their importance in
many communities is arguably tied to colorism. Eyelid tapes and
glues, which claim to create an extra fold in the eyelid, are heavily
marketed across East Asia.89 Even a plastic set of “eyelid train-
ers” can be purchased that are designed to create a double eyelid
presumably for those Asian consumers with creaseless monolids.
I found a pair online for under twenty-five US dollars on Amazon
that advertises, “Just like to wear glasses, take 5 minutes one day,
one month can get beautiful double eyelid!”90
Surgical alternatives are more invasive, permanent, expensive,
and perhaps more controversial. Nonetheless, cosmetic surgery is
booming in parts of Asia. South Korea, for example, currently has
the highest rate of plastic surgeries (per capita per year), outpac-
ing both the United States and Brazil.91 Two of the most popular
procedures in Asia include nose jobs (rhinoplasty) to narrow the
nose and make it project more (usually with silicone implants or

20 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.5. Packaging for eyelid trainers. Though marketed to East Asian
consumers, the model for the product is a European woman with double-lidded,
blue eyes. Source: Nikki Khanna.

cartilage grafted from the ear, rib, or septum) and eyelid surgery
(double blepharoplasty) to give Asians an extra fold in the eyelid—
something present in nearly all Caucasians, but only naturally
found in about 15 percent of East Asians.92
While these surgical procedures may invoke images of “white-
worship,” many women argue that these surgeries are not about look-
ing Western at all.93 New York Magazine’s Maureen O’Connor, who
is Chinese and white, argues that these phenotypic modifications
are not about “hiding one’s race or mimicking another” but about
attaining particular aesthetics popular in Asian cultures. According
to Dr. Robert Flowers, a white surgeon and a pioneer in blepharo-
plasties, Asian patients do not want to be white—they simply want
to be “beautiful Asians.”94 In fact, O’Connor contends that those
who believe eyelid surgery is about erasing one’s race are usually
white themselves, and she asks, “[Is] that a symptom of in-group
narcissism—white people assuming everyone wants to look like
them?”95 Similarly, writer and journalist Euny Hong, in a 2013 op-ed
in the Wall Street Journal,96 writes about her own eyelid surgery and

Introduction • 21
 argues that “Asians, for the most part, get the surgery for themselves
and for each other—not to approximate a Caucasian appearance.” In
fact, she notes that after her eyelid procedure, none of her non-Asian
friends (including her white friends) even noticed—and she did not
seem particularly concerned when they didn’t. For Hong, the surgery
was not about or for them.
Likewise, many cosmetic surgeons (like Dr. Robert Flowers
above) argue that these surgeries are about attaining Asian stan-
dards of beauty, not mimicking white women. Joanne Rondilla and
Paul Spickard, however, challenge this interpretation by pointing
out that these so-called Asian beauty standards “just happen to
coincide with the way they perceive White women to look.”97
Is it merely a coincidence that what Asian women deem beauti-
ful happens to mirror Caucasian standards of beauty—such as
double-lidded eyes? Rondilla and Spickard argue that “in fact, it
has everything to do with such beauty standards,”98 and they claim
that the cosmetic-surgery industry profits from the idea that Asian
women must correct their ethnic features. They further point out
that the popularity of cosmetic surgery in Asia happened, in part,
because of colonialism. Local populations, particularly women,
were influenced by Western notions of beauty introduced by their
Western colonizers, and it was during this time that they first began
seeking plastic surgery in large numbers.
Whether these tapes, glues, gadgets, and surgeries are about
attaining whiteness is highly debatable, though undoubtedly Western
standards anchor beauty culture in parts of Asia—and most certainly
in the United States. In 2013, Chinese American talk show host Julie
Chen revealed the pressure she felt to surgically alter her features—
not from her Chinese American community but from white
Americans. She underwent eyelid surgery in her twenties to look
less Chinese after a (white) news director told her that she would
be more appealing to American audiences without her “Asian eyes,”
and a prospective (white) talent agent warned, “I cannot represent
you unless you get plastic surgery to make your eyes look bigger.”99
Pressure to fit into white-dominated American society may only
compound the issue of colorism for Asian Americans.

22 • Nikki Khanna
The Voices of Asian American Women
In this book, Asian American women, with their own stories and
in their own words, describe their experiences with skin-color
privilege and discrimination both within their respective ethnic
communities and within American society. Few books examin-
ing skin color focus exclusively on Asian populations and, unlike
previous books on colorism, mine focuses exclusively on women
because the research suggests that while Asian/Asian American
men and women both feel the effects of skin-color discrimination,
it is women who bear its brunt—especially because of the link
between skin color and perceptions of beauty and femininity.100
A conversation with my father just before my wedding illustrates
this. In the weeks leading up to my winter nuptials, I decided (for
the first time, I might add!) to tan at a local tanning bed—yes, yes,
I know, cancer-wise, not a particularly wise decision. But, I did it.
After the first tanning session, when I returned home quite pleased
with and proud of my burgeoning brown color, my father asked,
rather exasperatedly in fact, “Why are you tanning?!” Well, it was
December, and whatever deep color I had gained in the summer
had now faded to my natural yellowish-pale tone. I matter-of-factly
replied that I did not want my skin to match my white wedding
dress as I sauntered down the aisle—to which my father then
asked, rather perplexed, “Indian woman are always trying to get
lighter, why are you trying to be darker?” Undoubtedly, colorism is
more salient for women as compared to men, and I cannot picture
our conversation happening between a father and son. My younger
brother did not tan before his wedding, though I cannot imagine
anyone commenting on it if he had.
I focus on Asian American (as opposed to Asian) women
because those of Asian ancestry living in the United States conceiv-
ably face compounded pressure for light skin (and other European
physical traits) because of (1) the cultural importance given to
these traits in their respective Asian ethnic communities, and
(2) the added pressure towards whiteness in a white-dominated
society. Perhaps Asian American women feel less constrained

Introduction • 23
 by colorism as compared to Asian women given that they are
geographically and, in many cases, generationally removed from
their ancestral countries of origin and Asian cultural pressures. In
fact, Joanne Rondilla and Paul Spickard find that first-generation
Asian immigrants “have more (or at least more overt) color-
ism issues” than Asian Americans born in the United States.101
Undoubtedly the pressure for light skin and Eurocentric traits is
more covert for Asian Americans, but I argue that the pressure
is strong in the United States as well. According to law professor
Trina Jones, the color hierarchy in the United States (as in Asia)
privileges light skin, and in the American context, “lightness is
associated with intelligence, honesty, industry, and beauty, while
darkness is associated with laziness, immorality, criminality, and
ignorance.”102 Moreover, Asian American women, like all women
in the United States, are routinely bombarded by images of white
models and actors on American television, Internet sites, maga-
zines, and billboards. A quick online search of “beautiful women,”
for instance, reveals mostly white faces, and Vogue covers through
the years typically feature white women.103 Celebrities who grace
People magazine’s “Most Beautiful People” covers are almost always
white—rarely are they women of color,104 and never have they
been Asian American in its near-thirty-year history. In American
society, Eurocentric traits are the gold standard of beauty.105
Like the women included in this book, I have grown up in two
worlds: one, Indian American, where light skin is clearly valued
over dark, and Eurocentric traits are favored (my younger brother
has light blue eyes and, believe me, I have never heard the end
of it); and two, American culture, where I grew up surrounded
by white faces in school, in my community, and in the films and
television shows that I watched (and still watch). Even I, mixed-
race with an Indian father and a white mother, with light skin,
dark brown eyes, and brown hair, who is often read as white, went
through a phase when I wanted the traits of the white women in
my fashion and teen magazines, such as light eyes and light hair.
Perhaps pressures for lightness and whiteness would have been
more pronounced for me had I been raised in India surrounded

24 • Nikki Khanna
Figure I.6. An online search of “beautiful women” on the popular search engine
Bing reveals mostly Caucasian-appearing women. Source: Nikki Khanna.

by endless advertisements for whitening creams peddled by

near-white Bollywood starlets. However, I know that I and many
others experience comparable pressure right here in America, even
if the message is more veiled than the overtly racist and colorist
ads across Asia that shamelessly promise consumers that their
whitening product will address all of their “whitening needs”
(Estee Lauder’s CyberWhite) or reveal their “true inner fairness”
(L’Oreal’s WhitePerfect). This blatant messaging is rare in America,
though the lesson is nonetheless the same. Just as girls and women
in India and other parts of Asia are taught the value of light skin,
I learned that whiteness is the epitome of status and beauty in
American society.
An important caveat: Growing up, I loved when I was tanned.
I thank my South Asian ancestry for my ability to quickly achieve
a deep golden hue in summers, something that was enviable to
many of my white friends. Tanned skin is considered attractive in
American culture, and this is something that clearly differentiates
the United States from most of Asia;106 however, tanning cannot
be likened to skin whitening. Scholar Sriya Shrestha describes what
she sees as a false equivalency between tanning and skin-whitening

Introduction • 25
 practices, noting that this “false parity” ignores the power dynamics
that make light skin desirable for people of color.107 Light, white
skin is powerful and is associated with increased opportunities
and privilege; tanned skin, though a beauty norm in the West,
does not hold the same power. Social advocate Sabina Verghese
further describes tanning as a “social luxury” for white women.108
While her own dark skin tone has been used by others to gauge her
worth, beauty, and intelligence, white women “maintain a sense
of privilege” and do not endure “backlash that comes with having
dark skin tone.” I, too, can tan to achieve an aesthetic popular in
the United States—like other light-skinned women, I am praised
for my temporarily browned summer skin and, at the same time,
remain relatively insulated from cultural judgments and negative
stereotypes about my darkened tone.
Moreover, white women may tan at the beach or apply darken-
ing lotions for a “healthy glow,” but whether any of them would
trade their white skin for good is another matter altogether.
Comedian Chris Rock, African American, said it best in his 1999
standup routine: “There ain’t a white man in this room that would
change places with me. None of you. None of you would change
places with me, and I’m rich!”109 Perhaps this is because light
skin along with racial whiteness in the United States is associated
with intelligence, wealth, national belonging, and citizenship,
and impacts access to opportunities. Despite the tanning culture,
Sriya Shrestha argues that “white people want to be white.”110 Just
as in Asia, light skin is esteemed in the United States, and Asian
American women must simultaneously manage the Eurocentric
pressures both in their Asian ethnic communities and in American
society at large.
Scholar Eugena Kaw describes an additional pressure felt by
many Asian American women that goes beyond merely trying
to conform to Eurocentric norms for the sake of beauty: Asian
American women may also alter their looks (their skin, hair, eyes,
and noses) because they feel they must “conceal the more obvious
forms of their ethnicity in order not to stand out and be targeted
for racial stereotypes.”111 According to race scholar Mia Tuan,

26 • Nikki Khanna
Asian Americans are often seen as “forever foreigners,” even if
their families have been in the United States for generations.112
Their foreign-sounding names, language, accent, facial features,
and/or skin color mark them as “other.” Writer Rae Chen, herself
light-skinned, describes her experiences growing up in Canada
and observes that her darker-skinned Chinese friends and fam-
ily experience comparatively more micro-aggressions and racial
profiling, which has made schooling and job hunting difficult for
them.113 Hence, some Asian Americans may lighten their skin, slim
their nose, or modify their eyelids to “shake off [their] perceived
otherness” (as did talk show host Julie Chen, described earlier) as a
strategy to blend in and evade bias.114 In Julie Chen’s case, surgi-
cally altering her eyelids conceivably opened job opportunities in
American broadcasting that may have otherwise been closed to her.
In fact, she admits that her career “did take off ” once she had the
surgery.115
My own experiences growing up in the United States have been
largely shaped by my gender, my race, and, most importantly, my
skin color. I am a mixed-race woman and light-skinned. I look
back at myself standing in the Indian market as a kid, checking my
skin tone next to the seven shades of the “expert fairness meter”
printed on the Fair & Lovely package, while smiling to myself. I am
embarrassed at that memory, and at both my understanding and
misunderstanding of colorism. Like most people, I had no word
for it then. I knew light skin was favored, but I did not recognize as
a child what that really meant—what it meant for me, and what it
meant for my darker-skinned family members (such as my father,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins) and for other Americans
of color with dark skin. Only as an adult do I understand color-
ism for what it is—a repressive, sexist, and racist practice that
disadvantages much of the world’s population. The intent of this
book is to give voice to Asian American women—of all shades and
hues. Skin-color discrimination directed towards and found among
Asian Americans is understudied and, to some extent, missing from
current discussions of colorism. My hope is that this collection of
essays will, first and foremost, be a collective platform for women

Introduction • 27
 to share their own stories in their own words, and, second, draw
attention to both the varied and common experiences of Asian
American women in the twenty-first century to inform what we
know and understand about colorism among these communities.

Plan of the Book

The book is divided into six distinct sections, and each section
reflects a theme related to colorism. In the first section, “Colorism
Defined,” the authors introduce the concept of colorism as it
pertains to their lived experiences as Asian American women.
Through their stories, they explain how they learned about the
significance of their skin shade and its association with class,
wealth, intelligence, beauty, and femininity. Through their stories,
they also explain how the meanings connected to skin color are
deeply embedded in both American and Asian cultures, and they
reveal the chief source of these messages—mass media and family,
often mothers and grandmothers. One college student describes
pressure from her Indian mother to “maintain” her light skin and
the conflict it has caused between them; her story mirrors mother-
daughter struggles shared by many women throughout the book.
Moreover, the authors describe the pressure to conform to beauty
norms, especially as females, and how they came to understand the
shared and sometimes conflicting definitions of beauty in America,
Asia, and Asian America. According to one writer, her dark skin
is seen as “deviant” in Japan and among Asian Americans, though
she contends that it is viewed indifferently, and sometimes even
positively, in America.
In Part II, “Privilege,” authors examine their own privilege, or
lack thereof, as it pertains to the color of their skin. The con-
tributors range widely in skin color, and for some women, their
skin color is an asset, though for others, it is a social liability.
The literature suggests that possessing light skin is valuable,
though the authors in this section reveal that privilege is shaped
not only by the particular tone of their skin but by the context
in which they are viewed. Because colorism is global, their skin

28 • Nikki Khanna
color takes on different meanings depending upon location—
for example, what may be privileged in Asia, may not be in the
United States.
The privilege that they experience is also dependent upon the
ethnicity and race of the audience before them. Colorism runs
rampant within and between communities of color, and as a
result, one’s skin tone may confer benefits with some ethnic/racial
groups while proving disadvantageous with others. One multira-
cial woman, for instance, describes experiences of adulation and
praise for her light skin when among African Americans, though
at the same time, she feels skin color discrimination by Asian
Americans. Moreover, colorism crosses Asian ethnic groups and
typically privileges lighter-skinned Asian ethnic groups over their
darker-skinned counterparts (for example, privileging East Asians
over South/Southeast Asians), and several contributors describe
the hierarchies among Asian ethnic groups based on skin color
and its implications. One woman, who (as she says) “embodies the
stereotype of an Asian American” because of her light skin, evades
much discrimination in America as compared to her darker-
skinned Asian American counterparts. Thus, through their essays,
the writers in Part II show that privilege can be situational and
fluid, conferring advantage in some contexts, while simultaneously
disadvantaging them in others.
In Part III, “Aspirational Whiteness,” the essays address the
value placed not just on light skin but on whiteness itself, and
the meanings attached to whiteness in Asia and in America.
Through their narratives, the writers reveal that some Asian
Americans strive for whiteness because, for them, it is equated
with American assimilation and success, upward mobility, and
sophistication, and the authors in this section describe the
different ways in which they attempt to access whiteness in
contemporary American society. Whitening products are one
strategy to obtain whiteness, though for darker-skinned South
and Southeast Asians, whiteness may be comparatively more
elusive. According to one contributor, fellow South Asians may
access whiteness digitally through the use of light-skinned

Introduction • 29
 emojis to represent themselves on social media. Another writer
notes that in lieu of whiteness, some darker-skinned South and
Southeast Asian Americans aspire to the American stereotype of
“the Asian”—the light-skinned, successful East Asian—which, at
least according to her, is “the next best thing.”
While previous sections explore the privilege of light skin and
the value placed on whiteness, Part IV, “Anti-Blackness,” addresses
the anti-black sentiment that exists in America, in Asia, and
among Asian Americans. Here, authors describe the ways in which
anti-blackness rears its head in their lives, and its connection to
colorism. Within their communities, just as in the United States,
blackness is juxtaposed in direct opposition to whiteness and is
associated with a litany of negative stereotypes. Their experiences
reveal that anti-black racism is intimately entwined with an aver-
sion to dark skin in their Asian American communities, and they
write about their own experiences with anti-blackness in their
respective cultures. One contributor, for example, describes how
anti-black narratives inform creationist stories in Pakistani culture
(i.e., religious stories of how God created the races), and others in
this section explain what anti-blackness means for them personally
as a multiracial Asian/black American or mother of a multiracial
Asian/black child.
In Part V, “Belonging and Identity,” authors describe how
their skin color affects their perceptions of belonging and sense
of identity with their Asian American communities. Skin that is
perceived by others as “too light” or “too dark” influences whether
they feel as though they fit in with their ethnic group. One woman,
white-skinned with blonde hair and born with albinism, explains
how she feels “invisible” to her Indian American community,
while another woman describes how her dark skin often precludes
acceptance by others in her Chinese American community. Other
Asian Americans make assumptions about the race and ethnicity
of the authors included here, and in some of the essays, writers de-
scribe their frustrations when not recognized as members of their
ethnic communities. According to one woman, her multiracial

30 • Nikki Khanna
background, her ambiguous phenotype, and the relentless barrage
of “What are you?” questions have given her the sense that she is
not “really Asian.” For these women, their bodies defy ethnic/racial
stereotypes—as constructed by Asians, Asian Americans, and the
American media—and through their narratives, they challenge
these one-dimensional, narrow images. Accordingly, they argue
that there is “more than one way to look Asian.”
The final selection of essays in Part VI, “Skin—Redefined,”
features women who write about their journey towards self-
acceptance and their embrace of their skin shade. They describe
colorism in their lives (as in Part I) and, most importantly, they
challenge the “light-skin-is-beautiful” mantra, often in direct
defiance of mothers, grandmothers, friends, and society in general.
For most of the women in this section of essays, this has been a
decades-long process of acceptance and reclaiming of their skin;
one woman writes, “The color of my skin will no longer define me.”
Another writer delves into some of her more painful experiences
growing up with dark skin, though as an adult, she looks back to
her “road of healing” and her evolving perception of her own worth
and beauty. Another describes the “reprogramming” that is, as she
describes it, a “constant work in progress,” and all the women in
this section describe how they are challenging the messages of their
youth. For two of the women in this section, this is a labor of love
for the next generation—their daughters.
Rather than being predetermined by me (as the editor), these six
categorical themes grew out of a careful analysis and reading of the
essays—even of those essays that did not ultimately make it into
this collection. The words within each contributor’s essay ulti-
mately guided the overall organization of the book, and each essay
reflects the fundamental theme of its assigned section. Readers may
observe some degree of overlap between themes in the essays, as
colorism is complex, and these essays reveal that, for many women,
these six themes are connected in intricate ways. Additionally, each
collection of essays begins with an introduction that describes and
unpacks the theme of the section.

Introduction • 31
 The Contributors
This collection includes personal narratives by Asian American
women aged twenty-two to sixty-two of varying ethnicities, includ-
ing Filipina (six women), Indian (five), Chinese (three), Pakistani
(two), Vietnamese (two), Cambodian (one Cham, one Khmer),
Japanese (one), Bangladeshi (one), and Pacific Islander (one).
Two women describe themselves as multiethnic—one as Chinese/
Filipina and another as Taiwanese/Chinese. It is important to
recognize that the term “Asian” is a social construct that refers to
those who have ancestry in Asia or the Asian subcontinent. I rely
on current federal classifications of race (currently used by the US
Census and defined by the Office of Management and Budget in
1997), which formally define “Asian” as “a person having origins in
any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the
Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China,
India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands,
Thailand, and Vietnam.”116 This racial category, like others, is not
based in biology, nor rooted in shared physical characteristics (e.g.,
certainly people of India look different than those from Japan);
rather, it is a socially constructed category employed to lump
together diverse groups of people for political purposes. In fact, my
Indian father did not think of himself as Asian when he first immi-
grated to the United States, and even now, I am not sure he sees
himself as such; for many South Asian immigrants, such as those
from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for example, only after years
exposed to American race politics might they identify as Asian or
Asian American. Nonetheless, I rely on this definition as a practical
tool with which to delineate whose stories would be included in
the book. Though varied in culture and physiognomy, the women
included (or their ancestors) come from a similar region of the
world, even if that expanse is quite large, and together they share
the cultural embeddedness of skin-color discrimination.
In addition to the varied ethnic backgrounds of the contributors,
five identify as multiracial—as Japanese/white, Japanese/black,
Chinese/black, Chinese/white, and Korean/white. For multiracial

32 • Nikki Khanna
Asian women with black or white ancestry, colorism can be
particularly pronounced, and their stories add further nuance to
our collective understanding of colorism. Their white or black
ancestries are tied to a plethora of stereotypes and hold meaning
in both Asia and the United States, further complicating onlook-
ers’ interpretations of their skin shades. All contributors are also
American citizens and were born and raised in the United States,
with the exception of two women—one is a Japanese citizen but
has been a US resident for seventeen years, and the other is Indo-
Canadian but has lived on and off in the United States for more
than twenty years.
Despite the variability in the backgrounds of the contributors,
there are two notable commonalities that traverse the experiences
of the majority of the women included here. First, though it is
rarely revealed in their essays, it is likely that most, though not all,
of the contributors are heterosexual. Because colorism is often
intertwined with marriageability (i.e., light-skinned women are
advantaged in the marriage market), the male gaze is, at times,
implicitly invoked in stories about skin color. Some women feel ob-
jectified by men because of their light skin, or, conversely, shunned
by them because they are dark. In fact, Joanne Rondilla and Paul
Spickard’s work suggests that there is considerable pressure for
women from a heteronormative perspective; one respondent in
their 2007 study, a Cambodian American woman, describes the
lyrics of a popular Cambodian song: “The man in the song sings
out and he says that ‘You’re dark and you’re not that attractive
because you’re dark.’ Then the woman goes . . . ‘Yeah, I’m dark but I
could be a good wife.’”117 Light skin acts as currency in the mar-
riage market, and consequently colorism is deeply embedded in
heteronormative culture and remains a calculable asset in hetero-
sexual relationships, especially for women. The woman in the song
is perceived by the man as unattractive because of her dark skin,
and she attempts to counteract his appraisal by telling him that she
could be a “good wife” to him. To what extent LGBTQ people feel
this pressure from potential partners remains unknown, though
certainly this is an area ripe for inquiry.

Introduction • 33
 Second, the majority of the contributors are middle-class. Their
class status is particularly important given the potential protection it
confers; privileged backgrounds arguably mediate their experiences
with skin-color bias and, to some extent, lessen its impact in job and
marriage markets. Dark skin is assessed as a liability in Asian cultures,
though those with high status may find that their education, high-
status occupations, and money offset its weight. Though they are not
immune to colorism (as their stories clearly reveal), readers should
recognize that women from less privileged backgrounds may have
more pronounced adverse encounters with skin-color discrimina-
tion. This fact cannot be overstated. The intersectionality of skin
shade and social class undoubtedly affects the experiences of Asian
American women.
Despite these shared commonalities, the women included here
vary in ethnicity and, for some, race. They range widely in age.
They are mothers, daughters, sisters, undergraduate and graduate
students, writers and storytellers, scholars, and activists—all with
diverse interests, occupations, and life stories. For more informa-
tion about each contributor, biographies of each are included at the
end of the book.

A Final Note
This project was a labor of love, and perhaps the most personal
project that I have worked on to date in my professional career.
Skin-color discrimination is a contentious issue in many Asian
American communities (including mine), as well as in many
other racial communities across the United States and around
the world. This book was challenging to write because I wor-
ried throughout the process of writing and editing that I was
“airing dirty laundry”—exposing something that many are not
particularly proud to openly talk about—especially with those
outside of our communities. Many of us, as scholars, as activists,
and as Americans more generally, may be open to discussing
white supremacy and racial inequality in America, but we may
be more hesitant to talk about the bias that happens in our own

34 • Nikki Khanna
communities and sometimes even within our families. However,
colorism parallels racism in many ways, and we must be willing to
bring it to the surface, name it, point it out, and most importantly,
talk about it with each other and others.
As a mixed-race woman, I also struggled with how much to
include of my own personal story because I grew up, to some
extent, on the periphery of the Indian community. I was raised
in a multiracial family, in a white suburb, and primarily attended
predominantly white schools. For these reasons, I was shielded
in many ways from colorism. Also, because of my light skin, I am
privileged in America and in the Indian community, and I did
not want my experience to take up too much space in the book or
take away from other women’s voices—especially from women
who have been the most disadvantaged by colorism. Having said
that, however, I wanted the book to be a wide platform to give
voice to diverse women—including those of varying skin shades
(light and dark), different Asian ethnicities, and even varied racial
backgrounds. Because of my own multiracial background, it was
particularly important for me to include the stories of multiracial
Asian women because I knew that their experiences would add
further understanding to the politics of skin color.
Finally, I thank every woman who contributed an essay to this col-
lection. Sharing personal stories is not easy, and even more difficult
is writing about our families in ways that do not always cast the most
flattering light. Even for me personally, I struggled with how much
to share and how much I had a right to share, given that some of my
stories involved not just me but also my close family members. No
doubt, each contributor had to make difficult decisions about what
she felt comfortable sharing with the world and what she would
leave out. I hope that when reading the book, readers recognize the
vulnerable position that each woman put herself in (and sometimes
her family members) in order to tell her story. Each woman is bold
and brave, and I am thankful for their contributions—all of which
are beautiful, powerful, honest, thoughtful, and, most importantly,
graciously allow us an intimate view into their lives.
To each woman who contributed to this book, thank you.

Introduction • 35
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1
Wheatish
Rhea Goveas, Indian American, 22

I grew up in a progressive immigrant household. Although both of

my parents are Indian, they come from different faiths and different
regional-linguistic groups. They didn’t have an arranged marriage.
In fact, they had a very standard love story (at least by Western
standards): they met at work in Mumbai and fell in love. Their
relationship made many people, both in their families and in their
communities, very apprehensive—at that time it was very unusual
for a Hindu (like my mother) to marry a Christian (like my father).
I suspect this is why they eloped, and once they arrived in the
United States, they were able to establish their own marriage and
lives in a new and more tolerant country. This narrative of tolerance
and progressiveness framed my family life. All the “divisive non-
sense” (as my father would say) from the old country didn’t matter.
Religion, language, class, caste, race, traditional gender roles, even
skin color: those things do not matter to progressive people. And
since we are progressive people, they don’t matter to us.
Though skin color didn’t matter in my family (at least theoretically
speaking), I somehow learned all of the vocabulary for skin color. I
knew I was “wheatish”1 and that this was a good thing. I knew that
when my younger brother was born, everyone in the family was so
happy because of his light skin and light eyes. Even today, everyone
marvels at his baby pictures: “Look at him! Like a little white doll!
So sweet! So handsome!” I also knew that as he got older, started
playing soccer, and gradually got darker, some family members were
very disappointed. But I know that since he is a boy, he is given a lot
of slack for getting too much sun and not maintaining his skin tone.
It is not the same for me. Because I am a girl.

• 43
 I know that everyone’s mom nags them to put on sunscreen, but
I don’t know anyone who gets scolded for not wearing a hat at all
times when playing outside. As a child, I was also not immune to
the occasional snide comment about how I was “ruining” my skin
after playing outside in the sun, but luckily I didn’t receive daily
harassment to apply lightening cream, as did some of my other
Indian friends—dire warnings of what would happen lest they
become too dark.
I have been “blessed” by my run-of-the-mill complexion—
not too light, not too dark. Despite the genetics of my darker
Manglorean father, my brother and I inherited light skin from my
north Indian mother. Due to this happy accident of genetics giving
me a desirable skin tone and my unhappy condition of being born a
girl with all the beauty expectations this carries, I learned very early
that it is my job to protect what I have. The older I get, the more I
notice little references to my skin color and the more I feel pressure
to keep my skin as light as possible.
My father is quick to tell me that this is nonsense. He loudly
proclaims that none of this matters to him, that both his children
are beautiful regardless of their skin tone. I believe him. My mother
is a different story. She says skin color does not matter, but is quick
to comment on how “pretty and fair” someone is or to slather
herself with “luminizing” creams or homemade turmeric masks
to lighten her skin. She occasionally exerts this pressure on me—
persuading me to get facials or to try new “brightening” creams
with her. Occasionally, she buys me expensive products to “clean
up” my skin or beautify my face.
On one such occasion, she took me to the mall for the purpose
of trying the new Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua Foundation. My
mother had purchased some for an event and absolutely loved it.
I never object to getting fancy new makeup, so off we went to the
Chanel counter in the Bloomingdale’s at our local mall—my mom,
her friend, and myself. We got to the counter and my mom told the
elderly blonde lady that I wanted the foundation.
“Alright, dear,” the blonde Chanel lady smiled down at me.
“Why don’t you take a seat and we can color match you.”

44 • Rhea Goveas
 So I sat in the chair and allowed her to dab foundation in various
brown tints on my cheek. The first one she tried was too light.
“Hmm, this is a teensy bit too light, I think,” the Chanel lady
observed, angling my face towards the light so she could get a
better look.
“Yeah, I agree,” I said. The Chanel lady turned to select another
shade from the display.
“Don’t worry, she isn’t normally this dark,” my mother inter-
jected—a little too quickly, I might add. “She has been traveling
quite a bit and got too much sun. When her skin is back to normal,
she will be much lighter. You can give her a lighter shade.”
I sensed where she was going with this and attempted to head it
off at the pass. “My skin is normal, Mom. I’m only a little bit more
tanned than I usually am. It’s not like I am going to drastically get
any paler.”
“No, no, no. You can be much, much lighter than this. I’ve seen
you in the winter,” my mother insisted.
I opened my mouth to reply.
“You know what, Beta,” my mom’s friend interjected. “You should
do a face mask of haldi and yogurt.2 It helps lighten the skin.”
“I know about that,” I snapped, getting prickly. I shot a furtive
look at the blonde Chanel lady, wanting this conversation to end.
“I hate those masks. They smell awful. They don’t even work. And I
don’t need to use that crap. My skin is fine.”
“I promise you they work.” My mom’s friend was insistent. “And
it is all natural. They look a bit funny, yes, but they work. I’ve been
doing haldi masks for years.”
I felt their critical eyes on my face, taking in my sun-bronzed
skin. I remembered feeling that same gaze from my mom two
weeks earlier when my parents picked me up from the airport
after my recent trip to Spain and Portugal. My mother had turned
around to scrutinize me in the back seat of the car as we were
driving home. “You got some sun. You are looking really brown,”
she had said. There was a ringing accusatorial note to her voice. I
suddenly wondered if taking me makeup shopping was her way of
telling me to “fix” my skin.

Wheatish • 45
 “It’s really not so bad, Rhea,” my mom wheedled. “We can do
one at home if you want. It will definitely help your skin. It won’t
lighten it. It will just even it out. Make it look cleaner. Back to what
it should be.”
“My skin does not need help,” I said loudly, suddenly irritated. I
no longer wanted this overpriced foundation.
They didn’t get it. It’s not that I hate face masks. I love face
masks. I love most skin care products. I just will not do a face mask
for the purpose of lightening my skin. I was acutely aware that the
lady at the Chanel counter was listening as she fiddled with the
foundation samples.
“Sweetie, you are overreacting. We aren’t saying anything bad
about your skin. We are just suggesting ways to make it better,” my
mom responded in a conciliatory tone.
“Don’t worry, honey,” the blonde Chanel lady said loudly and
suddenly, squeezing my shoulder, startling me. “We like all types
in America. We like a little bit of color. It’s okay to have a tan.” She
pursed her lips and shot my mom and her friend a disapproving look.
After that it was awkward, so we quickly extricated ourselves.
The blonde Chanel lady made me a foundation sample in the
darker shade that matched my current skin tone. As I turned to
leave, she gave me a smile of solidarity. I did not return her smile. I
wondered if she would tell the other cosmeticians later about the
backward Indian customers who came to her counter.
Shame and fury coursed through me. How dare my mother
make us look ignorant and backward in front of this random
salesperson? How dare she be so ignorant and backward? I honestly
wasn’t sure what upset me more—my mother or myself. Where
was her progressiveness now? But perhaps the worst part was that,
despite all my bravado, her criticism hit home. I felt small and ugly
and dark in that moment.
I tried to bring it up to my mom later in the day, but she blew
me off as she always does when I try to talk to her about stuff like
this: “Rhea, you are always so dramatic. I wasn’t trying to make you
feel bad because you have a tan. We were just makeup shopping.
Let it go.” I knew that if I told my dad, he would just get angry with

46 • Rhea Goveas
my mom for perpetuating “all that nonsense,” but it wouldn’t really
change anything. I felt like telling someone, but who should I tell?
If I told my white friends, they would be horror-struck. They would
have nothing but thinly veiled criticism and wide eyes. “But your
mom seems so nice”; “That’s nuts, why would she do something
like that?”; or “That’s so racist. I had no idea color mattered so
much to Indians.” I did not want the same judgment I had felt from
the blonde Chanel lady.
It seems innocuous, but it’s not. It’s yet another standard that I
cannot meet for something I can’t really change, regardless of all
the haldi masks I apply to my face.

Wheatish • 47
 2
Too Dark
Miho Iwata, Japanese (Permanent US Resident), 42

Iro no shiroi ha shichinan kakusu.

White skin makes up for seven [physical] defects.

Growing up in Japan, my grandmother often told me this old

Japanese proverb. She was very concerned about my dark
complexion—particularly in comparison to my older sister’s white
skin. While my sister’s skin just turns red and then back to white
after any long exposure to the sun, I tan easily. And while my sister
preferred to stay indoors, I spent much of my childhood playing
outside. Despite the unwanted attention to my dark skin as a child
and having the understanding that it could be viewed as a “deficit,”
I had little opinion about it, and I continued to enjoy playing
outside. This, however, would soon change in my midtwenties
when I moved to Southern California for college, while continuing
to have ties to my family and friends in Japan. Indeed, I learned that
my skin attracts different reactions from different audiences.
Cultural preference for white skin in Japan has existed for many
years, and it has a gendered dimension; white skin is a particularly
important trait for Japanese women. Light skin has long been
integral to the concept of femininity and beauty in Japan, and as
early as the eighth century, court women used white powder to
lighten their faces to appear more attractive. This deeply rooted
preference for light skin was further fueled by exposure to Western
cultures and their glorification of white skin. However, since young
girls are not yet concerned about their appearance to the opposite
sex (for dating and, later, marriage), pressure for white skin has

48 •
little relevance for them. So other than my grandmother’s words, I
received few comments about my skin. I, like my friends, enjoyed
playing outside and going to swimming pools and beaches—often
without sunscreen. And I loved my dark skin.
As I grew older, my dark skin became more problematic—for
others. I began to face pressure from my family and friends to per-
form white-skin-preserving and -promoting practices, although I
still enjoyed outdoor activities and loved my tanned skin. In Japan,
students enter high school at the age of fifteen. My high school re-
quired that every student become affiliated with a club, and since I
was not very athletic, I first considered joining a club that involved
some sort of indoor activity. However, I met a guy representing
the swim club, and he told me that they were looking for not only
swimmers but also managers. Since I loved being outdoors and
near water, I decided to join the swim club as a manager. I spent
many after-school hours and endless summer days by the pool,
often joining the swimmers in the pool to stay cool. Consequently,
I was always tanned, and my mom and friends would make nega-
tive comments such as “You are too dark”; “You will get aging
spots when you get older”; “You should put on sunscreen lotion.”
I despised their remarks, though admittedly I did begin using
sunscreen and whitening lotion—at least occasionally. I was not
motivated by a desire for lighter skin (I loved my tan!), but I was
motivated to perform “being a proper girl” in the Japanese high
school context.
As a young adult in Japan (as a junior college student and later as
a full-time corporate worker), I started to pay more attention to my
skin. I was not particularly focused on whiteness, though I began to
feel pressure to wear makeup every day. In fact, for women not to
wear makeup outside the home is considered “intolerable” in Japan,
and even today, my now seventy-year-old mom applies makeup
each day. Feeling the pressure to conform to the norm, I began
investing in facial skin care and makeup products, and as with my
mother, applying them became my morning routine. I wanted to
fit in with my peers, older female colleagues, and overall cultural
expectations attached to young women in Japan, although my

Too Dark • 49
 practices concerning skin lightening were limited. However, since I
spent the majority of my time indoors, my skin remained light, and
during this time, it was much lighter than in my youth.
My environment changed drastically at age twenty-six when I
moved to Southern California for school. I was, for the first time,
exposed to racially and ethnically diverse groups of people around
me, and I developed a diverse group of friends while in college.
Meanwhile, as an international student, I was not allowed to legally
work in the United States, which gave me a lot of leisure time to
visit the beach with friends; this resulted in very dark tanned skin.
I loved being tanned year round, and I even felt more close to my
darker-skinned friends. I remember one time sitting next to an
African American student, and my arms were darker than hers.
However, my dark skin was challenged by different sets of
audiences. Due to the cultural preference for white skin, many
Asian and Asian American friends frequently shared their alarm
about my dark complexion. I remember some of them asking me
why I liked to go to the beach and “risk” getting tanned, or why I
did not wear sunscreen. This negativity would follow me across
the Pacific when I visited my family and friends in Japan. There,
my very tanned skin was seen as “deviant,” particularly given my
age. When I was a little girl, my dark complexion was somewhat
acceptable. However, having dark skin as a woman in Japan is seen
as very problematic. My mom would make comments such as “You
are already old, so you should take care of your skin”; “Tanning will
give you more ‘aging spots’ and your face already looks dirty with
shimi [a Japanese term for dark spots/freckles but it literally means
‘stains’].” My peers would also make comments about my dark
skin, and some of them tried very hard to convince me to stay out
of the sun and to make sure to wear sunscreen all the time. Soon,
I began to find that my positive self-image about my dark skin was
under constant attack in Japan.
My appearance would also solicit questions from strangers, most
often in public places, about whether I belonged in Japan. I pheno-
typically look Japanese, but my dark complexion confused them. I
think that many saw me as a foreigner, since they couldn’t fathom

50 • Miho Iwata
the idea of a Japanese woman with dark skin. One afternoon, I
was eating alone at a café, and I sensed that the server was acting
strangely toward me. After she asked what I wanted for lunch, she
realized that I was indeed a Japanese (my fluent Japanese speaking
ability was a clue for this!). She became more friendly and, with a
puzzled look, asked, “Why are you tanned this much?” On other
occasions, I have noticed people move away from me in public
spaces—such as public transportation. In Japan, people often avoid
those who look foreign, and their behavior signaled to me that
they perceived me as a foreigner and that my presence made them
uncomfortable.
After graduating with my bachelor’s degree, I moved to
Connecticut for my graduate work and later to Maryland for a
professional position, which again gradually changed my skin tone;
my skin lightened due to little exposure to the sun in the Northeast.
Since then, while I have been in the United States, people have
been indifferent about my skin tone, and some people have even
made positive remarks about my shimi, my freckles. Meanwhile,
my folks in Japan continue to make negative comments about my
skin whenever I visit, particularly about my “age spots,” since I so
brazenly ignored their dire warnings while living in California.
Over the years, I have noticed how people around me interpret and
react to my changing complexion, and their appraisals are largely
influenced by my gender, place, and age. There are different sets
of cultural expectations about my skin tone associated with my
gender as a female, my age as a marriageable-age female, and the
society that I happen to find myself in—whether in Japan or in
the United States. However, despite the different views of my skin
color, my self-image and confidence have not changed much.
I love my skin.

