Christine is a half breed ...

HALF-BREED – Probably the one word that sums up the various hurtful, hateful ways people found to express their confusion about what being a MULTI-RACIAL person means. As a child, I never questioned my ethnicity. I just knew my mom was Caucasian (or if you wanna get specific, Italian/French/Irish) and my dad was Filipino. My brother and I are 2 of only 3 kids in my father’s immediate family that aren’t full Filipino but I never knew it because my family embraced us. On my mom’s side I had cousins who were half-mexican so the concept of being “mixed” wasn’t really something that was discussed. My first memory of any conversation between me and another person about my ethnic background was in elementary school , the first time I recall anyone asking “what are you?”. But I really wasn’t truly aware of all the question marks that constantly surrounded me until I got a little older, when I realized it was apparent to everyone else that there were clearly some obvious differences in my appearance compared to my mom. I attended a mother-daughter work day and when she introduced me to one of her coworkers, the woman actually asked (and to my dismay, IN FRONT OF ME) if I was adopted. I was still quite young but felt offended and embarrassed that someone asked my own mom such a rude question. Unfortunately things only got worse as I progressed into my middle school/teen years. At a time when there is nothing more important than fitting in and belonging, I felt more awkward and uncomfortable with my appearance than ever. I knew I looked different, and it doesn’t really matter how attractive you are or if you are a wonderful person, at 13 years of age being different is just not okay. I felt like there was a spotlight on me at all times, from the jerk-boys that liked me because of my appearance, from the girls who hated me because of the boys, from the people who simply found pleasure in making sure I knew I didn’t belong. I heard “You’re not really asian” often, along with “you’re just a white girl” among other negative references to being white – since apparently it was just not cool to be white. And due to a boy I was dating that other girls liked, I received prank calls, hateful voice-mails from girls I didn’t even know, people talking about me behind my back, spreading rumors that weren’t true, even threats. Even people I thought of as friends at the time casually made references to me being “white” or “not asian”, not even realizing they were being hurtful.

And the kicker – some of these so-called “friends” were multi-racial themselves but somehow avoided the harassment. I wanted so badly to fit in but no matter what I did I just couldn’t hide who I was as it was written all over my face. As a defense, I became angry, built up walls with the hopes of blocking out the ridicule and hate. I had a major attitude and acted out, going through an extreme rebellious phase as I tried to find peace and figure out my own identity. I stopped trying to fit in, avoided becoming a part of any particular social group at school and spent too many years in a bad relationship. The years went by I eventually grew out of the rebelliousness as it became exhausting to feel so angry all of the time. I started making better choices as I developed and evolved, and somewhere along the lines society decided it is socially acceptable, even preferred, to be multi-racial – or the term that gets thrown around more frequently, “exotic”. Now people say I’m beautiful because I’m multi-racial which is still a little hard for me to grasp. As much as times have changed, there are still lasting effects from the years I was bullied. I still feel a little discomfort when people make comments about my appearance, and I’m awkward even when receiving compliments. I’m particular about how much I expose of myself at all times and very protective of my own image. It’s still hard for people to guess my ethnicity, but I finally feel okay with that. I love my family and am very proud of my entire cultural background, but I finally accept that I don’t look like any one particular race because I embrace all the beautiful cultures that make me who I am in every way. I may only be half-Filipino, or half-white, but I am a whole human being with a good heart – and that’s what really matters.

Veva Marie is stuck up ...

Stuck up:
1. A person who thinks they’re better than everyone else, except within their clique of friends. Most often a stuck up person is also really fake, they are also extremely conceited.

When I was asked to be a part of something so powerful, I easily accepted. However, putting my story down on paper has been the most difficult task I’ve ever attempted to complete. Although it has been an emotional assignment, I hope that it inspires others as much as it has relieved me.

Many people/strangers think I am easy to read. If you think you really know me, prepare to try and understand my story.

The words “stuck up” have hurt me in more ways than one. Yes, I get dressed up, do my make up, and tease my hair when I go out. Every girl LOVES to feel beautiful. The way that I dress, the way I chose to carry myself, or the moves I make on the dance floor, however, may give the wrong impression of who I really am and where I have come from. A couple years ago, I was out with my girlfriends when I noticed this guy approaching me. I was new to going out, so at first I was super excited! After a few words were exchanged, I realized that he didn’t really like ME, he liked what he saw and wanted to take it home with him for a night. I instantly became offended with things that he was saying, and had no other choice but to walk away and remove myself from the situation. As I started walking away, he shouted out a few bad names and ended it with “Stuck up, Bitch.” It hurt. Instantly. Did he ever think that maybe he wasn’t my type? Or maybe I wasn’t in the mood for what he wanted? Or maybe the FACT that I am a victim of child molestation and I hate the person I am? Exactly. I felt completely violated, damaged, used. My past started exploding in front my face. How dare someone call me such names, not knowing how it would truly affect me? He doesn’t know that I have struggled my whole life with feeling comfortable in my own skin, that I sometimes look in the mirror and feel disgusted with what I see, or that sometimes I can’t get through a whole day without having flashes of my past. At the time, I was young, vulnerable, and scared. That one night left me so confused. That one encounter turned me bad. I started cutting myself to release the pain I felt. Now, I’m not only left with the mental scars, but physical scars that remind me daily of what damage has been done.

