Week 16 of #TWmemorymondays! @michaelaquan is my guest contributor today! We have been having some really amazing conversations about our upbringing as Chinese Americans from California. It's so crazy when you think your experience is isolated and then you talk to someone else they have he same exact experience. Today's memory is Michaela's, but it's just as shares by me.

I'm going to be using the term "FOB" that stands for "Fresh Off the Boat". It's a very derogatory term to reference (most often Asians) the foreign-ness (not white and American) of someone - how they dress, speak, hold themselves. It's used in a way that it's clearly not desirable. So growing up that term was thrown around alot...to referencing fashion or other people or how someone is like.

Michaela shared with me this memory: when she was elementary age, she remembers seeing other kids at the playground that seemed so fobish. They wore these sweat pants that had sayings on the side and we're elasticated at the ankle - she recognized them being sold in China Town. When she said I knew exactly what she was referencing! The whole outfit complete with puffy layers and usually toppes with a crocheted vest. Michaela remembers thinking to herself that she's so thankful that she wasn't like that. She had normal clothes and came off as American. Oh man. I really related to that too! Abercrombie kids and limited too was how I rolled...not like the fobs.

Then we talked about the assumptions that we were falling into: being foreign is undesirable. Not only that! The more white and American you come off as the better. And it seems so obvious how messed up that is, but that is the reality of how things were and still is. Our culture is white supremest. No wonder we thought that growing up! Because it's true...coming off as foreign and brown disadvantages you. And our vocabulary represents us. It's time to not use the words we say support such an evil system.

Thanks @michaelaquan for chatting and sharing with me! ❤️
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#TWmemorymondays: A painting inspired by a memory every Monday of 2018. Connecting abstract art to real life. Week 16/53. 'Playground' / 8x8 in / mixed media on paper