Too Dark • 51
 3
Sang Duc Ho
Catherine Ma, Chinese American, 46

In the early 1970s, I emigrated with my family (my parents, sister,

grandparents, aunts, and uncle) from Kowloon, Hong Kong, to the
United States. As I was growing up among a large family of immi-
grants, skin color was something that was mentioned in passing,
but as a young child, I never really understood the significance of
my family’s words until I became an adult. Compared to my two
sisters, I am the lightest in skin color, and as a child, my uncle once
asked me, seemingly offhandedly, “How does it feel to be the pret-
tiest?” My aunt quickly shut down that conversation before I even
had a chance to answer, but that was my first direct encounter with
colorism.
Chinese culture tends to be very focused on outward appear-
ances. Many Chinese sayings have a “lookism” quality to them
with a focus on the importance of being beautiful (or “sang duc
ho,” which translates to “born good looking” in Cantonese); this
means having light skin, double-lined eyes, and a thin (but not too
thin!) body. I benefit from being light-skinned, though my husband
likes to tease me during the summers because I tan easily, and he
jokingly calls me a “farmer.” In Chinese culture, class distinctions
are often based on one’s complexion, with the farmers (or working-
class people) being darker in complexion because they work long
hours outside in the sun, while the upper class remain inside and
are thus paler in comparison.
Eye shape is also important. I never fully understood the differ-
ences in how Chinese people regarded eye shape until I met my
husband. He commented on my “double-lined eyes,” and when
I asked him what he meant, he explained that double-lined eyes

52 •
(those with a fold of skin on the eyelid) are desirable as they make
Asian eyes look bigger, and hence, more Westernized. I recall, as a
child, that my grandparents would say that a person had “moong ju
ngan” (squinty, pig eyes) or shu ngan (“rat eyes”). Both terms depict
negative characteristics of either being lazy like a pig or sneaky and
untrustworthy like a rat; my grandparents believed that people
with those eyes could never be trusted. A colleague who is Asian
recently expressed her anger and frustration with her father-in-law,
who commented on her daughter’s small eyes—he suggested that
his granddaughter should not smile because it made her eyes look
even smaller. And when my cousin gave birth to her baby girl, my
aunt mentioned how lucky her baby was to have such big eyes.
This attention to physical appearance is not uncommon in many
Asian families and manifests itself in other ways as well. When my
daughter was a toddler, my mother said she was getting fat. Being a
first-time mother who took every criticism about my child person-
ally, I told her very pointedly that if she couldn’t restrain herself
from voicing those types of comments, we wouldn’t visit her any
more. The irony is that I, too, was body shamed as a child—though
for being too skinny. Family members always wanted me to eat
more, and when I wouldn’t, they complained about how thin I was.
Their criticisms brought me to tears more than once. My mother
and aunts repeatedly told me that if I didn’t finish my rice, I would
end up marrying a husband with pockmarks or acne scars on his
face for each piece of rice left in my bowl, or remind me of all the
starving people in China who would love to eat my rice. Eventually,
my response to their constant nagging was to tell them that they
should send my leftover rice to all the starving people in China.
Years later, after three pregnancies, my mother told me I was getting
fat, even though I was only a size four. I was snarky and responded,
“I’m not fat, but you are getting fat.”
I grew up in the 1970s in New York City, where other children
often made fun of me for being Chinese. They made squinty eyes
and “ching-chong” noises. Even today, racism persists. Before the
start of each Chinese New Year, I take time out of my busy sched-
ule to go to my children’s school to teach about Chinese culture

Sang Duc Ho • 53
 and hand out treats. Last year, I went to my son’s seventh grade
class, and two of his classmates made those squinty eyes when I
spoke about Chinese history. Their teacher didn’t see this, but I did.
I was infuriated. I notice that one of the first things some people do
to make fun of Asians is to mimic and mock our eyes. Such racist
behavior has long-lasting effects, as many Asians undergo drastic
procedures to make their eyes bigger. For me, this is the ultimate
sign of self-hatred, as Asian women go to extreme measures to
change their features (their eyes, their skin, and their bodies) to
match a Westernized, Caucasian standard.
Knowing this, I have tried to raise my children to be proud
of their Asian characteristics and to take pride in their Chinese
identity—something I find challenging to do as I raise my children
in the United States. As a new mother, I remember scouring the
Internet for beautiful Asian dolls for my daughter as a way to
normalize Asian features for her. I wanted her to see dolls that
looked like her (I couldn’t find Asian dolls in the toy stores at that
time); however, I was disappointed that all of the dolls were light
in complexion, a reflection of a commonly held Asian standard
of beauty that I had wanted to challenge. My generation doesn’t
have to perpetuate the same prejudices I grew up with. Parents can
influence how their Asian children grow up in the United States
by preparing them for prejudice in the real world, and by giving
them the necessary tools to encourage self-love and acceptance in
the way they look. By sharing and talking openly about our experi-
ences, we can break the cycle of self-hatred, teach our children to
value who they are, and resist Asian and Western society’s narrowly
defined standards of beauty. As in Asia, we also live in a “lookist”
culture, but encouraging a strong sense of self-confidence can be a
formidable tool to combat colorism, both in the United States and
in our Asian American communities.

54 • Catherine Ma
4
You’re So White, You’re So Pretty
Sambath Meas, Khmer American, 44

While Europeans tend to associate tanned skin with leisure time,

globe trotting, sportiness, and social status, Cambodians associate
it with backwardness, unattractiveness, and low class status. Upon
my first week of arrival in Cambodia, the greeting my parents and
I received from my cousin, Vanny, was, “You’re so white; you’re
so pretty.” First of all, referring to Asians as white might sound
utterly ridiculous to Westerners. Secondly, such shallow adulation
bothered me. Growing up in the United States, we are taught that it
is wrong to judge people by their skin color, never mind comment
on it. There is nothing wrong with having white skin, but in the
United States, we usually don’t go around openly glorifying how
pretty white skin is while, at the same time, degrading dark skin. In
Cambodia, however, a common greeting is, “Hi. You’re so white;
you’re so beautiful. I’m dark and ugly. I wish I had beautiful white
skin like yours.” Or, “Ew, you’re so dark.” Thirdly, if we have to
define our skin color, my parents and I are not even white, we are
sra’em, which simply means “tan” in the Khmer language.
Upon hearing Vanny’s partiality to white skin, I turned to look at
my parents with disappointment. They gave me a “don’t-blame-your-
naive-cousin-it’s-the-Cambodian-way” look. “She is a victim in all of
this,” they later reminded me. I didn’t buy it. To me, she was as much
responsible for perpetuating this shallowness as anyone else.
“For goodness’ sake, she’s a teacher,” I said.
“It’s Cambodia. That doesn’t mean anything,” said my father.
Well, okay then.
Vanny, with her skin like caramel and eyes like lotus petals, was
so conditioned to see attractiveness in white skin when she was

• 55
 growing up that she is now blind to her own beauty. She often
complains about being dark.
“You’re beautiful the way you are,” I reassured her.
“But I’m dark,” she said, ashamed.
I said, “We’re all born with different shades of color and we’re
all beautiful, each in our own way. As long as you wash your body
with soap and your hair with shampoo, you’ll be clean, healthy,
and beautiful. Skin color doesn’t determine your beauty, wealth,
and intelligence. Regardless of what others say, you shouldn’t let
it. Look at your two sons; look at those big, ebony eyes. They’re
gorgeous and smart kids.”
Her big, dark eyes glazed over as though she didn’t hear a thing
I said. “They’re dark. If only they had white skin.” At this point, my
eyes rolled to the back of my head.
I got the same sentiment from another cousin. When I com-
plimented him on his children, his response was, “I wish they had
white skin like their mother.” His wife’s face perked up and beamed
with pride. I turned to look at the little four- and five-year-old kids.
They just sat there with doe eyes. The denigration of dark skin
starts very young.
Unfortunately, my cousins are not the only ones who buy into
the “white-is-pretty” and “black-is-ugly” perception. As more high-
rise buildings are constructed and roads are paved, Cambodians
seem to have become even more self-conscious about their skin
color. Country folks, instead of sporting their straw hats or krama
(checkered scarves), are now donning cap-scarves that cover their
heads and faces, only showing their eyes.
My father’s cousin said, “Back in the day, we used to be able
to tell each other apart and refer to each other by name. Now, if
my buffalo or cow has gone missing, I don’t even know who I am
calling out to, to ask. They’re all covered up from head to toe.” And
if you peeked into their bathrooms as I have, you can see whitening
products for their faces and bodies.
Pale-skinned people, especially city dwellers, generally display
an air of superiority about themselves, as seen at social events,
temples, restaurants, and malls. They walk much taller, their noses

56 • Sambath Meas
stick higher in the air, and their demeanor is anything but invit-
ing. Their children, too, are boosted with an air of self-confidence
bestowed upon them since infancy.
Friends and neighbors gather to admire light-skinned babies,
no matter how unsightly they may be, as if they are the “chosen
ones.” For me to witness this was like watching Rafiki, the wise old
baboon in the film The Lion King, holding Simba aloft to anoint
and show him off to the population of Pride Lands. These “white”
babies are generally spoiled, coddled, and handed from one
person to the next, showered with kisses and lavished with praises:
“Whose heavenly baby is this?” and “Who is this smart and gor-
geous little one?” I hear them say.
Dark-skinned people are often looked down upon by the pale
ones, especially if the former is a peasant and ethnically Khmer.1
They tend to be timid and fearful and kowtow to the light ones to
the point of crawling and prostrating themselves before them. If
their kids are dark, no matter how attractive they may be, they tend
to be ashamed of their appearance. Not all dark-skinned people
and white-skinned people act this way, but too many of them sadly
do. The problem lies in Cambodian society. Its obsession with skin
color is an epidemic of epic proportions.
Right out of Pochentong International Airport and Siem Reap
International Airport, we were greeted with images of “white”
Asians on billboards and posters plastered on store walls and win-
dows. Even the faces and bodies of Apsara dancers, which represent
celestial beings from Hindu and Buddhist mythology, were paler
than ghosts. In most arts, human subjects are not only portrayed as
having porcelain skin but also as lacking Khmer essence.
Modern musicians also pay homage in their songs to the beauty
of white skin. On the radio, I hear the lyrics, “Your skin is white,
you are beautiful, whose daughter are you? I love you” and “I am
not beautiful, I don’t have white skin like other women, but I am
loyal and honest.”
As for magazines, they are filled with air-brushed models with
skin whiter than Caucasians. Even the so-called Cambodian super-
models consist of light, near-“white” Asian girls. For the one or two

You’re So White, You’re So Pretty • 57

 dark-skinned girls lucky enough to find their way into the glossy
pages of a Cambodian fashion magazine, their bodies and faces are
so thickly powdered they looked ashen, gray, and even clown-like.
For the handful of existing Cambodian channels, movies, and
music videos, dark-skinned people are rarely shown, let alone
leading characters. Television hosts and hostesses consist mostly
of white, light-skinned Asians. Commercials for whitening prod-
ucts dominate the airwaves and run around the clock—each time,
promoting the confidence-boosting, superiority, and beautifying
qualities of porcelain white skin. They are generally Khmer-
dubbed commercials from Thailand, Japan, Korea, and other
light-skinned Asian countries. The top three most memorable
ones go something like this:

1. A young Thai woman is sitting on a bench reading a book. She

discovers a good-looking man smiling at her. Self-conscious of
her not-so-white skin, she goes home and dabs her face with
whitening cream. The next time she sees the young man, he
pulls her bench closer to his. Her skin shines white, and the
two longingly gaze at each other as though they are the two
happiest beings on earth.
2. A white-skinned Japanese flight attendant steps down from
the jet bridge to be greeted by a dark-skinned Japanese
flight attendant who admires the whiteness of her skin. The
dark-skinned flight attendant asks the light-skinned flight
attendant how she got her skin to be porcelain white. The
woman tells her the brand of whitening cream she uses. The
next time they see each other, they both look brightly white.
They beam with pride as they walk shoulder to shoulder,
heads held high.
3. A tall, svelte Asian woman steps out amid the crowd and her
trench coat bursts away from her body, revealing her bright
white skin that is wrapped in a scant, tight, purple mini dress.
With an air of pride and jubilation, she parades herself among
the young men and women who are awestruck by her stun-
ningly bright, white body.

58 • Sambath Meas
 Pale skin is so glamorized in Cambodia that it is demoralizing.
I get it. As someone who lives in the United States, I have more
freedom to be myself; it is easy for me to parachute into the moth-
erland every other year and be irritated with those who valorize
whiteness and try so hard to fit into the shallow ways of mainstream
Cambodian society. They are the ones who have to live with the
daily prejudice and discrimination.
Very briefly, I got a taste of such prejudice and discrimina-
tion as my own skin began to darken under the scorching sun of
Cambodia. Grocery and restaurant owners would not look at me or
talk to me and had their employees, whom they publicly chastised
and denigrated, tell me the prices. They threw my change at me,
and turned their backs on me as if I were beneath them. Interesting.
When my family first came to the United States, in grammar
school particularly, a group of kids—especially boys—taunted me,
harassed me, pushed me around, and beat me up. They routinely
called out to me, “Hey, Ching Chong!” while they pulled up their
eyes to make them look tight and slanted. They made weird sounds
under the pretense that they were speaking to me in my native
tongue. Yet, here I was, in the motherland, being treated with
contempt by the very people who would have been ridiculed just
like me in the Chicago of the early 1980s. Oh, the irony.
Vanny confessed that she felt prejudice and discrimination
when she first left the countryside to study in the city. “Light-
skinned girls normally hung out together and shunned dark-
skinned girls,” she said. “And they made fun of us because we
spoke with a country accent.” Having felt that, I thought that she
might have learned from it, but instead, I find her giving in to
Cambodian society in full force; perhaps she cannot escape the
pressure even as an adult. She does everything to fit in: whitening
her skin with a poisonous chemical and straightening her hair with
harsh chemicals that smell so bad that her husband once jokingly
told her to sleep in another bed.
For goodness’ sake, even monks, who are not supposed to be
concerned with superficialities or attached to material things,
whiten their skin!

You’re So White, You’re So Pretty • 59

 I have asked around about why Cambodians are so obsessed
with having pale skin. The answer: It’s common among Asian
cultures to find light skin more alluring and attractive. Light skin
means a person comes from a wealthy family—that he or she
spends most of the time indoors and works less than others. Light-
skinned people live sheltered lives. Light-skinned girls have more
chances to marry, and an increased likelihood of marrying into rich
families. Meanwhile, dark-skinned people are associated with the
lower class because they must work most of their lives, often under
the blazing sun. People seem to be proud of not having to work (or
work as much as others), and thumb their noses at people of lower
classes.
Some even feel offended by me questioning their quest for light
skin. “It is our freedom,” they say. Is it really a freedom of choice
when people don’t know all the facts and risks surrounding whit-
ening products? Are they really acting on their free will? Or are
they being brainwashed by the sophistication of mass marketing?
Moreover, just because certain dark-skinned people voluntarily
prefer light skin to their own, why should the rest of us, who are
comfortable in our own skin, have to put up with this “light-skin-is-
beautiful” nonsense?

60 • Sambath Meas
5
You Have Such a Nice Tan!
Ethel Nicdao, Filipina American, 47

Within the context of the Asian diaspora, my experiences of

colorism are not unique. In fact, much of what I describe is rooted
in the social science literature, both historic and contemporary,
on the acculturation of Asian immigrants to the United States
and other Western countries. But my stories of learning about
and distinguishing differences in shades of skin color began in the
Philippines more than four decades ago. I was born in the tropical
climate of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, and the sun’s
rays were my constant companion. Under the bright and often
blazing sun in the province of Pampanga (approximately eighty
kilometers northwest of Manila), my chosen playground was
the outdoors. My memory bank is full of childhood adventures
around our property and bike rides in our subdivision. Unlike my
lighter-skinned older sister, who spent most of her time indoors
as a bookworm, I enjoyed outdoor adventures that added another
shade of brown to my skin. And since this was the 1970s when
words such as “skin cancer” or “sunscreen” were not part of my
vocabulary (and certainly uncommon in the Philippines), I mostly
cared about following my mother around the yard as she tended to
her plants. I loved climbing trees, riding my bike in the neighbor-
hood, creating make-believe games, and foraging for fruits that
filled nearly half the acreage of our property: coconut, bananas,
guyabano, saresa, guava, santol, and macopa. I was too young and
oblivious to recognize that lighter skin was preferred and valued.
I recall hearing from others the Tagalog phrase “ang itim mo!”
(you’re so black/dark). The direct translation to English sounds
rather insulting, but it is usually said in jest—though it wasn’t

• 61
 meant as a compliment either. As a child, I also learned terms
like “mestiza” and “mestizo,” which refer to Filipinos with mixed
ancestry. The message, in part due to three hundred years of
colonization by Spain, followed by another century of American
colonization and neocolonial domination, was this: Being mestiza/
mestizo is equated with lighter skin, a sharper nose bridge, and
Eurocentric features, and hence is associated with beauty. To my
mother’s credit, she never prevented me from playing outdoors,
nor did I feel inferior because I had brown skin. As I was growing
up, she would often tell me, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
The message of “light is beautiful” was the sentiment of others, and
not of my immediate family.
Before I turned nine years old, my playground drastically
changed. As with many stories of migration, my family immigrated
to San Francisco in September of 1979 for better life opportunities.
The move to America created a dramatic cultural shift on so many
levels, including the way I viewed being a Filipina. The focus shifted
away from my brown skin, due in part to San Francisco’s cold and
foggy climate, which kept me shrouded in layers of long-sleeved
shirts, jackets, and pants. Rather than skin color, other (previously
nonracialized) aspects of my physicality took center stage. At
nine, I was the recipient of unwanted criticisms about my accent
(despite speaking grammatically correct English), my flat nose, and
my round face. Eventually and unintentionally, my Filipino accent
disappeared. But downward social mobility and not being white
increasingly began to influence my formative years of growing up
in San Francisco. My race and ethnicity, along with my social class,
suddenly mattered in a way that they never had before.
As renters in the 1980s, we often moved to several of the city’s
ethnically diverse neighborhoods (e.g., Glen Park, Excelsior,
Ingleside). The image often touted of San Francisco is one of
diversity—as a microcosm for the rest of the country—though
this idealistic image masks its extreme social class divide and racial
residential segregation. As a teen, I recall being dumbfounded
on several occasions when a white person called me a derogatory
name (“You stupid fucking Chink!”) and wondering to myself why

62 • Ethel Nicdao
he had mistaken me for the wrong Asian ethnicity. On another
occasion, while I walked along Ocean Beach, a white man yelled to
me, unprovoked, “Go back where you came from!” In my naiveté,
I thought to myself, “I live in San Francisco, so where should I go?”
Clearly, I had yet to understand the meaning and consequences of
being Asian in America.
Racial and ethnic identities became more pronounced in high
school. My school had a predominantly African American stu-
dent body with only a handful of white students, and the divide
between racial groups was obvious. Still, I was only beginning to
understand the reasons behind these divisions. In college, race was
compounded by social-class differences. Although I only traveled
seventy-four miles northeast of San Francisco for school, UC–
Davis was a different world, though college life did not shield me
from prejudice or colorism. While working on campus, I remember
a comment made by a student: “You have such a nice tan!” While
intended to be flattering, her compliment ignored the realities,
complexities, and consequences of my brown skin versus her white
skin. For example, the summer after my junior year, my classmate
and I were selected to attend an international summer seminar in
Taipei, Taiwan. There was a total of six US delegates; all were white
except for me. While we were in Taipei, there was a temporary job
opportunity to make some quick cash by teaching English to locals.
My blonde American friend was immediately hired. When I ex-
pressed interest in the job, I was told I did not “look American.” To
many Asians (as with many Americans), American means white.
It was not until the fall quarter of my junior year that I discov-
ered courses in Asian American studies and sociology, which
helped me make sense of social inequities based on race, class,
gender, and sexuality. Much has been written about Filipinos
and their colonial mentality to explain the value placed on light
skin and anything American (brand names, for example). Others
argue that it is not about reverse ethnocentrism or reverence for
our colonists (and all things American or white), but rather the
association of dark skin with the lower classes of Filipino society.
Regardless of the reason, those with mestiza/mestizo features are

You Have Such a Nice Tan! • 63

 still celebrated and highly regarded in the Filipino community.
Skin-whitening and bleaching products remain alarmingly popular
and in high demand, despite documented harmful health risks.1 As
a teenager, during one of my summer visits back to the Philippines,
I tried one of these skin-whitening products. Papaya soap was the
craze at the time, and I was attracted to the orange soap bar, and its
sweet scent reminded me of the fruit. I was curious and tried it, but
was not immediately convinced of its efficacy. After a few uses, I
stopped. Perhaps it was partly my laziness: Where am I going to buy
this product back in the United States? How long do I have to use this to
see results? Do I have to scrub hard? I was not committed to the time
and effort required for this whitening experiment. And because no
one was pressuring me to use the soap, I stopped.
Obsession with skin color is not unique to Filipinos (or to
Asians more broadly speaking). Studies also show that among
blacks and Latinos, light skin affords social, economic, educational,
and health privileges and advantages. There is evidence, too, that
lifetime experiences of micro-aggressions and discrimination for
those with dark skin have negative effects on physical and mental
health. And colorism extends beyond skin phenotype; physical
and facial characteristics are also important and tend to be the
first markers of race and ethnicity. There are numerous examples
of micro-aggressions related to my race, gender, and sexual
orientation—I have been teased about whether I eat monkey or
dog, frequently told that I speak English well (without a foreign
accent), and encouraged to find a good husband and have children.
And I have come across non-Filipinos who, to relate to me through
language, blurt out curse words in Tagalog as if it to impress me.
I cannot imagine approaching someone and telling them I know
English by dropping F-bombs.
One of my former students once told me matter-of-factly that he
knew I was Filipino because of my flat nose. I don’t believe his in-
tent was malicious, but his words were not meant as a compliment
either. I explained to him why his comment was inappropriate,
though I understand that we are all socialized to associate physical
attributes with racial and ethnic groups, and we are taught to value

64 • Ethel Nicdao
certain characteristics as the ideal standard of beauty, especially
for women. In America, this means slim frame, well-proportioned
body, long hair, large breasts, and light skin. Cosmetic surgery is the
norm nowadays in Asia, the United States, and worldwide, includ-
ing making one’s nose bridge more pronounced (rhinoplasty),
double eyelid surgery, breast augmentation, Botox injections, and
so on. Certainly, there has been a movement towards challenging
and redefining traditional standards of beauty, for example, Dove’s
“real beauty” campaign2 and increasing representation of plus-
size women in magazines and advertisements. But mainstream
media, including digital and print, continues to promote narrow
definitions of beauty: thin bodies and light, white skin. The glaring
omission of people who resemble me in magazines, on television,
and in movies is so blatantly obvious that on the rare occasions
when people of my race or ethnicity are featured, there is cause
for celebration. I find it refreshing and validating when Filipinos/
Filipino Americans are positively represented in the media. Or
represented at all.
While some physical and facial features can be altered, my skin
cannot. Even today, my brownness still makes me a foreign object
in parts of the United States, and is most evident with stares and
questioning looks of “What are you?” and “Why are you here in my
neighborhood?” However, my brown skin has also served as valu-
able cultural capital. I can pass for other Asian ethnicities, and even
as Native American. While conducting ethnographic fieldwork in
the western part of New Mexico as a doctoral student, I must have
passed as Native because I was often greeted with “Yá’át’ééh” (hello
in Navajo), and Navajos often assumed I spoke their language. I
blended in easily, and one Navajo family “adopted” me into theirs.
A genuine friendship formed, followed by regular invitations to
their home and sweat lodge, and to participate in their family
ceremonies. It was comforting to be welcomed into their family
community.
My perspective on race and brownness is largely informed by
personal experiences and my profession as a sociologist. Now in
my middle age, I can emphatically declare that I fully embrace my

You Have Such a Nice Tan! • 65

 brownness and queerness, and the intersection of my social identi-
ties. In doing so, I am not ignorant of the ongoing assault towards
women, specific racial and ethnic minority groups, the poor and
working classes, and the LGBTQ community. Pride in our own
skin should be intrinsic, but we do not live in a postracial America.
Prejudice rarely stays contained within people’s attitudes, and
sometimes leads to blatant discrimination and acts of violence. In
fact, considering the 2016 presidential election that has embold-
ened many to spew hateful rhetoric, especially around race, sexual
orientation, and immigration status, my response has been imme-
diate and assertive. Together with my allies from all shades of color,
I am empowered and remain steadfast in using my voice simultane-
ously to speak out against injustices and to change the discourse on
race, especially given countless news headlines that are indicative of
the kind of toxic racial landscape that we now occupy. When coun-
tries populated by black- and brown-skinned peoples are singled
out, and Haiti and Africa are referred to as “shithole countries” by
a sitting American president, and the insistence to build a physical,
divisive wall on the US-Mexican border pervades the news, I know
that shades of color matter. I have the voice to challenge not only
dominant racist ideologies but also all “shades of prejudice.” Being
a queer, brown, Filipina American breast cancer survivor anchors
me, as it should, because these are some of the most salient char-
acteristics of my authentic self, and I have no desire whatsoever to
alter shades of my nut-brown self.

66 • Ethel Nicdao
6
Brown Arms
Tanzila Ahmed, Bangladeshi American, 38

Bing-Bong. I heard the doorbell ring, and I ran barefoot up to the

door, stopping just short of it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to open the
door without Mommy, so I slyly moved the curtain by the door to
see who was standing on the porch. It was Uncle and Auntie, stand-
ing at the door patiently. Uncle was in a brown tweed jacket and
Auntie was wrapped in a delicate silk sari. I quickly scanned their
arms. There they were—gift-wrapped packages in their arms!
Mommy came rushing out of the kitchen, scolding me, “Why
didn’t you open the door? You know Uncle and Auntie!” I shied
away bashfully, hiding behind the ahchul of Mommy’s sari as she
opened the door wide. “A-salaam-walikum,” she said. “Ashaan,
ashaan!” she exclaimed, ushering them to come inside.
“Say Salaams to Uncle and Auntie,” she demanded of me
through an embarrassed smile. I continued to hide behind her sari,
refusing to greet them.
“Bhabhi, she’s grown up so quickly. Where are your other girls?”
Auntie stroked my hair while peering around me into the house.
She handed me a flat, square gift before wandering off into the
house in search of my little sisters.
A flat, square package. I knew by the shape what this was. My
heart sank. Another Little Golden Book for my shelf. I was eight
years old and too old for these childish books. I had hoped that the
long, rectangular-shaped box would be for me, but I knew it was
going to my middle sister. She always got the best gifts from the
aunties and uncles.
Sure enough, I peeked into the living room to see Auntie help-
ing my middle sister unwrap her gift—it was the long, rectangular

• 67
 box. My sister was five years younger than I, with round cheeks and
hazel eyes and dark brown hair—she always looked to me like a
Cabbage Patch Doll. Her skin and hair even matched the Cabbage
Patch Dolls I saw in the store. I never saw a doll that looked like me
in the store—my hair was too black and my skin too dark.
My sister ripped at the gift wrap excitedly. It was a Peaches and
Cream Barbie! From behind the wall, I could see that the Barbie
doll had long blonde hair, fair skin, and a beautiful billowing peach
gown. She looked so sparkly and pretty. “Bhabhi, you shouldn’t
have. She’s too young to play with a Barbie doll! She’s only four
years old,” Mommy hesitated.
“But it looks just like her, I had to get it. Just look at it. She looks
just like this Barbie doll!” Auntie doted and fussed, while pinching
my sister’s cheek.
I looked down at my Hansel and Gretel Little Golden Book. My
sister wasn’t even old enough to play with Barbie dolls. I played
with my Aerobic Barbie doll and Day-to-Night Barbie doll every
day. She always got the best presents.
As Auntie and Uncle left that night, we went to the foyer to say
goodbye. Uncle lifted up my middle sister into his arms. She always
loved to be carried. She had her arms around Uncle’s neck and a
pacifier in her mouth. “Take care of this one extra specially,” Auntie
said to my parents, patting sister’s hair. “Her skin is so light and
forsha [light-skinned]! Keep her out of the sun. She’s going to be so
pretty when she grows up.”
I looked down at my brown arms, wondering if I would ever be
pretty when I grew up.
•
My mother’s forearms were wide, and the skin on the back of her
arms was fair—what Rishta Aunties (matchmakers) would refer
to as “wheatish.” She wasn’t particularly vain about the color of
her skin—unlike the other aunties who invested in sunscreen
and whitening cream. I noticed how these aunties would remark
about Mom’s skin color sometimes, often with envy in their voice.
But Mom didn’t care—she was running around raising three girls

68 • Tanzila Ahmed
and keeping our family together as we constantly moved across
country due to dad’s work. I would often wrap my forearms around
hers and compare our skin color. My dad’s arms were bonier and
darker—the kind of brown that resembled day-old chai—and his
skin was more webbed with the creases of skin that are weather
worn. As a child I’d compare my arms to theirs side by side—I
wasn’t as fair as my mother but I wasn’t as dark as my dad—I was
just brown.
My parents met on their wedding day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in
1978—Mom said she wasn’t interested in meeting my dad before
the wedding because she was going to see him all the time after
they got married. “What was the point?” she had said. Dad’s family
had sent her seven proposal requests, and at the age of twenty-
three, she finally gave in because he was an engineer in Los Angeles.
And maybe in America, she thought, she could pursue her master’s
degree. Of course, pursuing her degree didn’t happen, because by
the time she got on the flight to move to Los Angeles to be with my
dad, she was already four months pregnant—with me. Five years
later my sister was born, and two years after that, my youngest sister
was born.
Dad eventually stopped being able to get engineering jobs, and
our family experienced downward financial mobility. For the last
fifteen years of my mother’s life, she worked in a booth at an airport
parking lot to make ends meet. It was a low-paying Teamster job,
but because it was union, our family had health care. She’d come
home from work with a forearm farmer’s tan—her left arm repeat-
edly leaving her booth to collect money from cars only to become
darkened by the blazing Southern California sun. When she’d get
home in those later years, she’d talk tiredly about how brown her
arms got, how hot the sun was. She would roll up her sleeves and
stretch her forearm out in front of my face to show me the color of
her skin now—both in awe and in sadness. She was less concerned
about her vanity by then; for her it became more of a mark of how
hard her life had become.
•

Brown Arms • 69
 I didn’t really think about what color I was until I started preschool.
When we drew portraits of ourselves, everyone used peach crayons
to color their skin—I wanted to, too. “That’s not what color your
skin is,” the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl sitting next to me said.
“Your skin is brown. So you use the brown crayon.” I looked down
at the brown Crayola crayon that she had placed in front of me. It
was so dark. It looked nothing like my skin. It looked like the color
of poo.
I started sulking, and the teacher came over to ask me what
was wrong. I told her I wasn’t the color of the brown crayon, but I
wasn’t the color of the peach crayon: so what color was I supposed
to color myself? We laid out all the skin-colored crayons in front of
me—brown, peach, raw umber, apricot, sepia, burnt sienna, and
even tan. I tested out all the colors on my piece of paper, and we
decided that the tan crayon would work the best.
•
“Mom, we’re going to play in my room!” I screamed while gallop-
ing up the stairs with my new neighbor friend, Margaret. We were
eight years old, and she had come over to play Barbie dolls with
a backpack full of dolls. I was excited to play with all of her fancy
dolls—my middle sister had broken off the heads and permanent
markered all over most of my dolls. The only one I had been able to
salvage was Aerobics Barbie in the blue leotards, and that’s because
it was bendable in the hands of a four-year-old terror.
Margaret and I dumped out all of our dolls on the carpeted floor
of my bedroom. Her collection was impressive—she had all the
expensive Barbie dolls with the flouncy dresses and big, blonde,
curly hair. She also had a couple of Ken dolls, which my Mom
refused to buy for me—they were key to playing house. She had
all the multiple outfits and the hot pink Barbie convertible. My set
of dolls looked meek in comparison. And my mom wouldn’t buy
me clothes for my dolls and would instead sew me simple summer
dresses using the scraps of leftover cloth from her sewing projects.
“Let’s play house,” Margaret said, bossily. I reached for a Barbie
with beautiful long blonde hair and a bright pink dress. “You can’t

70 • Tanzila Ahmed
play with that one. You can play with this one.” She grabbed the
blonde doll out of my hand and threw me a brown doll.
“Why?” I said, confused. When I played Barbie with my other
friends, it never went like this.
“Because you’re brown. So you can only play with the brown
Barbie dolls.” I looked down at the doll in my hand—it was an old-
looking Barbie doll, with a pointed chin and painted sleepy eyes.
The color of the plastic skin was what Crayola might call burnt
umber. The brown hair had a bob cut and weird bangs. It looked
like a vintage doll from the 1960s—I’d never even seen a doll like
this in any toy store.
I looked at the pile of Barbie dolls in the middle of the room.
They were ALL peach-skinned Barbie dolls. By that logic, I was too
brown to play with any of them. I sulkily reached for my Aerobics
Barbie doll from the pile.
“You can’t play with that,” Margaret bossily snapped. “Only I can
play with that one. Her skin is peach like mine.”
The rest of that play date, as Margaret played with all the pretty
Barbie and Ken dolls with the fancy outfits and convertible cars,
I played in a corner with the brown-skinned doll, dressing her in
hand-sewn dresses.
When she left that afternoon, she left behind the brown-skinned
Barbie doll at my house. She didn’t want it anymore.

Brown Arms • 71
 7
Hopes for My Daughter
Bhoomi K. Thakore, Indian American, 35

As I write this, my daughter lies sleeping next to me. I occasionally

take breaks to stroke her cheek or run my fingers through her hair,
amazed and truly in love. When I found out that I was expecting her,
I couldn’t even imagine how my life would change. Now, when she
is almost three months old, I look forward to every day together.
One of the biggest wonders I had was what she would look like.
With her mix of Indian, Vietnamese, and European ancestry, it
was literally a toss-up. But when she arrived, I could see a little bit
of everything in her. I was so happy to see how beautiful she was:
her thick black hair, almond-shaped brown eyes, and full lips. She
got the best of her mommy and daddy. I also could not help but be
thankful for her light-brown complexion—one that marks her as
just-minority-enough, but will not stigmatize her as much as my
dark complexion does me. I know that life is challenging for every-
one, but hopefully no more for her because of the color of her skin.
For my daughter, I have many hopes:
I hope that my daughter will be more accepted by her extended
family than I was. Growing up, I knew that my family loved me un-
conditionally, but it only felt like they loved me because they loved
my parents. My cousins would play with me, but even at a young
age I could sense that the connection was not entirely there. Like
me, they grew up understanding that Indian society favored light
skin. How could they love me if they didn’t like the way I looked?
Like them, I was pressured into using skin-lightening creams
throughout my adolescence. Even today, I feel disconnected from
many of them. I hope that my daughter will be more comfortable
with her relatives, and always feel their full love and support.

72 •
 I hope that my daughter will come to know her Indian heri-
tage more than I did. My mother was sensitive to her own skin
discrimination in India, and she did not want her daughter, who
was much darker, to suffer. Even in social settings with my parents’
Indian friends, the children would treat me differently. So, my
mother kept me from children’s activities at the Hindu temple,
from Bharatnatyam dance classes, and in general from the Indian
American community. She made the choice to isolate me, rather
than have me experience the isolation from them. This resulted in
a true disconnect from my Indian identity. I hope that my daughter
will be embraced by her communities and develop a strong iden-
tity, with whichever group she chooses to align herself.
I hope that my daughter will see herself represented in the media
much more than I did. As I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the only
character that represented my ethnicity, to me and to others, was
Apu from The Simpsons—heavily accented and overtly foreign,
which even today symbolizes the ways in which people mock me.
Beyond this caricature, there were no representations that looked
like me or reflected my experiences as the child of Indian immi-
grants. The representations of women that I saw were also limited,
with virtually all of them adhering to the same Western beauty ide-
als (light skin, light eyes, light hair), and serving as a reminder that I
did not look like them. Today, these representations have improved
to a degree, but the Eurocentric beauty ideal and whitewashed char-
acters remain strong. I hope that my daughter will not be influenced
by these stereotypes and images as significantly as I was.
I hope that my daughter will not be stigmatized in school as I
was. Because of the class status of my parents, I exclusively at-
tended private schools where racial diversity was very limited. As I
was surrounded by mostly white students and white teachers, my
brown skin made me stand out and, at times, triggered experiences
of overt discrimination. For example, soon after my father died, a
substitute middle school teacher ridiculed me in front of the entire
class for a “messy work space.” Since I had had no prior interac-
tion with this instructor, and my workspace was not any messier
than any other student’s, I felt intentionally targeted. A few years

Hopes for My Daughter • 73

 later in high school, I was asked by my history teacher to read out
loud an excerpt from the textbook written in Swahili, presumably
because she assumed that my dark skin meant that I was African
American. I was embarrassed as I struggled with the passage in
front of the class. Today, I understand that these experiences were
intended to single me out. I hope that my daughter will be judged
by her merits, not by her perceived identity or skin color.
I hope that my daughter will have an easier time making friends
than I did. I have many memories of being excluded by groups of
girls, and being judged when I took the initiative to try to join them.
I always wondered what was wrong with me. I didn’t understand
it back then, but I know now that their behaviors were simply a
reflection of what they were taught—that I was not “one of them.”
To them, I did not matter, and I was not worth getting to know. I felt
invisible. Ultimately, I know that my daughter is still brown, and she
may have experiences like this. But, I hope that her environments
will be much more diverse, and that, because of her lighter shade,
she will not be viewed with the same disdain that I was.
I hope that my daughter will find love sooner than I did. In the
same way that teachers and peers judged me for my dark skin and
“different” appearance, so too did the people I liked. I put myself
out there with confidence, only to be rejected over and over again.
When I got older, many of the people I dated told me frankly that
I was good enough “for now,” but not good enough to bring home
to their parents. I now understand what they meant when I look
back at whom they dated after me, and with whom they eventually
partnered and had children. I sought out love for many years, until
I was much older and found my partner, who sought me out. It was
worth it in the end, to have this family, but it did not come easily.
Regardless of whom my daughter chooses to love, I hope that she
will not be judged by anything more than her personality and what
she has to offer to someone else.
I hope that, unlike me, my daughter will have the ability to be
whatever she wants to be when she grows up. In graduate school,
I was made to feel that my contributions were not as good as my
white peers’. I struggled in classes with professors who did not

74 • Bhoomi K. Thakore
give me the same attention as they gave to them, and I was less
successful as a result. I worked hard, only to struggle even more on
the academic job market. Despite my brown skin, I struggle with
being seen as not “diverse” enough for jobs in my area of expertise,
which is race and ethnicity. As an Indian American professional, I
am often not seen as someone who has experienced discrimination
and micro-aggressions. As a result, some people think that I am un-
qualified to speak, teach, or write on these subjects. In a racialized
black-white social system that surrounds me, my very real experi-
ences are often negated or trivialized—especially by whites. Ideally,
I do not want my daughter to experience any of these struggles, and
I hope that her exposure to them is much more limited.
Above all, I hope that my daughter does not have a life as hard as
mine. In our society, everyone is judged by his or her physical ap-
pearance and ascribed an identity based on it. Dark-skinned people
are neither seen, nor recognized, nor taken as seriously as those
born with light skin. We remain invisible in a society that values a
beauty ideal that does not look like us. My entire life, society has
told me that my dark skin means that I cannot be beautiful.
Fortunately, my daughter is much more beautiful than I.

Hopes for My Daughter • 75

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 8
Blessed with Beautiful Skin
Rhea Manglani, Indian American, 22

I am a light-skinned, South Asian woman who has spent most of

my life not having to think too much about skin color. As I was
growing up, family members would comment about how “fair” I
was, and my mom usually beamed with pride. I never paid much
attention to the color of my skin because it generally garnered com-
pliments, never criticism. I didn’t see myself as different from the
other Indian kids I grew up with, and, certainly, I didn’t think that
I looked much different from most of the white or Latino people
in my neighborhood. I rarely felt like an outsider. I merely thought
my skin tone was “normal” and nothing remarkable. Because of my
own light-skin privilege, I was blissfully unaware of the struggles
that some of my classmates faced in their own communities.
Of course, my blissful ignorance did not last forever. In middle
school (my school was about 80 percent Asian), an Indian friend
of mine would slather on sunscreen every day after school and say
something along the lines of, “Rhea, I can’t end up kali [black]” and
offer me sunscreen. I used to gleefully reject her sunscreen and talk
about joining a new sports team to get tanner. Upon meeting one
of my South Asian friends in an after-school program, I thought she
had a striking beauty to her—sharp eyebrows, a thin nose (that I
was jealous of), big boobs (that I was even more jealous of), and
an air of confidence that high-school-me couldn’t muster. But there
was something off about her face. I realized that the eyebrows I
admired were drawn on and her skin color was splotchy. That’s
when I realized that she had been bleaching her skin. It shocked
me to my core. The following year another friend, who is Filipina,
shared with me that she also used to bleach her skin. I was ill

82 •
equipped to talk to her about any of this and simply nodded along
as she complained about her family’s obsession with fairness. It
made me think of my mother’s words to me: “You’re blessed with
beautiful skin.”
During my college years, my classmates shared stories of their
aunties calling them “ugly,” or their parents not letting them play
sports for fear of darkening their skin. A family trip to India to visit
extended family further opened my eyes. I noticed that commer-
cials for Fair & Lovely, a skin-lightening cream, routinely played
on television (much like the number of weight-loss commercials I
see in America). I was amazed by the spectrum of lightness that the
commercial endorsed; the lightest shade the product promised was
a good shade or even two lighter than my own! Even I, someone
who has lived largely unaffected by colorism, found that these com-
mercials hit an insecurity that I didn’t realize that I had.

