Wednesday, July 27, 2022 — 5
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Last month, I paid $10 to sit in a
room full of 30-odd strangers and
spend the next two-and-a-half hours
laughing, crying and contemplating
the meaning of life.
In other words, I watched the movie
“Everything Everywhere All At Once”
(EEAAO), and let’s just say, I’ll never
see hot dogs or everything bagels the
same way again.
The basic premise of EEAAO is that
Evelyn, a very average, tired, Asian
American woman, is suddenly tasked
with saving the universe and must
do so by traveling through multiple
universes and embodying all of her
multiverse selves.
Watching
EEAAO
was
a
wonderfully absurd experience — it
felt like being drunk on a rollercoaster
while sitting next to your quirky
aunt. But even if you haven’t watched
EEAAO and experienced its amazing
cast, original plot and witty dialogue,
it’s still remarkable and relevant for
one reason: the simple fact that an
Asian American woman (even a very
common one) can experience infinite
I wanted to say “I’m sorry” to you,
but I didn’t know how.
For a while, the phrase slipped off
my tongue so often that I forgot what
it meant. It seemed like it could cure
anything. If I made a mistake, “I’m
sorry” could render it inexistent. It
put a bandage over the wound even
though, more often than not, the pain
was still there. I just chose to ignore
it. Oftentimes, I was tortured by the
anxiousness of saying what I really
felt — to say why I did this or why I
didn’t do that, but it seemed pointless
to me. As I grew older, every time I
sat in submission and mumbled an
apology, Self-Deprecation tightened
its grip on me. When I didn’t say
sorry, I remained silent — I realize
now that was when I wronged you
most. It seemed easier to handle
confrontation this way because I
didn’t have to feel as though I was
being sensitive or problematic, like
people presumed me to be. Ever since
that day, every time I kept my mouth
closed when I should’ve spoken up,
I prayed for a chance to do what I
should’ve done years ago. A cycle of
insincerity became me.
It happened during orchestra class
in grade school. You
were a really timid
person from what
I could remember.
All of the students
were talking about
composers
as
a
part of our class
discussion
when
you
made
the
abrupt decision to
say, “I love Yiruma.”
Your comment was
met
with
silent
judgment
and
confused stares.
“Courtney,
aren’t you Black?”
one of the students
COURTNEY CHISHOLM
MiC Columnist
commented.
“Yes,” you responded hesitantly.
He laughed.
“No, you’re not. What kind of Black
person listens to that? You don’t even
act Black. You don’t talk like them
either. I’m Blacker than you, and I’m
white.”
“He’s an Oreo!” another student
yelled.
You
were
humiliated.
Even
though those words were spilled
from adolescent minds, they still
hurt because it felt as though
someone stole something that was
rightfully yours. In that moment,
I saw the rage
inch up your
throat, ready to
burst into a fit
of words I’ve
never
heard
you say before,
but instead, you
covered
your
emotions with
a chuckle and
shrugged
an
apology. I know
you
didn’t
mean it.
I’m sorry I
didn’t
speak
up
for
you.
I
convinced
realities and storylines.
Growing up, aside from my parents
and immediate family, I never had any
role models that looked like me. This
didn’t strike me as strange or weird; I
simply just accepted this as a fact of life.
In the books and media I consumed, I
readily projected myself into the lives
of various characters — from Barbie
to Ramona Quimby to the sassy white
heroine in the latest young adult
fiction novel — never noticing that we
looked different. Their struggles were
my struggles, their dreams were my
dreams, their hopes my hopes.
Until they weren’t.
Somewhere around the age I
became old enough for braces and
realized that microaggressions were
a thing (though I didn’t have the term
to call them that, yet), I realized that
the narratives between my life and
the white characters I loved didn’t
superimpose themselves onto each
other so easily. I realized that, unlike
them, my storylines weren’t infinite,
that as an Asian American, the world
demands you to play some type of
role that you never even knew was
expected of you.
It is this exact experience of seeing
infinite storylines around you but not
being allowed to fully access them
yourself that Jia Tolentino, a Filipino
American author, writes about in her
book, “Trick Mirror: Reflections on
Self-Delusion.” In her essay, “Pure
Heroines,”
Tolentino
reminisces
on a childhood experience playing
Power Rangers with her friend.
While Tolentino wanted to be the
Pink Power Ranger, her white
friend insisted that she could only
play the Yellow Power Ranger —
the reasoning for which Tolentino
simply couldn’t comprehend.
Reflecting back on this experience
as an adult, Tolentino writes that
her “white friends would be able to
fantasy-cast their own biopic from
an endless cereal aisle of nearly
identical celebrities, hundreds of
manifestations of blonde or brunette
or redhead selfhood … while (she)
would have no one to choose from
except about three actresses who’d
probably all had minor roles in some
movie five years back.”
In a world where Asian Americans
are either boxed into stereotypes
or pedestaled for being the model
minority,
representation
in
the
media is too often a luxury — not to
mention representation in a way that
is human. We either get caricatured
(the geek, the shy kid, the fetishized
Asian American woman) or glorified
(the kid that scores a 1600 on the
SAT, the brilliant activist we learn
about once every year during
Design by Jennie Vang
It’s OK to be average: thoughts after watching ‘Everything
Everywhere All At Once’
Sincerely,
Courtney Chisholm/ MiC
Read more at michigandaily.com
ALLISON WEI
Mic Columnist
AA&PI Heritage Month) — there is no
in-between.
I want to recognize that East Asian
Americans do occupy a certain degree
of privilege in the Asian American
community as a whole. Based on
stereotypes, some may assume that as
an East Asian American woman, I’m
particularly “smart” or “studious,” but
these tropes are still harmful.
Sometimes,
just
sometimes,
I
get exhausted by the relentless
pressure to either conform to cultural
expectations
or
be
unbelievably
excellent, and I wonder: Why, why
can’t I just be average?
For most of my life, I’ve run from
being average. From the “A is average”
mentality instilled in me as a child to
my own neurotic perfectionism, I’ve
subconsciously held on to the belief
that to be average is to be invisible.
That no matter how hard I tried, no
matter how many A’s I got or how nice
I was to the other kids in class, I would
still be just another “bright but quiet
kid” on my report card. That I must
somehow negotiate the terms and
conditions of my visibility.
Where did I learn this? Well, the
representation within the media —
where the terms and conditions of
being seen are numerous.
Read more at michigandaily.com
myself I didn’t need to say a word
because you didn’t need to explain
yourself, but that wasn’t true. At
the time, I considered what people
thought of me in the highest
regard, that silence seemed to be
the best solution when handling
confrontation, but it wasn’t. This
small, brief moment eventually led
to countless other instances where
people have deemed you “Black by
technicality.” After a while, you
listened and believed it to be true.
You believed that because you
didn’t conform to popularized Black
stereotypes, you weren’t really Black.
You didn’t listen to trap or hip-hop.
You didn’t wear a pick in your ’fro or
dress with your pants halfway down
your legs like some people thought
you should have. When you began
to pick up on these small instances,
eventually, an important part of your
identity was internally questioned.