u/renamamiyas

So i (24F) moved to the US when i was five and have lived in southern california since, and it's been a bit of a struggle observing how my peers and i guess the town in general really treats me and my fellow WOC.

This all started when i went to elementary school where i went through the trademark experiences of racism, colorism, and just being "seen as weird" because i didn't look like my peers. I was always picked out because of my skin colour especially, even from my own family. My grandmother would come back home from the philippines and gift me skin whitening soap in the hopes of making me paler... like grandma i'm in elementary school.

This kind of stuff keeps going up until high school, which was a little more diverse. I've met people who look like me and understand me, but i witnessed and experienced lots of microaggressions and racism still. I came out as queer in high school, have liked people, but it all came to one thing: they preferred someone who wasn't a person of colour, or if we did date and broke up, it was apparent i was the asian girl who they wanted to date bc it seemed "quirky and different" (their words, not mine).

College is the same. I was in a long term relationship for four years and we broke up for various reasons, but it was the same cycle where the same thing i experienced in high school happens again. I thought they'd finally understand me as they were also queer and a person of colour, but it was the same. They went on to cheat on me with a former high school classmate of mine; a white girl who was OPENLY racist towards all of the WOC in my high school (imagine that!). I felt like there was always someone who was better than me, more white than me, and living in a predominantly white town meant that i had to say the quiet part out loud: since i am not white nor do i look white, i will not make it in this town and that i have to work harder to be seen as equal.

So i graduate college and when i thought i outgrew all of this insecurity, it rears its ugly head. I was in a relationship with someone for two years. He lived in a very white part of illinois before moving to where i'm from. He was, and still is, kind and sweet, but there was always this lingering insecurity from past experience of me possibly being an "experiment" or not. He only dated white women before me, which is fine, but maybe my feelings about this speaks to a bigger part of how much the racism i've experienced bleeds into how i feel in relationships and in love.

We break up and, low and behold, he's seemingly back to being attracted to white women. No one that looks like me. I'm 24 and i'm ashamed at the fact that i still let these things get to me. I'm in no rush to date or be with someone because of this. I want to unlearn and become more secure with myself before i dip my toes back into the dating pool, but there really is no rush. Living in this town has taught me that whiteness and close proximity to whiteness is the key to being celebrated, if you do nit fit that mold, you are simply treated as non-preferential.

Going out with my white girlfriends means watching all of them get hit on meanwhile i'm sipping my drink while i'm on my phone. It's caused issues with my sexuality, where having sex was the only thing i felt like made me feel attractive even though i was highly fetishized. Being seen as the token asian of friend groups and not feeling like i fit in fully because they dont understand my intricate struggles with my self esteem.

One thing i am proud of though is that i've never and will never reject my culture and ethnicity. Its part of me, its who i always will be, but the people around me and in this town make me feel small. I have tried to find fellow WOC in my community to help me feel more accepted, but to be honest, they all reject their culture. They all want ti be as close to whiteness as possible and its driving me insane because it feels so isolating.

I'm not sure if any WOC have struggled with this, but if you have, i would like some tips on how to feel secure with being one of the few WOC in a town where whiteness is preferred and even praised.