Blessed with Beautiful Skin • 83

 9
Shai Hei
Rosalie Chan, Chinese/Filipina American, 23

“Wear sunscreen,” my mom said. “You don’t want to shai hei.”

“Shai hei” means, literally, “to dry until one turns black.” In Asia
and among Asian diasporas worldwide, smooth, light skin is the
ideal. Those with dark skin are seen as coarse, ugly, low class. When
I would return from the pool in summers, my mom would irritably
eye my tanned arms and legs. “Your skin has become too black,”
she’d say. When we looked at Christmas photos, she’d say, “Look
at how white your skin was in the winter. Don’t stay in the sun too
much.” This is how I learned that dark skin is shunned in my com-
munity, while light skin is seen as a marker of beauty. In fact, I am
not a dark-skinned Asian American. I’m of Chinese heritage—my
mom from Taiwan, and my dad from a Chinese family in the
Philippines. Because of my Chinese ancestry, I have light skin, and
I find that the color of my skin is an asset both in Asia and in the
United States.
When I visit my family in the Philippines, I often feel out of
place, though admittedly privileged—because I am an American,
but also because I am light-skinned. Lighter skin implies high class,
education, and the privilege of staying indoors while the darker-
skinned masses work in the streets and darken under the tropical
sun. On Filipino TV, all the celebrities have pale skin. Every other
commercial is a cream that promises to lighten or whiten Filipino
skin, making one’s skin as white as the beloved celebrity flashing
a wide smile on screen. When I go to the beauty aisles in stores, I
see endless shelves of whitening products. I’ve also noticed these
products in other parts of Asia. When I travel to Taiwan and China,
I see the same commercials for skin-whitening products and face

84 •
masks, even though the population typically has light skin. When
I studied in China, I was warned that some brands of body wash
and face wash in stores have bleach in them. Chinese women are
conditioned to value light skin, and they go to great lengths to
whiten their skin, even if it means using products with dangerous
chemicals.
As in Asia, colorism is prevalent in the United States. My Asian
American friends often use face masks and makeup to lighten their
skin. They go through daily face-washing rituals to ensure that their
skin stays smooth and light. Despite colorism in the United States,
these cosmetic products come not from the United States but from
Asian countries like South Korea, Japan, and India.
I also find that colorism is rampant in the United States beyond
Asian American communities. Colorism affects most communities
of color in America (e.g., black, Latino) and even affects how these
groups view each other, including how they view Asian Americans.
In the United States, for instance, people (white and otherwise)
typically have a one-dimensional image of Asian Americans. When
people talk about Asian Americans, I find that they are usually
referring to those who look just like me: Chinese, light skin, black
hair, almond-shaped brown eyes—completely erasing those who
diverge from this image, such as darker-skinned Asians. When
they encounter Asian Americans who don’t match their stereotype
(for example, someone from Southeast Asia with dark skin and
round eyes), they are often confused, trying to comprehend the
“anomaly” before them.
These one-dimensional images held by most Americans
often stem from American media. Asian Americans are rarely
represented in television and film, but when they are presented,
they are whitewashed or uniformly light-skinned. There’s a long
history of Asian whitewashing in film, dating back to the era of
silent film when white actress Mary Pickford played the Asian
lead in Madame Butterfly (1915), but whitewashing continues in
modern-day movies as well. In 2013’s Star Trek into Darkness, British
(white) actor Benedict Cumberbatch was cast as the villain Khan
Noonien Singh—an Indian character. In the 2015 romance film

Shai Hei • 85
 Aloha, Emma Stone (a white actress) plays a mixed-race character,
Allison Ng, who is supposed to be of Hawaiian and Asian heritage.
And in the 2017 movie Ghost in the Shell, Scarlett Johansson (an-
other white actress) portrayed Major Motoko Kusanagi, who was
originally written as a Japanese character. In all of these cases, Asian
characters are whitewashed for white audiences. Even when those
of Asian ancestry play Asian characters, they are almost always
light-skinned (e.g., Lucy Liu, Daniel Dae Kim, Sandra Oh), and in
many cases, multiracial with European ancestry (e.g., Ryan Potter,
Jordan Connor, Katie Chang, Sonoya Mizuno). In 2016, the New
York Times published an online video about Asian Americans shar-
ing their stories about the racism they face every day, yet most of
the commentators were East Asian and light-skinned. The voices of
darker-skinned Asians, such as those from South/Southeast Asia,
were excluded, even though Filipinos and Indians are the second
and third highest percentage of Asian Americans, respectively, and
despite the fact that they arguably have important stories to tell
given the value placed on light skin in the United States.
Because I embody the stereotype of an Asian American (i.e.,
light-skinned, East Asian), I understand that I benefit from color-
ism in the United States. When Asian American organizations are
formed, I know that they will include me. They will call themselves
“yellow power” or “yellow peril,” not realizing that they are exclud-
ing darker-skinned Asians who may self-identify as “brown.” When
I walk down the street or drive in my car, I do not get racially
profiled as do some of my brown Asian American brothers and
sisters. In 2015, a fifty-seven-year-old dark-skinned Indian man,
Sureshbhai Patel, was beaten and partially paralyzed by Alabama
police; they had been called by a neighbor reporting the “suspi-
cious” behavior of a “skinny black man” lurking in the area—he was
taking his morning walk. And while people may see me as foreign
because I am Asian, they do not see me as dangerous. When I go
to the airport, I do not experience the effects of Islamophobia and
undergo extra security checks like those with brown skin.
I move through space under the gaze of people who think I’m
foreign, but also nonthreatening. I listen to what my mom says.

86 • Rosalie Chan
I still wear sunscreen and protect my skin. But when I hear the
words “shai hei,” I cringe. In the Asian American community, in our
attitudes and in our language, we demonize darker skin, and we
need to do better. In the United States, we also need to do better.
Vilifying dark skin must stop.

Shai Hei • 87
 10
Whiteness Is Slippery
Julia Mizutani, Multiracial Japanese/White American, 24

Sprawled on the couch in the warm home of a close friend, I was

scrolling through music videos with her two children when the
younger of them, Nolan, bounced up and began to teach me some
of his dance moves. Nolan’s curly, dark hair bounced on his fore-
head in front of his eyes as his lanky nine-year-old body shuffled
across the living room’s wooden floors, showing me what the
“white boy” dance looked like. I laughed and blurted out that white
people don’t dance like that. Nolan turned to me incredulously
with wide eyes and a slack-jawed mouth, “Wait . . . are you white?”
I had never been asked that question before in my life.
The definition of who is considered white is one that has shifted
and varied over the course of this country’s history, dependent
upon time and place, and rooted in the calculated decisions
of those in power to subordinate people of color. My father is
Japanese, and his heritage was visibly passed on to me through my
shock of black hair that sticks out thick and straight, and my facial
features that render me ethnically ambiguous, but ethnic nonethe-
less. White men, whether through court systems, media, or law, are
the ones who decide who is white, and I have never been mistaken
for a white woman by any white man.
To Nolan’s credit, he isn’t white either, but both of us have white
mothers, and it was in that moment that he understood we shared
something. We are mixed. We are the in-betweens. Not quite one
and not quite the other. We often identify according to how the
world sees us, while painfully aware of the part of us it doesn’t see.
Society tries to box us into one race, though we are sometimes seen
as “racial imposters” by members of the racial groups to which we

88 •
belong. We are not black enough or Asian enough. Yet, we are not
white enough either.
Whites often perceive us as “exotic,” and we are fetishized by
those who wish to investigate “the unknown” through their sexual
exploits. We receive comments about our hair, our eyes, our skin,
and comments on the “jungle fever” or “yellow fever” our parents
must have had. Strangely enough, the fetishizing bleeds into Asian
communities as well, except it is due to our white features.
•
As an Asian American woman who is part white, I have Asian facial
features that render me unmistakably East Asian, but have light
skin and double eyelids and features that many of my Japanese
friends do not have. Because of my appearance, I am treated dif-
ferently than my full-Asian friends since colorism is a prominent
part of many Asian communities, and my privileged treatment for
simply existing proves this point.
Whether I am traveling in Nepal, Thailand, Korea, or Japan,
I see ads for creams that bleach and whiten skin and for facial
plastic surgery meant to whitewash Asian features. My light-skin
privilege gives me special treatment in these countries. I know that
I am treated differently than my darker-skinned Filipino, Indian,
and Japanese friends. I see it in the way that sunny days bring out
umbrellas, and I see it in the funny looks I am given when I stroll
down the streets soaking up the sun. I hear it from the o’bachans
and obasans and halmonis and ajummas (aunties and grandmoth-
ers) who wag their fingers at me for not properly preserving my
pale skin. I see it in the multiracial Asian-white models used to
promote skin-care products. We are just Asian enough to be
identified as Asian, yet we have features and light-skin privilege that
consumers might wish to have. In the beauty industry in Japan, we
are called “hāfu,” meaning “half ” or “mixed,” but usually referring
to those of us who are half-white. Beauty magazines have articles
called “How to Look like Hāfu,” which really means, “how to look
part white.” It is poisonous to Asian women being constantly told
that lighter skin is beautiful, and that their standard of beauty

Whiteness Is Slippery • 89
 should be someone who looks like me, someone who was born to a
white mother.
The phenomenon of colorism is not only found within each of
our communities, but it is also used across Asian communities. As
a Japanese American, I understand what it is like being both the
oppressed and the oppressor. My ancestors have been both imperi-
alist occupiers of large swaths of Asia, as well as forced into intern-
ment camps in America by a president’s executive order. Identity
is complicated, and we can often hold multiple contradicting ones
at the same time. While Asian Americans were segregated, just as
African Americans and other people of color were before Brown v.
Board of Education, we are now often a part of the effort to reseg-
regate schools by fighting against affirmative action and throwing
our black and brown counterparts under our proverbial bus.
The Japanese community has, at times, also shunned our darker-
skinned Asian American counterparts from South/Southeast Asia
(e.g., the Philippines, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Laos); we
differentiate our own skin from theirs to access societal benefits
connected to whiteness.
But whiteness is slippery, we must never forget. We mustn’t
forget that the white man defines whiteness, not us. We must
remember that the definition of whiteness has shifted and changed
with the turning tides, and that we must not be swept up in it. We
mustn’t forget the one-drop rule, or the Supreme Court cases of
Takao Ozawa or Bhagat Singh Thind, of Japanese and Indian ances-
try, respectively, who were ineligible for US citizenship because the
Court (read: white men) decreed that they were not white.
When writing about Bhagat Singh Thind, a US Army vet-
eran who sought US citizenship a few years after his honorable
discharge, Justice Sutherland wrote that “intermarriages . . .
produc[ed] an intermingling . . . destroying to a greater or less
degree the purity of the Aryan blood” and that “the average man
knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound
differences” between Asians and white people.
Nowadays, some Americans may shudder at such statements.
Those same Americans may look at someone like me or like Nolan

90 • Julia Mizutani
and believe we are the look of “progress” and that racism will be
erased once we all become mixed. With mixing, our skin colors will
blend into a honey-tinted tone, and racism will be defeated. Yet,
this fantasy doesn’t consider the colorism that runs rampant within
and between communities of color. Takao Ozawa and Bhagat Singh
Thind tried to attain privilege by proving their whiteness, and it
may not stop us mixed-race, lighter-skinned folk from using our
privileges at the expense of others.
Personally, I regard with suspicion the idea that we can fuck our
way out of this country’s racism and white supremacy. I am skepti-
cal that we honey-tinted people can defeat racism while colorism
continues to thrive within our own communities. We, the ambigu-
ous mixed-race folk, must choose whether we will be an erosion of
white supremacy or a buffer for it.
•
Nolan doesn’t understand most of this yet. His nine-year-old
mind is starting to wrap around the idea of what being a person of
color means in this country. He is just starting to understand what
being seen as a black man may mean for him in the future, as I am
still learning what being an Asian woman means for me. Having a
conversation about his light-skin privilege, about the colorism that
exists within our own communities, will add yet another layer of
complication to his identity. Understanding that colorism is yet
another hurdle in the journey to end white supremacy is difficult
for grown adults to grasp, let alone a child who is told by others
that his identity represents racial progress.
For now, we continue dancing and shuffling our feet across the
floor.

Whiteness Is Slippery • 91
 11
Regular Inmates
Sonal Nalkur, Indo- Canadian (Currently Resides
in the United States), 41

The guard’s frisking was firm and aggressive. Across my waist,

under my bra, between my legs, her command announced a
complete disinterest in the body parts she handled. She dumped
out the contents of my purse, asked me to put my cash in my
pockets, and silently put handcuffs around my wrists. She asked
me my name and my birth date, then pointed me to a red corner
on the floor so I could have my picture taken. Looking down at her
clipboard, she asked if I was a US citizen.
“No.”
“That’s the first time I ever heard anyone say no! What are you?”
“Canadian.”
“I mean . . . what’s your race?”
“Indian.”
This was my first encounter with the American criminal justice
system. As an academic, I know that most scholarship offers
evidence that “race matters,” especially if a person is a black male.
But there isn’t much published on the arrests of brown-skinned
South Asian women. Until my arrest, I had never had a serious
traffic violation, nor been particularly interested in the color of my
skin. As a South Indian, and fair-skinned at that, I understood that
my skin color affords me privilege over black men in the criminal
justice system. Yet, here I was.
A few months before my firm frisking, I had been pulled over for
running a stop sign in Georgia—on a quiet road just outside the
university campus where I work. I wasn’t speeding in the ten-mile-
per-hour zone, but my driver’s license, which I had to renew every

92 •
four months because of the way my work visa had been arranged,
had expired—carelessness on my part. The incident would result
in my first time in court, where I would stand before a very busy
judge who asked me a litany of questions while sifting through
a large stack of paperwork before him. I was surprised when he
announced the eight-hundred-dollar fine, one hundred for rolling
through a stop sign (did I actually do that?) and seven hundred
for driving with an expired license in Georgia. I was even more
surprised when the judge called me back to the stand to tell me that
I had committed a “finger-printable” offense. I later learned that
“finger-printable” actually means that you’re being arrested. For
driving with an expired license.
•
The guard who opened my cell door didn’t say anything when
she unlocked my handcuffs and closed the door behind me. The
exhausted young woman sitting beside me near the pay phone,
whose hair and nails showed traces of having been glamorous the
night before, told me that she had turned herself in at 9:00 a.m. for
the same thing. Neither of us knew how long we’d be in the jail, but
she said her friend told her that they do fingerprints first thing in
the morning.
I sat for about three hours, staring down at my toes, then back at
the wall, and out the glass window to the offices, and then reluctantly
back to the ticking clock in the hallway. At one point, there were five
of us. The woman in the corner opposite mine was Tessi—she was in
for trespassing. “I’m not trying to stay here,” she said. She and some
friends had been sleeping over at her brother’s place. “The property
manager came in and called the cops on us since we weren’t on
the lease,” she said. The cop had pointed a gun at her brother. “My
brother said, ‘if you’re gonna shoot me, then kill me.’ He’s been shot
before, so he ain’t trippin’.” She told me that DeKalb County takes
about eight to twelve hours to release people. Gwinnett County was
so much faster, she recalled. “Yeah, my brother put his hands up and
surrendered immediately. Neither of us had taken out our guns or
anything. There’s no reason for me to be here.”

Regular Inmates • 93
 The woman beside me called someone on the pay phone who
told her that he didn’t have money to come get her. It sounded as
though he was giving her some advice because she was listening
intently. She was telling her friend about the male inmates who in-
frequently passed by our cell: “These regular inmates keep walking
around, peering in like they gonna eat us.” We all laughed, and she
continued, “I ran into Teresa and Jaz on my way in here . . . uh huh.
Yeah, my mug looks cute. I look cute today.” She giggled like a little
girl, but was probably more like twenty-four. “Uh huh, yeah . . . we
all black in here, except one girl. But she ain’t white neither.”
•
The first time it really hit me that my skin color mattered was when
my South Indian high school friend advised me to date Indian
boys exclusively because, at the end of the day, white boys would
only see me as brown. It was the first serious dating advice I’d ever
received, and it was the first time someone explicitly told me I was
not white—something I knew, but nothing I had ever really consid-
ered. Knowing your skin color is one thing, but knowing that your
skin color matters to everyone around you is another. Years later,
while teaching kindergarten in Saudi Arabia, I discovered that, in
some places, I was not brown either. I was teaching Arab four-year-
olds the letter “B” one day, and when I asked, “What is this thing
in my hand?” they screamed, “Book!” When I asked, “What is that
thing on the shelf?” they screamed, “Basket!” When I asked, “And
what is the color of my skin?” they all screamed, “White!” There
hadn’t been any doubt in any of their minds, and yet they had now
injected some doubt in mine.
•
All of us in the cell were trying to keep our attention on one officer
who was busily walking back and forth. Eventually, the officer
rushed in to tell Tessi that she’d be getting out, that she would
get to go home today. “That’s right,” Tessi announced as she sat
up straight and folded her arms. Another thirty minutes later, the
officer came back and called me out and pointed to a wall where I

94 • Sonal Nalkur
could stand and wait for my prints. Sometime later, it was another
officer, then fingerprints on a scanner, then fingerprints with ink,
then mug shots. After more sitting around and waiting, I was
escorted out by a warm and cheerful male cop.
“Your wrists are so tiny, just let me know if these fall off!”
Several hallways later, he removed my cuffs, “Alright, let me get
you set to go. Wait. What’s the origin of your last name?”
“Indian,” I said. And that was it.
•
The reactions from my colleagues and friends that evening told me
the experience was equally unfamiliar to them:
“That is the craziest story I’ve ever heard! You’re kidding me, right?”
“Will they deport you?”
“Are your mug shots public?”
“Could this affect future job prospects?”
“Did you at least get a few selfies in? Haha—wait, can you take
your phone in?”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through all this! Let me know if you
need anything.”
“I told you to hire a lawyer! Next time you should listen to me.
I’m telling you . . . the difference between rich people and poor
people in America is: lawyers.”
Some of them were so nonchalant, but from that day on, I drove
with my hands clenched on the wheel, always making full and
complete stops, and always having checked—ten or twelve times a
day—that I had my driver’s license with me.
•
When asked “what I am,” I often tell people I am “Canindian,”
hyper-aware that while I was born and raised in Canada, I am seen
as Indian. I am aware of the Queen’s power, the power that built the
British Commonwealth, the power that subordinated Indians for
hundreds of years and relegated us to second-class citizens in our
own country. But in an independent India, I am also aware that my
light skin color gives me privileges and makes me relatively closer to

Regular Inmates • 95
 the white man in status than my darker brothers and sisters. In other
parts of the Commonwealth, including Canada, my color undoes
that privilege, reminding me again that true citizens are white.
Like so many with privilege, I often forget that I have it, until
I don’t. After all, my experiences have taught me that the bar for
being “nonwhite” is very low in America—for a woman of color
becomes a criminal forever the moment she enters the criminal
justice system, no matter how she got there. And a brown-skinned
foreigner is suspect every time she crosses a border, no matter
how brown. Last month, I was crossing the US/Canadian border
with my visa reapplication materials in hand. The US government
requires original documents of my professional qualifications, so I
had my PhD diploma rolled up in a case as I always did. I also had
my parole paperwork and arrest release documentation.
“So, I see you have this arrest,” the border patrol officer said after
having asked a series of questions about the nature of my work in
Atlanta. “You know, you shouldn’t be driving around without a
license. That’s just plain irresponsible.”
“Yes, sir,” I responded with some shame.
“I mean, you’re a professor, for goodness’ sake! You should know
better.” He raised his voice. As fear began to well up in me, I re-
minded myself that he was just doing his job. He paused and went
through my paperwork and then looked at his computer, and then
back at my paperwork. “Running a stop a sign . . . well, that is just
plain reckless.” He shook his head. “So, when was the last time you
were in Saudi Arabia?”
“I believe it was about three years ago,” I said, not expecting the
question and, to his chagrin, unclear of my exact travel dates.
“Ma’am, it’s a simple question. And if I can’t trust you to answer
that, I just don’t see how you can be trusted. It’s clear you are unfit
to be in this country.” I felt a hard lump tightening in my throat. My
mouth was dry and I said nothing. He took out a large metal stamp
and slammed a visa in my passport.
“Are you sure you should really be here?”
There hadn’t been any doubt in his mind, and his words had now
injected some doubt in mine.

96 • Sonal Nalkur
12
Magnetic Repulsion
Brittany Ota- Malloy, Multiracial
Japanese/Black American, 29

Some of us are born sun-kissed. That’s me. As a biracial Black and

Japanese woman, I often present as racially ambiguous, but obvi-
ously as a woman of color.1 I have a tan complexion year-round,
and in the sunniest summers my skin often turns a shade of deep
caramel. My experiences with colorism manifest as a magnetic
repulsion (two equal forces repelling each other), wherein my per-
ceived lightness or darkness produces messages that are in constant
conflict with one another.
I understand colorism to be rooted in anti-Blackness around
the world. The underlying message that “lighter skin is better
skin” inherently disadvantages Black people and others with
similar dark skin (e.g., dark-skinned Latinos, South Asians).
Within the American Black community, light skin is privileged;
those with light skin have received certain privileges since
slavery, such as indoor work on the plantation and, later, rela-
tively more access to dominant American cultural institutions
than their darker-skinned counterparts enjoy. Within Asian
(and Asian American) communities, light skin is similarly
privileged, cherished, sought after, and often connected to
perceptions about social class. The politics of skin shade in both
of these communities live in me. However, the messages that I
receive about my skin color from these communities are often
conflicting—like a magnetic repulsion, both disadvantaging and
privileging me at the same time.
•

• 97
 Growing up in a primarily Black family in Southern California
shaped my experiences with race and colorism. My father was born
in Nagasaki, Japan, and he immigrated to America in the late 1980s.
My mother, a Black woman, comes from a large family of varying
shades. Great-grandma was the lightest of us all, cousin Deon and
my sister Jasmine fall within the median, and cousin Dana’s skin is
rich obsidian. Mom often paired our fried chicken with rice, taught
me to count to ten in Japanese, and ensured that I had both the
African and Japanese collectible Barbies. Beyond these efforts, my
upbringing was culturally Black, and while my Japaneseness was
not always seen, my Blackness was more readily visible. Though
I recall my mother’s attempts to make sure some Japanese influ-
ences were present in my life, I’ve never known what it means to be
an Asian woman. And for much of my life, the only other people
I have known of Japanese ancestry have been my father, twin
brother, and Traci, a classmate in school. Soom, the Asian woman
who owned the local Black beauty supply shop, was the first Asian
woman to show any interest in me. She gave me free barrettes with
each visit to the shop.
Racialized experiences in my life produce messages with great
polarity, particularly with women from the racial communities
to which I belong. My interactions with Asian women typically
render me invisible, wholly unseen. With these women, the news
that I too am Asian is, more often than not, met with surprise. With
wide eyes, I am asked, “You are Japanese?! And what?” or “How
Japanese are you?” To these women, something doesn’t add up, and
these experiences remind me that I don’t look like other Japanese
women. A few years ago I visited my partner in Shanghai, China,
where he’d been assigned to work. We’d stopped by his office so I
could meet his supervisor and peers. After the initial introductions,
the Asian women in the office surrounded me, poking and prod-
ding. His supervisor asked, “Is this how your hair grows?” as she
tugged at my wild, curly strands. I felt the distance between us in
that moment and, in the pit of my stomach, an aching pain because
inside of me there was a Black woman silently pleading with her,
“Please don’t touch my hair.” On the train ride back to the hotel, I

98 • Brittany Ota-Malloy
was surrounded by advertisements for skin-lightening products on
billboards and magazines. I did not encounter, during my two-
week trip, a single person who looked like me.
In a graduate-level class in Wisconsin, an Asian American peer
complained that we’d had too much sun this year. She was upset
that her children were getting dark because they have “such beauti-
ful pale skin.” When I commented that dark skin is beautiful, too,
she interrupted me to add, “It’s an Asian thing.” In that moment,
this Asian woman did not see me as Asian, while at the same time
insulting my own tan skin. She looked right through me, rendering
me invisible as an Asian American woman. Apparently, I am too
dark to be Asian, too dark to be Japanese. I am seen as an “outsider.”
Interactions with Black women can also be complicated. While
I am generally seen as Black, my Blackness is, at times, challenged.
My knowledge about and experiences within Black communities
support me in these challenges, and, when all else fails, a photo
of my mother will usually do. In my freshman year of college, I at-
tended a retreat with other scholars of color. In a discussion about
the use of language as a form of oppression, I spoke about how
the words “bitch” and “nigga” have been reclaimed by women and
Black people, respectively, as colloquial expressions of love for and
validation of one another. A Black classmate stood up to express
her disappointment that someone who is not Black would use the
N-word in the conversation, while she looked directly at me. This
was the first time I had to explain myself, and it was the first time
that I felt my Blackness challenged. This experience caused me to
consider my Black and Japanese identities and how they converge
in me.
While I sometimes feel frustrated in those moments when my
Blackness is questioned (especially since this is the reality I grew up
in), I also understand that other Black women, including my own
mother and monoracial Black sisters, experience Blackness differ-
ently than I do. Like many other Black women, I spent much of my
early life pressing and flat-ironing my hair to get it bone straight. In
college, however, I began wearing my natural curly texture, doing
little more than adding conditioner. I quickly learned that my

Magnetic Repulsion • 99
 natural hair is accepted everywhere and I am complimented at least
once a week; by comparison, many Black women are stigmatized
for their natural hair, often worn in tight curls, afros, and braids.
And recently, Shea Moisture (a company that markets a wide
variety of beauty products to women—primarily Black women)
faced backlash for their advertising campaign, which featured two
white women and one light-skinned, loose-curled Black woman.
Prioritizing Eurocentric traits, even in the Black model, neglected
the millions of Black women whose features diverge from this
image (women whose support serves as a foundation for the com-
pany’s success). As a graduate student in Wisconsin, I participated
in a dialogue with other Black women about the ad. One woman
asked the group to raise a hand if they had ever used Shea Moisture
products, and most of the women in the room raised a hand. Then
she asked that we raise a hand if we felt represented in the Shea
Moisture ad. I was the only woman to raise a hand. Shea Moisture’s
hair products are centered on loving natural hair, a prominent issue
in Black hair care. But the campaign’s absence of dark-skinned,
kinky-haired women, who felt Shea Moisture’s products were for
them too, if not mainly, was a slap in the face. The ad campaign
reflected the whitewashing of the brand, and when it comes to
representation of Black women in media, women like me, with
lighter skin and “good hair,” are prioritized and privileged.
Throughout my life, messages about my skin color have been
contradictory—with equal and repelling forces from Asian and
Black communities, communities for which skin shade and color-
ism are especially deeply rooted and contentious. Anti-Blackness
is pervasive in Asia and in the United States, and in both Asian
American and Black American communities, light skin is privileged
over dark. My relatively darker skin marks me as an “outsider”
among Asians and among Japanese Americans. Because of my
darker hue, I am not seen as Japanese, and I am perceived as “less
beautiful” by a culture that idealizes light, white skin. But this same
skin, my sun-kissed shade, is viewed differently in the Black com-
munity. While I am disadvantaged by dark skin among Asians and
Asian Americans, I understand that I am privileged by light skin in

100 • Brittany Ota-Malloy

the Black community. These experiences with colorism repel me
towards and away from my own racial identities. They impact my
ability to build lasting relationships with and to see myself in my ra-
cial peers. As I engage with others about colorism, I am constantly
learning how people perceive each other, themselves, and me.
Through this learning I am able to position myself as a purposeful
actor in experiences where colorism is at play and maximize my
impact in redefining what is known about biracial Asian/Black
women and skin-color privilege.

Magnetic Repulsion • 101

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13
Digital Whiteness
Noor Hasan, Pakistani American, 26

Most of my friends are brown women. We have entered one

another’s lives through connections in communities, college,
graduate and professional schools, the workplace, places of wor-
ship, and friends of friends. At twenty-six years old, I find that we
are scattered all over the country and even the world. We reside
in drastically different time zones, locales, and cultural contexts.
To keep in touch, we communicate with each other in a variety of
ways. Most often, we connect through social media platforms—
frequently through Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram—and
express ourselves through countless posts, tweets, pictures,
Snapchat videos, and emojis.
When Apple introduced racially diverse emojis in recent
years, they made their way into our digital social marketplaces.
The reactions of my friends varied—some were excited, others
critical. Though the emojis are diverse in skin tone, other features
(such as hair texture and eye shape) remained Westernized and
Eurocentric. Some friends further wondered whether, now that
social media platforms had given us the opportunity to attach our
racial identities to our social communications, we were now cultur-
ally and socially obligated to use the newly created emojis. Some
of us fought to see ourselves represented on the emoji keyboard,
though perhaps this victory presents itself with unintended conse-
quences—to openly attach our racial identities (and hence, divulge
demographic data) to the material benefit of platform owners and
advertisers unknown to us.
Despite these arguments, for me, it was a no-brainer to use the
medium-toned brown woman emoji. Sure, she didn’t have black

• 111
 hair like me, but her skin tone was consistent with mine—right in
the middle of the spectrum—and, to me, her brown tone best rep-
resented my South Asian identity as a Pakistani American woman.
Many of my friends use these emojis, and with the rise of Bitmojis,
avatars that enable even more flexibility and personalization, there
are seemingly endless ways to express moods, mindsets, feelings,
attitudes, and activities through these tiny socio-digital cartoons.
What I never anticipated from the introduction of these digital ex-
pressions of identity was a significant shift in how I perceived people
of color on social media—especially brown women. I expected that
most South Asian American women would choose the medium-
toned emoji to express themselves, though I was surprised to find
that many opted instead to use the lightest-skinned emoji—a woman
with light skin and black hair. Most surprising, the skin tone of this
emoji is even lighter than what is presumably the archetypal American
“white woman” emoji that is illustrated with faintly bronzed white
skin and blonde hair. As I noticed more and more brown women,
including South Asian actresses, beauty bloggers, and social media
personalities, captioning their Instagram photos and Snapchat stories
with the light-skinned emoji, I grew confused. Don’t you realize that
you’re brown? I thought. Why would brown women opt for an emoji
that is obviously unrepresentative of their actual skin tone?
I didn’t understand why brown women—women who believe
in racial justice, who disavow the impact of colonialism and preju-
dice on our society, who are “woke,” who are liberal-minded, who
believe in a fair and equal society—selected emojis that are not
brown like them. Sure, the medium skin–toned brown woman
emoji isn’t everyone’s skin tone. Maybe you are a little lighter
skinned. But still, aren’t you brown? Instead of opting for the emoji
that reflects your racial identity, what informs your decision to
swipe all the way to the left in the emoji selection pane and choose
the lightest-skinned digital representation of yourself? Every time
I see this happen on a social media platform, I cannot help but
think—why are you, a brown woman, opting for digital whiteness
when there are options to express yourself with emojis that are more
consistent with your racial identity and phenotype?

112 • Noor Hasan

 I cannot divorce emoji usage from its underlying racial and
cultural connotations. I think about the impact of European colo-
nialism and preference towards light skin in our cultures. I know
that when we walk into desi1grocery stores anywhere in America,
we find shelves full of skin-lightening creams and soaps. I think
about the historical South Asian aspiration to access whiteness in
America and the precept of Western assimilation as an indispens-
able goal. When I witness brown women of South Asian origin
choosing to express themselves with the lightest-skinned emoji
that is available to users, these realities are undeniable.
As I consider these truths, I understand why brown women,
some maybe subconsciously, opt for digital whiteness. Perhaps
what we cannot access in reality, we appropriate digitally. These
tiny characters hang off the edges of witty Instagram captions and
make their way into the corners of Snapchat stories. These orna-
mental cartoons are expressions not only of our feelings but of who
we are, who we want to be, and how we want to be seen. In opting
for digital whiteness through the use of emojis, I find that even with
new ways to communicate and express ourselves, we enter into
these new digital marketplaces with the same old cultural baggage.

Digital Whiteness • 113

 14
Mrs. Santos’s Whitening Cream
Agatha Roa, Pacific Islander American, 39

Mrs. Santos’s eyes dart from her iPhone to the white paste on top of
her left hand. For ten minutes, the paste had been burning. A crust
had formed soon after the baking soda/hydrogen peroxide solution
dried, and she lifts her hand toward the camera for her viewers to
get a closer look.
Mrs. Santos is older than most YouTube posters I’ve seen—in
her late thirties and a housewife, perhaps. Her glossy, thick black
hair is cut into a neat pageboy that swings when she talks and
brushes past her shoulders. Her big, deep-set brown eyes reveal
Spanish ancestry, and I can tell she is from the Philippines by her
accent. She is on the paler side of olive skin and, although she’s
Asian like me, I can easily see that without sunscreen she’d suffer
from sunburn in the summer. I am on the other side of the skin
spectrum, and cannot fathom how Mrs. Santos could get any
lighter without losing her natural yellow color.
She waits. Sitting on her carpeted living room floor, she repeats
her disclaimer: “I want you all to know that I am not a medical
professional,” adding, “and I am not a nurse.” She blinks her eyes,
big brown saucers. Her deep-set eyes are such a desired look that
many Chinese and Koreans attempt to emulate them by undertak-
ing an epicanthoplasty, an irreversible surgical procedure. “Eyelids
with a fold,” I mutter, “that’s what everybody wants.”
I can’t tell if Mrs. Santos is broadcasting from Vancouver, or
Chicago, or Houston, and it is not her homemade recipe for skin-
whitening cream that irks me. From cake soap to L-glutathione
injections, the secret has been out of bathrooms and closets for
years. Bleaching is on television, billboards, and magazine ads, and

114 •
in the streets of New Delhi, on the store shelves of Tokyo, and in
the Tondo slums in Manila. It’s rapped about and commodified as
Chinese Jamaicans sell whitening powders in the downtown mar-
kets of Kingston. The Internet has made it so we can all compare
formulas, mock, or inquire with abandon.
The naïveté in her sing-song voice annoys me as she begins to
rinse off the papery glue bandage from her hand, as if to demon-
strate how magically easy it is to be white. The image dissolves, and
next we see her in a kitchen that is lit just enough to allow viewers
to see her diligently rinsing, rubbing her hand, conjuring a genie
out of its bottle. She grabs a towel, and we cut to the final scene.
She is overjoyed with the results, her plump, manicured yellow
hands showcased before my laptop screen. With the zoom lens,
the bleached hand is ready for all the world to see and admire.
It has undergone a chemical reaction, with faint peeling at the
edges where the burnt and unburnt skin meet. I’m fascinated and
repulsed at the same time, and swallow a lump that forms in my
throat.
“Ooh,” she says, lightly flexing her hands as if there were hunks
of shiny diamonds on her fingers.
“Di ba? [You see?] It’s white! Look at the difference.” The video
takes a few seconds to fade to black, yet the sadness I feel for this
stranger will linger on and piss me off.
Mrs. Santos is at her happiest when she looks least like herself.
•
That epiphanic moment was paralyzing, and it brought back buried
memories, and a need to disengage. Dealing with the complexities
of colorism in my life has taken years for me to unravel in order to
save my life. Whitening videos are wounds that can be revisited,
reopened with ease on the Internet, and I’m often baffled by the
reasons why I do it.
•
It began with my mother. Her light skin was the product of a mar-
riage between a young Basque soldier and my grandmother when

Mrs. Santos’s Whitening Cream • 115

 Spain surrendered the island, only to be colonized yet again by the
United States. My lola (grandmother) was mestiza—indigenous
and Spanish, living in the southern Philippines, so my mother, too,
was born a mestiza.
What my mother never mentioned to me was that my great-
grandmother descended from Austronesian tribes, and possibly
from dark-skinned Borneans from Indonesia and Maoris from
the Pacific. Was she ashamed of that? I don’t know, but while I
was growing up, the indigenous “dark” side was never mentioned,
and I watched as my pale mother never went out in the sun. One
day she told me that the pediatrician said I had sensitive skin, as
if that would persuade me to stay indoors. Chasing me down as I
ran along a Long Island beach, she would repeatedly tell me to get
under some shade. I’d ask why, and she would state matter-of-factly,
“Kasi [because], you do not want to be dark. Dark is bad.”
I can’t really blame my mother for wanting to be something she
was not. She was a product of a post-WWII Philippines. While she
was growing up, the country was a US territory, and my mother
had moved from her small town of Antike to Manila to the north.
I think of that period of her life as the “Holly Golightly” period—
just like the Truman Capote film and book, Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
where the main character goes from country to city girl upon
moving to New York City. My mother grew up in the technicolor
age, watching Douglas Sirk melodramas, smoking cigarettes like an
American eighteen-year-old. And as she watched Imitation of Life,
she learned that everything in America was syrupy sweet and color-
ful. If you were white.
•
My mother loved the whiteness of New York in winter, dressing
up in heavy coats to walk in snow. She loved the whiteness of the
cold air that enabled her to see every billowing breath as a cloud as
she walked to church. As I got older, we couldn’t have been more
different, and sadly, our relationship became toxic for me. Our
mother-daughter relationship was further strained when I decided
to drop out of school and move across the country.

116 • Agatha Roa

 I relocated to California and soaked up every single ray of sun-
shine I could. While living on Venice Beach, I surfed, and the only
time I covered myself on the beach was in winter, to don a three-
millimeter-thick neoprene wetsuit. I took up rock climbing, and
spent my summers in Joshua Tree National Park and my winters
camping in Yosemite.
Never once did I ever consider wearing sunscreen, not that I
needed it because of the melanin in my skin. I saw it as an act of
rebellion against my mother. I rebelled against her, against color-
ism, and against whiteness. I rebelled out of self-preservation. I
knew I’d never comfortably fit into a traditional New York life, the
kind she wanted me to have—the lives her immigrant, working-
class white neighbors had. She wanted me to be like the daughters
of Italian and Greek families, who were smart, got accepted into
elite schools, and climbed the social ladder. I was a disappointment
to my immigrant parents, who expected me to go on with my stellar
SAT scores to be a lawyer, at the very least. I never told them about
the letter from NYU asking me to “please reconsider attending”
after I left. I couldn’t wait to leave. I took a camera, the one I bought
for a freshman photography class, and told the college I needed
a break. Over the years my mother suffered hypertension, partly
caused by stress. I knew she had a ton of internalized frustration,
but her need to perpetuate our differences instead of seeking to
understand them resulted in failure: Her only daughter ran away
from her and her whitewashed dreams.
•
Mrs. Santos’s latest video shows viewers how to make a quick whit-
ening facial mask out of lemon juice, sugar, and her favorite brand
of disinfectant, called Oxigenada. She waves the half-empty bottle
of hydrogen peroxide, a brand only available in the Philippines, at
her audience. She says the formula is guaranteed to whiten skin in
only thirty minutes.
Among YouTube viewers, an inverse correlation seems to exist.
The lower the educational level and social class, the greater the
desire to whiten one’s skin via questionable means. The riskier the

Mrs. Santos’s Whitening Cream • 117

 treatment, the more destitute (and, perhaps, desperate) the indi-
vidual. One video I observed from Jamaica used untested, possibly
carcinogenic chemicals that are made cheaply in China, regularly
sold over the counter in Kingston, and banned in the United States.
I realize now that Mrs. Santos may not be a housewife. Perhaps
she is the live-in nanny or the housekeeper. The frugality of her
recipes now begins to make sense to me. I came to this conclusion
after a conversation with a very distant cousin, Fernanda, who lives
in Ibaraki prefecture, an upper-middle-class suburb outside Tokyo.
I see pictures of her on Facebook. In one taken in her front yard,
her vellum skin is shielded from the sunlight peeking through a
Japanese maple tree. She has dark-skinned nannies for the children,
and servants with kind brown faces and soft voices. I begin to see
Mrs. Santos in one of these photographs—the shyness, the servi-
tude in her polite, kind voice—and I suspect Mrs. Santos is nothing
like a golf-playing suburban mom. Instead she’s a part of the post-
colonial mixed messages fed to her by skin-whitening soap ads, just
as my mother was back in the day. If she were upper-middle-class,
why would she be slaving in a kitchen, perfecting homemade whit-
ening recipes? We all know she would have gone to a Vancouver
spa to seek treatment from a licensed aesthetician. And the spa
would be located around the corner from a plastic surgeon, the one
who, with the utmost discretion, routinely performs double eyelid
surgery on Asian women. It all comes full circle.
As upset as I am with Mrs. Santos, we are both Asian, and as
in my relationship with my mother, I want desperately to believe
that we’re more alike than I originally perceived. We’re alike in our
Asian features, no matter how light or dark. We are beautiful in our
brown skin, in spite of the insidious messages whitening-cream
manufacturers and mainstream media may try to market to us.