Luckily, I was born a strong enough woman to come back from such a deep, dark place. I found a doctor and finally told my story. I cried through it, I was suicidal through it, but dealt with it and was able to move on and live a life I had always dreamed of. I surrounded myself with people I love, and I now live my life with nothing but passion towards my dreams. I look back on these days of torment and suffering and know that no matter how ominous your days may be, you have the choice to move on and find the light at the end of the tunnel. Words ALMOST killed.

Esther is fake ...

story written by: Esther/ edited by: Emily Harris

The high school years are an important part of our development and transition to adulthood. You’re trying to figure out who you are, and who you want to become. It’s a time of making new friends, experimenting with new things, learning to drive (first taste of freedom!), and, of course, having a boyfriend. I am a twin, and being a twin definitely had some advantages in high school! Double the friends, double the clothes, double everything really. In school, my sister and I were known as The Korean Twins, and we loved knowing that everyone knew us as a pair. Our first year of high school, things were great. It seemed like everyone liked us – our friends were fun, our classes weren’t too boring, and attention from boys was never lacking. One day, a girl whose boyfriend had developed a huge crush on my twin began getting jealous. Extremely jealous. From that day on, things would never be the same for The Korean Twins. The jealous girl began spreading rumors around school about my sister and I. She said all kinds of things: we were fakes, two-faced, slutty, easy, STD-infected … She even started a rumor that I’d been gang-banged and was on drugs. It was as if, because her boyfriend liked my sister, suddenly my sister and I were both terrible, awful boyfriend-stealers – which couldn’t be further from the truth, about either of us! Being high school, of course these rumors spread like wildfire, and of course there were people who got caught up in the drama of it all. All of my girlfriends happened to get caught up, and they all turned their backs against my sister and I. As the rumors continued to spread, and continued to grow, people were treating us differently. Guys specifically. They began talking to us and treating us likes whores, like pieces of trash.

I cried for weeks. It was all too psychologically difficult for me to handle – I was frustrated and felt tortured by the rumors, and by how awful my perfect high school life was becoming. I knew the truth about my sister and I, and I knew we’d never done anything wrong, to any of these mean girls or immature guys. It all hurt so much, I didn’t know what to do. I began to contemplate suicide. I started cutting myself. It was the only way I knew how to lessen some of the pain, and the fear I was developing – fear of going to class, fear of trying to make new friends, fear of generally trusting people. The fear of going to class, and of going to school really at all, lead me to start skipping school altogether. I watched as the perfect attendance and GPA I’d created fell apart. I’d always been a confident, A+ student, but now I was failing all my classes. I couldn’t concentrate when I was in class, so it seemed silly to even attempt to attend. I began rebelling against my parents, sneaking out and smoking. Thinking back, all I can remember is that I just stopped caring, about everything. I’d lost myself. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

I’d lost all my friends. When you’re a teenager, your friends – your social circle – is everything to you. It’s such a huge part of your identity. Without it, who are you? I had lost all trust in female friends, so I stopped dealing with females. Soon enough, I had only guy friends, which didn’t help my new reputation at all.

I tried telling my parents what was happening, and I begged to be home-schooled. Instead, they began grounding my sister and I for cutting class, getting bad grades and sneaking out. I felt like a caged rat – I had no place to go, I was just running around in circles, and I felt like I was going crazy. Something had to give.

One night, my twin and I ran away from home. My parents couldn’t handle it anymore. Our high school principal told my parents to send us to juvenile detention because we were “out of control”. That was like a wake-up call for our parents. They pulled us out of school and enrolled us in an alternative high school. It was still hard for me to trust people, especially girls, because I was terrified of being targeted again. I’d been held back a grade because of all of my school trouble, so I had a lot of work to do to get back on track. I knew this was my second chance, and I took it. Five years later, I can look back and recognize how hard I worked to get to where I am, who I am, today.

