Diversifying US-Asia Relations
The Black girl that speaks Chinese. That was the way people identified me in my small, predominantly-white college in Connecticut. At first, it really bothered me because what did race have to do with my intellectual ability? Nothing. Little did
Being Black and studying in Asia never seemed weird to me until other people told me it was. Growing up in Maryland, I had a lot of classmates who were of Asian descent. More specifically, I had a lot of
I never wanted to learn Mandarin. It was my school’s first year offering the language and I had no interest in it. As a proud Haitian-American, I wanted to learn French. It would help me with Creole and I could
No matter how much time passes, I’ll never forget something my mom imparted to me on my first day as a middle schooler at my new school: “In a perfect world, everyone would have access to the opportunities you’ll have here.”…
Stranger: Where are you from? Me: America. Stranger: No really! Where in Africa? Me: I’m from Texas. Stranger: Oh, where in Africa is that? This was a frequent conversation I’d have with strangers in China…