Roisin
and Danny Huang took their 6-year-old daughter to cultural celebrations and dim sum restaurants in Seattle's Chinatown-International District, cultivating her Chinese identity and cultural pride. To Roisin, who is White, and her husband, who is Chinese and first-generation American, that was an important part of their parenting. Despite some internalized racism their daughter was experiencing, she had come to accept and celebrate the Chinese part of her identity and culture.
In the week after Chinese New Year in late January, Huang's daughter attended school dressed in a traditional outfit to celebrate. Several weeks later in March, one of her teachers showed the kindergarten students a news segment on handwashing to prevent contracting the coronavirus that came from China — without the context that people of Chinese and Asian descent weren't to blame.
Huang hadn't yet had a nuanced conversation with her daughter about the coronavirus. The news crushed the little girl, who was the only student in her class of Asian descent. She came home to her mother announcing what she had learned, full of disappointment and feeling like she was partly to blame for the spread of the virus.
“I said, ‘Yes, honey, the virus came over from China. But that doesn't mean that it's people from China's fault. Viruses come from all over.' I had to give her context,” said Huang, who is from Seattle. “She had a really hard time. You could tell she was really sad about it.”
Huang explained to her daughter the prejudiced comments that kids might say and prepared her to stand up for herself. She also met with the teacher to explain the significance of the missing context. Since the students were pulled from school about six weeks later, Huang's daughter was shielded from any future possible discrimination in class.
Months later, the distance hasn't alleviated her daughter's struggle with her half-Chinese identity. She has asked her parents, “Why are we China?” (in her 6-year-old patois); shown favoritism toward dolls with lighter skin tones; and once declared, “I'm White” during in-depth conversations about identity — which hurt her father.
“As many conversations as I have (with her), it doesn't take away societal impacts about what's good or what's pretty,” Huang said.
The sadness, resentment, anger and confusion her daughter now feels toward her Chinese identity have shaken her positive identity and cultural pride — two factors that are predictive of the quality of one's mental health.