118 • Agatha Roa

15
Shade of Brown
Noelle Marie Falcis, Filipina American, 27

I first learned of my supposed outward “deficiencies” when I was

twelve. I have a vivid memory of standing in my grandmother’s
kitchen, where, by the table, she closely watched me as I played.
When I finally looked up to ask why she was staring, her expression
changed from that of intent observer to one of guilt and shame. Her
mouth opened and she cleared the phlegm lodged in her throat.
“My anak [dear child],” she began, “You are so beautiful. It is
a shame that you are so dark. No Filipino man will ever want to
marry you.”
At the time that this bit of abrasive news was delivered to me,
I had not yet begun the process of understanding my skin tone
and all its connotations. My best friend growing up was also
Filipina, and she was just as dark as I—both of us a deep burnished
brown, the color of the clay found in the Southern California
desert around us. We grew up surrounded by Latinos and African
Americans, and the few Filipinos whom we knew were also dark-
skinned. Because of the regularity with which I saw dark skin, col-
orism was outside my experience. Due to this, my grandmother’s
words appeared more confounding than painful.
Later, her words would resurface with my mother—but in a
more subversive, nonverbal way. My mother had always played an
integral role in my hygienic routine. During my teens, she brought
home cardboard boxes filled with Likas brand herbal soap—a
papaya-scented soap that promised “SKIN WHITENING,” the
language unapologetically precise and explicit.
She would make me scrub myself multiple times a night to
ensure that I had optimized the possibility for the whitest skin. It

• 119
 became our daily ritual, so normalized through sheer frequency
that I did not recognize the routine for its insidiousness and the
way it silently wove insecurity into my psyche. My mother believed
that with this soap, we could erase the reality that I was a brown
body living in sun-drenched California. She, like my grandmother,
worried about my dark skin. While they were both endowed with
pale skin, I inherited my father’s skin—the type of skin shared by
Filipino workers who labor in the fields under the relentless sun. I
think my mother was ashamed of my skin; for in our culture, skin
color is synonymous with social class. By one’s shade of brown,
social status is visually discerned and cemented.
As Filipino immigrants, my parents also worried that the color
of our skin would complicate our transition into American society
and, hence, our future financial success. Suffering from a colonized
mentality, they believed that regardless of how my siblings and I
dressed, how kind we rendered our faces, how stellar our academic
profiles, or how many extracurricular activities we logged, none of
this would ever be enough to erase what people would see first—
the color of our skin.
This became motive to push us further; we had to do more, to
do the best even, to differentiate ourselves from the other dark-
skinned minorities in America. Our individual qualities that,
rightfully, should have determined our successes remained invis-
ible. Rather, what my parents saw were all the things that we were
not, all the things that marked us as different from the “better”
American children—those who were white, blonde, and blue-eyed.
My mother understood early on what qualities were needed
to advance in the Western world. She recognized them because
she had been taught them well before her arrival to American
shores, back when she still lived in the Philippines. There, Western
colonization already had a firm grip upon the island culture.
The Philippines was colonized by Spain for nearly four hundred
years, during which the indoctrination of preference for Western,
Eurocentric traits was introduced, enforced, and solidified. This
was not with beauty alone. To speak one’s native tongue as op-
posed to Castilian Spanish indicated one’s peasantry class; to

120 • Noelle Marie Falcis

practice one’s ancestral spirituality was a direct offense to Spanish
Catholicism and, in many cases, capitally punished; and one’s
outward appearance (skin color) dictated whether one belonged to
the upper echelon of society or was from the barangays, or barrios.
Filipinos watched those of Spanish descent (including mestizos,
those with mixed native and Spanish blood) reap the rewards of
society and ascend the social ladder.
To achieve upward mobility, Filipinos learned that all things
native were inferior, while all things European were to be held in
high esteem. Because the brainwashing of Filipinos started many
centuries ago, my mother and grandmother already understood the
value of whiteness long before they arrived to America.
The additional information they received upon migration only
compounded this understanding. They saw first-hand the ugly
ways in which dark-skinned people were viewed and treated in
America—with contempt, condescension, and discrimination.
Perceptions of danger, threat, and distrust were not lost on them,
and rather than question the morality or verity of the stereotypes,
my mother and grandmother worried that we would be lumped
into the very same category. They wanted nothing more than to
prove that we were outstanding representatives of the American
citizen—mirrors to the successful white Americans who epito-
mized the United States; they wanted, essentially, the pinnacle of
the immigrant dream, the portrait of American (white) success.
Thinking about my mother’s struggle, I realize that it was not just
that we couldn’t be white but also that we didn’t fit the next best
thing: the “model minority” stereotype that held Asian Americans
up as a “model” for other groups of color. This affluent “model
minority” is often imagined in the United States as East Asian,
wealthy, highly educated, and, most importantly, light-skinned—
wealth and skin tone intertwined and seemingly inseparable. We
did not look the part, so my mother struggled under the weight of
this knowledge.
As I’ve grown, I’ve watched her struggle, and I have felt the
weight of her pain in my own body. I remained unaware for so long
of how I had begun to embody the same expectations, failures, and

Shade of Brown • 121

 frustrations. In the way that my mother disapproved of her own
body, I had begun to do the same. Growing up, I was constantly
bothered that I didn’t look like the stereotypical Asian. The bulk of
my teenage years were spent trying to stay out of the sun and trying
to do my makeup in such a way as to make my eyes appear more
Asian—both actions being forms of visual modification. I actively
went out of my way to befriend more light-skinned Asians and
become more informed about East Asian culture, as if there were a
way I could have integrated and hid myself into the “better” culture.
I am more aware now of how I was performing a self-erasure, trying
to minimize the parts of myself that were Hispanicized Filipino and
make more clear the aspects that were aligned with model Asian
appearance.
When I was in high school, I dated a Korean boy. In a moment
of brutal honesty, he confessed to me that the relationship couldn’t,
and wouldn’t, go anywhere. When pressed as to why, he evaded my
question with a new one: “How could it?” He then launched into
the passive, dismissive, yet inevitable truth that he was Korean and
I was a dark-skinned Asian. How could he ever bring someone like
me home?
“Could you imagine?” he pointedly asked.
The realization that I would never be the type of girl that a light-
skinned Asian man could “take home” horrified me. It was some-
thing that I felt certain I had to correct even though I knew I could
not erase my skin, my features, or my country’s history. His words
also highlighted another uncomfortable truth: the hierarchies that
exist between Asian American ethnic groups regarding skin color
and the taboos of light-skinned (often East Asian) groups dating
and intermarrying with those from South, Southeast, and Pacific
Islander Asia. Colorism is rampant within my own community, but
also across Asian America, positioning Asian ethnic groups along
their own social hierarchy and, at times, pitting them against each
other. As I look back now, I cannot blame him for his words; he
was, like me, chained by a culture steeped in colorism.
Even today, I often find myself locked in an internal meditation,
sorting what beliefs are genuinely my own from what was culturally

122 • Noelle Marie Falcis

passed to me—both from my Filipino and from my American
cultures. Growing up in America, I learned that I was not beautiful
in a Western way—and through my interactions with other Asians,
I learned that I did not fit the Eastern standard either.
Today, the voice of Asian America grows louder, and with grow-
ing diversity and multiculturalism in America, I am beginning to
understand that our definitions of beauty matter.
Those young years of defining self-worth come and pass quickly,
and who I am now is heavily informed by my struggles. What I
once understood as markers of negative difference, I am now begin-
ning to view with reverence. As America experiences the cultural
shift of women and minorities becoming more persistent in voicing
their discontent with the incongruities of equality sewn into the
fabric of our society, I have become empowered by my uniqueness.
We are still finding the language in which to address the ways we
internalize cultural expectations and all the negative connotations
that come with this, but with each step forward, we are becoming
more aware, more empowered, more persistent.
As we go, I watch with delight the shifts that happen for me in-
ternally, erasing the things that I had once allowed to erase myself.

Shade of Brown • 123

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16
Creation Stories
Sairah Husain, Pakistani American, 30

Galoshes splashing through muddy puddles, my older sister Aafia

ran home from Bus 59 distraught and drenched. Her tears flowed
faster than the precipitation that Monday afternoon.
“They said I’m too dark, Mamoo,” she blubbered about her
classmates’ taunts. Mamoo attempted to decipher his niece’s words
through muffled, snotty slurps, and despite the challenge, he
caught the gist.
Now my family wasn’t unaware of or inexperienced with the
racism directed toward people of color in the United States. They
had had their fair share of it—twice or thrice was more than
enough to understand the racial lay of the land. During the height
of the first Gulf War, patients frequently associated my physician
parents’ “Husain” surname with the black sheep of our “family”—
Uncle Saddam. Humor effectively eviscerates racism. Thanks, Jon
Stewart, Trevor Noah, and 2 Dope Queens.
Back to the blubbering.
In an attempt to console his niece, Mamoo relayed to her a story
that he had been told by his parents: “When Allah was creating us
human beings out of clay, He had to bake us in the oven. The white
people, you see, Aafia, Allah took them out of the oven too early.
As for the black people, Allah burnt them. And us brown-skinned
people? Well, Allah took us out of the oven in perfect time. We’re
juuust right.”
Her pain alleviated from the kindergarten bullying, Aafia
triumphantly strode into her classroom the next day with the story
that shocked her classmates.

• 133
 •
“Everyone can see your thong tan lines!” Mumani exclaims. She
is referring to the light, triangular marks left in the ruins of the
surrounding blackened skin on my feet, not my ass. “How can you
tolerate these stripes on your skin?”
My aunt’s words were inspired by my vivid tan lines, her diatribe
followed by orders to vigorously scrub my feet. It’s telling, I reflect,
that darkened skin from the sun’s penetration is equated to dirt that
can be scrubbed off.
But Mumani, like every human being, has context. She grew
up in Hyderabad, a former princely state in India. I have never
visited Hyderabad, yet it is part of me. Growing up, I’ve learned
that colorism seems to comfortably coexist with the culture. As
children, many of us were fed the overly simplistic story of a ruling
elite Muslim class with “Arab and Persian blood,” light-skinned,
who invaded and conquered the “indigenous dark Dravidian race”
of the Indian subcontinent; this historically inaccurate narrative
continues to dominate the discourse on colorism and fosters
divisions among us. But isn’t fostering divisions among oppressed
communities a goal of colonialism? Though I ponder—it is one
thing to assign blame for our collective self-hate to the British. It
is another to jettison all responsibility, while we, at the same time,
perpetuate the colorism ourselves. Whatever explanation I can
think of is deficient.
So there is context, but there is also the reality that feelings of
self-hate trickle down from generation to generation. The “dirt”
associated with tanning brown skin is real. For me, there is noth-
ing wrong with my “black” toes. I look at my feet as I respond to
Mumani, “But they’re not even black.”
Why is whiteness our standard?
•
She proceeded with skillful intonation, gesticulating with drama
and a forceful voice. Annette, a white-presenting Argentinian litera-
ture professor, came into the library reference area at my workplace

134 • Sairah Husain

with some questions. It also seemed as though she simply wanted
to chat with my coworker and I about our cultural backgrounds,
and she was reminded of a story: “God was baking human beings
in His large creation oven. He took us out at separate times, so our
skin was different shades. White-skinned humans were tossed in
Europe, Brown-skinned humans in the Middle East, and Black-
skinned humans were tossed in Africa.”
Upon hearing that I too had a version of the story, Annette
concluded her telling with, “What’s your version?”
I led with, “It’s super anti-black but . . .”
“This is how you ruin a story! You do not lead with a conclusion.
Build it up. Let your listeners come to their own conclusions.”
She came to that very conclusion.
•
I reflect upon how racial harmony or solidarity does not exist
within a vacuum; it is often oppositional to some oppressive reality.
But what if the “oppressed” take on “oppressor” qualities? In my
family, I’ll say with certainty that we have absorbed anti-black
sentiment as a legacy of colonial education.
My skin isn’t light enough.
My hair is too curly.
And how do I make my lips appear less full?
American fashion magazines instruct their readers to wear dark
lipstick to make full lips appear smaller. I comply. So while color-
ism and all its ugliness can be inherited, what about individual
accountability for these mindsets?
I call out myself first.
•
The sun’s rays warmed the skin under my sandals on a Friday
morning this past September. My Venezuelan college friend was
summoned to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Detention and Deportation Center for a random check-in to
review her DACA1 status. We walked briskly to the building, her
breath shortening from anxiety. Why this check-in? This was the

Creation Stories • 135

 second one in the past year, and it must be due to the policies of
our Orange-in-Chief (how did Allah go about baking him?).
Having left our cell phones in the car because they are banned
in the center, we walked through the metal detector beep-free. The
waiting room was icy silent, as immigrants (most of them, at least
here, brown) watched the doors to the ICE offices swing open and
shut, patiently waiting for decisions on their fates. After entering
the office for the check-in, I sat with my friend opposite the stocky,
lightly baked ICE officer with the buzz cut—a massive American
flag and patriotic slogans emblazoned across his office wall. Staring
at the huge red, white, and blue flag that for many symbolizes
whiteness, I was reminded of the creation story of America, which
prides itself on being “one Nation, under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.” So, what about my friend’s potential
deportation from a country she’s known as home for most of her
life? Just like Mamoo’s creation story reinforcing colorism and
anti-blackness, the creation narrative of this nation is a myth that
similarly reinforces these mentalities.
When will whiteness not be our standard?

136 • Sairah Husain

17
What It Means to Be Brown
Wendy Thompson Taiwo, Multiracial
Chinese/Black American, 36

When I was a little girl, I wanted to look just like my mother. Her
brown laughing eyes were always in a partial squint—the kind of
eyes my white classmates would mock my Asian classmates for
having, their dirty pink fingers pulling down their eyelids—and
her skin was the color of aged bone. I thought she was the most
beautiful person in the world. She had arrived to the United States
in 1974, a Chinese immigrant whose baby face hardly needed the
rough scratch of red she drew across her lips or powdery dabs of
blue and green shadow that she layered above her eyes to “make
herself look pretty.” Yet she would continue the practice, teaching
me through each application that a woman must always make
herself attractive to her husband or else he would leave. It was a
private ritual between us: me sitting on the bed watching her apply
makeup, and her gazing at her face in the mirror. And I would go on
believing that a woman’s appearance could keep her house intact
until the day my father left her.
Growing up, it didn’t matter to me that I didn’t look like my
mother until other people pointed it out. Then I was forced to ex-
plain myself and our relationship to those who were often demand-
ing and rude in their inquiry. “Who is that woman?” they would
ask me. “That’s your mom? You’re lying,” classmates would accuse.
On shopping trips to Oakland Chinatown, men and women behind
counters and cash registers would force my mother to respond to
their curiosity—“Is this your daughter?”—before extending her
service or allowing her to collect her purchase. Constantly, strang-
ers would question us—How? How?—searching for answers about

• 137
 our biological connection until I realized that their questions were
less about understanding how we were related and more about
policing racial boundaries and sexual transgressions—specifically,
the interracial relationship of my Chinese mother and my black
American father. This also meant that of all their questions asked,
there was one unuttered question that troubled them the most:
Why would your mother choose to be with a black man?
This particular question would trail me into adulthood, arising
whenever I was with my mother. It was my body—visibly mixed-
race and black—that revealed her sexual history and led others to
assume my father’s sexual dominance and my mother’s physical
ruin. It was my body that made Chinese people uncomfortable,
disrupting their beliefs that Chinese people should only choose
each other as intimate partners or, if they crossed racial lines,
should do so only with white people, whom a history of racist
state policies had disproportionally granted excess social author-
ity, political autonomy, the highest property values, and the best
financial credit. It continues to be my body, and reactions to it, that
reveal the pervasiveness of anti-blackness within Asian America
and among Asian immigrants who see blackness as undesirable;
many would do anything to avoid black adjacency in the same
country that treats blackness as a liability and black people as
disposable. After all, anti-blackness remains at the core of American
citizenship and requires that all immigrants assume what writer
Toni Morrison refers to as a “hostile posture” against black people
“at the Americanizing door before it will open.”1
Finding myself routinely dismissed by Chinese people who told
me that I wasn’t really Chinese or who implied that my mother’s
desires and choices were shameful would convince me that immi-
grants of color who had been allowed through the “Americanizing
door” would not hesitate to repay their hosts for entry, and that
this repayment would be made through their complicity in the (re)
production of social exclusion and state violence against me and
other vulnerable black, brown, and indigenous people. At the same
time, the evidence of my body and the anti-black harm it has expe-
rienced would convince me that there is nothing that my mother

138 • Wendy Thompson Taiwo

or anyone else could offer to settle the material and symbolic debt
black people have had to pay and continue to pay for our blackness
in a white-supremacist settler-colonial nation.
Like me, so many black women are forced to accept their lack of
social power and diminished sexual desirability rather than recog-
nize that powerlessness and devaluation are consequences of living
in a racist, capitalist system that places black women at the center of
under- and uncompensated servile labor, bodily and environmental
degradation, systemic violence, and targeted disposal. Through
European colonial expansion, New World slavery, and the creation
of a racial regime in which whiteness equated with freedom and
positive value, blackness became synonymous with generational
enslavement and social death. This was followed by numerous local
and legal attempts to police and defend racial boundaries, including
the violent exclusion of black people from white neighborhoods
and the criminalization of interracial sex in order to preserve the
purity, integrity, and market value of whiteness. All of this would
make clear that nonwhiteness, but especially blackness, was consid-
ered inherently threatening due to its potential to contaminate and
degrade.
Thus, to be black and a woman in America is not only to
carry the burden of history but to contend with a long litany of
stereotypes: black women are inherently nurturing and therefore
naturally suited for the care of others whose needs they put before
their own, even at the expense of their own well-being; black
women are less desirable and therefore desperate for the validation
and companionship of men from whom they are willing to tolerate
mistreatment, betrayal, and abuse; black women are masculine,
aggressive, and loud, and must be put back “in their place,” with
force if necessary; black women are generally incompetent and
therefore inadvisable to hire, retain, or promote, and if they happen
to be in professional settings, it is solely because there was a need to
fill a diversity quota; black women are disposable, and when they
disappear, you will not even notice that they are missing, unlike the
white girl abducted in Aruba more than a decade ago whose name
and face you can still easily recall.

What It Means to Be Brown • 139

 As a mixed-race black and Asian woman whose light brown
complexion, ethnically ambiguous appearance (Asian-appearing
eyes and long, dark, wavy hair), performance of middle-class
whiteness, and academic credentials allow me to evade some of
the more vile and pervasive public mistreatment and institutional
abuses experienced by my black female counterparts, I am forced
to consider the symbolic and material ways in which I benefit from
colorism. With the ability to enter more easily into spaces that
are predominantly white and exclusive, it becomes clear that my
acceptance is conditional and dependent upon my ability to be
unintimidating and assessable to white people: playing audience
to their moral outrage and simultaneous lack of action regarding
educational inequality or mass incarceration, listening earnestly
when they explain why institutional racism isn’t really institutional
racism, being expected to acknowledge them for being less racist
than other white people, and keeping a straight face when they
allude to me making them feel comfortable because they perceive
me as nonthreatening. But then again, given the history of this
nation, how could I, a brown-skinned woman, expected to validate,
reassure, forgive, teach, and love my oppressor, not have been in
service to them?
Since moving into my thirties, I have felt increasingly weighed
down by both the mundane (the ease at which a racist comment is
slipped into conversation) and the sensational (witnessing second-
hand the police murder of another black person). On days when
it feels impossible to carry any more, I call my mother and tell her
about the latest incident: a comment at work, a gaze at the grocery
store, a body on the news, a phone call from my daughter’s school.
And while she tries to soothe me, she tells me repeatedly, “It’s a
white man’s country anyway. What did you expect?” Perhaps I ex-
pected to be the unique individual I was told I was throughout grade
school by my white “color-blind” teachers who supposedly saw my
character but not my race. Perhaps I expected to be free from the
afterlife of slavery that continues to shorten and degrade black life,
barring me and my children from the same degree of personal free-
dom and material comfort that my white middle-class neighbors are

140 • Wendy Thompson Taiwo

afforded. Or perhaps it was simply the expectation of being affirmed
in the arms of my parents: black, Chinese, emancipated, immigrant,
hard-working, American-dreaming, house-proud people.
But because the reality of racism precludes my individuality,
because the afterlife of slavery is all around us, because my parents
continue to carry the weight of generational trauma and inter-
nalized shame, I find myself facing the world alone without my
parents’ arms able to hold the whole of me.
My mother, now a senior citizen, has been joined by an influx of
affluent Chinese women who have moved into her suburban East
Bay neighborhood and refuse to leave their near-million-dollar
homes without their protective sun visors or parasols. I see them
everywhere: getting in and out of cars in the 99 Ranch Market
parking lot, jostling each other in line at the Taiwanese bakery,
dropping off children at the local library. Like them, my mother has
begun donning visors and applying sunscreen while giving me po-
rous answers as to why: because she doesn’t want to get sunburned,
because she doesn’t want any more wrinkles, because she doesn’t
want to get skin cancer. Beneath it all, though, what she doesn’t say
is that despite being my mother, she never wanted to look like me.
No longer the child, I watch as a new ritual plays out between my
mother and my youngest sister, whose complexion is lighter than
mine. The objective has changed. It is no longer makeup, but hats
to shield the sun from their faces and the application of sunscreen
to prevent cancer and wrinkles, and perhaps most importantly, to
prevent the slow creep of brown from spreading across the skin.
To be beautiful. To be desired. To be chosen. To be protected
from predatory practices and racist policies. To safeguard one’s
children from structural harm and deliver them into elite private
schools that promise increased social capital and high-paying
futures. To be visible. To be treated courteously in the supermarket
checkout line. To never answer to people’s assumptions that you
are the help. To have value. To be included in society’s understand-
ing of who is human and has a life that matters. Locked in their
ritual, my mother and my sister won’t tell me that these, too, are the
reasons they protect their skin.

What It Means to Be Brown • 141

 In learning how to value and hold myself, I have begun prioritiz-
ing my need to be abundant and loving towards myself and others,
especially to my two young children, who will spend their lifetimes
grappling with what it means to be brown-skinned black people
in this country. I tell my children that the people whose ancestors
created a racial system that elevated their own humanity while
denying ours will see our skin and all that has been mapped onto
it. They will judge us despite our punctuality and consumption
of fair trade coffee and grass-fed meat. No matter how perfect our
diction, advanced our degrees, and good our financial habits, none
of these will save us from institutional harm or structural erasure.
But against all of this, my children should never forget that they
are valuable and that their value is quantified outside of existing
capitalist measurements like work status, income level, and prop-
erty ownership; their value exists beyond the racial measurement
of whiteness.
As a people, we have been subjected to the cataclysmic destruc-
tion of our worlds, and yet we can point to the constellation of
traditions that still live within us. As people, we have been pressed
into all the corners of the earth as human tools of colonial and
capitalist expansion, and yet we have found ways to continue
shaping our children’s dreams. We are music. We are bone—solid,
fragile, living—one day to return to the earth. We are the length of
our origin stories, unraveling. Exposed to sunlight, the cells in our
bodies produce melanin, causing our skin to radiate with the rays of
the star at the center of our solar system. Through this, we become
heat, we become light, we become energy. I tell my children, This
is what it means to exist in this century, on this earth, in this skin. To
be at once the entirety of and more than the struggle of our people.
To inherit life in a nation that was never designed to sustain us, in
which we grow wild and unapologetic in the face of brutality and
social death. This, I tell them, from the collective to the cellular level, is
what it means to be brown.

142 • Wendy Thompson Taiwo

18
The Perpetual Outsider
Marimas Hosan Mostiller, Cham American, 32

When my daughter was born I immediately fell in love. She

was beautiful. At birth, she looked just like me: a light-skinned
Southeast Asian American. As she got older, however, it became
apparent that she was going to look more like her father, who is
African American; her skin tone grew darker, her eyes became
bigger, and her hair began to curl. Even though she does not look
like me, she is beautiful.
We currently live in Hawai’i, which is somewhat insulated from
the growing racial strife in the continental United States. Hawai’i is
considered relatively more diverse because of its large population
of people of color, though most of the residents are Asian or white.
Native Hawaiians make up only 10 percent of the population,
and the African American and Latinx populations are minuscule.
Hawai’i also has the most multiracial people in any US state
(almost a quarter of the population); many are “hapa” (a Hawaiian
term), which commonly refers to those of partial Asian ancestry,
though the term typically refers to those with Asian/white back-
grounds.1 My multiracial daughter will fit in in Hawai’i as long as
her skin tone allows her to be seen as Asian, Polynesian, or hapa.
If her tone appears to be black, she’ll be a perpetual outsider. I am
painfully aware of this and other cruelties that my daughter, who
is so innocent and full of life, will face in the world because of her
dark skin.
I know this because I also grew up in a community that preferred
light skin over dark.
•

• 143
 I am a light-skinned, second-generation Cham American2 whose
parents were refugees from the Khmer Rouge genocide in
Cambodia in the 1970s. I grew up in a Cham Muslim community
in Southern California surrounded mostly by Mexicans as well
as Khmer and Cham folks from Cambodia. As kids from varying
backgrounds thrown together by circumstances, mainly poverty,
children befriended those outside their racial and ethnic com-
munities, but each community inscribed its own racial and ethnic
hierarchy that placed their own group at the top. Within my own
community, I learned early on that there was a hierarchy based
on skin color, ethnicity, and religion. In summer, when children
tanned from swimming at the community pool, Cham children
were often derogatorily called “Khmer” by older Cham folks; I
quickly learned that the term “Khmer” was a euphemism meant
to disparage anyone who was dark-skinned or not “full-blooded”
Cham. In fact, some of my relatives who are not “full-blooded”
Cham have been ridiculed as being Khmer (especially if they had
dark skin)—even though they are not ethnically Khmer.
In the Cham Muslim community the hierarchy is: light skin
over dark, but Muslim over all things. This is especially important
when one seeks a mate to marry. My dad told me, and I have heard
this from other folks in my community, “It’s fine if you marry a
joo [black] guy, as long as he’s Muslim.” Depending upon the tone
of the word “joo,” it can be an insult or term of endearment, but
whatever the context, it always implies otherness.
When I visited my maternal aunt for the first time with my one-
year-old daughter, my aunt called her “mu joo” (loosely translated:
black girl). While her words reinforced my family’s status as
“outsiders” (because I married a non-Muslim black man), I wasn’t
offended; I understood that she meant those words lovingly as she
scooped up my daughter, and hugged and kissed her. But I also
know that her words also reflect the view that other community
members may have about my daughter as someone who is an
outsider: someone who is non-Muslim and non-Cham.
Why is there so much anti-black rhetoric within my community
and other Southeast Asian communities? In Will Jackson’s 2014

144 • Marimas Hosan Mostiller

article “Beneath the Skin: The Reality of Being Black in Cambodia,”
people of African descent living in Cambodia discussed their
experiences of racism given the “cultural preference for light skin”
among Cambodians. Black skin is often equated with immorality,
as one teacher of African descent discovered: “I remember I was
in the market one day and I heard one woman say that because I
have dark skin my heart is dark and I’m probably an evil person.”
Several black women also recounted stories of Khmer nationals
being surprised that they were so attractive for a black person, and
one woman remarked, “I get people coming up to me saying: ‘Oh,
you’re pretty . . . but you’re black. You’re so dark.’” Others discussed
experiences of overt discrimination, such as being charged extra
fees for visas, or being blatantly rejected by an employer because
of their dark skin. One individual also stated, “I did have an ‘elite
Khmer’ acquaintance who asked if he could say ‘n——er’ around
me because he says it all the time to his friends. I had to tell him
no, obviously.” Anti-black racism occurs regularly in Cambodia,
probably because most Cambodians have limited contact with
black people. Arguably, the majority of negative racially based
encounters are rooted in a lack of cultural awareness, though per-
haps anti-blackness runs deeper. For example, while Cambodians
avoid black people because of perceived negative stereotypes, they
conversely flock around white foreigners because they are viewed
as wealthy (even if they are not). These interactions, or lack thereof,
reveal that blackness is perceived as socially inferior to whiteness in
Cambodia.
From my experiences, anti-blackness exists even among
Southeast Asian Americans, and I’ve found that my community has
a love/hate relationship with blackness. Southeast Asian Americans
often seek out and culturally appropriate black culture (through
music, dance, dress, lingo, slang) and easily say the N-word, but at
the same time, avoid interaction with actual black folks. I was once
at a party where some Southeast Asian Americans were throwing
around the N-word without any regard. Someone apologized to me
about using the word in front of me because my boyfriend (now
husband) was black.

The Perpetual Outsider • 145

 This experience reminds me of Dustin Tahmahkera’s 2008 article
“Custer’s Last Sitcom,” in which he discusses how whites and
people of color culturally appropriate Native culture by “playing
Indian.”3 The portrayal of Native peoples in popular media and
sports produces and reproduces the stereotypical image of the
red-faced, howling, savage, or noble Indian. Tahmahkera argues
that people of color, too, have appropriated the “white man’s
‘Indian’” by accepting Native American stereotypes.4 I argue that
people of color have also appropriated the white man’s black man.
This appropriation submits itself to a stereotypical version of
blackness—thus, the imaginings of black folks by Southeast Asians
(as with whites) is one-dimensional and associated with ghettos,
“ghetto” behavior, hip hop, and street talk. In these images, there is
little to no diversity in American blackness. And just as some put
on red face paint to play Indian, these party-goers put on the “face”
of being black through unabashed cultural appropriation.
The irony is that, as children of refugees, many of us have
experienced poverty and the ghetto, but due to adopting the white
man’s view of black people, many would be afraid to walk past
my husband at night. Many would not guess that he was raised
middle-class in the white suburbs of western New York, with two
college-educated parents. Another irony is that as Asian Americans,
the model minority stereotype posits that we are able to seamlessly
transition to the “hills, out of ills of the ghetto hood,” and for many
of us, light skin is an elevator to higher socioeconomic status. Yet,
my husband, many other black folks, and those with dark skin
(including dark-skinned Asian Americans) will struggle under the
weight of colorism.
As a light-skinned Asian American woman, I am privileged. That
privilege is more readily visible to me because I am married to a
black man. I understand that I am always seen as more approach-
able. When we finished graduate school, I got a job first. When we
went apartment hunting together, we never got a call back on our
application, but when I went alone, the application was always ap-
proved. Unlike my husband, I do not get the side-eye when I walk
into a retail store with a large bag or followed around as I shop.

146 • Marimas Hosan Mostiller

These are privileges that I have taken for granted. And these are
privileges that I have become even more aware of since the birth of
my brown-skinned daughter.
When my daughter was a few months old, I realized strangers
cannot tell that I am her biological mother. Although we share
many of the same mannerisms, we only share a few physical traits;
she looks different than I. The weight of that realization sunk in;
my daughter will not have the same privileges that I have. At some
point in her life, she will be stereotyped, feared, viewed as a thief,
or viewed as unfit or unworthy. I worry that she might look at what
I have accomplished and, instead of seeing how my privilege eased
my path, view herself as “less than.” I worry that she might hate her
black skin and grow to believe that only whiteness is beautiful. This
terrifies me.
I feel that all I can do is show her that she is loved for who she
is, inside and out. I hope that she grows up with the confidence to
battle any adversity that she faces as a perpetual outsider, a dark-
skinned woman of color in the United States. I am certain that
it will be a difficult journey, but her father and I will be there to
support her every step of the way.

The Perpetual Outsider • 147

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19
What Are You?
Anne Mai Yee Jansen, Multiracial
Chinese/White American, 36

I am used to the question. I know the look: people searching

my features for matches, finding few that correspond. It is
confusing to some people to look at me.
—Alexander Chee, Edinburgh

When I was growing up, there was a dusty thrift shop about a
mile from my house where my best friend and I would go to find
groovy clothes, curious knick-knacks, and used books. The shop
was a converted house, and one of the small rooms in the back was
chock-full of books, their spines broken and their edges worn from
all the hands that had turned every one of their soft pages. Once a
week, it was Dollar Book Day: pack as many books as you could fit
into a paper grocery bag and they were yours for (you guessed it)
one dollar. It was my favorite day of the week.
Usually I’d load up on books by Tom Clancy and John Grisham,
Agatha Christie and Stephen King, but one day, I found two books
by Amy Tan—The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. This
was shortly after The Joy Luck Club had come out on VHS, and I
excitedly tossed both books into my bag. Afterward, we ambled
over to Houston’s Liquors down the street for some Red Vines and
beef jerky before walking home in the hot summer sun.
That night as I lay in bed, I began reading one of Tan’s books. I
was always an avid reader, but this was the first time in my life that
I read a book and saw my family in it. I was amazed to realize that
books could be about people like us; the possibility had simply
never presented itself to me. But every time a character added “Ah”

• 155
 before another character’s name—a kind of cultural prefix I knew
by heart—I could hear one of my aunties calling my name. When
the younger generations attended Chinese school on Saturdays,
I thought of my cousins, who did the same. That’s my family, I
thought. There are others like us!
It was my first exposure to Asian American literature, and it was
magical.
I grew up in California, but not in one of the large urban cen-
ters that so many Asian immigrants and their Asian American
families call home. My home town is located in a rural area, in a
town best known for a restaurant serving split-pea soup and its
proximity to one small town renowned for its horse ranches and
another small town settled by Danish immigrants (the result:
amazing pastries and an annual festival called Danish Days).
Oh, and Michael Jackson’s famous Neverland Ranch was less
than twenty miles away. In this cluster of small communities,
surnames like Petersen and Martinez were far more prevalent
than names like my mom’s maiden name: Lam. Aside from one
Filipino family who lived in our neighborhood for a few years,
my sister and I were the only Asian American kids at our school
(and many people read my sister as white because she’s much
more fair-skinned than I am).
When I was in seventh grade, a Chinese family moved to town;
their son was in my grade, and everyone expected us to date (we
didn’t) because we were the only Asians around for miles. I had
access to Asian American culture through my boba tea-drinking,
Cantonese-speaking, manga-reading cousins scattered throughout
the Los Angeles area, but my daily reality was set in a place where I
was asked to do a presentation explaining Chinese New Year to my
fifth grade class because nobody else had ever heard of it.
To complicate matters further, I always had the sense that I
wasn’t really Asian, but hadn’t heard the term “Asian American”
yet, so I just felt a little fraudulent all the time. I’m not sure it would
have helped if I’d had access to that concept anyway, because even
within my mom’s family (who hailed from Hong Kong) we were
unique: My mom was the only one of all her many siblings who

156 • Anne Mai Yee Jansen

married a white guy, making my sister and I the only mixed-race
kids among our numerous cousins. We were also the only ones
who didn’t speak fluent Cantonese or eat Chinese food most days
of the week.
Because I lived in this rural area with no other Asians in sight
and only two restaurants (the Mandarin Touch and China Panda)
to remind locals that Asians even existed, it shouldn’t come as
a surprise that people had trouble figuring out how to read me.
I inherited my mom’s rich olive skin and ability to brown under
the constant sunshine; I also got her full lips, high cheekbones,
and dark hair, but I got my dad’s nose, bone structure, and double
eyelids. Everywhere I went, I was faced with the same question:
What are you? The kids at school, local shopkeepers, teachers, and
tourists alike all had the same question. What are you? As if they
couldn’t know how to interact with me before they knew what
made my skin the color it was, my face the shape it was.
Most people were surprised to find out I was half Chinese; in
the context of Southern California, my dark hair and tan skin led
many to assume I was Chicana. The Chumash Indian Reservation
was only a few miles away, so some people thought I was Native
American (an assumption that was, tellingly, most often made on
days when my mom had braided my hair). I’ve been on the receiv-
ing end of my fair share of racist remarks, but not a single racist
encounter has accurately targeted any of the various bloodlines I
actually carry within my body.
The result is that I’ve never had the opportunity not to think
about the color of my skin. When others look at me, they
seem compelled—by curiosity, discomfort, or something in
between—to ask me that most tired of questions: What are you?
Too dark to be wholly white, too pale to be brown, I’ve come to
understand that I’m ambiguously ethnic, and there’s something
about that ambiguity that makes people want more information.
When I went to Hong Kong in 1996, the consensus was that I
wasn’t Chinese enough to be a local, but I wasn’t white enough
to really count as white. While I was vacationing in Italy in 2012,
a street vendor outside the Duomo stopped me to ask if I was

What Are You? • 157

 Japanese, insisting that I sure looked like I was despite my negative
response. As I enjoyed the beach in Hawai’i in 2016, a number of
shopkeepers told me they’d assumed I was Native Hawaiian—a
local like themselves. Everywhere I go, my skin appeals to strangers
like a good mystery just waiting to be figured out, solved, answered
so they can nod their heads with finality—I figured as much—or,
occasionally, render some kind of judgment, as in the case of one
especially confounding encounter where the news of my mixed
racial background was met by an earnest and enthusiastic, “Good
for you!”
These intrusions, innocuous as many of them are, have caused
skin color and phenotype to be a constant presence in my life. I’m
never allowed to forget that I’m confusing to the eye, or that others
seem to feel entitled to the personal details of why my skin is the
color it is. That they feel that information should be public knowl-
edge. That I am expected to explain myself in order to unburden
them of their desire—their oft-professed need—to know exactly
what I am. (Never who, always what.)
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that I ended up studying US ethnic
literatures. When I initially applied for PhD programs, I planned to
study postcolonial literature; I intended to focus on Hong Kong.
However, within a year I had discovered US ethnic studies. It
was like Amy Tan all over again, only this time I wasn’t seeing my
mom’s family—I was seeing myself.
After my first quarter of the PhD program, I went home for
the holidays. Shortly after my arrival, I sat at the kitchen counter
having a cup of tea (with cream and sugar as the British take their
tea, a vestige of colonialism that followed my mom over from Hong
Kong) and talked with my parents about my new course of study. I
gushed about the books I was reading, the ideas I was learning, the
courses I was taking. I shared the new direction my dissertation was
headed in, feeling that anticipatory tingle a really exciting idea fills
me up with. And then my mom asked me a question—a simple,
obvious, important question: Why are you focusing on multiethnic
literature—why don’t you focus on Asian American literature since
you’re Asian American?

158 • Anne Mai Yee Jansen

 I had no ready answer. At first, I was so surprised by the question
that my mind went blank; I just sat there with my hands around
that lukewarm cup of tea, my parents’ curiosity turning my mind
inside out. Then I began to realize how obvious the answer was to
me, and how not obvious it was to my parents, whose love forms
the truth of my racial roots. Sure, on paper I’m Asian American. But
my lived experience hasn’t really been a typically Asian American
experience. Growing up in California, I was presumed Chicana;
when I moved to Ohio for grad school, I was just plain confusing
(most of the encounters I had there indicated that anything be-
tween black and white was illegible); now, living in western North
Carolina, I’m most often mistaken for Cherokee due to the proxim-
ity of the Qualla Boundary. My skin color has led others to bring
race to my attention on a regular basis. Misdirected racism (no less
harmful for its inaccuracy) has broadened the scope of my under-
standing of and interest in the far-reaching and often intertwined
effects of colorism.
For my whole life, others’ questions and comments about my
skin have left me to wonder about those interactions long after my
interrogators have satisfied themselves. Why did a friend’s well-
intentioned schoolyard remark—I didn’t even notice you weren’t
white!—leave me feeling so dejected? (Because honorary whiteness
isn’t such an honor after all.) Why did a (white) dermatologist’s
insistence that I don’t need to get my skin checked regularly—
since it’s so dark—despite a family history of skin cancer irk me so
much? (Because evidently our medical industry hasn’t bothered to
figure out how skin that’s not white works.) Why did a fellow bus
rider feel it was acceptable to pop my ear bud out of my ear and
ask me—because you’re soooooo beautiful!—what my “heritage” is?
(Because my ethnic ambiguity bugs strangers enough for them to
feel justified in violating my personal space to demand that I ex-
plain myself.) As a result, my professional life has shaped itself out
of the questions I take away from each of these encounters, leading
me to want to understand how skin color functions in the United
States today and to teach others to think critically about their own
relationships to race and colorism.

