The Lucky Ones

Hapa Mag - MAY 13, 2020

By Michelle Geffner

“You are a lucky one.” My great-aunt said this to me the last time I saw her. She was talking about my eyes, as she bore into them with a meaning I only now understand. I was 12 years old, and we were visiting my great-grandmother at a reunion in southern China; she was the almost legendary 90-year-old matriarch of a lineage I knew peripherally. I played my part as The American, accepted the cheek pinches, and pondered what this prophetic compliment meant. What did luck have to do with it?

Often, we cannot see our own privileges until a more objective eye points them out. My great-aunt was right; my lack of a typically Asian monolid did make me lucky. I could and still do pass for white, which in many ways makes my life a lot easier than those who do not. Few people guess my heritage correctly; a fact I cherish and loathe simultaneously. It may other me at times, but I cannot deny that I reap the benefits of being white passing. Of course, growing up Hapa comes with its own challenges — people tend to have many opinions about our looks, and our identities are constantly scrutinized. Chinese kids wouldn’t include me in Lunar New Year parties, while everyone else didn’t seem to notice.

I probably got into music conservatory despite also checking the “Asian” box on my application (my high school guidance counselor told me not to, since “they wouldn’t be able to tell anyway,” but screw that). Meanwhile, this granted me a diversity scholarship for yoga teacher training last year. I’m still surprised by the number of near-strangers who want to project their own weird feelings onto me, all because they’ve got a biracial second cousin twice removed or I remind them of Michelle Branch. (As much as I’d like to believe I’m as hot a Hapa as M.B., the resemblance probably isn’t strong.)

About a year after the reunion, after I had moved from Hong Kong back to New York to live full time with my Jewish father, I got a better sense of what my great-aunt said. There is still, unfortunately, a heavy influence of Eurocentric beauty standards in Asia, even in the most remote of places. Skin-lightening ads are common, as well as cosmetic surgery. When she said I was lucky to have “piàoliang de yǎnjīng,” or beautiful eyes, the meaning was twofold. My features could allow me to possess a mostly unattainable standard of prettiness in Asia, and I wouldn’t be spat at on the streets of America. My humanity would not be questioned.

The introduction of COVID-19 has proven her correct.

As fast as the virus has been evolving, so has the subtle underbelly of our American racism come to the surface as something more overt. Many of my friends here in New York, being young, attractive Asian women (who are usually dodging white men asking for their phone numbers) are now being both harassed and avoided like the plague itself by the same people who fetishized them a mere month ago. At the same time, surgical face masks — created by Dr. Wu Liande in response to a pneumonic plague over a century ago, and popular in Asia long before the outbreak of COVID-19 — are so coveted, pharmacies citywide have simply run out. Price gouging for such items is rampant. Violent assault videos circulate our newsfeeds. Asian people are being blamed for the spread of the virus, yet European cruise ships created a Typhoid Mary chain reaction in the States. Chinese restaurants are going bankrupt, while Italian pizzerias were packed until our government mandated shutdowns. It is peak irony.

I can’t help but wonder how Hapas intersect this strange, apocalyptic zeitgeist. Somehow, Charmin Ultra Soft is the new U.S. currency, and it’s suddenly OK to call a disease Chinese as a descriptor. But, if you’re white passing or just ambiguous enough, you won’t be targeted; our privileges afford us a new kind of social distancing. For different reasons, we are once again on the outskirts of society, and we can see it both ways. The question of identity seems to resonate with many — in fairness; there are plenty of Americans who are less than proud of our current reputation.

On the flipside, there has also been a heartwarming cultural shift — an emphasis on old-school community, solidarity, and kindness in defiance of indecency. Lately, the outpouring of check-ins, calls, texts, and FaceTimes from friends near and far have restored my own faith more times than I can count. Lower East Side Malaysian eatery, Kopitiam, created the Heart of Dinner #LovingChinatown initiative as a rather perfect response to support local Asian-owned businesses — you can read their mission here. Stories of miraculous recoveries, daily applauses for healthcare workers (it’s not enough, but it’s something), and free concert streamings all make national news following headlines of certain doom; it seems big-picture chaos brings out both the worst and the best of us.

It can be hard to talk about privilege when we are all affected; this is, after all, a pandemic of global scale. Obviously, the human experience is complicated — I’ve heard it compared to a card game, one in which we are each born with a pack, unsolicited, and forced to play with whatever good and poor luck has been awarded us. We don’t get to choose our cards. But, to opt out, to neglect our pack — that is not an option. As my elders would remind me, waking up another day older is a fortune given to few. For now, we can keep our eyes open, listen intently, offer up the best of ourselves, and remember, whether we asked for it not — we are the lucky ones.