On Being Asian-Canadian
by: Alyssa Esparaz
“The Asian experience in North America has been one of silence and erasure for far too long. ”
The Instagram post sat in my “drafts” for days. The caption sat in my notes app, constantly being opened and refined and edited.
Those who know me know that I’m not one to shy away from speaking boldly in the face of injustice. So what was my problem with this?
“Putting my Asian features into your feed because I want to remind you that these features put me and other fellow Asians at risk of violence and hate in the streets right now. For those who are unaware, there has been a dramatic rise in anti-Asian violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and several attacks against our elders in just the past few weeks.”
That was the beginning of the caption that I wrote to accompany a picture of my face and several screenshots of news articles covering the spike in anti-Asian racism in the last year. After sitting on it for a few days, I finally posted it.
My unusual hesitancy surrounding that post is illustrative of exactly why it is so important for me—for all of us—to speak up.
The Asian experience in North America has been one of silence and erasure for far too long. It's something I've experienced through my whole life, growing up Asian-Canadian and the daughter of immigrants in the suburbs of Toronto, and am only recently starting to find words for.
From the workplace to the media, we’ve been seen and portrayed as “compliant,” “meek,” “quiet,” or “submissive.” Until recent years, we’ve experienced some of the least representation in media. In conversations about racial justice, we’ve been excluded from a Black-and-white story—and also excluded ourselves from it, staying sorrowfully silent in the face of racism against Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples. We’ve perpetuated the model minority myth, our presence stereotyped into the role of “good student,” or “computer whiz,” or “doctor-lawyer-accountant-engineer” while also being used to further oppress Black, Brown and Indigenous people (I encourage you to look up the model minority myth if you need to).
That complexity, that in-betweenness, that not knowing where you fit defines so much of the experience of being Asian-Canadian. And I think it’s also why my voice shakes a little more than normal when I rise to speak up for my beloved Asian community.
But if I’m learning anything this year, it’s to speak up, though my voice may shake. And that when in doubt, we can look to Jesus, who was never shy about speaking up against injustice. In fact, in Luke 4, he says it’s why he came to earth:
That complexity, that in-betweenness, that not knowing where you fit defines so much of the experience of being Asian-Canadian.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I’m learning that in our cries for racial justice, in our pursuit of the Kingdom’s vision of “every nation, tribe, people and language,” we need to stand together and confront racism in all its forms, whether it be anti-Indigenous, anti-Black or yes, anti-Asian.
As my social media feeds lit up this week with posts celebrating International Women’s Day, I couldn’t help but feel inspired. The reality of injustice is real—whether it’s gender inequality, systemic racism, or the recent rise in racist attacks against Asians. But what’s also real is the way we are linking arms together to confront injustice in all its forms, to build a world where we can all flourish: women, people of colour, all of us. Let’s keep going.
But what’s also real is the way we are linking arms together to confront injustice in all its forms, to build a world where we can all flourish: women, people of colour, all of us. Let’s keep going.
You can practically respond to what you read in this post by learning and getting informed about anti-Asian racism and by speaking up against it, whether on social media or in your various communities, spheres of influence and private interactions.
Alyssa Esparaz is a writer, speaker and advocate. She brings her passion for youth, justice and Jesus to her role of Content and Communications Specialist at Compassion Canada. She is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto, where she studied International Development. Alyssa is Chinese-Filipino-Canadian and lives just outside of Toronto, Canada. Find her online at alyssaesparaz.ca.