The air in Mrs. Davison’s third-grade classroom at Oakwood Elementary always smelled faintly of pencil shavings and floor wax. It was 1998, and my small, predominantly white town in Ohio was a bubble of perceived sameness. I, a Filipino-American kid, was one of the few exceptions. It wasn't until a particular recess, while building a lopsided fort out of fallen branches, that I first felt the sharp sting of my difference. Another boy, Michael, a lanky kid with perpetually scraped knees, stopped throwing twigs. He squinted at me, his brow furrowed. "Why do you look like that?" he asked, not unkindly, but with an unblinking curiosity that felt like a spotlight. "Like what?" I mumbled, instinctively pulling my shirt down, as if my skin itself was out of place. "Different," he clarified, and then, as if it were a simple, observable fact, added, "You're not like us."
That moment, simple as it was, lodged itself deep within me. It wasn't outright malice, but a casual, almost innocent, categorization that marked me as 'other.' Throughout my school years, this feeling of being 'different' ebbed and flowed. In high school, during a heated debate in Mr. Henderson's history class about immigration policies, a classmate, Sarah, turned to me. "Well, at least you guys aren't like them," she said, gesturing vaguely towards a group of Latino students clustered by the lockers. The unspoken implication hung heavy: that there were 'good' immigrants and 'bad' immigrants, and my ethnicity, by some unspoken privilege, placed me in the former category. It was a backhanded compliment, a way of absolving herself of any potential prejudice by creating a hierarchy I happened to land on the 'right' side of, yet it still reinforced the idea that I was being judged and categorized based on my ancestry.
My family, much like many immigrant families, navigated this terrain with a quiet resilience. My parents, who arrived in the U.S. in the late 1970s, rarely spoke of overt discrimination. Instead, they emphasized hard work, education, and assimilation. "Be twice as good," my father would often advise, his voice firm but tinged with a weariness I didn't fully understand then. This advice, I later realized, was a coping mechanism, a strategy for survival in a society that, while offering opportunity, also presented subtle and not-so-subtle barriers. They celebrated Filipino holidays privately, the scent of adobo and lumpia filling our home, a fragrant haven from the outside world that often seemed to demand a stripping away of our cultural identity.
It wasn't until I attended college in a more diverse city, Chicago, that my understanding of ethnicity and race began to broaden, and the complexities of my own identity became more apparent. I met students from every corner of the globe, each with their own stories of belonging and alienation. I found myself explaining my heritage repeatedly, answering the same questions about the Philippines, about my family's journey, about why my name sounded 'foreign.' Yet, in this new environment, the questions, while still present, felt less accusatory and more like genuine curiosity. I also began to see how deeply ingrained racial dynamics were, how the historical narratives of slavery, segregation, and redlining continued to shape opportunities and perceptions for Black Americans, and how Asian Americans, often stereotyped as the "model minority," were still subject to their own unique forms of prejudice and invisibility.
The term 'racism' itself felt less like a distant concept and more like a lived reality, even in its subtler forms. The microaggressions, the assumptions made based on my appearance, the way certain cultural references were met with blank stares, all contributed to a persistent undercurrent of otherness. I learned that ethnicity wasn't just about food and festivals; it was about shared histories, collective experiences, and the ongoing negotiation of identity in a society that often struggles with its own multiculturalism. My personal journey has been one of gradually shedding the naivete of my Ohio childhood, understanding that the 'us' and 'them' Michael had so innocently articulated were artificial constructs, yet ones that carried very real weight and consequence. The conversation about race and ethnicity in America, I've come to believe, is not about erasing differences, but about understanding, respecting, and truly valuing them, ensuring that no child, in any classroom, is ever made to feel 'different' in a way that diminishes their sense of belonging.