What Are You? • 159

 In my personal life, I find myself thinking about these issues
with increasing urgency because I recently had a child. She is
one-quarter Chinese and three-quarters myriad shades of white-
ness, and she has inherited her father’s (and my father’s) fair skin
and light eyes. When we go to the park, I wonder who will pose the
question so many of my friends in interracial marriages have been
confronted with: the nanny question. (When you’re discernibly
not white and are toting around a white-passing baby, it’s common
for strangers to assume you’re the child’s hired caregiver rather than
his or her biological parent.) More troubling still, I worry that she
won’t understand what it means to live in skin like mine.
My feelings on the matter are complicated. On the one hand,
I obviously don’t want her to have to experience racism as I have
(which is admittedly mild compared to the experiences of friends
of mine who are less ambiguously ethnic and more clearly black
or brown). On the other hand, I have to admit to feeling a sense
of loss, as though her peaches-and-cream complexion somehow
makes her less like me or will create some kind of distance between
us since our experiences with colorism will undoubtedly be so
different. The most disturbing aspect of this, especially given what
I teach and study in my professional life, is that I can’t seem to
stop worrying about what the color of her skin will mean for our
relationship.
In other words, my whole life I’ve been marked as Other. I’m
the question mark in a room full of periods. I’ve been both hurt
and fascinated by the many implications of skin color, and now,
as a new parent, another aspect of the complexity of colorism is
inserting itself into my life: I wonder how the color of my skin will
impact my daughter’s life. She may never be faced with that ridicu-
lous question—What are you?—but what other questions will she
have to answer? Where is your mom from? Are you adopted? Is she
your step-mom?
In this new chapter of my life, I have no answers, only more
questions. How will she identify? Will she be closer to her dad
because she looks more like him than like me? Will she be able to
understand how skin color influences my daily life? And, worst of

160 • Anne Mai Yee Jansen

all, will she even care? I can only hope that she will find her own
Amy Tan—some artist whose work reflects her own experiences
back at her so she can see that there are others like her. That she is
not alone. That her story is worthwhile, and that no matter what
others may say, skin color is but one tiny facet of what makes her
who she is.

What Are You? • 161

 20
Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between
Kim D. Chanbonpin, Filipina American, 40

In 2008, I was finishing up a two-year teaching fellowship in New

Orleans and was looking forward to moving to Chicago for my first
tenure-track job. I knew I was going to miss the Crescent City, so I
was trying to enjoy as much of it as I could before I left. Fortunately,
I have a dear friend who was just as enthralled with the city as I. She
and I had every classic New Orleans experience possible—Mardi
Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, Jazzfest, Tipitina’s, Gautreau’s, Parkway
Tavern—and we did it all together. That March, she and I decided
to go to Taylor Park just off Claiborne Avenue to attend Super
Sunday. Super Sunday is the largest gathering of Mardi Gras Indians
before the masking season ends. She picked me up, and in the car
ride over, as we burbled about how excited we were to be attending
the event, my dear friend said to me, “Kim, you know we’re going to
be the only white people there, right?” In that moment, it was as if
the needle on the record of the Mardi Gras soundtrack in my mind
skidded off the vinyl in slow motion, and what replaced it were the
words in the Oscar Brown Jr. song told from Tonto’s point of view:
“What do you mean, we, White man?”
It wasn’t just my friend who couldn’t quite figure out how to
categorize me; it was everyone—from the cashier at Target to the
dean of the law school where I taught to my neighbors in the condo
building on Cherokee and Maple where I lived for two years. Folks
in New Orleans knew I wasn’t black, and they were pretty sure
I wasn’t white, but what exactly was I? “Oriental,” Mexican, or
Chinese-Japanese were the most common theories.
I suppose that their confusion and lack of adequate vocabulary
has to do with the way we talk about race. Although Latinxs, Asian

162 •
Americans, and mixed-race folks are the most rapidly growing
groups in the United States, politicians and the media continue to
speak about race and racism in terms of black and white. This di-
chromatic perspective is a result of history. Because of black chattel
slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights Movement, the African
American experience has been central to the formation of race
and racial identity in this country. And slavery and de jure racial
discrimination were based on an ideology of white supremacy and
a clearly imposed hierarchy—white over black.
Despite the incremental gains heralded by the Civil Rights
Movement, the race and color hierarchy persists. That hierarchy is
bounded by black on one end (the bottom) and white at the other
(the top). Whiteness affords innumerable unearned social and
cultural privileges while blackness imposes automatic penalties.
The two-tiered hierarchy has recently had to adapt to accommo-
date the size and growing power of other ethnic and racial groups,
but the perpetual beneficiaries of this system of social, cultural,
and economic control will always be white or those groups with
proximity to whiteness. The new version of the old hierarchy is
organized on more nuanced gradations of color, though the sorting
of intermediary groups remains unclear and intensely debated.
The question I would pose to Asian Americans is, What side
will we choose? It may seem odd to frame identity as a matter of
volition, as if we had a say about the race into which we are born.
But I think in terms of choice because in the race-color hierarchy
I’ve just described, some Asian Americans are positioned to accept
or reject the privileges of so-called honorary whiteness. Because
of my light skin color, because of the economic advantages I’ve
enjoyed thanks to the laws that encouraged my physician parents
to immigrate here from the Philippines, and because of the endur-
ing Model Minority Myth, I, for example, am empowered with
substantial agency regarding how I express my racial identity and
what political acts I opt to participate in. I have choice. To be clear,
within the structure of white supremacy, those choices are limited.
Any privilege I might gain by allying myself with whiteness will
always be conditioned on that affiliation, and I do not hold the

Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between • 163

 keys controlling my entry to that group. But rejecting any proffered
affiliate status means actively refusing to be complicit in a system
that subordinates black people to benefit whites.
Living in New Orleans put the white-over-black dichotomy into
sharp focus for me. Besides a few short years in Ohio, I grew up
in an ethnoburb east of Los Angeles, where Asian Americans and
Latinxs shared back yards and churches and the only black or white
people I remember seeing on a regular basis were on television.
High school wasn’t that different, except that one of my closest
friends was Apache Indian and, although I went to a Catholic col-
lege prep, I had several Muslim classmates. No boys, though; it was
an all-girls school. I went to college in the Bay Area and was active
in the large and visible Filipino American student organization, and
then found myself part of an even larger Asian Pacific Islander com-
munity when I moved to Honolulu for law school. It wasn’t until
my mid-twenties when I returned to the continent to live in the
South (Washington, DC) and then the Deep South (New Orleans)
that I was finally confronted with the race dynamics so familiar to
everyone else.
Although I grew up around people who looked like me, I was
always aware of the mainstream’s mandate to identify racially. And
I suppose I decided early on that if I had to choose, I was going to
be black. Alex P. Keaton was cute and all, but he was white and a
Republican.
My identity choices were shaped by the television shows and
other cultural products that I consumed as an adolescent and
young adult. I did not identify with the white, middle-class fami-
lies of popular 1980s sitcoms—the Keatons of Family Ties or the
Seavers on Growing Pains. I admired strong white female characters
such as Murphy Brown (Murphy Brown) and Julia Sugarbaker
(Designing Women), but I didn’t want to be anyone on TV until I
met Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Claire was a lawyer who
spoke Spanish and was the queen of her house and didn’t take shit
from anyone. She was a feminist with progressive politics. She was
also black. By watching The Cosby Show, I began to learn about
African American history and culture through a combination

164 • Kim D. Chanbonpin

of observation and osmosis. I clung to those images and stories
because they made sense to me, and also because there weren’t that
many other options available to me. Even though the Huxtables
brought some diversity to sitcom television in the 1980s, there were
no Asian Americans. Like, at all.
Look: I knew I wasn’t black, but I also knew that I was not
going to be white. In high school, my senior English class read
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I remember falling in love with
the lyricism of Morrison’s prose and feeling my heart break for
the protagonist, Pecola Breedlove—the girl who was told she was
ugly because of her dark skin. Pecola believed that if she could
only have blue eyes, she would be loved. Our teacher, Sister Elise,
guided a classroom filled with young Latina and Asian American
women through intense discussions about racism and the colonial
mentality and pushed us to articulate the reasons why mainstream
standards of beauty did not include us.
The first time I remember being conscious about the color
difference between me and my peers was in kindergarten. I was six
years old and at the time, my family was living in Newark, Ohio, a
small community just outside of Columbus. I was the only Asian
kid in my all-white class. I came home from school one day and
asked my father why my skin was different than that of the other
kids in my class. My father and I aren’t close, but I will always
remember and appreciate the answer he gave me then. He said,
“Do you know how much your white classmates would pay to get
your beautiful kayumanggi (Tagalog for brown) skin?” My father’s
words to me when I was six were formative. The notion that my
gold-toned skin had value over that of my white peers had a deep
impact on my developing worldview. My father acknowledged the
difference between my skin color and theirs, and told me mine was
beautiful. And I believed him.
I am 100 percent Asian American (and I have the results from
my National Geographic–branded racial admixture DNA test to
prove it), but I grew up in a bicultural household. My parents were
both born in the Philippines, but my father is ethnic Chinese. I
confess that one driving force behind spending the money on the

Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between • 165

 admixture test was to determine—“scientifically”—whether there
was any Spanish blood in my family. My mother is fair-skinned,
and in her childhood photos, she favors a brunette Shirley Temple.
People always referred to her as “mestiza,” someone with mixed
Filipino and Spanish racial heritage. I wanted to know whether it
was actually true. But no, according to the test, 64 percent of my
ancestry is associated with Southeast Asia and Oceania, and the
remainder is from Eastern Asia.
National Geographic also sent me two reference populations
to help me understand my results—Bougainville-Nasioi (a region
in Papua New Guinea) and Filipino. These reference populations
are groups in the database that contain genetic markers similar
to mine—meaning that I am genetically similar to both popula-
tions. After googling “Bougainville-Nasioi,” I saw photos of very
dark-skinned Pacific Islanders. Their skin tone is as dark as any
West African’s, and they look a little like the Aeta people, the dark-
skinned indigenous residents of northern Luzon in the Philippines.
This was so exciting to me. Despite the fact that I am phenotypi-
cally more “Chinese-looking”—I have bone-straight dark brown
hair, almond-shaped eyes (one with a monolid), and light skin,
with golden undertones—I have always identified culturally as
Filipino American. I speak Tagalog, I can cook pancit,1 I “mano
po”2 my elders, and will turn around if someone whispers “hoy,
psssssst” on a crowded street. In addition, growing up alongside
Mexican Americans and other Latinxs who traded in the same
cultural currency as Filipinos (thanks to our shared history as
colonies of Spain) reinforced the system of values and identity that
I was constructing for myself as a young adult. By contrast, several
years of Chinese school, forced piano lessons, and being overfed
on Chinese takeout ruined my appetite for appreciating my father’s
ancestry.
But the discrepancy between how people see me and how I see
myself has resulted in frequent identity mistakes and mismatches.
Sometimes it’s funny because my secret identity means I can eaves-
drop on conversations between Filipino elders on the bus. But a lot
of the times it’s infuriating. I once walked into a Filipino grocery

166 • Kim D. Chanbonpin

store with a dark-skinned Filipina friend. I wanted to buy buko pan-
dan ice cream, and my friend casually asked the woman at the cash
register what pandan was. I offered an answer: “It’s a plant; you use
the leaves to flavor and to color food.” As if they didn’t hear me,
the woman at the cash register replied that she “didn’t know” and
then asked a customer who was entering the store. That man said
he “didn’t know” either. Thinking that perhaps they had not heard
me the first time, I again offered what I happened to know about
pandan—this time in a louder, more assertive voice: “They’re green
leaves you can use to flavor and to color food.” Still, no reaction
nor recognition of what I had just said from any of the three. When
someone who looked like the owner of the store emerged from
the storeroom, the woman at the cash register asked her, “Do you
know what pandan is?” She declared, “It’s a green plant; you use the
leaves to flavor and to color food”—at which point, the customer,
the woman at the cash register, and my friend all exclaimed, “Oh!
Why didn’t we know that before?”
On another occasion, two close Filipino American friends came
to visit me while I was teaching as a visiting professor in Las Vegas.
Next to Spanish, Tagalog is the second most spoken foreign lan-
guage in the state of Nevada. We decided to meet up at a popular
local Filipino buffet. The restaurant is always filled with Filipinos
and other buffet lovers, and when we entered, I made eye contact
with the hostess, had three fingers up, and said, “Tatlong tao, po,”
the Tagalog equivalent for “party of three.” The hostess looked right
past me to my friends, who had the benefit of having spent the last
three days under the Moab, Utah sun, and asked them in Tagalog
how large our party was. Neither of them speaks Tagalog.
For me, these are fairly typical experiences. Though perhaps
some may view them as petty, I’m often frustrated and hurt when
I am not recognized as a member of the community that I claim
membership in. I often wonder whether, if I were darker, or had
more texture in my hair, or higher cheekbones, my people might
see me for who I am. In this way, I suppose that I am not unlike
Pecola, yearning to look different than what I am, so that I can be
accepted and loved.

Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between • 167

 But I also suppose that I should remember that Filipinos look
like everyone; that is part of our beauty as a people. Folks with
Filipino heritage may have green eyes and very light skin or have
very dark skin with kinky hair. Our skin tones are as varied as
the color spectrum. Many of us fall somewhere in between, with
physical characteristics that are generally associated with East and
Southeast Asians—almond-shaped eyes, dark brown or black hair,
slight builds. My mother is very mestiza looking: she has fair skin,
high cheekbones, and large, double-lidded brown eyes. My father
is very Chinese-looking, with a round face and thin, straight black
hair. One brother takes after my mom, one after my dad. Me? I’m
all yellow undertones during winter, and in the summer, I try to
cultivate a golden brown.
As I was finishing up this essay, my wife and I went hiking and
swimming in the foothills of central Argentina. She’s Afro-Cuban
with light skin that easily toasts brown in the sun. The other day,
I reached out to hold her hand, and when we both looked down
at our arms, she smiled and noted approvingly, “que negrita!” And
then she told me to take a picture of myself to send in to the editor
of this book to prove that I was black, after all.

168 • Kim D. Chanbonpin

21
Invisible to My Own People
Kamna Shastri, Indian American, 23

I used to think sleeping was a waste of time when I was a child.

On one of those nights when I wanted to evade sleep for as long as
possible, I remember an eight-year-old me curling up in my parents’
comforter, looking from the three pink freckles perfectly lined across
my forearm to the blank, cream-colored wall beside the bed. Then I
asked my mother the same six words I had asked her time and again.
“Why do I have peach skin?”
I knew the answer to this very well. My mother had never sugar-
coated the truth, but told me from the very start that I had a genetic
condition called albinism. When I asked her what genes were, she
explained that they were like the instruction manual for making
a human being. She delved into as much detail as one could with
a child on the subject of genetics and told me how genes code for
pigment, which ultimately decides the color of one’s skin. She said
my genes couldn’t make a lot of pigment, which was why I ended
up white and blonde haired while the rest of my family looked
unmistakably Indian.
If my brother or my parents were to tell you they are Indian,
you wouldn’t bat an eye. But if I did, chances are that you’d look at
the pale-skinned, blonde-haired woman in front of you and blink
twice, confused, uncertain, in disbelief. That was often the response
I received even as a child, but back then, I unabashedly offered
newfound acquaintances a short life history: “I am Indian, but I
was born with albinism, which is why I look white!” I wasn’t afraid
of the discrepancy between my identity and my phenotype—in
fact, I was proud of my heritage and wanted people to know how
important being Indian was to me.

• 169
 But I knew all the while that along with albinism-related eyesight
and skin-sensitivity issues, it would be a challenge to navigate the
nuances of belonging.
Difference has been my normal. Growing up in America, I loved
dancing to Hindi songs and had to have my fix of Hindi mov-
ies every Friday. I ate dahl,1 rasam,2 yogurt, and rice every day. I
knew many a Sanskrit sloka3 and had a pile of Amar Chitra Katha4
books that I’d sift through along with whatever fantasy novel I
was currently reading. I took any occasion to get all dolled up in a
paavadai5 or fancy salwaar kameez,6 even if the event was a school-
wide picture day. I rarely listened to Miley Cyrus or any of the
newest teen celebrities because I was too busy singing along to the
songs from Shahrukh Khan’s newest film and wishing I could dress
up like the beautiful Aishwarya Rai in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. I
felt more Indian than anything else.
Making friends wasn’t hard, but I did find myself lacking in
cultural capital, falling behind in American pop culture references.
I wanted someone to giggle with about my Bollywood crush, and
peers who would be as fascinated with Indian history as I was. I
invested my hopes of belonging in my Indian peers, dreaming of
choreographing Indian dance routines and getting dressed up for
Diwali parties.
That never happened. At least not the way I wanted.
Every dinner party at a family friend’s home left me feeling
out of place and slightly odd, pushed away. I was a shy child, and
perhaps it was merely this personality trait that created a distance
from the other Indian children, but it was easier to blame my
albinism when the strange feeling of being left out happened again
and again.
When I was seven, we went to Florida for a distant cousin’s
wedding. As I was dancing during the reception, a woman came up
to me and asked, “Are you an American?” I remember hesitating,
unsure of what to say before answering with my usual explanation.
At nine, I remember going to the temple and being asked by a girl
my age, “Why are you here? You’re not Indian.” During a trip to
India at fifteen, I was sitting with my grandmother one afternoon

170 • Kamna Shastri

at an ashram we often visited together. A tour guide approached
me and asked where I was from and why I was visiting India. “I’m
visiting family,” I replied, gesturing to my grandmother. He couldn’t
believe that I could possibly be Indian. I swallowed the lump in my
throat and tried my best to explain what albinism was as calmly as
I could despite my quivering legs. He didn’t believe me and contin-
ued to assert that I must be British. The tears came without warn-
ing. It was only when I turned away that he apologized; he thought
I had been “pulling his leg.”
More recently, a friend (who is also Indian) and I took an Uber
ride to get a quick morning snack. We shuffled into the back seat
and the driver, a turbaned man from Delhi, proceeded to ask my
friend which part of India she was from. He did not acknowledge
my presence throughout the entire ride. Though I understood
why and didn’t let the incident linger for too long in my mind, the
moment succinctly captured the epitome of being invisible to my
own people.

Navigating Color Labels: Am I “White” or “Brown”?

When I look at pictures of myself as a child, I see a strong little girl
looking up at me, wide-eyed and curious, open to the world and
all it has to give and take. In my memories, that girl is bolder and
far more self-assured than I am now—someone who truly didn’t
care what other people thought and who wasn’t afraid to share
her pride in her culture, and explain her circumstance as a simple
“matter of fact.”
During adolescence, and now in my early adult years, I am
beginning to bear the full weight of the quieter pain that has come
with albinism even as I continue to discover some of its blessings,
such as the sensitivity to withhold judgment, and being able to em-
pathize with those who do not have experiences and identities that
fit into a singular, societally imposed label. I am realizing just how
much albinism—or my perception of and experience with it—has
colored the challenges of my life; it has contributed to the distance
I feel from my own community, my yearning to be accepted in

Invisible to My Own People • 171

 the face of a certain kind of invisibility, not to mention that it has
greatly influenced my trepidation over future relationships, the idea
of family, and my hesitance to dip a toe into that lukewarm pool of
“dating.”
Albinism itself isn’t the problem. The issue lies in how I have
connected looking white to my failed attempts at being part of a
South Asian community. In a mainstream white American context,
I struggle with being washed out and blending into a vast white
culture, when in fact I am not white.
It would be dishonest to identify as purely American (or even
white) because I am not. I am an Indian-American, a South Asian–
American; the hyphen is necessary in my identity and symbolizes
the myriad of influences in my life. It connects the space between
two cultures, two identities, and the strange space between the two
terms that twist about my head during many a sleepless night—
“person of color” and “white.”
How does someone like me fit into a polarized view of race? Am
I “white” just because of the phenotypic whiteness I project? Am I
a person of color, a “brown” girl, because of my family background
and my ethnic and cultural identity? Why can’t there be a term
acknowledging the fact that I receive white privilege, while at
the same time signifying my experiences of being South Asian–
American? This is where I start to find my position as a South Asian
with albinism intriguing—a life-long social experiment, if you will.
It has led me to question the phenomenon of labeling groups on
the basis of color, a pattern that has left me feeling disoriented in
conversations about race and identity, and left out of the communi-
ties where I want to belong.

Light Skin Privilege? Is Lighter Always Better?

I have a distinct memory of running down the steps when I was
eight, playing pretend, trailing a chiffon scarf behind me as I imag-
ined myself to be a beautiful Hindi film heroine dancing through
waving wheat fields under a blue sky. Like many girls who imagine
being singers and actresses, I too imagined myself as a Bollywood

172 • Kamna Shastri

heroine . . . until the thought snapped, a brittle branch caught in the
wind of a reality check.
I would never, ever look like them.
There is a narrative within communities of color that lighter skin
is privileged over darker skin tones. This preference is problematic
and colonialist, especially as it becomes internalized by women,
who bear the brunt of these beauty standards. It’s common for
South Asian matrimonial ads to advertise would-be brides as “fair”
and “wheatish” (literally meaning “the color of wheat”), creating
a clear hierarchy among South Asian women based on color. The
obsession with “fair and lovely,” both the skin-bleaching product
and the message it stands for, is confusing, demeaning, and
inconsistent.
But even the ideal of fair skin has a limit.
The rhetoric of colorism promises “the fairer, the better.” In my
experience, possessing light skin has not necessarily been better
in the realm of beauty and attraction, challenging the assumptions
upon which colorism has been built. In fact, the subtle nuances of
social interaction have painted albinism as something that makes
me unattractive, unable to fit the mold of how an Indian woman
should look, raising difficult questions about what counts as being
Indian at all.
My personal perception of beauty privileges brown skin and
black hair—traits that I can never have. Along with the shyness
that made it hard to get along with other South Asians my age in
the first place, I was even more hesitant upon observing the physi-
cal traits I noticed in the Indian girls around me. Their lovely long
black hair and large dark eyes that could be heavily rimmed with
black kajal7 made me feel like I didn’t, and couldn’t, belong. Maybe
I imposed this distance upon myself, or maybe it was a vicious
cycle—I felt left out, so I distanced myself more, a behavior that
may have led others to think I wasn’t interested in getting along in
the first place.
Those adolescent feelings of distance and standing on the
periphery remain nestled inside me even as an adult. Some days,
I think of this distancing as purely superficial, as though albinism

Invisible to My Own People • 173

 makes me less attractive, less physically able to blend into the South
Asian circles I wish I could be a part of, but doesn’t necessarily
define me. Other days, I see albinism and the place it has created
for me as a barrier where I can only experience my South Asian
identity in the context of childhood memory and nostalgia; it is
not something that is visible and cannot be shared with others
throughout my life.
The color of my skin negates my background. It makes the most
crucial parts of my identity, my ethnicity, and my family history
invisible to the world. I do not say this with bitterness, but as a
truth that will remain throughout my life. Through each phase of
my life, this tryst with color will affect me in different ways. That
is a fact. But in the current internal dialogue I’m grappling with, I
face questions whose answers only I can determine: Will I let my
skin color affect the kind of life I envision for myself? Will I let it keep
me from connecting with the communities of which I wish to be a part?
Only time will reveal the answer to these questions, and while I did
not get to choose the color of my skin, I am the only one who will
choose the colors and shapes with which to paint my future.

174 • Kamna Shastri

22
Nobody Deserves to Feel like a Foreigner
in Her Own Culture
Erika Lee, Taiwanese/Chinese American, 22

For most of my adolescence, I believed the lie that lighter skin

signified worthiness and beauty. As someone who grew up as a
dark-skinned Asian, I knew I did not fall into that category.
It was the first thing that anybody would ever point out whenever
they saw me. I remember very clearly, on a family vacation to Hong
Kong, a stranger saw my mom and me together and stopped us. “Hi,
little girl, are you Native American?” he asked me, fake smiling. His
voice was condescending and high-pitched. When my mother shook
her head, he replied, seemingly confused, “Why is your mom so pale
and why are you so dark?” He then asked my mom in Cantonese,
unaware that I speak fluent Cantonese, if I was adopted. I remember
running to the bathroom and sobbing alone in a stall because I
couldn’t hold in my tears and because I did not want anybody to
see them. I was only seven years old, but at that moment, I began to
understand that there was more than one way to look Asian.
The homogeneity of East Asian beauty is startling and in a
way, unsettling. If you look in any Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or
Taiwanese magazine, every girl has the same porcelain white skin,
small pink lips, straight eyebrows, dyed straight hair, and big eyes
with double eyelids. Their bodies are uniformly petite and slim.
However, if you asked any American millennial to describe
beauty standards in the United States, chances are they would be
along the lines of tan skin, full or thick lips, a curvy physique but
with a nice flat stomach, and carefully crafted eyebrows. White
people actually pay to get darker and frequent the beach or tanning
beds just to tan; in America, pale skin is often seen as unhealthy

• 175
 and implies that you don’t go out much. Whenever some of my
friends suggest going to the beach, I imagine the reactions of my
grandparents in Taiwan; they would no doubt urge me to stay in
the shade lest I get too “dark.” Whenever some of my friends talk
about wanting a bigger booty, I think about how curvy bodies are
viewed negatively in Asia and in Asian media. I realize that, as an
Asian American, I will never completely fit the beauty standards of
both of the worlds that I am from—Asia or America.
Over the years, my skin has lightened naturally, probably because
I hate playing outdoor sports and prefer indoor activities. However,
there are still parts of my body that are darker than others, and I tan
extremely easily, especially in the summer. But guess what? I take it
with a grain of salt. How can I hate myself when God has made me
the way that I am with my best interests in mind? The color of my
skin doesn’t matter to me anymore, but I can’t help but wonder—if
it has taken me so many years of self-loathing and self-doubt to come
to this conclusion, how many other girls in the world currently hate
themselves because they don’t meet a certain cultural beauty ideal?
I think of my younger self, the one who thought that drinking
milk or bathing in lemons would make herself feel less worth-
less and more beautiful, who cried in the bathroom, and I would
never want any other young teen girl to hate herself because she is
bombarded with standards of beauty that she can’t live up to.
It’s too late to go back and change where it began, but it’s not too
late to change the way it will end. What’s the solution besides the
advice that everyone gives, like “love the skin you’re in” and “love
who you are”? The solution is not only practicing self-love but also
increased diversity in media and increased acceptance within our
own communities. There are very few celebrities in Asian films
and television with dark skin unless they are cast as the villain or in
some demeaning role.
Being beautiful and being dark-skinned are not mutually exclu-
sive, and we can all work toward shattering this belief by viewing
and treating every person of every hue equally and calling out
other people who promote colorism. Nobody deserves to feel like a
foreigner in her own culture, and neither do I.

176 • Erika Lee

23
Tired
Cindy Luu, Vietnamese American, 22

“Này Công Dân ơi! Quốc gia đến ngày giải phóng. Đồng lòng
cùng đi hy sinh tiếc gì thân sống . . .” I practiced the national
anthem of the Republic of Việt Nam under my breath. My
high school Vietnamese cultural club’s first show was in two
days, and we were running our first full dress rehearsal. I
was in the dressing room, where the counter was littered
with makeup bags, hair styling tools, hairspray, accessories,
and opened bags of snacks; the air had been buzzing with
the excited nerves and laughter of twenty-five other girls. As
much as we had groaned and complained over the previous ten
weeks, we had formed a camaraderie from all the hard work
we had put into the show.
“Cindy, can you button me up?” Nancy asked from my left,
already dressed in her áo dài gown, a form-fitted silk robe with
a high neckline and long sleeves and matching silk pants. She
lifted her right arm over her head to expose the line of buttons
and hooks that ran down her side.
“Sure.” I bent down at the waist to grasp at the side buttons,
trying my best not to pinch her. For such a conservative outfit, I
always found it odd that they were impossible to put on without
help.
“What do you guys think?” Leanne asked us, holding up two
hangers. “My mom let me borrow from her collection, but I can’t
decide which one to wear. Pink or yellow?”
“I’m borrowing my mom’s, too.” Nancy’s comment made me
notice the light green version of her dress that I was buttoning.
“Hmm, I like the pink. It’s more fun!” she added.

• 177
 I nodded in absent-minded agreement as I straightened my
posture. I offered Leanne a small smile before taking a step back
from Nancy. “All done.”
“Great, thanks!” Nancy took a few steps forward, leaning over
the counter to get closer to the mirror. “Let me know when you
need help with your buttons—you’d better hurry, we’re supposed
to be out there in ten minutes.”
As I fingered the zipper of my garment bag for a moment before
opening it, unease bubbled in the pit of my stomach. It simmered
and grew as I pulled the gown over my head, spreading to the parts
of me where the itchy fabric chafed my skin. I stared at myself in
the large mirror that lined the wall, glancing back and forth be-
tween my reflection and the other girls in the room.
Everyone’s gowns were colorful, from light pastels to vibrantly
rich colors. Theirs were silky, youthful, figure-hugging, and seemed
to compliment them. From the chatter I overheard, it seemed as
though everyone had options to choose from, having borrowed
gowns from family.
I frowned at my reflection, at the gown I had to purchase
for the show because, unlike everyone else, I couldn’t just
borrow one from my mother or aunts because they wouldn’t
fit me. Even with the wide range of colors and patterns on the
racks at the Vietnamese dress shop, I quickly learned that the
options weren’t meant for me. After the saleswoman took my
measurements, she presented me with the only two dresses that
would fit me, with the reassurance that the heavier fabric was
sophisticated and the dark color would complement my brown
complexion. Apparently Vietnamese women came in one size
and color, and I was just six inches too tall, three cup sizes too
busty, and too dark.
My right arm jerked when I felt something touch my elbow. I
turned to my right slightly, catching a glimpse of the top of Nancy’s
head before being jerked forward again. I watched her return the
favor from the mirror. As she grasped the front and back panels
of my gown from my right side, tugging them to meet to make it
easier to button, I frowned and felt my face grow warm.

178 • Cindy Luu

 Nancy was a first-generation Vietnamese American teenager like
me. We both had brown eyes and long raven hair, were the same age,
did well in school, and were friendly when in the same social groups.
But with all our similarities, we had more differences and, in terms
of appearance, she had more in common with the other girls than
I did. It was something that was so blatantly obvious that I almost
wanted to laugh for not noticing the truth until this moment.
Out on stage, the girls, who were standing in the front rows of
the choral risers wearing pretty and colorful gowns once worn
by their mothers, had choices and belonged. They belonged in the
Vietnamese community with their ideally average physicalities of
Vietnamese women: petite, thin, and pale. And they belonged in
American high school dating terrain as the embodiment of the ex-
oticized, petite, and demure Asian woman. And then there was me,
standing in the second-to-last row in the back and wearing the only
gown that fit me—one that was black and sequined and obviously
designed for a woman much older than sixteen—I’d never felt
more out of place. I knew that I never wanted to feel that way again.
•
“You look ridiculous,” my mother said as I took a seat across from
her at the kitchen table. My shrug was muffled by the giant hoodie
I borrowed from my brother, covering my old t-shirt, running
shorts, and fuzzy socks. “And thin—maybe too thin.”
“I’ve lost some weight,” I admitted with my mouth full. I sur-
rendered my plate, patiently indulging her with the opportunity to
serve me more food as mothers do, though the topic of conversa-
tion had quickly changed before I even picked up my fork again.
“How’s school, Cindy?” my father asked, redirecting the table’s
attention back to me. The spotlight shone intensely as I had
expected, but with more aggressive prodding and scrutiny than
usual because I was only a semester away from graduating college.
I answered their questions politely, giving vague answers with a
practiced confidence that seemed to appease them.
“You look paler,” my uncle commented as he passed my brother
the bottle of soy sauce. “Prettier.”

Tired • 179
 “Uh, thanks . . .” I waited another beat, for another topic change,
before getting up with the excuse of being tired and quickly dump-
ing my plate in the kitchen sink.
I climbed the stairs slowly, the lively conversations of the din-
ner table fading into a low rumble to make room for my fatigue
and exhaustion. Grazing past framed pictures of family that were
hung along the wall, I paused midstep when the last one caught
my eye. It was a posed family photo—everyone surrounding my
youngest cousin, Simon, who was wearing a party hat and beaming
behind a cake. I could pick out my mother and her sisters, their
matching noses and petite stature giving them away. I remembered
my mother once told me that she had the darkest skin among her
siblings because, as she was told, her mother had consumed a cup
of coffee while pregnant with her. But as I squinted at their faces,
I couldn’t see the difference. They all looked the same to me: the
embodiment of ideal Vietnamese femininity with their thin, petite
frames and pale skin reinforced by a shared skin-whitening regi-
men. No matter what I did—dieting, exercising, listening to my
mother’s nagging to work on my midsection or to bind my breasts
to stop them from growing, and wearing makeup a shade too
light—I couldn’t change enough.
My steps grew heavier as I reached the top of the staircase. The
hardwood floor creaked once outside my bedroom before I fell
into bed. I buried my nose further into the worn fabric of my floral
comforter. With closed eyes, I breathed in the familiar smell of
fresh laundry and home. My body sagged further and further into
the mattress as each exhale released bits of tension. I could’ve fallen
asleep right there, my muscles aching and begging to hibernate for
the rest of the winter holidays.
But I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t been able to sleep without the help
of alcohol or Benadryl or just sheer exhaustion for the past seven
months. There were so many things to do. Homework to complete,
papers to write, meetings for my internships, and two part-time
jobs. Birthdays, parties, social obligations. And I just couldn’t stop.
And no one questioned my precarious juggling act of twelve-hour
days. I passed all my classes with As and finished my internships

180 • Cindy Luu

with glowing recommendations. My professors told me I had a
bright future. My peers were just as impressed with my work as
they were with my alcohol tolerance. But I only just realized how
much weight I’d really lost when I looked back on recent pictures
with friends during my flight home. I always had a drink in hand
and a glazed-over smile, my once-fitted clothes hanging loosely on
my body. The sharpness of my chin and my jaw were more promi-
nent. The paleness of my skin was more lackluster than glowing,
especially with the dark circles underneath my eyes.
As I lay on this bed in my sparse childhood bedroom, I remem-
bered the resigned rejection my sixteen-year-old self felt as she
stood on a stage and wore a gown that hasn’t left her closet since.
I wish I could tell her that all the hard work and effort pushed her
to be where I am now, grasping at a confidence that is defined by
others. I wish I could tell her that losing ten pounds and receiving
“compliments” about my paleness made me happier.
Was I finally pale enough for others to stop mistaking me as be-
longing to other ethnicities? Was I finally pretty enough to belong
as a Vietnamese woman?
The only thing that I could tell her was that I am tired.