I was a victim of bullying and I know the power of rumors can be like an infectious disease, and it can cause scars that last a lifetime. Some of those scars you can see, and some you can’t. Rumors are powerful yet invisible, and they can quickly turn from innocent “gossip” to insidious poison that destroys lives. The words that one jealous, insecure girl decided to tell some of her high school friends still affect me today. Those words left me with painful childhood memories and a different path through young adulthood than I ever imagined.

I wouldn’t be who I am today without that girl doing exactly what she did. I am stronger now, and I have learned to love myself, and I have finally learned how to trust again. I like to think I appreciate life, and opportunities, more than I might if I hadn’t been through what I went through. I believe in loving others, forgiving quickly, and ridding my life of people who aren’t worth my time and energy.

Words are more powerful than we realize, especially when we’re young. I’m one of the lucky ones – I came out of my bullying experience on the other side, and I was able to learn from it and turn it into motivation to move my life forward. Every victim isn’t as lucky as me, so this is for those victims. This is for the bullied who don’t know how to speak out, or feel like they can’t. Be careful what you say because it can destroy lives.

KT is a whore ...

Written by: KT / Edited by: Emily Harris

When people talk about name-calling they usually think of children teasing each other. My first experience was a little different: my first experience was with a grown-up. A grown-up I respected and looked up to. Ironically, this was someone who taught me about the importance of respect. This someone was my teacher. I had stumbled into a conversation between my best friend and the teacher and heard him calling me a whore. I was practically a child at the time, and I had no idea what the word even meant. I had to ask my best friend afterward – talk about an awkward conversation! Apparently, the teacher felt he had to right to call me something so vulgar because of how I dressed. But at that time, I was so young that I was still wearing a sports bra, and really would not have had any idea how to dress like a whore even if I’d wanted to. Looking back, I find it incredibly disturbing that he found the way I dressed provocative in any way. If he had, as my teacher, he should have talked to me about dressing differently instead of judging me and calling me names behind my back, especially to other kids. His gossiping and name-calling inevitably led other students taking on his perspective. The whole situation really hurt me, and, without me really understanding the impact it was having on me, it began to erode my ability to trust the adults in my life. This distrust of adults slowly turned into a general inability to trust anyone, adult or otherwise.

I became very rebellious and I had a hard time respecting authority. After transferring around between a few different high schools, I just stopped going altogether. Because I didn’t feel comfortable letting my guard down with people, I had a hard time connecting with people until I started using. It was the perfect escape from reality because reality sucked! Slowly, I got sucked into a world ruled by the drugs. I didn’t know who I was anymore, and didn’t care. Everyone was so nice when they were high. No one argued, no one gossiped … When I was high, I felt like everyone loved me – and I loved them right back. My foray into the drug world began innocently enough, with smoking weed. Once I was regularly smoking, popping pills didn’t seem like such a big deal. If my friends and I were partying and someone had some pills, we all did them together. It felt like a kind of bonding experience that I hadn’t been able to experience before because of my trust issues. After awhile, getting high and partying at night meant I needed something to get me through the workday. That’s when I started using meth. I had my party drug, my bedtime drug and my work drug – I was never sober! I couldn’t get to sleep without smoking anymore. The incessant drug use was starting to show itself physically. I didn’t look healthy, and didn’t look like me anymore. One day, I passed out in the middle of the day while standing in a friend’s kitchen. When I came to, I knew I had to quit before it was too late. I didn’t want to quit, but I didn’t want to end up killing myself more.

My road to sobriety was not fun at all! I was thrown back into the harsh, evil reality of life. I had forgotten how mean people could be. Since I could no longer numb myself with little pills or my trusty little pipes, I found a new way to deal with sober life: I started mimicking my attackers. I’d told myself that I would never be like them, but there was something in me that genuinely wanted to understand them. Maybe if I put myself in their shoes, I’d finally be able to. The transformation into a gossip or a bully was slow, but by the time I realized what was happening to me, I had become the kind of person that I hated. I was picking on people just to pick on them, just to keep my distance from connecting with them. I was disgusted with myself. The change in me was not lost on my friends and family, but I wasn’t interested in listening to them when they tried to pull me out of the road I was going down. I was playing a character – the mean girl – and they were interfering with that. They were messing with my experiment, and the experiment was my new drug. I was sober now, but I still needed something to numb me to reality, something to pour my energy into so I didn’t have to focus on myself. I didn’t ever want to feel small and insignificant again, and the best way I knew to prevent those feeling was by keeping everyone at arm’s length. Anyone that got too close got the full-on “bitch” side of me. That’s how I pushed people away.

