‘You look like the help’: the disturbing link between Asian skin color and status

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Canada, Media Archive on 2016-09-11 23:49Z by Steven

‘You look like the help’: the disturbing link between Asian skin color and status

Fusion
2016-08-25

Mari Santos
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Outside a hotel lobby in Toronto earlier this year, an elderly Asian woman stopped my mother and me to ask what time a tour bus would be arriving. Then, the woman asked in broken English: “Are you Philippine?”

“Yes,” my mom replied.

“Ahh, you look Korean!” the woman exclaimed. My mother graciously thanked her.

I darted my eyes, offended and confused at the implication that looking Korean over Filipino should somehow be taken as a compliment. Later I asked my mother: “Why did you thank her?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted sheepishly…

Read the entire article here.

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