Tired • 181
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24
The Very Best of You
Joanne L. Rondilla, Filipina American, 41

At a young age, I learned that my skin color matters. Now that I am

an adult and a scholar of colorism, the combination of age and edu-
cation has not made my skin color less significant. I am reminded
of this on the first day of class each semester when students are
surprised that the person standing in front of the room passing out
the syllabus is the actual instructor (and not his fill-in assistant).
As curious strangers express disappointment when I answer
their “Where are you from?” question, I forget that my bland
“California” response never matches their exotic expectations.
Strangers aside, my own colorism story starts with my parents.
Though they’re from neighboring provinces in the Philippines,
Mom grew up middle-class in a business-owning family. She had
relatives who were local politicians and who worked in various
positions of authority. Though her life was not easy, she definitely
did not grow up poor. In contrast, my lola (grandmother) on my fa-
ther’s side was a widow. As the eldest, Pop had to help raise his two
younger siblings by helping lola earn money to feed the family. My
memories of Pop are filled with him telling stories of how difficult
it was for him to grow up poor in the Philippines. The difference in
my parents’ lives was, in many ways, illustrated in their skin color.
To this day, my mother is as light as porcelain. When we’re in
the Philippines, her skin color gives her access to high-class treat-
ment when we walk through the mall. When we visit the provinces
(countryside), her skin color attracts random stares from strang-
ers. Pop wasn’t much darker than Mom, though both social class
and skin color would be defining differences between them. As
an adult, Pop was college educated and worked as a mechanical

• 187
 engineer for the US Navy in Guam (a US territory, which many
considered as good as the mainland United States). For the sake
of their courtship and eventual marriage, these credentials would
work in his favor.
During visits to the Philippines, it is easy to see everyday life
as color coded. These codes are part of a complex historical and
colonial system that continues to create assumptions about one’s
class standing and overall humanity. Dark-skinned people are
coded as poor, while the lighter-skinned are coded as rich. Almost
always, realities do not matter when so many Filipinos seem to
rely heavily on appearances to determine a person’s story. Color
codes are especially apparent when one watches Philippine televi-
sion. Years ago, Mom was obsessed with a television show called
Bakekang. It was a story of a dark-skinned, flat-nosed woman who
has two daughters: one ugly and one beautiful. The ugly one is
dark-skinned and flat-nosed like her mother, and the beautiful one
is light-skinned with a slim nose. I want to believe that ultimately,
Mom’s reason for watching this show is a compelling story line and
not the trials and tribulations of having an ugly daughter. However,
the basis of the story was troubling to me, and I had no interest
in watching. It raised personal pain for me—why would I want to
watch a show that reminded me of my own upbringing as the ugly
daughter?! In Philippine television, beautiful people are light and
rich. Ugly people are dark and poor (the redeeming ones are comi-
cal at best). US media is no different. Though many people can
acknowledge that this is problematic, no one seems to concretely
do anything about it.
Spike Lee’s 1988 film, School Daze, illustrates these tensions
among black college students when during a school rally, a group
of dark-skinned women with natural hair chant the following
to the Gamma Ray sorority sisters: “Your eyes are blue, but you
ain’t white. Your hair is fake because you pressed it last night.” In
response, the sorority sisters chant, “Who is that jigaboo?! And
why don’t you take it to a local zoo? Cause you spent the other day
at the local zoo. It had a big nappy beast and it looked like you . . .”
The sorority sisters are seen as assimilationists who want to be

188 • Joanne L. Rondilla

white; the darker-skinned women are described as subhuman
through the term “jigaboo” and references to a “beast” at the “local
zoo.” The film points to in-group tensions that reflect correlations
between skin color and humanity, and differences are enforced in
intimate spaces such as within specific social groups, friends, and
family.
Colorism—a looks-based discriminatory institution existing
within the same racial and/or ethnic group—is distinct from
racism. Where racism is the discrimination between people of
different races (e.g., discrimination of black people by whites;
discrimination of Asians by whites, etc.), I see colorism as the start-
ing point of such bigotry. Within the same national borders, shared
communities, and families, we learn to discriminate against each
other based on, initially, physical features. In my family, I learned
the idea that dark skin, flat noses, kinky hair, and fat bodies are un-
desirable. These are markers of the unsightly. When I step out into
the world, these markers hold the same meaning when I interact
with non-Filipinos. Thus, colorism informs racism, and vice versa. I
see them as “cousins,” related though not identical. While colorism
is manifested on the body, its consequences go beyond the mere
physical. The negative ideas associated with undesirable bodies are
attached to larger, unfair assumptions about a person’s humanity.
These include presumptions about class and civility—that low-
class, “savage” people have these physical traits. These are assertions
imposed within and across ethnic and racial communities.
There are a few incidents of colorism that led me to believe that
what I looked like made me the family outcast. The first instance
happened when I was seven years old. My family and I spent
the summer in the Philippines. We stayed with rich relatives in
an exclusive housing area called Alabang. I knew they were rich
because they had servants, which is a marker of high social status in
the Philippines. Each morning, my siblings, other visiting cousins,
and I would wake up to the sweet smell of hot Ovaltine and pan
de sal (bread rolls) waiting for us at one corner of our assigned
bedrooms. Once we were done, we would leave the dishes on the
table for the staff to pick up and clean. This was very different from

The Very Best of You • 189

 my own house, where no one waited on us. My rich cousins also
took ballet and equestrian classes. On certain nights, our families
would gather in the living room to watch our cousins dance and
sing. The approving looks my mother gave them were unfamiliar to
me. I had no such talent for the classic arts and had never been the
recipient of high-culture doting.
Our relatives also had access to a country club, where we were
able to indulge in some of their swanky benefits, such as swimming
lessons (a gift to me from my wealthy aunt and uncle that was
related to their belief that I needed to lose weight). After I spent my
summer under the sun, my normally caramel-colored skin quickly
became a dark chocolate color. I did not mind the change because
I was used to seeing my skin transform color depending on the sea-
son. Up until that point, I cannot recall my skin color being a topic
of negative discussion. Yet, this particular summer, my family and
I visited a tourist park where we could see indigenous Filipinos in
loincloths demonstrate exoticized indigenous activities like spear
fighting. When we took pictures with the performers, my wealthy
aunt made me hold hands with one of the little boys. She snickered
and declared that we needed to hold hands because our dark skin
“matched.” My child self was confused, then humiliated. Despite
the daily swimming lessons not being my choice, I was subjected to
constant ridicule for getting darker. The nose pinching (to sharpen
my flat nose), first from my mom, then my aunt, also made me
uncomfortable and self-conscious. For the first time in my life, I
felt the weight of my skin color and my ugliness. I didn’t want to
hold the boy’s hand, but I didn’t let go of it either. Perhaps that was
because I didn’t want to disobey an elder. Perhaps my seven-year-
old self didn’t want him to feel the same humiliation I felt. Perhaps
I held on because I didn’t want to feel the double embarrassment of
him letting go of me. Although we were Filipinos of the same skin
color, there was suddenly a clear distinction between “us” (the boy
and I) and “them” (my wealthy aunt and her family).
This incident had a profound effect on me and how I understood
my body. At the end of the trip, my mother’s side of the family (all
seven siblings and their respective families) gathered in Alabang

190 • Joanne L. Rondilla

to bid us good-bye. A major part of the good-bye process included
taking photos. Again, my dark skin became an issue. I was told to
smile with my teeth so that the camera could capture a glimpse
of me. Otherwise, I’d be a “dark blob.” Years later, looking at the
photos, I see that I’m not actually much darker than anyone else,
but I was perceived as “the dark cousin,” which warranted ridicule
by the rest of the family. What my personal story and the media
demonstrate is that in the Philippines, one is supposed to treat dark-
skinned people a certain way—even if they’re family—because
dark skin is not worthy of humanity.
When I recall the summer with my cousins now, they’re shocked
at my bitter feelings. As far as they’re concerned, I was a happy-
go-lucky kid. Since I’m smiling in the photos, they assumed that I
enjoyed holding the boy’s hand, and that I had a good time like the
rest of the family. My response is this: Faking happiness is part of the
protocol of existence. This is especially important when you’re the
dark one. Like the little boy whose hand I held onto so tightly, I was
accustomed to performing. Happiness, especially when fabricated,
indicates that you can take the taunting. In truth, the perception
of happiness does not decrease the hurt. When we returned to
Guam, I noticed that the comments about not staying out in the
sun occurred even more frequently, along with the nose pinching
(this included the use of clothespins). Comments about being fat
also became a common narrative in my life. Years of these messages
would turn me numb to how problematic this all was. As a defense
mechanism, I turned to school. If I couldn’t be pretty, I sure as hell
could be smart (and when needed, I could also fake this because
I’m smart like that!). Intelligence eased the discomfort of being
fat and dark because it meant I had talent. Smart women are also
self-sustaining, economically independent—something I would
apparently need since I was repeatedly told no man would marry
me because of the whole “fat-and-dark” thing.
By the time I was in graduate school, I was armed with critical
race theory and a baseline knowledge of colonialism and imperial-
ism and an understanding of controlling images. The challenge was
contextualizing this theory and history with everyday life—even

The Very Best of You • 191

 my own. When I was a teaching assistant, our class watched a
film about Filipina domestic workers in Europe. During the class
discussion, one of my students expressed dissatisfaction with the
documentary. When I asked why, she said that the documentary
misrepresented Filipina domestic workers as highly educated. She
was from Singapore and her family had Filipina domestics, so she
claimed to know first-hand that these “maids” are not well educated
as the documentary illustrated. While I could, for a moment,
listen to her point, what was infuriating was that she wouldn’t let
it go. She went on and on about how the domestic workers that
she knows are not as smart, articulate, and educated as the ones in
the film. Trying to remain calm and patient, I could feel the wrath
of the three Filipino students in the class. Their seething stares
demanded an immediate and angry reaction from me to their
peer. Unfortunately, I let the three students down. While I did not
confirm the student’s comments about Filipina domestics, I did
not challenge her either. I reverted to the insecurities of my youth. I
related to these women in the film. We looked like each other. Here
was my student: light-skinned, wealthy, and privileged enough to
not be responsible, thoughtful, or kind with her words. There was
me: the teaching assistant living paycheck to paycheck, fat and
dark, with a debilitating case of imposter syndrome.
As a Filipina, I am seen in a particular way, personally and
professionally. Legacies of war and colonization in the Philippines
inform dominant views, and fellow Asians, Asian Americans, and
non-Asians have directly (and indirectly) inherited these percep-
tions. Filipinas are known globally as domestic workers and sex
workers. As with my privileged student, these controlling images,
coupled with skin-color hierarchies within Asian American com-
munities, enable negative perceptions. Regardless of my extensive
education, I’m still seen as dark, fat, and incapable of intellectual-
ism. The expectation is that I remain hidden, for only thin, light,
beautiful people can shine in the spotlight. People like me are
relegated to the background. For most of my life, I believed in these
expectations because they were reinforced in popular media, at

192 • Joanne L. Rondilla

home, and at my job, and it would take a long time before I would
reach a healing place.
One day, I came across an interview with Doris Roberts, an
actress from the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond. She explained
that the horrific beauty standards in Hollywood are related to
the way the industry teaches young women to deny themselves
what they can truly accomplish. She said when you try to become
something you’re not, you prevent yourself from becoming what
you were meant to be. When you starve your body, you starve
yourself from being the person you should be. And that is a com-
plete shame not only to yourself, but to the world. She said women
should choose to share the very best of themselves with the world,
and harsh beauty standards deny us this. Her words continue to
have an incredibly profound effect on me. So much of my life has
been inundated with messages of everything wrong with my body.
Everything I accomplished had been diminished because I was
the dark and fat cousin/professor/person in the room. Yet words
from a white actress forced me to dig deep and break out of these
confines while reminding me that we can all share in resistance.
There is no perfect formula for healing. But I would like to tell
the seven-year-old me to keep holding on to that boy’s hand. In a
world that deems us unworthy, I want our younger selves to know
that faith in yourself and approaching life fearlessly matter more
than your skin color. To the Filipino students who witnessed my
silence, I am sorry. While I cannot go back to that day, I continue to
do better in the classroom. I teach critically and unapologetically,
and work with students through the difficult conversations regard-
ing racial prejudice, colorism, and societal violence against our
bodies. My wish for those who are on the road to healing is this:
refrain from starving yourself and the world of your true value. In
these times, the world needs the very best of you, and you and we
deserve more.

The Very Best of You • 193

 25
Reprogramming
Daniela Pila, Filipina American, 28

“You are so beautiful,” my boyfriend told me as he gazed adoringly

at my face. I visibly cringed. The words sounded so foreign to me.
“Uhh, I’m not sure what to say,” I awkwardly replied.
“Well, I guess you’ll have to get used to it,” he quipped.
Growing up in the Philippines, I realized that I was the an-
tithesis of classic Filipina beauty. My morena (brown) skin and
nonmestizo1 features—my short, flat nose, my small, rounded
eyes, my round, chubby face—were unattractive. My hair is a mix
of wavy-curly and not the ideal straight texture. I hated putting
on sunscreen when we were at the beach or playing tennis, so my
brown skin was constantly tanned. It did not help that I also loved
to eat and that my body showed it. My childhood is filled with
memories of my grade school classmates telling me that I was “pan-
git” (ugly), that I was a “baboy” (pig), and that I was “taba” (fat).
Family parties reinforced the negative attention to my body.
Every time I saw my well-meaning relatives, they would ask, “How
did you gain so much weight?”; “How did you get so dark?”; and
“Why is your nose so short?” After getting my usual barrage of
questions, I would listen to their conversations as they assessed the
present children’s beauty on the basis of their skin color, the color
of their hair, and the length of their noses.
“Maria is such a pretty girl. I hope she keeps that light skin out of
the sun.”
“David’s nose is so perfect. He’s so lucky his grandmother is from
Spain!”
I could not escape this reinforcement at home. Lola (my grand-
mother) was the main caregiver to my siblings and I since my

194 •
parents both worked full-time jobs. Unprovoked, she would point
out how fat I was getting and how big my ass and my breasts were.
During mealtimes she would bark, “Sige lang ka’g kaon! [You’re
eating so much!],” even though it was she who determined the por-
tion sizes of our meals. To avoid her, I would hide in the bedroom
I shared with my two siblings and only leave to eat and to use the
restroom.
As a result, I hated my body immensely. My self-esteem was
nonexistent, and I had no friends in- or outside of school. Some
of my classmates thought I was entertaining due to my constant
barrage of questions to my teachers in the classroom—telltale signs
of a future academic. Outside of the classroom, however, I barely
existed. I was extremely lonely, and I resorted to eccentric ways to
gain friends. I used my weekly allowance to try to buy friendships,
to no avail. I still remember Papa’s incredulous face when, for my
fifth grade birthday, we squeezed twenty fifth graders into our five-
passenger sedan to treat them at every Filipino child’s favorite fast
food restaurant, Jollibee (Philippine driving laws are more relaxed
than those in the United States). I grew more and more conscious
of my status as an “outsider” due to my appearance. I started to
notice that the kids who were deemed the most attractive had the
lightest skin and were usually half-non-Filipino. (Half-Caucasian
and half-Japanese were okay, but not half-Indian. God forbid.)
Even if those same kids were cruel to others, their appearance,
above all else, determined their top place in the school hierarchy.
While they were at the top of the food chain, I was barely at the
bottom of the barrel.
The media also influenced my perception about myself. Lola
usually took a nap in the afternoon. During this time, our two
maids were allowed to use the TV in the living room and watch
teleseryas (Philippine TV dramas) as long as their work was com-
pleted. Since I got home from school at the same time, I would
watch the series with them. Over the ridiculous overacting and
the nonsensical plots, the maids would discuss the actors’ appear-
ances: “Tan-awa na si Judy Ann [Santos]. Kagwapa gyud niya oi!
[Look at Judy Ann Santos. She’s so beautiful!].” The actress was

Reprogramming • 195
 light-skinned, with long, straight black hair in a low ponytail, and
looked like she weighed less than a hundred pounds. Regarding
another actress: “Itum na kaayo si Nora [Aunor]! Nidako na pud
siya! [Nora Aunor is too dark! She also got fatter!].” I did not
understand why they were so fixated on the actors’ appearance,
rather than the plot of the show.
Realizing my affinity for the arts, my parents enrolled me in
classes in Lu Chin Bon Performing Arts Center. Despite the
forty-minute one-way commute from our house, I had finally found
my escape. I immediately fell in love with performing and readily
took acting, dancing, and singing classes. Through our practices,
rehearsals, and performances, I slowly gained confidence in myself.
The intense physical activity built muscle where there was formerly
none. Thanks to puberty, I was the second tallest girl in my high
school at five feet four inches; the tallest girl was five feet seven
inches. I was standing out in school again, but the difference was
that I had my performing classes to look forward to.
By the time I was in high school, I was no longer called “pangit,”
“baboy,” or “taba” to my face, though the pressure to be light-
skinned and thin continued—especially as a young Filipina adult.
One day, I tired of all the negative attention and bought papaya
soap.2 I spent an hour in the bathroom trying to scrub my brown
skin white, filled with self-loathing as tears streamed down my face.
Even at 130 pounds, I continued to think that I was too fat. In an
effort to lose more weight, I stopped eating real food and only ate
fruit. The pain from my bowel movements was worth it: It stopped
people from making verbal attacks on my body. I got what I
wanted, but I was miserable and constantly hungry. After I blacked
out one day due to hunger, I reluctantly started eating food again.
Moving to the United States saved my life. Mama received a US
work visa, and in 2003, Papa, my two younger siblings, and I moved
to West Covina, California. My world was turned upside down.
My argumentative personality—a problem in Filipino collectiv-
istic culture—was perceived as a positive trait in the American
classroom. Within the first month of attending my California high
school, I had received compliments for my tanned skin. “How did

196 • Daniela Pila

you get it to be that color?” my white classmates asked excitedly.
“Um, I was born like this?” I replied with confusion. Amid the sea
of black and brown of my multiracial school, I no longer stood out
in school. No one pointed out my weight gains or losses, com-
mented on my dark skin, or questioned why I didn’t straighten my
hair. For the first time in my life, I felt normal. People saw me for
who I truly was—beyond the color of my skin. I made friends in
my school that I am still close to even today. And though I gained
twenty pounds in my first four years of living in the United States, I
had never been happier or more content.
My life took yet another unexpected turn in my junior year of
college when I met my boyfriend. We were extremely different
people—I, a 1.5-generation Filipina immigrant,3 he, a fourth-
generation Jewish American—but our first date lasted for six hours.
It was my first serious relationship . . . and with a white man at that.
Every time he told me I was beautiful, I felt like an imposter.
I didn’t know how to react to the adulation that he constantly
showered me with. “Why do you look confused when I tell you
that you’re beautiful?” he asked me more than once. Even though
I had been living in the United States for seven years at that point,
the Filipino standards of beauty were still deeply embedded within
me. I would look in the mirror and see what I perceived as the
worst parts of myself—my dark brown skin, my small nose, my
curly-wavy hair. It was hard to feel worthy enough to be someone’s
partner.
My boyfriend could not believe that he was my first boyfriend:
“Did no boys really ever ask you out?!?” The idea of someone being
romantically interested in me was as foreign to me as was the idea
that I was beautiful. I worried incessantly that he would look at
me one day and realize that I had somehow tricked him. Then, he
would break up with me and I would once again be alone.
Every time he said I was beautiful, I instead thought the oppo-
site: “No. I am actually dark-skinned, fat, and disgusting.”
Reprogramming my inner dialogue is a constant work in prog-
ress. After years of being with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, I
have slowly grown to like the way I look. When I see myself in the

Reprogramming • 197
 mirror, I no longer see all my flaws and imperfections. I like how
my body is curvy and how it fills in dresses. I admire the feel of my
skin and how my short hair falls on the back of my neck. My short
nose allows me to kiss my husband straight on without having to
tilt my head. I have yet to win the war against the inner demons of
my childhood, but I am winning the daily battles.
“I’ll never get tired of telling you how beautiful you are,” my
husband remarked one day. I am finally starting to believe him.

198 • Daniela Pila

26
Cartographies of Myself
Lillian Lu, Chinese American, 23

This summer, while conducting graduate research on orientalism,

I took a shopping trip to UNIQLO, a Japanese clothing brand, and
bought a dress. The dress, white with deep blue flowers printed all
over, recalled the Chinese blue willow porcelain patterns so cov-
eted by the English that it launched China mania throughout the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was aware of the irony while
buying it, and each time I wear it, I think of it, only half-jokingly,
as a reclamation of commodified Chinese porcelain, known for its
durability and smooth pearliness.
Interestingly, it was porcelain that older Chinese Americans used
to describe my pale skin as a toddler. It was meant as a compliment,
a mark of beauty, an auspicious sign of future femininity. The dress,
which I sometimes hesitate to wear because of all the weight its
design seems to carry, has also become for me a physical reminder
of this history, my grappling with the commodification of light skin
within Asian American communities. My transition into adulthood
has been a many-forked journey—one of those a road to accepting
and understanding the image of the woman in my mirror, beyond a
simplistic binary of dark and light.
I often wear the blue willow dress here in Southern California.
Until last year, I’d lived on the East Coast, most recently in New
England, and I’d never been much of an outdoorswoman until a
few months ago, when I was stirred into needed physical activity by
the sedentary habits of graduate school. I look upon visiting home
with eagerness, but also with a knowing trepidation, for there, there
are people who can trace the history of my skin tone, from that
porcelain whiteness to the California tan I am now. When I last

• 199
 visited for Christmas, my grandmother told me, with a clicking of
her tongue and fingers as she adjusted my collar, that I had gotten
darker, that I didn’t look like myself.
Myself.
She meant well. She is my grandmother on my mother’s side,
the side of my family that hailed from Guangzhou in southern
China, found themselves in Vietnam in between wars, and fled
by boat. The Cantonese, her people as well as mine, are a people
stereotyped, even in China, as darker, less urban, less cultured, and
shorter. Their dialect, containing more tones than the four that
distinguish Mandarin words, is tougher for the native English and
even Mandarin speaker to learn, and it is they who were brought to
the Americas in the 1600s as unfree miners, and later came to the
States as underpaid laborers on plantations, in fisheries, and on the
railroads.
Yes, she meant well. She wanted me to have an easier life than
she had had, and for Asian women, that generally means a life of
having light skin. She didn’t know her comment struck a chord
in me: how throughout my adolescence, I had several times been
called “not Chinese,” or a “bad Asian.” My high school had been
filled with Mandarin-speaking peers, so I frequently had to explain
that while my father was from Qingdao and spoke the common
dialect, half my childhood had been steeped in the six-toned lilts
of Cantonese. I have often felt myself straddling my Chinese and
American identities, and within the former, my southern and
northern Chinese identities. There are many lines and borders to
navigate across this cartography of myself.
To my Chinese peers, my Cantonese half somehow contami-
nated me, making me racially impure, the looming images of darker
skin tones signaling to them that I was somehow less academically
ambitious, someone descended from so-called coolie laborers.
My Cantonese half summons a history of a Chinese people who
were not accepted as Americans and not even given the right to
citizenship until the 1950s; they were migrants exploited for their
labor, rather than welcomed as immigrants to the United States.
It is a twisted piece of US history that, for some, feels comforting

200 • Lillian Lu
to ignore in exchange for the warm embrace of the “model minor-
ity” stereotype. And even in the context of China, colorism runs
rampant: Those who live in southern China, of course, live in
warmer climates, which, as in the West, has long carried a host of
deterministic associations—warmer climates mean agricultural
work, which means darker skin, which means an assumed differ-
ence in ability, education, and intellect. The same classmate who,
on my first day of school in a new town, sidled up to me and laid his
arm next to mine, saying, “Look! We’re the same color!” was the
one who later told me I wasn’t really Chinese when he found out I
was half-Cantonese. That I defied one expectation led to a cascade
of slippery categories and twisted constellations that drew curious
connections among skin tone, racial belonging, ethnicity, and even
definitions of beauty.
Though I spent my childhood porcelain-passing, I no longer
am. The whiteness of the dress’s bodice blinds in the Californian
sunlight, softened by my yellow-brown skin. To me, my tan means
those weekends I spent hiking, breathing in the aroma of plants
that only grow at that elevation. It means the days riding my bike
near the shore, looking out into the distance after a day of fixating
my eyes on my readings. It means remembering nature around
me, and being in it. It means that I have traversed the country to
make a life for myself here. It means that I have lived to see and do
all of that, and that I can grow more into myself, into new versions
of that self, just as my skin remakes itself every few months. In
Southern California, the seasons do not mark the passage of time,
so my skin does.
The story of my maternal family is one more colorful than
anything textbooks or stereotypes have told. Their cartographies
go beyond borders, too. My grandmother’s tan tells the story of
her life in Vietnam—how she was seen as an outsider there, and in
China too, and how she picked vegetables in the hills and packed
her bags and her family of six onto a boat to escape persecution, all
to come to the States. My mom has a similar tan, which tells of her
days as a child selling bean sprouts that she herself grew in order to
earn money, the weeks when she and her family lived on a beach

Cartographies of Myself • 201

 on their way to Hong Kong because the boat had sprung a leak, the
months exposed to the elements, to so many languages, until she
finally landed on English.
Last week, she video-called me from New Jersey, telling me that
she had her first age spot on her cheeks. She pointed to it: It was
dark, a smudge the size of a thumbprint, as if she’d wiped her face
absentmindedly while writing. She has been talking more, she tells
me, to recuperate memories she thought she had lost. One day, she
hopes to write. She was becoming more herself, too.
I thought it fitting that she and I both have October birthdays—
October being the month when the leaves on the East Coast
change color, when the West Coast sun becomes gentler.
“We are older now,” she said to me, to which I replied, “And you
look beautiful.”
The “and” was the bridge and the key.

202 • Lillian Lu
27
The Sun Is Calling My Name
Rowena Mangohig, Filipina American, 46

“Stay out of the sun or you’ll get dark.”

This was something I heard frequently from my mother, and she
didn’t say it because she was worried about the sun increasing my
chance of getting skin cancer. She said it because she was convinced
that the lighter my skin, the prettier I would be. As a result, it seems
I’ve always understood that skin color was important in determin-
ing my level of beauty; however, there was little I could do to avoid
dark skin while growing up in the sun-drenched southern half of the
United States. My parents immigrated to the United States from the
Philippines when I was only a few months old. They made do with
very little, so they were naturally inclined to use the free resources
available to them, meaning that we spent a lot of time on the docks
fishing, crabbing, shrimping, gathering clams from the beaches,
wading waist deep for scallops, and harvesting guavas, coconuts,
and papayas from neighbors’ trees. My time spent in the sun was
generally without fear of the “consequences,” and I did very little to
keep the sun from touching my skin. What did it matter back then?
I was a kid and I had my priorities, and taking care of my skin at the
risk of restricting my outdoor play time was not one of them.
I have a picture of my three sisters and myself ranging in ages
from one to eight years old during this decadent, carefree time of
my life when we were living in Key West, Florida. Sitting at the top
center of the photo is me, the oldest of the bunch, with flushed
brown skin because the picture was taken just after my run home
from school with friends under the bright Florida sun. Hot and
sweaty, I was in complete contrast to my younger sister at the bot-
tom corner. She was a chubby preschooler and, despite her self-cut

• 203
 bangs, was the real beauty of the photo because her skin was the
lightest of us all. She had big, round eyes, not small or “chinky,” as
the grown-ups would say, and based on that picture, she could have
perhaps belonged to a different family. She was certainly special.
When my parents would introduce us to their Filipino friends, even
they knew how special she was, and they would often comment
that of the four of us, she was the one who could be Miss America.
I never begrudged my sister for being the “fairest one of all.” She
just happened to be lucky, taking after my mother, while the rest of
us shared the coloring of my darker-skinned father. It wasn’t until
junior high that I started doing things to either lighten my skin
or else keep myself from getting darker. I think the change came
when I actually became interested in what other people thought of
me—especially the boys. In those days, I decided that the sun was
not my friend after all, and I began to insist on long sleeves even in
the hottest weather. I avoided the beach, but if forced to go, I was
the one sitting under the shade of a picnic shelter, fully clothed
and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, while everyone else played in
the surf or leisurely lounged in the sand. When I heard that lemon
juice could whiten skin, I was ecstatic. We were living in Southern
California by then, and everyone had lemon trees growing in their
back yards. Pretty soon, with access to lemons and this new-found
knowledge, I’d be Miss-America-beautiful just like my little sister.
Okay, so Miss America wasn’t really what I was striving for since
I wasn’t actually into pageants and parading myself around for
people to ogle—but I could finally be a princess. This was a big deal
because, according to my childhood friends, there was no such
thing as a brown princess. The lack of diversity in movies, television
shows, and books certainly reinforced this idea. So here it was, my
chance to be the princess-who-never-was thanks to a little lemon
juice! It didn’t take long to dash those dreams into the dirt because
all the lemon juice did was turn my face into a scaly mess.
I bet the mixed kids never had this problem, I thought. I was
so jealous of those half-white/half-Filipino children because I
thought they were truly beautiful. I thought that their lives must
be so much better than mine—filled with flowers and fairies and

204 • Rowena Mangohig

woodland animals that would eat right out of their hands. They
always seemed smarter, happier, friendlier. They were popular.
They were surrounded by admirers. They were richer. Their lives
were filled with love and golden opportunities. They had privileges
that didn’t exist for those of us with darker skin. For some of these
kids, not only were they lighter skinned, but some could even
“pass” for white. Or, at the very least, they could be ambiguous and
keep people guessing. I’d never be able to keep them guessing—
although people often guessed wrong since they often confused
Asian groups and pegged me as Cambodian rather than Filipino.
Perhaps exotic was the best I could hope for.
On my first visit to the Philippines, I was eighteen and for the
first time introduced to skin-whitening lotion. Why had I never
heard of this?! Why would my mother continually say, “Stay out
of the sun or you’ll get dark,” when all I needed was to put on this
lotion? Based on the variety of whitening products on store shelves
and the prevalence of these products in TV commercials and
printed ads, I saw that light skin was valuable and something cov-
eted by the many consumers in this country—so valuable in fact
that it could even determine whether or not you got a job. I discov-
ered this during an outing with my cousins in Manila. While they
were showing us around the city, I noticed a “Help Wanted” sign
for table help in a restaurant window. As at any business establish-
ment, I assumed that they were looking for a hard worker, someone
with a certain amount of experience waiting tables, someone who
was a team player and willing to go the extra mile for their custom-
ers. At least, that’s what I would imagine they would want, but since
we were in the Philippines, there was an additional requirement:
“Must have light skin.” I couldn’t help but feel incensed and sad for
the locals who would not qualify regardless of their skills because
they didn’t have the “correct” skin tone. I suppose a person who
wanted that job could potentially use skin-whitening lotion to
help increase his or her chances—though if these creams actu-
ally worked, surely all of the Philippines would be populated by
light-skinned people. Despite my sense of injustice, I gave a skin-
whitening lotion a try. I don’t really remember my impression of

The Sun Is Calling My Name • 205

 it. For whatever reason, it wasn’t one to keep as part of my beauty
regimen. Perhaps it didn’t work as quickly as I had hoped.
So I remained dark-skinned and regular, still unable to achieve the
status of “light-skinned and beautiful.” Then I moved to the Pacific
Northwest, away from the sunshine of my youth. I was older and
looking for a change. I’d been living in Washington State for a couple
of years before finally venturing back down to Southern California to
visit the family, and one thing that I remember was that my Miss-
America-sister complimented my skin. Not that it was flawless—I’d
been plagued with pimples as a teenager and even occasionally as an
adult. My skin tends to blemish at the slightest little offense, despite
my best efforts. No, what she was referring to was the lightness of my
skin, which had seen very little sunshine for the past couple of years
thanks to the infamous gray skies of my new home. At the time I was
flattered, especially since I hadn’t realized that my skin had changed
so significantly. I knew I was lighter, but I didn’t think the change was
enough to warrant a compliment from Miss America. Had I finally
achieved what I’d been searching for all these years? Could I say that
I was beautiful now that my skin was a shade lighter? Her comment
directly appealed to my vanity, and I became convinced that the
sunless skies were where I should be. I’d continue to visit family in
SoCal only in the cooler months, I thought to myself, and always be
covered to protect my newfound light skin from darkening.
Of course, time has a tendency to change the way we view
things, and for me, this change came after an exceptionally long,
wet spring. I’d gone through the rain and darkness of fall and
winter, so by the time spring rolled around, I’d had enough. I was
suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I needed sunshine.
When spring finally gave way to a slow-starting summer and I was
eventually able to go outside, take walks, work in the garden, and
revel in the sun, I called my mother and recounted all the wonder-
ful outdoor activities I’d been able to enjoy that week. I’d been
feeling good. It was such a relief from the previous lows of the past
few weeks. Despite my enthusiasm and euphoria at the moment,
my mother took it upon herself to remind me of the most impor-
tant thing: “Don’t stay in the sun too long. You’ll get dark.”

206 • Rowena Mangohig

 I felt a blanket was pulled over me, throwing me once again into
the darkness. I’d been walking around with my head in a fog for
months, and now that the sun was out, I wanted to reap the ben-
efits of this vital resource. Years ago, I was so happy to finally have
an autumn with oranges, yellows, and reds, an occasional snow in
winter, spring tulips, and, yes, the rain on cold, gray days. It was so
different from everything I had ever known. So new and exciting.
I had taken the sun for granted when I was younger, thinking it
was only there to make me sweaty, dark, and ugly. Only now do I
realize its true importance. Not only does the sun provide us with
light, help grow our foods, and warm our bodies; it also nourishes
our souls. So why is it so important to my mother that I stay away
from it? It is difficult to impress upon this woman the importance
of sunshine. I can’t blame her for not understanding, but I can be a
little incensed that she feels it her duty to remind me of the perils
of getting too dark. These days, my skin color determines more
than my beauty; it determines my sanity. I know I need the sun
and appreciate it much more than I ever did. I won’t hide from it,
as my skin needs to drink up its healing powers—safely, of course,
with plenty of SPF. My mom still tells me the same thing each time
I call, and each time I visit, she notices a few more freckles and
spots on my face, which I’m sure have more to do with aging than
exposure to the sun, but I don’t argue with her.
At this point in my life I have no qualms about being once again
the color of that flushed, brown-skinned girl in that photograph
with my sisters taken so many years ago. I’ve learned that the
lightness of my skin doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t mean I’m ugly
when my skin is dark, or beautiful when my skin is lighter. I’ve
learned that it doesn’t matter whether or not someone can guess
my ethnicity on the basis of my skin color. I’ve learned that I don’t
want to strive to look ambiguous or exotic. I’ve learned that even
a brown girl can be a princess. After many years of gloominess and
miserable weather, this princess is finally ready for the sun to touch
her skin regardless of the “consequences.” The sun is calling my
name, and this time I’ll answer without long pants, long sleeves,
and a wide-brimmed hat.

The Sun Is Calling My Name • 207

 28
Abominable Honhyeol
Julia R. DeCook, Multiracial Korean/White American, 25

I grew up in Korea, but went to college in South Dakota. When I

returned home to Korea for winter break after my first semester, one
of the first things on my mother’s to-do list was for us to go and visit
a bath house. There she paid an ajumma (older/married woman)
to scrub my body clean of all of the dead skin that had accumulated
in the six months that I had been away in the States. Getting rid of
ddeh (which is what the dead skin is called in Korean) is a cleansing
process, a tradition, and a time-honored ritual.
After this particular cleansing, my mother remarked that I was
glowing and looked “clean” again, and that my skin had become
“so white.” In the elevator on the way out, a man—a stranger—
remarked, audibly, with a gasp, when he saw me, “My, she is so
pale!” and he turned to my mother and said, “You must be so
proud to have such a beautiful daughter.” My mother loves hearing
these compliments and thanked him profusely; I stared at the floor.
To him, my mother, and those around me, my beauty exists in
my alabaster skin, which I had so meticulously curated like fragile
porcelain, making sure to never go out into the sun without protec-
tion, actively avoiding the sun if at all possible, using “brightening”
(whitening) skin products, and having my skin scrubbed until it
was red to achieve the perfect . . . paleness.
I am half-Korean and half-white, and I have spent nearly all of
my life in Korea. As a result, I have always been careful to maintain
my light skin. Light skin has always been my idea of what is beauti-
ful, because I have been praised for my skin color since I was a
child. As a baby, I had pale light skin, light hair, and light eyes. As
I grew older, my “Korean” genes started showing more—my hair

208 •
became darker, my eyes darker, and I started doing the normal
things that children do: swimming and playing outside in the
summertime, which naturally darkened my skin. I have not been
that tan since I was eleven, which is when the pressure to be pale
became more salient. Growing up in Korea will do that. I was
constantly surrounded by family members and exposed to celebri-
ties who were obsessed with cultivating perfect, blemish-free,
wrinkle-free, light skin.
Unlike in the United States, tanning in Korea is an alien concept.
In fact, the concept of “tan” equating to “beautiful” is so foreign that
I remember seeing a documentary on Korean TV about a woman
who . . . gasp! . . . tanned. Although she tanned to excess, the very
idea that there was a documentary about her that aired on television
points to how strange the concept of someone intentionally tanning
is to Korean people. Even if my own family and those around me
never explicitly told me I needed to be pale to be beautiful, it was
whispered to me from every advertisement, movie, television show,
and every time my grandmother, mother, or aunts warned me that
I had become “too dark.” My American father would often lament
how pale I was, and would remark often that I looked “ghostly,” with
my long, dark hair and ivory skin. To him, it was beautiful when my
skin, under the hot sun, became a golden color.
Korea (and much of Asia) places light skin on a pedestal as a
standard of beauty. However, within the walls and barbed wire of
the American military bases where I attended school and interacted
with other Americans, being tan was the cultural standard of
beauty, even if we were thousands of miles away from the United
States. What I have learned after living in the United States is
that American standards of beauty value tan skin, but not dark
skin. No doubt, whiteness, paleness, lightness is still a standard
of beauty, even in the United States— though in Asia and many
Asian American communities, the preference for white skin is
more pronounced and explicit. These views of what constitutes
beautiful skin present an internal battle within myself, and other
questions of beauty based on other aspects of my appearance haunt
me, even today. I have a raised bridge in my nose, but I have small,

Abominable Honhyeol • 209

 almond-shaped eyes. I have the eyelid fold and the long eyelashes,
but the high cheekbones. I have the dark hair, but it is curly and
wavy. My grandmother would often tell me that I was blended well,
like I was some kind of designer dog, a golden doodle. It always
made my heart drop into my stomach because of what those words
meant—that I was “blended well” and turned out “pretty,” un-
like some other honhyeol (mixed-race) children. I have been told
repeatedly throughout my life that I am pretty because of my mixed
blood, for my features that are neither East nor West, and, most of
all, for my pale skin.
My blended background, along with my affinity for some aspects
of American culture that I was exposed to on the military bases
and in school, was reason enough for many Koreans to deny me
my “Koreanness.” In Korea, racial purity is the standard, and pale
skin is a part of this pureness. For me, being pale was my one way of
molding my body and myself into what I believed would make me
seem “more Korean.” Whenever I saw tan lines appear, I felt shame
and contempt that I had become darker and lost what I believed
was my only connection to being accepted as Korean. This fear
was amplified in comments made by Korean family and friends—
“You can tell they’re not really Korean by how dark they are”—
comments that, looking back, were absolutely absurd, though
they had snaked their way into my subconscious as methods to
showcase my level of Koreanness as superior to theirs.
I am only now beginning to balance out my Korean and
American ideas of beauty after nearly a decade of living in the
United States. Today, I am the darkest I have been since I was
a child. When I recently had to buy a new shade of foundation
from sitting in the sun for too long, I avoided doing so as long as
possible. Why? Perhaps the reason was that I have not yet learned
to wholly accept the new tanned skin that I am in. Being tan still
sometimes feels alien to me, though being tan is also a symbol of
how much I am challenging the cultural standards of beauty that
have been drilled into my brain from birth. Even so, I have not yet
quieted the battle that I have deep within me screaming that “I
need to be pale! I need to be pale! I need to be pale to be beautiful!

210 • Julia R. DeCook

I need to be pale to be Korean!” I immediately think of what my
family would say if they saw how dark I have become—they would
tell me that I look like someone from Southeast Asia, that I look
Mexican, that I look like a farmer—and inevitably they would
chortle at their cleverness in equating my dark skin with something
they view as “lesser.” My mother would remind me that pale skin
is beautiful because pale skin is something afforded to the upper
class, while dark skin belongs to peasants who labor in the sun.
My inner voice tells me to embrace my skin, but nonetheless I en-
counter voices, both in Korea and in the United States, blasted from
every screen and image, that tell me that only truly white, light skin
and white features, belonging to white or white-passing women, are
beautiful. I have tried to learn how to stop caring what “they” see as
beautiful. Perhaps it is the cultural “abominations” of beauty that are
the most beautiful because of the mere fact that they question our
very standards, disrupt our inner voices, and challenge socialized
self-hatred. Although small and incredibly minute, my own rejection
of American and Korean beauty standards is embracing both my
mixed-race-ness and my darkened skin.
I am the abominable honhyeol. I am neither here nor there. And
the color of my skin will no longer define me.

Abominable Honhyeol • 211

 29
Dear Future Child
Kathy Tran-Peters, Vietnamese American, 24

Dear Future Child,

You may not understand what your mother has gone through
because of the color of her skin, the shape of her eyes, the color of
her hair, or the shape of her nose. Maybe someday, you will look
in the mirror and hate the parts of your face and your body that
I have given you. You may despise this side of you because the
schoolchildren call you “chink” as they did when I was younger;
you may feel unsafe walking downtown as men harass you and call
you “oriental” or “exotic”; you may experience stereotypes such as
being seen as only an A student, a bad driver, sexually obedient, or
submissive and quiet—all of this simply because of the physical
parts of you that you may see as “different.” You may shun this side
of you because of what you experience, the discrimination that
you may face, and the hurt that it may cause. Just please remember
that your mom has faced the same experiences whole-bodily and
whole-heartedly.
Please remember your mom on those days when you wish you
were more white, had rounder eyes, had lighter hair, or did not have
such a flat and big nose. For she had wished this for herself many
times. Please remember your mom when you dismiss this side of
you and wish you looked more like your dad. Please remember
your mom when you look at Asian women and think you are pret-
tier because your dad has given you lighter skin than theirs, lighter
hair than their pitch-black color, and double eyelids. Please realize
the privilege that your dad has afforded you in possibly passing as
white and not having to deal with the stereotypes and hurt these
Asian women experience on a regular basis.

212 •
 Please acknowledge your connection to your mom, Vietnamese
culture, and the traumatic history of our ancestry that we may
or may not share through our melanin. When you look at your
Vietnamese features, you may experience the generational trauma
of European colonialism and the Vietnam War. Your melanin may
be your connection to your grandparents’ experiences of fleeing
the ravages of war. Your almond-shaped eyes may help you see into
what your grandparents had to endure when they immigrated to
America, a new and foreign place that did not accept them because
they did not resemble your dad.
When you wish your hair to be lighter, please recognize that
your mom’s first major experience with race was in the aftermath
of 9/11, when your grandmother first dyed my eight-year-old
virgin hair because she worried that my darker hair would make
me a target for violence. Your grandmother’s fears were palpable
as Islamophobia and racism found fuel. If you decide to reject the
features I have given you, please remember that I could not hide
my physical appearance. I could not conceal my skin, my eyes, my
nose. My mother especially powered this need as she consistently
reminded me that I needed to be whiter—not only to be safe
from violence but to be successful and more attractive. Because
of all this, I tried whitening creams. I hid from the sun. I taped
my eyelids to create a double eyelid. And I squeezed the sides
of my nose every night in hopes of a longer and thinner nose by
morning.
When you reach junior high and high school, please remember
that your mom was just like you and only wanted to fit in with her
peers and be liked by her crushes; but, because she looked “differ-
ent,” she became isolated and found refuge in being alone. Please
imagine your high school mother sitting in the back corner of
your classes. I am the quiet Asian girl with no confidence. I knew
the answers, but was afraid that I would say a wrong answer and
not live up to the Asian stereotypes that my classmates inscribed
upon me.
In today’s age of Instagram and other social media, you might
post photos of yourself and get many followers and likes, but please

Dear Future Child • 213

 know that your mom did not do so because she felt inadequate,
self-conscious, and ugly in her own skin. Please recognize the days
when you feel worthless and may not want to live or function any-
more. Please understand that you are not alone as I also suffered
from mental illness, just like many of my deep-melanin peers. I had
to practice self-care every day and in everything I did.
It was not until college that your mom began to embrace
being Vietnamese. It was then that I gained the courage to resist
white supremacy as I found refuge in ethnic student groups. I
no longer felt alone once I met others who shared similar ex-
periences and struggles with American ways versus traditional
Vietnamese teachings. But, please also remember my efforts in
being an ally for the Black Lives Matter Movement, resisting
white supremacy, and finding my identity. It was difficult and the
battle fatigue real, especially in the age of Donald Trump. Please
understand that through all of this, dating and then eventually
marrying your dad was very challenging for me. I did not trust
white people, especially white men. I was often accused of want-
ing the white dick because it afforded me a piece of the privilege
given to those who are white. I did not trust your dad, especially
in moments when he did not think white privilege existed. I did
not always feel safe around your dad—especially when he told
me that “everything is going to be okay and there is nothing
to worry about,” when he did not acknowledge the rise of the
alt-right movement and neo-nazis, as well as the harmful racist,
sexist, ableist, classist, and homophobic policies arising out of the
Trump administration.
Though your mom loves your dad very much, please remember
that race has impacted her life in the past, in the present, and
now with you, my future child. Being biracial has a whole host of
issues that you will deal with, but please remember your mom and
her struggles. Know that your mom continues to resist tirelessly,
emotionally, and with her whole self in order to bring you into a
world that values all of you.
As I grow into myself, I am learning to accept who I am, includ-
ing my skin, my eyes, my nose, my hair. What I once hated about

214 • Kathy Tran-Peters

myself—as society taught me to do—I now embrace. I looked
“different,” and wanted to be beautiful and valued. After years of
struggle, I know I am beautiful. My hope for you is that you, too,
will learn to embrace who you are and see the beauty that I already
see in you.
With much love,
Mommy Tran-Peters

Dear Future Child • 215

 30
Teeth
Betty Ming Liu, Chinese American, 62

She was a little Chinese girl with a bowl cut. The chin-length hair
and straight bangs looked like a shiny, black helmet. But old family
photos reveal her true armor. It was that tight, fake smile that she
learned from her mother.
“A lady never shows her teeth,” warned her mom, in hopes of
making her little girl strong and resilient.
It would take that kid decades to finally drop the mask and show
her teeth. This is the story of my journey.
•
In the 1950s, my Chinese immigrant parents settled in an all-
white New Jersey town. When I started kindergarten at age five,
I was the only student of color in an all-white elementary school.
Curious kids asked what I saw through “slanty” eyes. They held up
milky or freckled arms next to mine, comparing skin tones. They
called me names.
“Flat-nose Chinese.”
“Ching-Chong.”
Through it all, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t show my teeth.
One Sunday, my younger sister and I came out of the house in
our church finery. I felt pretty in my dress with the puffy princess
skirt—until a group of teenage boys drove by. “Chinnnnnk!” they
yelled. What did the strange word mean?
I looked up at my parents. Daddy had turned a furious purple.
Mommy’s lipstick mouth flattened into a hard, red line. “Ignore
them,” she said quietly.
But it was too late.