Today, I’m approaching the things that I want to work on within me in a healthier way. I stopped playing that experimental character, and I was lucky to be able to rebuild some of the relationships that were damaged during that time. After everything I have been through, the one thing I regret most is how I let my trials and tribulations change me … I became the kind of person that I despised! While I can own up to all of my actions, I can’t help but wonder if things throughout my life would have gone differently, better, if my ability to trust and form genuine connections with people hadn’t been taken away from me at such a young age.

Jennipher is ugly ...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…that’s what they say…

So true and everyone understands but most people struggle with their physical beauty everyday…

My family and I have a tradition of spending time together, atleast one day, during the weekends. On a cold autumn saturday, we met up at a restaurant in Bellevue for brunch. After finding amazing parking spots close to the main entrance of the restaurant, we all walked in together and headed towards the hostess. “It’ll be 10 mins or so.” said the hostess with a smile. We found a comfy spot by the door to wait out our 10 minutes. At this point I felt a constant stare from a young Korean American couple and their guy friend. I looked to my right and sure enough the couple and I met eye contact and they looked away. The Korean female whispers something to her boyfriend. He looks over at me once again and positively nods. He then proceeds to whisper the same message to their guy friend standing next to them. The guy friend looks over, stares up and down and blurts out in Korean “I think she’s ugly.” My heart started thumping, blood pressure shot up…I wanted to yell at the guy “Excuse me?! Who the F*ck are you?!” Instead, I just stared straight at him…with daggars coming from my eyes. To his surprise, he realized that I was Korean and that I understood exactly what he said. He immediately looked at the ground as his shoulders shamefully shrugged inward and the couple quickly turned around with utter embarrassment. Few seconds went by and by their saving grace, the hostess called their number for seating. I stared at the guy as he walked passed me with shame and his guilt ridden hands in his pockets…he never once looked up. “What a coward…” I thought to myself.

Let’s be real here. Everyone at some point in their life has thought, said it out loud and or said to a friend “She or He is Ugly…” It’s human to have an opinion but let’s not forget that it is also human to be kind to others.

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all. ”

― Thumper

Kince is a loser ...

Story edited by: Emily Harris

 It was right after Halloween. I was living in the Philippines, attending my first year of high school in a state-run institution that shaped “scholars of the nation”. The school churned out everything from engineers to rocket scientists – literally – and I thought it was a wise decision to apply, especially when I passed the notoriously challenging entrance exam.

It wasn’t.

I was fourteen and living away from home for the first time in my life. I shared two bathroom stalls, three sinks, and three toilets with twenty three other boys in my dorm’s wing.

I had just been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

I was still in the closet.

Shortly before I was to begin school, my mother left the country. While I was in attendance, she called me long-distance to let me know she was divorcing my father and that I was no longer in her custody. I loved my mother, and I was confused.

I came from a well-to-do-family, but most of the other students weren’t as lucky. They came from less fortunate backgrounds, and had worked hard to meet the education requirements necessary to join the program. I’d never had friends from different backgrounds, and I didn’t know how to connect with them. I felt alienated from my very first day.

I had no friends.

Halloween arrived, and I went home for the long weekend. I loved Halloween and wanted to make it the best one yet. I’d heard from my cousin that a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia would lighten my hair, which would fit perfectly into my Halloween costume plans. So, I went to the drugstore, picked up hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, and proceeded to spend hours locked in my father’s bathroom doing my hair. Unfortunately, my Asian hair didn’t lighten exactly how I’d hoped.

When I returned to school the following week, my hair was bright orange. I told everyone that there’d been a bad chemical reaction with a temporary dye. I already stuck out because I was different from my fellow students, and now I was impossible to miss! My new hair made it even easier for upper classmen to hurl insults and rude comments at me and tear me down.

There wasn’t much I could do, so I just tried my best to deal with the way I was feeling about myself. I thought I would get used to it, but I never did. Day after day, a group of upper classmen would throw their hands up in a capital “L” shape whenever they saw me. They would look right at me and mouth the word “Loser”, just so no one could mistake what they were calling me. They did it all the time – even when they were running to make a class. It was as if it was some kind of ritual they had to do.

The name-calling and “Loser” tag never went away. Long after my hair had returned to its natural color, I was the “Loser” and I was the preferred victim of anyone’s teasing and ridiculing at school.

Looking back now, I can’t explain how I got through those tough years. Somehow I was able to stick it out to complete my schooling, and stay focused enough to graduate successfully and continue on.

These days I am an accomplished hairstylist, dancer, and songwriter. I have amazing friends, and a solid network of people I care about, and who care about me. I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy that date back to being the “Loser” throughout my teenage years, and I may always have that struggle.

I was in a school of geeks and nerds,

lowest of the social low.

And I was their Loser.