A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse

I have never written about being Asian.

The asian adjacency to whiteness has something to do with that. Writing about immigration and my race in a way that doesn't feel like cosplay is difficult. My exotic meals were easy to describe. Asian women have one of the highest rates of interracial marriage but also experience disproportionate rates of violence. It's easy to murder us if we lead innocent white men astray.

My mom, who is Asian, a woman, and an immigrant, should be able to empathise with me on this. She doesn't have anything helpful to say just because we've shared similar experiences. Her advice is that if you do everything right, you will be safe. My parents never pushed me to be a doctor or a lawyer, but the pressure to get good grades, behave perfectly, and restrict my free time, is familiar.

I have examined the flaws in this thinking recently. There are movies like Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All at Once that show that it is not possible to be perfect. I understand. The sacrifice our mothers made in coming here and having us is only justified if daughters accept the pressure. I have been able to empathise with my mom in a way I wasn't able to before because of the way my experiences are reflected on-screen.

I knew something was up when I turned red. The film is about puberty according to multiple reviews. A metaphor for menstruation is the transformation of a preteen girl into a giant panda. In one of the movie's more embarrassing scenes, a box of menstrual pads is publicly brandished by the mother of a girl, but for me, the message of the movie is more about the fact that her mom discovers evidence of her. Money! The band 4Town! The schoolwork is bunched and crumpled. The grades can be seen. B+! I cried out loud before I could stop.

I had a private tutor after I got a C in high school physics. I was in my thirties when I realized that I wanted to turn myself into a red panda. It was not planned. It wasn't her fault! When she became big, furry, cute, and stinky, she was not small and obedient. She was loud and took up a lot of space. Her friends accepted her for who she was, instead of punishing her for what she wasn't. She could do something. She made dumb decisions after getting bad grades.

I belonged to a group of girls. I missed a lot of the inside jokes while I was with them. My friends spent a lot of time together without me because they didn't have soccer, piano, violin practice, internships, and big family gatherings like I did. The structure can stifle you.