216 •
 I felt ashamed and confused. Here I was, in my best outfit. Yet, I
was still ugly. An outsider. Foreign. Different.
As the laughing boys zoomed past in their car, we stood stoic,
jaws clenched.
I didn’t show my teeth.
Soon after that, we moved across the Hudson River to join
relatives in Manhattan’s Chinatown. “Our people,” my father
grinned. Clearly, he finally felt safe. But at age nine, I was thrown
into culture shock. We’d gone from total whiteness to Chinese New
Yorkers everywhere.
This is when my life got really ugly.
After school, the family women fussed over me and my sister.
They fed us fresh custard tarts and warm roast pork buns. While
we snacked, they eyeballed us up and down. They praised my
sister for being pale and slim. Even though they adored me, too, I
was sturdy, four-eyed, pimply, and relatively swarthy. My looks led
to endless chastising.
“You so dark!”
“Look how big your wrists!”
“How much you weigh now?”
Instead of reacting, I kept eating. Chewing with my mouth
closed, of course.
They never saw my teeth.
Sometimes, I’d look away and stare at the calendar on their
kitchen wall. Every month featured another gorgeous Hong
Kong starlet. I got the message. “Attractive” meant ivory com-
plexion, oval face, double eyelids, and some sort of nose bridge.
Unlike me, these hotties showed off pearly teeth. Why couldn’t I
do that, too?
At twenty-one, I finally discovered my teeth. A cute guy at
work asked me out. He was black. In those days, interracial
love was so taboo that Chinatown parents disowned daughters
who dated white guys. Getting involved with a black man was
unthinkable.
My mother assured our horrified relatives that this boyfriend
was “not that dark” because he was actually Native American.

Teeth • 217
 Then, she thanked God that two years earlier, a fatal heart attack
has already taken my dad. “If he was still alive, you would’ve killed
him,” she told me.
I shrugged. Who cares what “my people” thought? I was too
busy losing my virginity, falling in love, and enjoying a sudden,
unexpected change in status. I went from “too dark” among Asians
to “light-skinned” in black culture. What a boost to my broken
self-esteem. Finally, it seemed, I could be beautiful.
We were a black-Asian couple in the ’80s, long before anyone
used the word “Blasian.” While we had good friends of all colors,
our marriage also led to crap from haters on every side—whites,
blacks, Asians. I was also among the first wave of Asian American
journalists breaking into the white media, and facing career dis-
crimination battles of my own. With so much going on, I had to
step up and speak up.
I started baring my teeth.
Then in 1995, my husband and I were blessed with a beautiful
baby girl. Our brown daughter had curly, frizzy hair, full lips, and
expressive, espresso eyes. Her arrival transformed me. As her
mommy, I was ready to fight anyone and anything to keep her safe.
This is when my teeth came out for good.
But there was one problem: I wanted her to be a happy, female
human—a three-word description beyond my personal experience.
I wondered: Who would be her people? How would she know that
she is strong and beautiful?
As I obsessed, time kept moving. Soon, a version of history
repeated itself. When I was five, my parents marched me off to a
white school, armed with helmet hair, never showing my teeth.
Now, my husband and I were arguing about living in an upscale,
vanilla suburb. I worried—what if our daughter was The Only
One in kindergarten? If classmates played with her puffy hair or
pulled her braids, would she fake-smile? Would she never show
her teeth?
One argument led to another. Just before our daughter turned
five, we split up.

218 • Betty Ming Liu

 I moved to a town closer to New York City that was still mostly
white. We stood out as Asian-mom-with-the-mixed-kid. And yes,
kids noticed she was “different.” They said things. They touched her
hair. My heart broke.
For the first time, I genuinely understood my own mother’s
fear. She felt my survival depended on hiding my teeth. Don’t
say anything. Deny difficult feelings. But unlike her, I wanted to
mother without smothering. So to save my child, I had to reinvent
myself—and save me first.
Once our daughter was in school and spending weekends with
her dad, I took salsa lessons, dated, and started working as a part-
time professor. Today, I teach communication skills and writing.
Eventually, I learned to oil paint, which healed my heart. Handling
rich, saturated colors even seemed familiar. After all, I was already
an expert on color, wasn’t I?
Wherever I turned, I have been judged by the color of my skin.
How light? How dark? No wonder I judged myself. And unfortu-
nately, my baby girl was just like me. The two of us would walk into
any store, restaurant, or play space, instantly self-aware. Without
even thinking about it, we compared ourselves to others in nuances
of complexion, hair texture, and facial features.
But painting changed me into a colorist. I took a color theory
art class, where we mixed the primary pigments of red, blue, and
yellow into subtle shades, hues, and tints. The results were unpre-
dictable and exciting. I realized that this is how our complexions
should be celebrated, too.
When it comes to color, anything can happen. Some days, I’ll
stare at the mud mess on my canvas and want to give up. Then, I’ll
take a few breaths and carry on. The same goes for dealing with
color on the human canvas.
I can’t stop colorism; it’s been here forever. But inhaling and
exhaling keeps me in the moment—free of ancestors, the past,
the future. Today, at sixty-two, I talk, laugh, and smile—all while
showing my teeth. When I learned to show my teeth, I discovered I
was beautiful.

Teeth • 219
 These are the new lessons I’ve tried to pass on to my daughter.
She’s in her twenties now. My late, brave mom is still part of our
spiritual circle. She loved us. We honor her struggle as a woman, as
a mother and grandmother, and as an immigrant. But we have gone
on to recognize our worth in a world that devalues dark skin.
And my daughter is beautiful, because she knows how to show
her teeth.

220 • Betty Ming Liu

Notes

Introduction
1 The advertisement can be viewed online with English subtitles here: “‘White-
ness Makes You Win’: Thai Ad Promotes Skin-Whitening Pills—Video,”
Guardian, January 8, 2016, available at https://www.bing.com.
2 Angela R. Dixon and Edward E. Telles, “Skin Color and Colorism: Global
Research, Concepts, and Measurement”; Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Yearning
for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the Marketing and Consumption of
Skin Lighteners”; Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Consuming Lightness: Segmented
Markets and Global Capital in the Skin-Whitening Trade.”
3 For examples, see Shehzad Nadeem’s discussion of skin-whitening advertise-
ments in “Fair and Anxious: On Mimicry and Skin-Lightening in India.”
4 Annie Paul, “Beyond the Pale? Skinderella Stories and Colourism in India.”
5 Pierre Van den Berge and Peter Frost, “Skin Color Preference, Sexual Dimor-
phism, and Sexual Selection: A Case of Gene Culture Co-Evolution.”
6 Margaret Hunter, Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone, p. 1.
7 Alice Walker, “If the Present Looks like the Past, What Does the Future Look
Like?”
8 Darrick Hamilton, Arthur H. Goldsmith, and William Darity Jr., “Shedding
‘Light’ on Marriage: The Influence of Skin Shade on Marriage for Black Fe-
males,” p. 131.
9 Margaret Hunter, “‘If You’re Light You’re Alright’: Light Skin Color as Social
Capital for Women of Color,” p. 176.
10 See Arthur Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton, and William Darity Jr., “Shades of
Discrimination: Skin Tone and Wages”; Arthur Goldsmith, Darrick Hamilton,
and William Darity Jr., “From Dark to Light: Skin Color and Wages among
African Americans”; Matthew S. Harrison and Kecia M. Thomas, “The Hid-
den Prejudice in Selection: A Research Investigation on Skin Color Bias”;
Joni Hersch, “Skin Tone Effects among African Americans”; Mark E. Hill,
“Color Differences in the Socioeconomic Status of African American Men”;
Mark E. Hill, “Skin Color and the Perception of Attractiveness among African
Americans: Does Gender Make a Difference?”; Michael Hughes and Bradley
Hertel, “The Significance of Skin Color Remains: A Study of Life Chances,
Mate Selection, and Ethnic Consciousness among Black Americans”; Mar-
garet Hunter, “Colorstruck: Skin-Color Stratification in the Lives of African
American Women”; Margaret Hunter, Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin
Tone; Verna M. Keith and Cedric Herring, “Skin-Tone Stratification in the

• 221
 Black Community”; Ellis P. Monk Jr., “Skin-Tone Stratification among Black
Americans, 2001–2003”; Ellis P. Monk Jr., “The Cost of Color: Skin Color,
Discrimination, and Health among African Americans”; Richard Seltzer and
Robert C. Smith, “Color Difference in the Afro-American Community and the
Differences They Make.”
11 Cedric Herring, Verna M. Keith, and Hayward Derrick Horton (eds.), Skin
Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the “Color Blind” Era; Margaret
Hunter, Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone; Keith B. Maddox, “Perspec-
tives on Racial Phenotypicality Bias.”
12 St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life
in a Northern City; Margaret Hunter, “Colorstruck: Skin-Color Stratification
in the Lives of African American Women”; Margaret Hunter, Race, Gender,
and the Politics of Skin Tone; Nikki Khanna, Biracial in America: Forming and
Performing Racial Identity; Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald E. Hall,
The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color among African Americans.
13 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans.
14 G. Reginald Daniel, “Passers and Pluralists: Subverting the Racial Divide”;
Nikki Khanna, Biracial in America: Forming and Performing Racial Identity;
Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald E. Hall, The Color Complex: The
Politics of Skin Color among African Americans; Lori L. Tharps, Same Family,
Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Diverse Families.
15 G. Reginald Daniel, More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial
Order; Angela R. Dixon and Edward E. Telles, “Skin Color and Colorism:
Global Research, Concepts, and Measurement,” p. 407; Nikki Khanna, Biracial
in America: Forming and Performing Racial Identity.
16 Ronald E. Hall, “The Bleaching Syndrome: African Americans’ Response to
Cultural Domination vis-à-vis Skin Color.”
17 Jeff Zeleny, “Reid Apologizes for Remarks on Obama’s Color and ‘Dialect.’”
18 See also Vesla M. Weaver, “The Electoral Consequences of Skin Color: The
‘Hidden’ Side of Race in Politics.”
19 Mark E. Hill, “Skin Color and the Perception of Attractiveness among African
Americans: Does Gender Make a Difference?”
20 Darrick Hamilton, Arthur H. Goldsmith, and William Darity Jr., “Shed-
ding ‘Light’ on Marriage: The Influence of Skin Shade on Marriage for Black
Females”; Margaret Hunter, “The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone,
Status, and Inequality.”
21 Mark E. Hill, “Skin Color and the Perception of Attractiveness among African
Americans: Does Gender Make a Difference?” p. 88.
22 Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women,
p. 12.
23 Margaret Hunter, “The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and
Inequality,” p. 247.
24 Alanna Vagianos, “Zendaya on Colorism: ‘I am Hollywood’s Acceptable Ver-
sion of a Black Girl.’”

222 • Notes
25 Blackness has historically been defined in the United States as having any
degree of black ancestry. According to F. James Davis in Who Is Black? One
Nation’s Definition, the one-drop rule, only used in the United States, defined
anyone as black who had any black ancestor anywhere in his or her family tree;
thus many multiracial Americans with black ancestry are often raced as black
even today. Actresses Halle Berry, Thandie Newton, and Paula Patton all have
multiracial ancestry (including white ancestry), yet the larger society often
categorizes them as black. For example, Halle Berry, a child of a white mother
and black father, accepted her Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 as the
first black woman to win the award.
26 For a discussion on colorism in Hollywood, see Tiffany Onyejiaka, “Holly-
wood’s Colorism Problem Can’t Be Ignored Any Longer”; and for more on the
link between dark skin and masculinity, see Ronald E. Hall, “Dark Skin and the
Cultural Ideal of Masculinity.”
27 Catherine Knight Steele, “Pride and Prejudice: Pervasiveness of Colorism and
the Animated Series Proud Family,” p. 62.
28 Jessica Bennett, “Exclusive: Mathew Knowles Says Internalized Colorism Led
Him to Tina Knowles Lawson.”
29 Nikki Khanna, Biracial in America: Forming and Performing Racial Identity;
Kerry Ann Rockquemore, “Negotiating the Color Line: The Gendered Process
of Racial Identity Construction among Black/White Biracials.”
30 The “x” in Latinx (and, later, Filipinx) is used in lieu of “o” and “a” (as in “La-
tino” or “Latina”), in order to denote gender inclusivity.
31 For examples, see Hector Y. Adames, Nayeli Chavez-Duenas, and Kurt C.
Organista, “Skin Color Matters in Latino/a Communities: Identifying, Un-
derstanding, and Addressing Mestizaje Racial Ideologies in Clinical Prac-
tice”; Carlos H. Arce, Edward Murguia, and W. Parker Frisbie, “Phenotype
and Life Chances among Chicanos”; R. Costas Jr., M. R. Garcia-Palmieri, P.
Sorli, and E. Hertzmark, “Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in Men with
Light and Dark Skin in Puerto Rico”; Rodolfo Espino and Michael M. Franz,
“Latino Phenotypic Discrimination Revisited: The Impact of Skin Color on
Occupational Status”; Sandra D. Garza, “Decolonizing Intimacies: Women
of Mexican Descent and Colorism”; Lance Hannon, “Hispanic Respondent
Intelligence Level and Skin Tone: Interviewer Perceptions from the American
National Election Study”; Margaret Hunter, Walter R. Allen, and Edward E.
Telles, “The Significance of Skin Color among African Americans and Mexican
Americans”; Edward Murguia and Edward E. Telles, “Phenotype and School-
ing among Mexican Americans”; Raquel Reichard, “11 Examples of Light-Skin
Privilege in Latinx Communities”; Edward E. Telles and Edward Murguia,
“Phenotypic Discrimination and Income Differences among Mexican Ameri-
cans.”
32 See Raquel Reichard, “11 Examples of Light- Skin Privilege in Latinx Commu-
nities.”
33 Janice Williams, “From Black to White: Why Sammy Sosa and Others Are
Bleaching Their Skin.”

Notes • 223
 34 According to federal guidelines, Latinx is conceptualized as an ethnic group,
not a racial group, and many Latinxs have African ancestry. See US Census
categories: Office of Management and Budget (OMB), “Race and Ethnic Stan-
dards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting,” Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), May 12, 1977, available at: https://wonder.
cdc.gov.
35 Lance Hannon, “White Colorism.”
36 Raquel Reichard, “11 Examples of Light- Skin Privilege in Latinx Communi-
ties.”
37 Trina Jones, “The Significance of Skin Color in Asian and Asian-American
Communities: Initial Reflections,” p. 1106.
38 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Consuming Lightness: Segmented Markets and
Global Capital in the Skin-Whitening Trade,” p. 179.
39 Seimu Yamashita, “Colorism and Discrimination in Japan’s Marriage Scene”;
Evelyn Yeung, “White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin-Whitening
Practices and Female Empowerment in China.”
40 Seimu Yamashita, “Colorism and Discrimination in Japan’s Marriage Scene.”
41 Eric P. H. Li, Hyun Jeong Min, and Russell W. Belk, “Skin Lightening and
Beauty in Four Asian Cultures,” p. 445.
42 Seimu Yamashita, “Colorism and Discrimination in Japan’s Marriage Scene.”
43 Seimu Yamashita, “Colorism and Discrimination in Japan’s Marriage Scene.”
44 Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese Ameri-
can Beauty Pageants.
45 Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese Ameri-
can Beauty Pageants.
46 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 53.
47 “Skin Whitening Big Business in Asia.”
48 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 4.
49 Evelyn Yeung, “White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin-Whitening
Practices and Female Empowerment in China.”
50 Marianne Bray, “Skin Deep: Dying to Be White.”
51 Hsin Chen, Careen Yarnal, Garry Chick, and Nina Jablonsky, “Egg White or
Sun-Kissed: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Skin Color and Women’s Leisure
Behavior,” p. 261.
52 Marianne Bray, “Skin Deep: Dying to Be White”; Lori L. Tharps, Same Family,
Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Diverse Families; Evelyn
Yeung, “White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin-Whitening Practices
and Female Empowerment in China.”
53 Evelyn Yeung, “White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin-Whitening
Practices and Female Empowerment in China,” p. 7.
54 Serenitie Wang and Sherisse Pham, “A Startup That Helps You Look Slimmer
and Paler Is Worth Nearly $5 Billion.”

224 • Notes
55 Bill Chappell, “On Chinese Beaches, the Face-Kini Is in Fashion”; Lori L.
Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Di-
verse Families.
56 Gary Xu and Susan Feiner, “Meinu Jingji/China’s Beauty Economy: Buying
Looks, Shifting Value, and Changing Place,” p. 315.
57 Gary Xu and Susan Feiner, “Meinu Jingji/China’s Beauty Economy: Buying
Looks, Shifting Value, and Changing Place,” p. 317.
58 Ye Tiantian, “Why Do People Prefer Whiter Skin?”
59 Marianne Bray, “Skin Deep: Dying to Be White.”
60 Evelyn Yeung, “White and Beautiful: An Examination of Skin-Whitening
Practices and Female Empowerment in China,” p. 9.
61 Rae Chen, “I’m a Light- Skinned Chinese Woman, and I Experience Pretty
Privilege.”
62 Pal Ahluwalia, “Fanon’s Nausea: The Hegemony of the White Nation,” p. 334.
63 Joanne Rondilla, “Filipinos and the Color Complex: Ideal Asian Beauty.”
64 Joanne Rondilla, “Filipinos and the Color Complex: Ideal Asian Beauty,” p. 78.
65 Maya Oppenheim, “Emma Watson Responds to Criticism over ‘Skin-
Whitening’ Advert.”
66 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans.
67 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 55.
68 Kevin Nadal, “My Trip to the Philippines, Part 2: The Power of Colorism and
Colonial Mentality.”
69 Sonora Jha and Mara Beth Adelman, “Looking for Love in All the White
Places: A Study of Skin-Color Preferences on Indian Matrimonial and Mate-
Seeking Websites.”
70 Jyotsna Vaid, “Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian
Matrimonials.”
71 Eric P. H. Li, Hyun Jeong Min, and Russell L. Belk, “Skin Lightening and
Beauty in Four Asian Cultures.”
72 Neha Mishra, “India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances.”
73 Jyotsna Vaid, “Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian
Matrimonials,” p. 148.
74 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 101.
75 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Consuming Lightness: Segmented Markets and
Global Capital in the Skin-Whitening Trade,” p. 176.
76 Kanishka Singh, “Post-1947, the Mixed Fortunes of the Mixed-Race Anglo-
Indians.”
77 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 102.
78 Neha Mishra, “India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances,” p. 734; Annie Paul,
“Beyond the Pale? Skinderella Stories and Colourism in India.”

Notes • 225
 79 Neha Mishra, “India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances.”
80 Anna North, “Vaseline Crowdsources Racism with New Skin-Whitening App.”
81 Shobita Dhar, “In Search of Fair Babies, Indians Chase Caucasian Donors for
IVF.”
82 Shobita Dhar, “In Search of Fair Babies, Indians Chase Caucasian Donors for
IVF.”
83 Deepi Harish, “Why Are India’s Beauty Standards So Messed Up?”
84 T. Jerome Utley and William Darity Jr., “India’s Color Complex: One Day’s
Worth of Matrimonials”; see also Jyotsna Vaid, “Fair Enough? Color and the
Commodification of Self in Indian Matrimonials.”
85 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the
Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lighteners,” p. 282; see also Jyotsna Vaid,
“Fair Enough? Color and the Commodification of Self in Indian Matrimoni-
als.”
86 See also T. Jerome Utley and William Darity Jr., “India’s Color Complex: One
Day’s Worth of Matrimonials.”
87 Fatima Lodhi, “‘No One Will Marry You’: My Journey as a Dark- Skinned
Woman in Pakistan.”
88 Maria Sartaj, “In Pakistan, a Disease Called Dark Skin.”
89 Megan Willett, “No, Asian Eyelid Surgery Is Not about Looking More
‘White.’”
90 Project E Beauty, “Project E Beauty Magic Beautiful Double Eyelid Exerciser
Eyes Beautiful Style Glasses Double-Fold Eyelids Trainer,” Amazon, available
at https://www.amazon.com.
91 Patricia Marx, “About Face: Why Is South Korea the World’s Plastic Surgery
Capital?”
92 Anthony Youn, “Asia’s Ideal Beauty: Looking Caucasian.”
93 Euny Hong, “I Got Eyelid Surgery, but Not to Look White.”
94 Maureen O’Connor, “Is Race Plastic? My Trip into the ‘Ethnic Plastic Surgery’
Minefield.”
95 Maureen O’Connor, “Is Race Plastic? My Trip into the ‘Ethnic Plastic Surgery’
Minefield.”
96 Euny Hong, “I Got Eyelid Surgery, but Not to Look White.”
97 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 111.
98 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 111.
99 Allison Takeda, “Julie Chen Reveals She Got Plastic Surgery to Look Less
Chinese: See the Before and After Pictures.”
100 Hsin Chen, Careen Yarnal, Garry Chick, and Nina Jablonsky, “Egg White or
Sun-Kissed: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Skin Color and Women’s Leisure
Behavior.”
101 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 58.

226 • Notes
102 Trina Jones, “The Significance of Skin Color in Asian and Asian-American
Communities: Initial Reflections,” p. 111.
103 Olivia Cole, “Why I’m Not Here for #WhiteGirlsRock.”
104 Maisha Johnson, “10 Ways the Beauty Industry Tells You Being Beautiful
Means Being White.”
105 For more Eurocentrism in American media, see the discussion of “white-
oriented material” in fashion and beauty magazines by Lisa Duke, “Black in a
Blonde World: Race and Girls’ Interpretations of the Feminine Ideal in Teen
Magazines.”
106 Hsin Chen, Careen Yarnal, Gerry Chick, and Nina Jablonsky, “Egg White or
Sun-Kissed: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Skin Color and Women’s Leisure
Behavior.”
107 Sriya Shrestha, “Threatening Consumption: Managing US Imperial Anxieties
in Representation of Skin Lightening in India.”
108 Sabina Verghese, “Sun Tans and Dark Skin: Unpacking White Privilege.”
109 “Q & A: Chris Rock.”
110 Sriya Shrestha, “Threatening Consumption: Managing US Imperial Anxieties
in Representation of Skin Lightening in India,” p. 111.
111 As cited in Meeta Rani Jha, The Global Beauty Industry: Colorism, Racism, and
the National Body, p. 88.
112 Mia Tuan, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites: The Asian Ethnic Experience
Today.
113 Rae Chen, “I’m a Light- Skinned Chinese Woman, and I Experience Pretty
Privilege.”
114 Andrea Cheng, “Why So Many Asian-American Women Are Bleaching Their
Hair Blond,” p. 4.
115 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 111.
116 “About,” United States Census Bureau, January 23, 2018, available at https://
www.census.gov.
117 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 49.

Part I. Colorism Defined

1 JeffriAnne Wilder, “Revisiting ‘Color Names and Color Notions’: A Con-
temporary Examination of the Language and Attitudes of Skin Color among
Young Black Women,” p. 202.
2 Ross Szabo, “What Does an American Look Like? Racial Diversity in the
Peace Corps.”

Chapter 1. Wheatish
1 Literally meaning “the color of wheat”; light-skinned.
2 “Haldi” is the Hindi world for turmeric. It is commonly used in Indian cooking
and skin care due to its health benefits. “Beta” is a term of endearment that

Notes • 227
 literally means “son” in Hindi, though it also informally translates to “child”;
thus, it is often used by parents to address their sons or daughters.

Chapter 4. You’re So White, You’re So Pretty

1 Khmer is an ethnic group and native to Cambodia—a modernized name of
Kambuja or Kampuchea. Cambodian is a modern name, referring to either a
native or a citizen of Cambodia.

Chapter 5. You Have Such a Nice Tan!

1 Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Yearning for Lightness: Transnational Circuits in the
Marketing and Consumption of Skin Lightener”; Roger Lee Mendoza, “The
Skin Whitening Industry in the Philippines.”
2 Launched in the early 2000s, the “Real Beauty” campaign was Dove’s attempt
to transform the conversation about female beauty, challenge traditional no-
tions of beauty, and highlight different forms (including body size and color)
of beauty (see “Dove Campaigns,” Dove, https://www.dove.com).

Part II. Privilege

1 See the sources cited in the introduction.
2 Kim Rahn and Kim Tae-Jong, “Southeast Asians Feel Discriminated against
in Korea.” Korea Times, January 18, 2011. Retrieved on November 12, 2018, at
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr.
3 E. J. R. David, “The Marginalization of Brown Asians.”
4 “Confronting Racism against Asian-Americans,” New York Times, October 18,
2016, available at https://www.nytimes.com.
5 E. J. R. David, “An Open Letter to the ‘New York Times’ Who Told Brown
Asians They Don’t Matter.”
6 Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Lily Kuo, “Where Are the Brown People? Crazy
Rich Asians Draws Tepid Response in Singapore.”
7 Jose G. Santos, “10 Years after Sikh Murder over 9/11, Community Continues
to Blend In and Stand Out.”

Chapter 12. Magnetic Repulsion

1 I feel strongly that in my writing, the “B” in “Black” should be capitalized. For
me, and for many other American Black people who lack knowledge about
their African ethnic roots, capitalizing the “B” in Black signifies my stance that
for me Blackness is my ethnic identity and culture, not only my race. I use it as
a proper noun like “American,” “Asian,” “Ghanaian,” and “Chippewa.”

Part III. Aspirational Whiteness

1 Annabel Fenwick Elliot, “‘Do You Wanna Be White?’ Korean Skincare Brand
Sparks Backlash by Posing Controversial Question on a Billboard in New
York.”
2 Andrea Cheng, “Why So Many Asian-American Women Are Bleaching Their
Hair Blond.”

228 • Notes
 3 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans, p. 52.
4 Eliza Romero, “Asian Brands Need to Do Better: Stop Using White Models.”
5 Elaine Y. J. Lee, “Why Do So Many Asian Brands Hire White Models?”
6 Elaine Y. J. Lee, “Why Do So Many Asian Brands Hire White Models?”
7 Lee Ellis and Ping He, “Race and Advertising: Ethnocentrism or ‘Real’ Differ-
ences in Physical Attractiveness? Indirect Evidence from China, Malaysia, and
the United States.”
8 Katherine Toland Frith, Hong Cheng, and Ping Shaw, “Race and Beauty: A
Comparison of Asian and Western Models in Women’s Magazine Advertise-
ments”; Katherine Toland Frith, Ping Shaw, and Hong Cheng, “The Construc-
tion of Beauty: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women’s Magazine Advertising.”
9 Jaehee Jung and Yoon-Jung Lee, “Cross-Cultural Examination of Women’s
Fashion and Beauty Magazine Advertisements in the United States and
South Korea.”
10 According to Elaine Y. J. Lee in “Why Do So Many Asian Brands Hire White
Models?” black models are sometimes used in Asian marketing “if their inspi-
ration is hip-hop or streetwear.”
11 Jaehee Jung and Yoon-Jung Lee, “Cross-Cultural Examination of Women’s
Fashion and Beauty Magazine Advertisements in the United States and
South Korea.”
12 Eliza Romero, “Asian Brands Need to Do Better: Stop Using White Models.”
13 Amy B. Wang, “Vogue India Faces Backlash for Putting Kendall Jenner on 10th
Anniversary Cover.”
14 John Kenneth White and Sandra L. Hanson, “The Making and Persistence of
the American Dream,” p. 1.
15 Ellis Cose, “What’s White Anyway?”
16 Many groups have stood before US courts asking to be racially reclassified as
white—including Afghans, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, Mexicans, Hawaiians,
and Native Americans. In addition to the cases described above involving
Indians and the Japanese, other Asian groups have also asked to be classified
as white, including Chinese, Burmese, Koreans, and Filipinos. See Ian Haney
Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. For a summary of these
cases, see “Racial Prerequisite Cases—Chronological Order,” University of
Dayton, December 22, 2009, available at https://academic.udayton.edu.
17 Noy Thrupkaew, “The Myth of the Model Minority.”
18 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks.
19 Joanne Rondilla, “Filipinos and the Color Complex: Ideal Asian Beauty,” p. 63.
20 Joanne Rondilla, “Filipinos and the Color Complex: Ideal Asian Beauty, p. 64.
21 Joanne L. Rondilla and Paul Spickard, Is Lighter Better? Skin Tone Discrimina-
tion among Asian Americans.

Chapter 13. Digital Whiteness

1 A person or place of Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi origin.

Notes • 229
 Part IV. Anti- Blackness
1 Maya Wesby, “Japan’s Problem with Race.”
2 Martin Fackler, “Biracial Beauty Queen Challenges Japan’s Self-Image.”
3 Maya Prabhu, “African Victims of Racism in India Share Their Stories.”
4 Maya Prabhu, “African Victims of Racism in India Share Their Stories.”
5 Max Fisher, “A Fascinating Map of the World’s Most and Least Racially Toler-
ant Countries.”
6 Robert Mackey, “Beating of African Students by Mob in India Prompts Soul-
Searching on Race.”
7 Arun Dev, “Tanzanian Girl Stripped, Beaten in Bengaluru: ‘Deeply Pained’
Says Sushma Swaraj.”
8 Ishaan Tharoor, “China and India Have a Huge Problem with Racism towards
Black People.”
9 Nimisha Jaiswal, “Being Black in India Can Be Deadly.”
10 Lucy Pasha-Robinson, “China Bans Hip-Hop Culture and Tattoos from All
Media Sources.”
11 Casey Quackenbush and Aria Hangyu Chen, “‘Tasteless, Vulgar, and Ob-
scene’: China Just Banned Hip-Hop Culture and Tattoos from Television.”
12 Aris Folley, “Racist Chinese Laundry Commercial Sparks Outrage.”
13 A. Moore, “8 of the Worst Countries for Black People to Travel.”
14 Ryan General, “Taiwanese School Sparks Outrage for Saying It’s Not Hiring
‘Black or Dark- Skinned’ Teachers.”
15 Nicole Cooper, “Black in Taiwan: My Experience.”
16 Dave Hazzan, “Korea’s Black Racism Epidemic.”
17 Dave Hazzan, “Korea’s Black Racism Epidemic.”
18 Benny Luo, “Meet the Most Famous Black Man in Korea.”
19 Jezzika Chung, “How Asian Immigrants Learn Anti-Blackness from White
Culture, and How to Stop It.”
20 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 107.
21 Lexi Browning and Lindsey Bever, “‘Ape in Heels’: W.Va. Mayor Resigns amid
Controversy over Racist Comments about Michelle Obama.”
22 Chris Fuchs, “Behind the ‘Model Minority’ Myth: Why the ‘Studious Asian’
Stereotype Hurts.”
23 Chris Fuchs, “Behind the ‘Model Minority’ Myth: Why the ‘Studious Asian’
Stereotype Hurts.”
24 Tyrus Townsend, “The Anti-Blackness of the Asian Community.”
25 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 122.
26 Catalina Camia, “Bobby Jindal of Portrait: ‘I’m Not White?’”
27 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families.

230 • Notes
Chapter 16. Creation Stories
1 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a program designed to
provide children brought undocumented by their parents into the United
States with protection from deportation as well as eligibility for a work permit.

Chapter 17. What It Means to Be Brown

1 Toni Morrison, “On the Back of Blacks.”

Chapter 18. The Perpetual Outsider

1 Some Native Hawaiian scholars and activists have argued that the term “hapa”
has been culturally appropriated to mean “part Asian,” as the term has histori-
cally meant “part Hawaiian.”
2 Cham Americans are an ethnic Southeast Asian minority group who hail pri-
marily from Cambodia and Vietnam as a result of the Khmer Rouge genocide
and the Vietnam War, respectively. Cham people are also indigenous as they
are descendants of the Kingdom of Champa, which is occupied by present-day
Vietnam. The 1999 General Statistics Office of Vietnam indicate that there are
132,000 Cham people who reside in Vietnam. Although Cham ethnicity may
not always be recognized in census counts, Cham language and the Islamic
religion indicated significant importance in identifying ethnic Cham people.
According to the 2008 Cambodia General Population Census, approximately
204,000 Cambodian residents claim “Chaam” as their “mother tongue,” and
approximately 257,000 Cambodian residents follow the Islamic religion. In the
2010 United States Census, 891 Cham language speakers were reported.
3 Dustin Tahmahkera, “Custer’s Last Sitcom.”
4 Dustin Tahmahkera, “Custer’s Last Sitcom.”

Part V. Belonging and Identity

1 Nikki Khanna, Biracial in America: Forming and Performing Racial Identity, p.
78.
2 NewsOne Staff, “Do You Consider Soledad O’Brien a Black Woman?”
3 Margaret Hunter, “The Lighter the Berry? Race, Color, and Gender in the
Lives of African American and Asian American Women,” as cited in Margaret
Hunter, “Light, Bright, and Almost White: The Advantages and Disadvantages
of Light Skin,” p. 35.
4 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 121.
5 Anjulu Sastry, “People of Color with Albinism Ask: Where Do I Belong?”
6 Anjulu Sastry, “People of Color with Albinism Ask: Where Do I Belong?”

Chapter 20. Born Filipina, Somewhere in Between

1 Pancit is one of the most popular dishes in the Philippines. “Pancit” refers to
any of the large variety of noodle dishes that are frequently garnished with
lemons, hard-boiled eggs, and green onions.

Notes • 231
 2 To show respect, a younger person will greet older people by taking the older
person’s right hand in both of hers and pressing them to her forehead.

Chapter 21. Invisible to My Own People

1 A curried lentil dish commonly eaten with rice or flatbread.
2 A south Indian specialty; a spicy, tangy broth eaten with rice.
3 Hindu prayers.
4 Comic books depicting Indian mythological tales and folklore.
5 A south Indian dress worn by young girls, consisting of a skirt and blouse, usu-
ally in bright colors with intricate borders.
6 Another form of dress consisting of a long tunic, trousers, and matching stole.
7 An Indian term for eyeliner, specifically a thick, creamy natural black pigment.

Part VI. Skin— Redefined

1 Lori L. Tharps, Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in Ameri-
ca’s Diverse Families, p. 128.
2 Saif Khalid, “Fighting India’s Ugly Fancy for Fair Skin”; Simra Mariam, “Dar-
ing to Be Dark: Fighting against Colorism in South Asia.”
3 Saif Khalid, “Fighting India’s Ugly Fancy for Fair Skin.”
4 Syed Hamad Ali, “Activist Fights Bias against Dark Skin.”
5 Sonia Waraich, “Forget Fair and Lovely, Dark Is Divine: Pakistan’s First Anti-
Colorism Campaign.”
6 Sonia Waraich, “Forget Fair and Lovely, Dark Is Divine: Pakistan’s First Anti-
Colorism Campaign.”
7 Geeta Pandey, “#Unfairandlovely: A New Social Media Campaign Celebrates
Dark Skin.”
8 Sarah Jasmine Montgomery, “The Founder of ‘Unfair and Lovely’ Is Here to
Reclaim Their Movement.”

Chapter 25. Reprogramming

1 In the Philippines, “mestizo” refers to people of mixed Filipino and any foreign
ancestry, typically white Americans. Today, the word is shortened as “Tisoy,” a
combination of “Pinoy” (Filipino) and “mestizo.”
2 Most toiletry products in the Philippines have skin-lightening properties, but
papaya soap is popular because of its affordability and accessibility. Today,
middle-class Filipinas use glutathione injections to lighten their skin, despite
the lack of clinical studies for long-term use.
3 The term “1.5 generation immigrants” refers to people who have spent half of
their formative years in their home country and half in their receiving country.
I grew up in both cultures, so I always use “1.5 generation” to define myself.

232 • Notes
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About the Editor

Nikki Khanna is Associate Professor of Sociology at the

University of Vermont, where she regularly teaches courses on
race relations for the Department of Sociology and the Critical
Race and Ethnic Studies Program. She has a PhD in Sociology
from Emory University in Atlanta. Her area of study is Race and
Ethnicity, and her work examines racial and multiracial identity,
transnational and transracial adoption, and the politics of skin
color. She is the author of Biracial in America: Forming and
Performing Identity.
Her research has been featured in Time, The Root, and Slate,
and has also appeared on National Public Radio. She frequently
provides commentary on stories related to racial identity
and current race relations in the United States, which can be
found in outlets such as USA Today, BBC Newsnight (UK),
CBC Radio (Canada), and the Associated Press. Some of this
commentary has been reprinted in the New York Times, US
News & World Report, the Washington Post, ABC News.com,
the Seattle Times, the Washington Sun Herald, Salon, the New
Zealand Herald, the Japan Times, and more.
She was raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and still proudly identifies
as a “southern girl,” though she now resides just outside of hippy
Burlington, Vermont, with her husband, Michael, and daughter,
Olivia. While she was writing and editing this book, her family
was also fortunate to host Meng Jou (Coco) Chen, an exchange
student from Taiwan, who also provided great discussions on
the topic of skin color during her stay. When not teaching and
writing, she enjoys reading fiction and history, traveling to
new places, learning about other cultures, trying new foods

• 243
 (especially if she does not have to cook them herself), and
practicing her broken French with French- Canadians just across
the border. Perhaps now that this book is finished, she can go
back to doing some of these things! For more on her professional
work, please visit www.nikkikhanna.com.

244 • About the Editor

About the Contributors

Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is an activist, storyteller, and politico

based in Los Angeles. Taz was honored in 2016 as White House
Champion of Change for AAPI Art and Storytelling. She is cohost
of the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast, which has been featured
in Oprah Magazine, Wired, and Buzzfeed, as well as live shows
recorded at South by Southwest and the White House. An avid
essayist, she had a monthly column called Radical Love and has
written for Sepia Mutiny, Truthout, the Aerogram, the Nation, Left
Turn Magazine, and more. She is published in the anthologies Love,
Inshallah (2012), Good Girls Marry Doctors (2016), Six Words Fresh
off the Boat (2017), Modern Loss (2018), and a poetry collection,
Coiled Serpent (2016). She also makes disruptive art annually with
#MuslimVDayCards.

Rosalie Chan is a software engineer and freelance writer based in

the Bay Area. Her work has appeared in Time, Vice, Teen Vogue,
Racked, and more. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, running,
badminton, hiking, and photography.

Kim D. Chanbonpin is Professor of Law and Director of the

Lawyering Skills Program at the John Marshall Law School
in Chicago. Her scholarly writing considers redress and
reparations law, policy, and social movements, and draws on
anti-subordination and narrative principles rooted in LatCrit
and Critical Race Theory scholarship. She grew up in Southern
California’s San Gabriel Valley and is a proud alumna of Ramona
Convent Secondary School, where she studied Spanish under
Sister Joan Frances Ortega.

• 245
 Julia R. DeCook is a doctoral student at Michigan State University
in Information and Media Studies. She grew up in South Korea
and spent most of her life in Daegu, with brief stints in Guam
and Washington, DC, due to her father’s occupation with the US
Army. She studies online communities and their role in identity
formation and construction of social reality, informed by her own
personal struggle negotiating mixed-race identity. She is an avid
television watcher, a social media lurker, a cat enthusiast, and
would have been a food critic in another life.

Noelle Marie Falcis received her BA in English with an emphasis

in Creative Writing at the University of California, Irvine, and her
MFA at Antioch University LA. Her fiction explores her heritage
and both the deserts and cities in which she grew up. She uses
fiction to better understand the diasporic, postcolonized life and
how it has affected her as a Filipina American. She teaches English
and Dance in Los Angeles. Her work has been published in VIDA:
Women in Literary Arts, Kartika Review, Drunk Monkeys, and
Hawaii Pacific Review, among others, and she is currently a Voices
of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA) fellow.

Rhea Goveas is a Senior at the University of Vermont majoring in

Sociology and Global Studies. Her parents emigrated from India
to America in the 1980s. Rhea and her younger brother were both
born and raised in New Jersey. As a child, Rhea always wanted
to get as far away from New Jersey as possible. She loves writing,
cooking, horseback riding, reading, and travel. She speaks five
languages and hopes to do research on women’s economic develop-
ment abroad.

Noor Hasan is a Pakistani American writer from Skokie, Illinois.

Noor is an avid reader, poet, and musician who hopes to enter
legal academia. She is a JD student at the University of California–
Berkeley School of Law, where she is a Staff Editor on the
Berkeley Business Law Journal, Symposium Editor of the Asian
American Law Journal, and Academic Empowerment Chair for the

246 • About the Contributors

Coalition for Diversity at Berkeley Law. Noor is also a Diversity
and Inclusion Corporate Strategist and alumna of the Allstate
Insurance Leadership Development Program. She earned a BA
from Northwestern University in English and Legal Studies, with
a minor in Asian American Studies. In 2016, she was recognized
as one of Chicago’s 35 under 35. She has presented her research
on social justice frameworks for corporate diversity strategy at
numerous national business conferences, including the Forum
on Workplace Inclusion and the Diversity Awareness Partnership
Summit.

Sairah Husain studied Economics and South Asian Studies, seek-

ing to academically understand the historical and sociological
underpinnings of poverty in the region. Finding shortcomings in
this approach, she has moved toward examining the poverty of
individual mindsets, including her own, that collectively contribute
to structural colorism. When she is not reflecting on these topics,
Sairah works at her local library in southeastern Michigan. She also
explores different methods of peeling pomegranates.

Miho Iwata is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Towson

University. Her passion for social justice guides her research
interests, and she studies social inequalities in the United States
and Japan. She is a native of Japan, and she often visits her family
and stays with them at the house where her beloved grandmother
raised her. She has been a US resident for seventeen years.

Anne Mai Yee Jansen is Assistant Professor of English at the

University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she also runs the
US Ethnic Studies minor and bikes across the quad with reckless
abandon. She subsists on a steady diet of yoga, books, and hot
chocolate, and does what she can to keep the local coffee shops
in business so she can have a place to do her writing. She lives in a
little bungalow with her human and feline families and is currently
working on a book exploring the politics of contemporary genre
fiction by authors of color in the United States.

About the Contributors • 247

 Erika Lee is a Junior at the University of Southern California,
majoring in Print and Digital Journalism. She is the lifestyle editor
for her school paper, the Daily Trojan, and regularly writes about
Asian American identity and feminism in her weekly column,
“Asian Amerikan Heroine.” She grew up in Southern California in
Diamond Bar, just east of Los Angeles, where more than half of the
population self-identifies as Asian.

Betty Ming Liu is the recovering daughter of control-freak Chinese

immigrant parents. She is also a life coach, writing coach, communi-
cations and creative writing professor, painter, blogger, and pet lady.

Lillian Lu is currently a PhD student in English at UCLA. Her

research interests include nineteenth-century British literature,
Orientalism, and the Gothic. She is a proud daughter of two
Chinese Americans with two very different immigration stories.

Cindy Luu is a first-generation Vietnamese American writer. Her

perspective on life is heavily influenced by her upbringing in the
diverse San Francisco Bay Area. Her journey to understanding
herself and her position as a woman of color parallels her growth
as a writer; her undergraduate studies at Emerson College chal-
lenged both her understanding of her experiences and her skills as
a storyteller. She is currently working at San Jose State University,
and continues to write with the hope that her voice can speak to
the experiences of others.

Catherine Ma emigrated from Hong Kong and became a naturalized

citizen of the United States at the age of eight. She received her
PhD in Social-Personality Psychology and is currently an Assistant
Professor of Psychology. Her current research interests include
breastfeeding ideology, maternal experiences, and the lived experi-
ences of immigrants. When she is not teaching her undergraduate
students, she enjoys spending time with her husband of twenty-
eight years and their three children.

248 • About the Contributors

Rhea Manglani is a Senior at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania,
majoring in History. She is Indian American and Sindhi—her
family originated from the Sindh Province in what is today
modern-day Pakistan. She was raised with her older sister in
Southern California. She hopes to one day work in politics to fight
on behalf of marginalized communities.

Rowena Mangohig is a Children’s Librarian with the King County

Library System in Washington State, where she has lived for the
past twelve years. When she is not in a tutu singing songs and
telling stories to children, she is outside working on her garden,
foraging for mushrooms, or harvesting razor clams on the coast.
Her current passions are dancing in her living room and pretending
she can play the ukulele and guitar.

Sambath Meas’s family fled a war-torn Cambodia when she was

six years old. She grew up in the mean streets of Uptown Chicago,
Illinois, and has worked in the legal industry for eighteen years
while pursuing her writing career. She is three classes and a thesis
away from obtaining her master’s degree in Creative Writing, if
she ever finds the time from her busy work schedule to go back to
Northwestern University. Currently, she is writing science fiction
and fantasy young adult novels. Interestingly, she can only write
during her train commutes. She has published two books: one is a
memoir about her father’s trials and tribulations during the Khmer
Rouge era, and the second one is a murder mystery set in French
colonial Cambodia.

Julia Mizutani is a law student at Georgetown University Law

Center in Washington, DC, where she studies Civil Rights and
Environmental Law. She is most interested in working with
communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by
environmental hazards. In her spare time, she organizes and attends
protests, reads sci-fi, goes hiking, drinks coffee, and works pro
bono on issues around homelessness and housing.

About the Contributors • 249

 Marimas Hosan Mostiller is an American Studies PhD student at
the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. A first-generation college
student, Marimas holds a BS in Psychology from the University of
La Verne, an MEd in Postsecondary Administration and Student
Affairs from the University of Southern California, and an MA
in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University. Marimas
is a second-generation Cham American, a descendant of the
Kingdom of Champa, which is present-day Vietnam. Her parents
came to the United States as refugees of the Khmer Rouge geno-
cide in Cambodia. Marimas’s experience growing up in a Muslim
household in a working-class, immigrant community among other
marginalized people of color prompted her interests in higher
education, ethnic studies, and social justice issues.

Sonal Nalkur is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of

Sociology at Emory University. Her research interests focus on cul-
tural sociology and the sociology of organizations. Most recently,
her writing explores the power of the sociological perspective in
deepening personal narratives. She has lived in the United States on
and off for about twenty years.

Ethel Nicdao is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of

Sociology at California State University, San Bernardino. Trained as
a medical sociologist, she applies a community-based participatory
research approach to examine health disparities among minority
populations. She lives in Northern California with her wife and their
two cattle dogs and enjoys escaping into the mountains for her nature
fix and eating her favorite Filipino dishes at her mother’s house!

Brittany Ota- Malloy is a doctoral student in the Department of

Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. Her research interests include the study of
multiracial college students, their experiences, and their contribu-
tions. She is also interested in the experiences of black women
in college and student activism in higher education. Brittany is
also a Student Assistance Specialist at the UW–Madison Dean

250 • About the Contributors

of Students Office, where she directly impacts students’ campus
experiences. In each of her academic and professional experiences,
Brittany actively combats the educational practices and policies
that serve as gatekeepers for the socioeconomically and culturally
underserved students she serves.

Daniela Pila is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the State

University of New York–Albany. She is currently working on her
dissertation, which explores how legal status affects ethnic iden-
tity formation in Filipino immigrant young adults in the greater
New York metropolitan area. When not working on dismantling
institutional discrimination, Daniela enjoys photography, travel-
ing, learning languages, and spending time with her husband and
their furchild, Luna.

Agatha Roa is an MFA candidate at the University of North

Carolina at Wilmington, where she is the recipient of the Kert
Fellowship in Creative Writing. She is an alumnus of the Voices of
Our Nations Foundation (VONA) and Hedgebrook VORTEXT,
has blogged at the New York Times’ artsbeat.com and urbangar-
densweb.com, and has published in various anthologies. She has a
BA in Communications and Culture from the City University of
New York.

Joanne L. Rondilla is an Assistant Professor in Sociology and

Interdisciplinary Studies at San Jose State University. Originally
from Dededo, Guam, she holds degrees from UC–Berkeley (MA,
PhD) and UC–Santa Barbara (BA). Her research interests include
colorism, race, gender, beauty, media representations, pop culture,
and colonialism. She runs the website skinmemoirs.com.

Kamna Shastri is a freelance writer and media maker based in

Seattle. She is always thinking about current framings of race,
ethnicity, and identity—themes that come up in her journalistic
and creative work. She has written for local publications and is cur-
rently working on a podcast that explores how people think about

About the Contributors • 251

 and experience their South Asian American identities in the Pacific
Northwest. She has a BA in Sociology and Environmental Studies,
disciplines that continue to inspire her current work and future
goals. She loves sunny summer afternoons, made all the better
when accompanied by a cup of tea.

Wendy Thompson Taiwo is a writer and Assistant Professor of Ethnic

Studies at Metropolitan State University, where she specializes in
black cultural studies, race and wealth, mixed racial identity, and
migration and diaspora communities. Her writing and photogra-
phy have appeared in carte blanche, Nokoko, Meridians: feminism,
race, transnationalism, and several anthologies, including War Baby/
Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art.

Bhoomi K. Thakore is Assistant Professor in the Department of

Sociology at the University of Central Florida. She is author of
South Asians on the U.S. Screen: Just like Everyone Else? (2016)
and coeditor of Race and Contention in 21st–Century U.S. Media
(2016). She is the only child of Gujarati immigrants who came to
the United States from India in 1970. Her parents worked on the
East Coast before settling in the Chicago area and later purchasing
motels and other small business ventures. She is married and has
one daughter, Risha.

Kathy Tran-Peters is a graduate student in History and

Comparative Gender and Sexuality at the University of Utah. She
lives in Bountiful, Utah, with her husband, Tony, and two Labrador
retrievers, Goose and Bruce. “Dear Future Child” is a culmination
of all the hardships and struggles her ancestors endured in the face
of colonialism, her parents’ adversity in immigrating to the United
States, and her continued battle fatigue as a feminist of color living
in a predominantly white and conservative state. “Dear Future
Child” is also a growing reflection on her future as a mother in a
world where fear is real and the stakes are high.

252 • About the Contributors

Index

advertising: aspirational whiteness and, Husain on, 132, 133–36; in India, 126;
105–6, 106–107; Caucasian models and, in Korea, 128–29; Miyamoto and, 125;
15, 105, 106; Chinese laundry detergent, model minority stereotype and, 130–31;
127; for English teachers in Taiwan, 127– Mostiller on, 132, 143–47; stereotypes of,
28; racism and, 1–2, 3–4; skin-whitening 30, 40, 125–26, 128, 130, 132, 145, 146; in
industry and, 1–2, 3–4; Snowz and, 1–2; Taiwan, 127–28; Taiwo on, 132, 137–42
South Asian themes for, 3–4; white apps, whitening: in China, 12; Facebook
mannequins and, 105, 107 and, 18; in Japan, 10
African Americans, colorism and, 4, 64; Asian American literature, 155–56
actors and, 6; black authenticity and, 7; Asian Americans. See specific topics
black women stereotypes and, 139; gen- Asian definition, 32
dered colorism, 6–7; identity, belonging Asians, colorism and: apps and, 12; China
and, 149–50, 153; Jim Crow era and, 5, and, 12, 13; class and, 10–11, 14, 103; cos-
108, 130, 163; light-skin privilege and, 5; metic surgery and, 20–22; Eurocentric
marriage and, 6; media and, 7; one-drop ideals and, 10, 13–14, 15, 20; gender and,
rule and, 90, 223n25; slavery and, 5, 97, 18; immigrants and, 23; India and, 16–17;
130, 140–41, 163; women and, 6. See also Japan and, 10–11, 12; Jones, T., on, 9–10;
anti-blackness; Ota-Malloy, Brittany marrying practices and, 16; in Pakistan,
Africans, 116, 128; in India, 126 19–20; in Philippines, 14–15, 16; in Tai-
Ahluwalia, Pal, 14 wan, 11–12. See also specific topics
Ahmed, Tanzila, 41; Barbie dolls and, 68, aspirational whiteness: advertising and,
70–71; downward financial mobility of, 105–6, 106, 107; blonde hair and, 103–4;
69; family gifts and, 67–68; father of, 69; colonization and, 104–5, 107–8; digital
friend of, 70–71; in graduate school, 74– representation and, 110; economic
75; on love, 74; middle sister of, 67–68; disparities and, 109–10; Elisha Coy ad
mother of, 66, 68–69; school children and, 103; Falcis on, 119–23; globalization
and, 70; skin color awareness and, 70 and, 107; Hasan and, 111–13; Roa and,
albinism, 30; identity, belonging and, 152; 107, 114–18; skin-whitening industry
privilege and, 152–53; Shashri and, 152, and, 110; status and, 107; Supreme Court
169–71 cases and, 108–9
Aloha, 85–86
American Dream, 108, 109 Bakekang, 188
anti-blackness, 97, 100; African descent and, Barbie dolls, 68, 70–71
126; Asian immigrants and, 129, 138; in Barr, Roseanne, 130
China, 126–27; geography and, 125–26; beautiful women in America, 24, 25

• 253
 beauty pageants, 11, 12–13 Chen, Julie, 22, 27
“Beneath the Skin” ( Jackson, W.), 144–45 Chen, Rae, 14; cosmetic surgery and, 27;
Beyoncé, 7 “I’m a Light-Skinned Chinese Woman,
bihaku (beautifully white), 10 and I Experience Pretty Privilege” by,
Biracial in America (Khanna), 149 77; privilege of, 77
Bitmojis, 112 Cheng, Andrea, 103
Blackness, 223n25; capitalizing, 228n1 China, 103, 105; anti-blackness in, 126–27;
Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 14, 110 apps in, 12; Cantonese stereotypes in,
blepharoplasty, 21 200–201; Chan in, 84–85; class and, 52;
blonde hair, 103–4 colorism and face-kinies in, 12, 13; eyes
The Bluest Eye (Morrison), 165 in, 52–53; hip hop banned in, 126–27;
Bollywood, 16; Das and, 183; Shashri and, Lee, Erika, in, 175; lookisms in, 52, 53;
170, 172–73 Ota-Malloy in, 98–99; skin-whitening
border patrol, 96 industry in, 12, 13–14; Tiantian on,
Bougainvillea-Nasioi, 166 13–14
Brilliant, Murray, 152 Chung, Jezzika, 129
Brown v. Board of Education, 90 class: Cambodia and, 60; China and, 52;
colorism in Asia and, 10–11, 14, 103;
Cambodia, 37–38; cap-scarves in, 56; class contributors and, 34; DeCook and,
and, 60; cultural awareness and, 145; 211; Falcis and, 120; Japan and, 10–11;
greetings in, 55; Khmer and, 55, 57, 145, Nicdao and, 63; Philippines and, 187,
228n1; marriage in, 60; media in, 57–58; 188, 189–90; Rondilla on, 104, 187, 189–
popular culture in, 57–58; racism in, 90; Santos and, 118; Spickard and, 104;
144–45; skin-whitening in, 58, 59, 60; YouTube and, 117–18
tanning and, 55, 59; white babies in, colonialism: aspirational whiteness and,
56–57 104–5, 107–8; colorism and, 14–16;
Canada, 95–96 cosmetic surgery and, 22; emojis and,
Cantonese, 200–201 113; Husain on, 134, 135; in India, 16, 17;
caste, 9, 16–17, 19, 43 in Philippines, 14–15, 16, 62, 63, 107–8,
Caucasian models, 15, 105, 106 120–21, 192; Taiwo and, 139
Cham Muslim community, 143, 231n2; colorism: colonialism and, 14–16; light
Khmer and, 144 skin stereotypes and, 8, 17, 24, 26, 37,
Chan, Rosalie, 78, 86; in China, 84–85; in 77; racism and, 4, 35, 189; Walker and,
Philippines, 84; shai hei and, 84, 87; 4; white, 8. See also African Americans,
skin-whitening products and, 84–85; colorism and; Asians, colorism and;
tanning and, 84 gendered colorism; Latinx community,
Chanbonpin, Kim D., 129, 152; on color colorism and
hierarchy, 163; early life of, 164–65; Cooper, Nicole, 128
on identity choice, 163–64; identity The Cosby Show, 164–65
mistakes and, 166–67; Mardi Gras and, cosmetic surgery: Chen, J., and, 22;
162; model minority stereotype and, Chen, R., and, 27; colonialism and,
163; parents of, 165–66, 168; physical ap- 22; Eurocentric beauty standards and,
pearance of, 166, 168; on race vocabu- 21–22; eyes and, 20–22; Nicdao on, 65;
lary, 162–63 noses and, 20–21; otherness and, 27;
Chee, Alexander, 155 self-hatred and, 54

254 • Index
Crazy Rich Asians, 79–80 Fackler, Martin, 125
creation story, 133, 134–35, 136 Fair & Lovely, 2, 27, 184; in India, 83
criminal justice system, 92–94 Falcis, Noelle Marie, 107–8, 110; on beauty,
cultural appropriation, 146 123; class and, 120; on color hierarchy,
Cumberbatch, Benedict, 85 122; cultural shift and, 123; model mi-
“Custer’s Last Sitcom” (Tahmahkera), 146 nority stereotype and, 121–22; mother,
grandmother pressures and, 119–22;
DACA. See Deferred Action for Child- self-erasure of, 122
hood Arrivals Fanon, Frantz, 14, 110
“Dark Is Beautiful” campaign, 183 Feiner, Susan, 12–13
“Dark Is Divine” campaign, 183 Filipinx culture, 223n30; identity, belong-
Das, Nandita, 183 ing and, 152; Korean discrimination
David, E. J. R., 79 and, 78; #MagandangMorenx and, 184;
DeCook, Julia R.: class and, 211; in Korea, physical appearance and, 16, 168. See
185, 208–9; physical appearance of, 208, also Chanbonpin, Kim D.
209–10; skin compliments and, 208; Flowers, Robert, 21, 22
tanning and, 209, 210–11 forever foreigners: Chung on, 129; Tuan
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on, 26–27, 40
(DACA), 135–36, 231n1 freckles (shimi), 50, 51
digital representation: aspirational white- Fuchs, Chris, 130
ness and, 110; Bitmojis and, 112; emojis
and, 29–30, 111–12; whitening apps and, gendered colorism, 23; African Americans
10, 12, 18 and, 6–7; Asians and, 18; in Japan, 48;
Dove, 65, 228n2 media and, 6, 7; music industry and, 7
generational trauma, 141; Tran-Peters and,
Elisha Coy, 103 213
emojis, 29–30; colonialism and, 113; Ghost in the Shell, 86
lightest-skinned, 112; racially diverse, Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 10
111–13 Goveas, Rhea, 38; brother of, 43; makeup
Estee Lauder, 25 foundation and, 44–46; mother,
Eurocentric beauty standards: in America, grandmother pressures and, 39, 44–47;
24; Asians, colorism and, 10, 13–14, 15, parent relationship of, 43; privilege
20; cosmetic surgery and, 21–22; eye and, 78; on skin color vocabulary, 43;
color and, 20; eye shape and, 20–21, 21; tanning and, 45–46
Indian American community and, 24;
mestiza/mestizo and, 62, 116, 232n1; hafu (multiracial Japanese): Miyamoto as,
nose shape and, 20–21 125; Mizutani and, 78, 89
exotic, vii, 89, 179, 187, 190, 205, 207, 212 Hamilton, Darrick, 4
eyelid trainers, 20, 21 Hannon, Lance, 8
eyes: in China, 52–53; color of, 20; cos- hapa (partial Asian ancestry), 143, 231n1
metic surgery and, 20–22; Ma on, 53, Hasan, Noor, 107, 110; Bitmojis and, 112; on
54; Roa on, 114; shape of, 20–21, 21 colonialism, 113; emoji diversity and,
111–13
Facebook apps, 18 Hawai’i, 143
face-kinies, 12, 13 Hazzan, Dave, 128

Index • 255
 heteronormative culture, 33 24; identity, belonging and, 72–73, 75,
hierarchy, race-color, 78–79; Chanbonpin 149, 169–70; Shashri and, 169–70; tan-
on, 163; Falcis on, 122; Jones, T., on, 24 ning and, 23; Thakore and, 72–73, 75.
Hill, Mark E., 6 See also Goveas, Rhea
Hindu, Hinduism, 1, 16, 17, 19, 43, 57, 73, interracial sex, 137–39
109, 232n3 in-vitro fertilization (IVF), 18
Hong, Euny, 21–22 Islamophobia, 78, 86, 213
Hunter, Margaret, 4, 6, 151 IVF. See in-vitro fertilization
Husain, Sairah: on colonialism, 134, 135;
creation story and, 133, 134–35, 136; ICE Jackson, Asia, 184
and, 135–36; on oppression, 135; on self- Jackson, Jesse, 150
hate, 132, 134; tanning for, 134 Jackson, Will, 144–45
Jansen, Anne Mai Yee, 151; appearance of,
ICE. See Immigration and Customs 157; cousins of, 156; daughter of, 160–
Enforcement 61; otherness and, 160; racism and, 157,
identity and belonging: African Ameri- 159, 160; school for, 156; Tan and, 155–
cans and, 149–50, 153; albinism and, 56, 161; travel of, 157–58, 159; US ethnic
152; Asian Americans and, 151, 153, 154; studies and, 158–59
Chanbonpin and, 152, 162–68; choice Japan, 28, 103; apps in, 10; class and, 10–
and, 163–64; Filipinx culture and, 152; 11; colorism and, 10–11, 12; gendered
Indian American community and, colorism in, 48; hafu and, 78, 89,
72–73, 75, 149, 169–70; Jansen on, 151, 125; makeup in, 49; Miho in, 38–39,
155–61; Lee, Erika, and, 175–76; Luu 48–49, 50–51; Miss Universe Japan
and, 153–54, 177–81; Mexican Ameri- (2015), 125; proverb in, 48; Vogue
cans and, 151, 153; Mizutani on, 90; Japan, 105– 6
multiracial, 150, 151; O’Brien and, 150; Jenner, Kendall, 105
Shashri and, 152, 169–74 Jim Crow, 108, 130, 163; skin-whitening
“I’m a Light-Skinned Chinese Woman, and industry and, 5
I Experience Pretty Privilege” (Chen, Jindal, Bobby, 131; self-hate and, 132
R.), 77 Johansson, Scarlett, 86
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Jones, Pax, 184
(ICE), 135–36 Jones, Trina: on colorism in Asia, 9–10; on
India, 227n2; anti-blackness in, 126; Bol- race-color hierarchy, 24
lywood and, 16, 170, 172–73, 183; caste joo (black guy), 144
system in, 16–17; colonialism in, 16, 17;
“Dark Is Beautiful” campaign in, 183; Kaw, Eugena, 26
eye color in, 20; Fair & Lovely in, 83; Kerr, Miranda, 105
IVF in, 18; marriage in, 18–19; Nalkur Khanna, Nikki: Biracial in America by, 149
and, 95–96; racism in, 126; Shashri in, Khmer, 55, 57, 145, 228n1
170–71; skin-whitening industry in, King-O’Riain, Rebecca, 11
17–18, 24–25; violence against Africans Korea, 105; anti-blackness in, 128–29;
in, 126; Vogue India, 105–6 body scrubbing in, 208; DeCook in,
India Abroad, 18–19 185, 208–9; Filipino discrimination in,
Indian American community, 1–2; albi- 78; Hazzan in, 128; Okyere in, 128–29;
nism and, 152; Eurocentric traits and, racial purity in, 210

256 • Index
Lancôme, 15, 15 heteronormative culture and, 33; in
Latinx community, colorism and, 7, 64; as India, 18–19; Latinx community and, 8;
ethnic group, 224n34; marriage and, 8; male gaze and, 33; Pakistan and, 19–20;
Mexican Americans and, 151, 153, 166 in Philippines, 16; Shashri on ads for, 173
Lee, C. N., 104 Mathew, Paco, 40
Lee, Elaine Y. J., 105 McIntosh, Peggy, 78
Lee, Erika, 153, 154; on beauty stereotypes Meas, Sambath, 37–38, 60; bullying of, 59;
by country, 175–76; in China, 175; self- on Cambodian media, 57–58; skin-
hate and, 176 color discrimination in Cambodia and,
Lee, Spike, 188–89 59; on white babies, 56–57
LGBTQ individuals, 33; Nicdao, and, media, 24, 107, 188
65–66 mental illness, 214
Li, Eric, 10 mestiza/mestizo (mixed ancestry), 62,
Liu, Betty Ming, 186; in Chinatown, 217; 232n1; Roa and, 116
daughter of, 218–20; interracial rela- Mexican Americans, 151, 153, 166
tionship of, 217–18; mother of, 216–18, micro-aggressions, 27; Nicdao and, 64;
220; painting for, 219; racial slurs and, Thakore and, 75
216–17; school of, 216, 218 Miho Iwata: audience and, 50, 51; child-
Lodhi, Fatima, 19, 183 hood of, 48–49; cultural expectations
L’Oreal, 25 and, 49–50, 51; foreigner treatment of,
Lu, Lillian, 185; Cantonese and, 200–201; 50, 51; freckles of, 50, 51; in Japan, 38–39,
maternal family of, 199–200, 201–2; 48–49, 50–51; self-image of, 51; tanning
tanning and, 199–200, 201–2; UNIQLO for, 48–49
dress of, 199 Miller, Laura, 104
Luu, Cindy, 153–54; in college, 179, 181; Minaj, Nicki, 7
family of, 179–80; Nancy and, 177, Mishra, Neha, 16–17
178–79; physical appearance of, 178–79, Miss Universe Japan (2015), 125
181; Vietnamese cultural club show and, mixed ancestry (mestiza/mestizo), 62, 116,
177–78 232n1
Miyamoto, Ariana, 125
Ma, Catherine, 37; body shaming and, 53; Mizutani, Julia: on fetish, 89; hafu and, 78,
on eyes, 53, 54; lookisms and, 52, 53; on 89; on identity, 90; as multiracial, 88,
racism, 53–54; self-hatred and, 54 89, 90–91; on racial imposters, 88–89;
Madame Butterfly, 85 on racism, 91; on whiteness, 88
Malaysia, 105; skin-whitening in, 11 model minority stereotype: anti-blackness
male gaze, 33 and, 130–31; Chanbonpin and, 163;
Manglani, Rhea: privilege and, 77–78, 82– Falcis and, 121–22
83; skin-whitening and, 82–83 Moore, A., 127
Mangohig, Rowena, 185; multiracial kids Morrison, Toni, 138; The Bluest Eye by, 165
and, 204–5; Philippines and, 203, 205; Mostiller, Marimas Hosan, 132; on Cham
Seasonal Affective Disorder and, 206– Muslim community, 143–44; daughter
7; sisters of, 203–4; skin-whitening and, of, 143, 147; early life of, 143–44; hapa
204, 205–6; tanning and, 203, 206, 207 and, 143; joo and, 144; N-word and,
marriage: ads for, 18–19, 173; African 145–46; on privilege, 146–47; on ste-
Americans and, 6; Cambodia and, 60; reotypes, 145–46

Index • 257
 mother and grandmother pressures, 28, 100; invisibility of, 99; racial identities
196; Falcis and, 119–22; Goveas and, of, 101; racialized experiences of, 98;
39, 44–47; Miho and, 38–39; Roa and, Shea Moisture and, 100
116–17, 118 otherness, 41, 80; cosmetic surgery and, 27;
Muhammad, Zaharaddeen, 126 Jansen and, 160
multiracial and biracial: contributors, 32– Ozawa, Takeo, 90, 91, 108–9
33, 35; identity, belonging and, 150, 151; Ozawa v. the United States, 90, 91, 108–9
stereotypes and, 30–31. See also specific
topics Pakistan, 132; “Dark Is Divine” campaign
multiracial Japanese (hafu), 78, 89, 125 in, 183–84; marriage in, 19–20
papaya soap, 64, 119, 196, 232n2
Nadal, Kevin, 16 partial Asian ancestry (hapa), 143, 231n1
Nalkur, Sonal, 80–81; border patrol and, Patel, Sureshbhai, 86
96; cell mates of, 93–94; criminal jus- Philippines, 231n1; Catholicism in, 108;
tice system and, 92–95; expired license Chan in, 84; class and, 187, 188, 189–
of, 92–93; friend reactions to, 95; on 90; colonialism in, 14–15, 16, 62, 63,
India and Canada, 95–96; in Saudi 107–8, 120–21, 192; colorism in, 14–15,
Arabia, 94 16; Filipina domestics, 191– 92; job
nanny question, 160 ads in, 205; Mangohig and, 203, 205;
Native Americans, 146, 157 marriage in, 16; mestiza/mestizo in,
New York Times, 79, 86, 103, 125 62, 116, 232n1; Nicdao in, 61; papaya
Nicdao, Ethel, 40–41, 66; class and, 63; soap and, 64, 119, 196, 232n2; Pila in,
on cosmetic surgery, 65; on cultural 194– 96; Roa and, 115–16; Rondilla
capital, 65; derogatory slurs and, 62– and, 187–88, 189– 91; status in, 107;
63; LGBTQ community and, 65–66; teleseryas in, 195– 96
micro-aggressions and, 64; in Philip- physical characteristics, and colorism, 37;
pines, 61; on physical characteristics, blonde hair and, 103–4; Nicdao on, 64–
64–65; in San Francisco, 62; skin 65; nose, 20–21. See also eyes
whitening and, 64; in Taiwan, 63 Pickford, Mary, 85
nose, 37, 38, 62, 64, 82, 180, 188, 189, 190, Pila, Daniela, 185; body hate of, 195, 196;
191, 194, 197, 198, 209–10, 212, 213, 214, in California, 196–97; performing arts
216, 217; cosmetic surgery and, 20–21, and, 196; in Philippines, 194–96; physi-
26, 27, 65 cal appearance of, 194; relationships of,
197–98; reprogramming for, 197–98
Obama, Barack, 5–6; racist stereotypes Pond’s White Beauty, 2–3, 3
and, 130 presidential election (2016), 66
Obama, Michelle, 130 privilege, 28–29, 35; African Americans
O’Brien, Soledad, 150 and, 5; albinism and, 152–53; audience
O’Connor, Maureen, 21 and, 80, 81; Chan and, 78, 84–87; of
Okyere, Sam, 128–29 Chen, R., 77; context and, 80; Crazy
one-drop rule, 90, 223n25 Rich Asians and, 79–80; Goveas and,
1.5 generation immigrants, 197, 232n3 78; Manglani and, 77–78, 82–83; Mc-
Ota-Malloy, Brittany, 81; as biracial, 97; Intosh and, 78; Mizutani on, 78, 88–91;
blackness challenged for, 99; in China, Mostiller on, 146–47; Nalkur and, 80–
98–99; family of, 98; hair of, 98, 99– 81, 92–96; Ota-Malloy on, 81, 97–101;

258 • Index
 Shashri and, 172; South Asians and, 79; 187–88; Philippines and, 187–88, 189–
Taiwo and, 140; Tran-Peters and, 212 91; redefining skin color and, 187–93;
The Proud Family, 6 Roberts and, 193; tanning and, 190;
teaching for, 191–92, 193
racial profiling, 27, 78; Patel and, 86; South Roseanne, 130
Asians and, 80
racial slurs, 41 SAALT. See South Asian Americans Lead-
racism, 34; advertising and, 1–2, 3–4; in ing Together
Cambodia, 144–45; colorism and, 4, 35, Same Family, Different Colors (Tharps), 183
189; in India, 126; Jansen and, 157, 159, sang duc ho (born good looking), 52
160; Ma on, 53–54; Mizutani on, 91. See Sartaj, Maria, 19–20
also anti-blackness School Daze, 188–89
Raghunathan, Suman, 130–31 Seasonal Affective Disorder, 206–7
Ramon, Cheyanne, vii self-acceptance. See redefining skin color
“Real Beauty” campaign, 65, 228n2 self-hate: cosmetic surgery and, 54; Husain
redefining skin color: DeCook and, 185, on, 132, 134; Jindal and, 132; Lee, Erika,
208–11; East Asia and, 185; India “Dark and, 176; Ma on, 54
Is Beautiful” campaign and, 183; Liu self-love, 54. See also redefining skin color
and, 186, 216–20; Lu, on, 185, 199–202; September 11th terrorist attacks (2001):
#MagandangMorenx and, 184; Man- Tran-Peters and, 213; violence and, 80,
gohig and, 185, 203–7; Pakistan “Dark 213
Is Divine” campaign and, 183–84; Pila shai hei (to dry until one turns black), 84,
and, 185, 194–98; reprogramming and, 87
31, 197–98; Rondilla and, 187–93; social Shashri, Kamna: albinism and, 152, 169–71;
media and, 184; Tran-Peters and, 186, Bollywood and, 170, 172–73; cultural
212–15; #UnfairAndLovely and, 184 capital and, 170; distance for, 173–74;
Reichard, Raquel, 8 early life of, 169–71, 174; in India,
Reid, Harry, 5–6 170–71; Indian American identity and,
rhinoplasty, 20–21, 65 169–70; invisibility of, 171–72; on mat-
Roa, Agatha, 107; on eyes, 114; mestiza rimonial ads, 173; privilege and, 172
grandmother of, 116; mother-daughter Shea Moisture, 100
relationship and, 116–17, 118; Philip- shimi (freckles), 50, 51
pines and, 115–16; rebellion of, 116–17; Shrestha, Sriya, 25–26
Santos and, 114–15, 117; YouTube skin- Sidibe, Gabby, 7
whitening and, 114–15, 117–18 The Simpsons, 73
Roberts, Doris, 193 skin-color discrimination, 27–28; mental,
Rock, Chris, 26 physical health and, 64; origins of, 103;
Romero, Eliza, 105–6 privilege and, 34. See also specific topics
Rondilla, Joanne, 11, 12, 14, 15, 185; on Asian skin-whitening, 9, 89; advertising and, 1–2,
beauty standards, 22, 110; on Asian 3, 3–4, 10, 14, 15, 15, 25, 37, 89, 98–99, 103,
immigrants, 23; Bakekang and, 188; 114–15, 118, 205; aspirational whiteness
class and, 104, 187, 189–90; Filipina and, 110; Bird’s Nest and, 2; Cambodian
domestics and, 191–92; on happiness, and, 58, 59, 60; Chan and, 84–85; in
191; healing for, 193; intelligence and, China, 12, 13–14; Dr. Fred Palmer’s Skin
191, 192; on marrying up, 16; parents of, Whitener, 5; Elisha Coy and, 103;

Index • 259
 skin-whitening (cont.) Super Brian, 127
Estee Lauder, 25; Fair & Lovely and, 2, Supreme Court cases, 229n16; Brown v.
27, 83, 184; Glutamax, 2; in India, 17–18, Board of Education, 90; Ozawa v. the
24–25; Jim Crow era and, 5; Lancôme, United States, 90, 91, 108–9; Thind v. the
15, 15; L’Oreal, 2, 7, 25; in Malaysia, 11; United States, 90, 91, 108–9
Manglani and, 82–83; Mangohig and, Sutherland, George, 90, 109
204, 205–6; Nadinola, 5; Nicdao and,
64; papaya soap as, 64, 119, 196, 232n2; Tahmahkera, Dustin, 146
Pond’s White Beauty and, 2–3, 3; prod- Taiwan: anti-blackness in, 127–28; English
uct tag lines for, 2–3, 3; Snowz and, 1–2; teacher advertisement in, 127–28;
in Taiwan, 11–12; tanning and, 25–26; Nicdao and, 63; skin-whitening indus-
Thakore and, 72; Watson and, 15, 15; try in, 11–12
YouTube and, 114–15, 117–18 Taiwo, Wendy Thompson, 132; children
slavery, 5, 97, 130, 163; Taiwo and, 140–41 of, 142; colonialism and, 139; genera-
Snowz commercial, 1–2 tional trauma and, 141; interracial sex
social media: racial identities and, 111; rede- and, 137–39; melanin and, 142; mother
fining skin color and, 184; Tran-Peters appearance and, 137–39, 141; privilege
and, 213–14 and, 140; sexual desirability and, 139;
socioeconomic status, 109–10; Santos and, slavery and, 140–41; tanning and, 141;
118. See also class white groups and, 140
Sodi, Balbir Singh, 80 Tan, Amy, 155–56, 161
Sosa, Sammy, 8 tanning, 39; Cambodia and, 55, 59; Chan
South Asia, 3, 19–20, 25, 32, 78, 79, 82, 92, and, 84; DeCook and, 209, 210–11;
105, 107, 153, 172, 174, 183–84; emojis Goveas and, 45–46; Husain and, 134;
and, 112–13; hate crimes and, 80; mar- Indian Americans and, 23; Lu and,
riage in, 18–19, 173 199–200, 201–2; Mangohig and, 203,
South Asian Americans Leading Together 206, 207; Miho and, 48–49; Rondilla
(SAALT), 130–31 and, 190; skin-whitening and, 25–26;
Spickard, Paul, 11, 12, 16; on Asian beauty Taiwo and, 141
standards, 22; on Asian immigrants, 23; teleseryas, 195–96
class and, 104 television and film: Aloha, 85–86;
Star Trek into Darkness, 85 Bakekang, 188; Bollywood and, 16, 170,
Steele, Catherine Knight, 6 172–73, 183; Crazy Rich Asians, 79–80;
stereotypes, 26– 27; American, 40; Ghost in the Shell, 86; Madame Butterfly,
anti-blackness and, 30, 40, 125– 26, 85; School Daze, 188–89; Star Trek into
128, 130, 132, 145, 146; ape, 130; of Darkness, 85; teleseryas, 195–96; white-
Asian Americans, 86; black women, washing in, 85–86
139; Cantonese, 200– 201; Lee, Erika, Thailand, 1–2, 9–10, 32, 58, 89, 105
on country and beauty, 175– 76; of Thakore, Bhoomi K., 41–42; extended
light skin, 8, 17, 24, 26, 37, 77; model family of, 72; Indian identity and,
minority, 121– 22, 130–31, 163; Mos- 72– 73, 75; job market and, 75; micro-
tiller on, 145–46; multiracial, 30–31; aggressions and, 75; physical ap-
Native American, 146; Obama, B., pearance of daughter and, 72; school
and, 130 for, 73– 74; skin-lightening products
Stone, Emma, 85–86 and, 72

260 • Index
Tharps, Lori, 17, 151; Same Family, Different violence: Africans in India and, 126; Sep-
Colors by, 183 tember 11th terrorist attacks and, 80, 213
Thind, Bhagat Singh, 90, 91, 108–9 Vogue India, 105–6
Thind v. the United States, 90, 91, 108–9 Vogue Japan, 105–6
Tiantian, Ye, 13–14
Townsend, Tyrus, 131 Walker, Alice, 4
Tran-Peters, Kathy, 186, 215; generational Washington, Kerry, 7
trauma and, 213; harassment and, 212; Watson, Emma, 15, 15
mental illness and, 214; multiracial wheatish, 19, 43, 68, 173, 227n1
child of, 212–13; privilege and, 212; white colorism, 8
September 11th terrorist attacks and, whiteness, 29; defining, 88. See also aspira-
213; social media and, 213–14; white tional whiteness
men and, 214 whitening. See skin-whitening
Trump, Donald, 214 white supremacy, 91, 163, 214
Tuan, Mia, 26–27, 40 white worship, 103
Wilder, JeffriAnne, 40
#UnfairAndLovely, 184
UNIQLO, 199 Xu, Gary, 12–13
“Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (Mc-
Intosh), 78 Yamashita, Seimi, 10
US-Mexican border wall, 66 Yeung, Evelyn, 14
YouTube: Santos on, 114–15, 117–18; social
Vaid, Jyotsna, 16, 17 class and, 117–18
Verghese, Sabina, 26
Vietnam, 213; Cham people and, 231n2 Zendaya, 6

Index • 261