welcome to wherever.

Thoughts on humans and how they treat each other. Part 1 of however many.

I've been thinking a lot about diversity lately. Diversity, and all of the beautiful and unfortunate things. The subject has been top of mind in our company, our community, and our industry. I've been pondering how it impacts my daily life, work place, industry, and hobbies. Our impact zone, so to speak. 

I grew up as a Taiwanese 2nd Gen kid, born in New Orleans and raised in Kenner. Kenner's in Jefferson Parish, part of Greater New Orleans. I usually say New Orleans since very few have ever heard of Kenner. Well I'll have you know, Kenner is home to the New Orleans International Airport, which means that Kenner is the Gateway to the World.

Being Asian in the south in the 80s and 90s was not awesome. I love so much about that city. It taught me a lot about life, how to see yourself in it. It also taught me that there are a lot of ignorant fools ready to spout molten hot prejudice direct line to your cerebral cortex.

In grammar school, I'd cry. Yeah. I'd do it, whatever, man. I'd cry 'til I got dropped off at home. Mama would ask "school's over...why are you crying!?" I never really liked school, so she just assumed that was it. I never could quite explain it, so I one time attempted: "They're making fun of my hair cuz it's black." Denial is a powerful thing.

Shock, hugs, assurances that my hair was lovely and soft (it really is eerily soft)...and, of course, "normal". Technically, it's "dark brown" hair. Even then as a child, I got stuck in an endless mind spiral trying to understand what "normal" meant. 

Anyway, it got worse as I understood more of the why. Where middle school was meh, high school was terrible. My parents sent me to an all boys Catholic private high school in New Orleans in 8th grade. My brother graduated from there and matriculated to Harvard, so, duh, shoe-in. You should go there so you can follow in his footsteps. A 95% majority white school in a >60% black city. There were 4 Asian Americans in my class. The greatest surprises during the first few years of high school were days I didn't get a passing "which one are you? Don Tran? Dan Kim?" in the classroom or wasn't stuck at school after class for a penance hall, written up for something batshit crazy - like that my nametag was crooked, that my shoes weren't shined, that I didn't wear my belt, or - this was the one I got written up for the most - that my hair was too long. I didn't see a lot of the same people in penance hall all the time, so, to be honest, I felt kinda targeted. I was "trouble". They made us copy every letter of a column of the Yellow Pages, with specifically five dots between the name and the number. 

And look, we had a Civic professor. He was a big portly black guy. And I shit you not, the kids in the class room would shout, in the middle of a lecture, "Watermelon time!" "BBQ time!" Yeah. Nothin' but class up in this class. I have no idea how he dealt with it. 

I hate lunch rooms. People don't really know that about me, but talk about anxiety. Ever since I was a child, the thought of walking into an organized lunchroom (school, work) always terrified me. Would I drop my tray? Who is looking at me? Are they judging me? For how I look? Pleas let me spot someone I know that also happens to have an empty seat next to him. 

So, instead, I ate in the basement, between the two Coke machines, in the safety of my friendly neighborhood safe haven of Magic: the Gathering nerds*. One of my favorite memories is watching these two dudes almost get in a fight when one of them played an epic two-card combo, and then, while yelling "COMBO," raised his hand and smashed a Combo (the snack) onto his opponent's card. Combo and Magic card make for unhappy combination. Pulling those guys off each other was almost impossible on account of the laughter. Oh, school hated Magic too, cuz it had demons. So by now I have like 8 strikes. In case you haven't ever seen a demon in real life, they're about 2.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall, very thin, and I believe made of trees. It's ok though - they are flammable.

I got picked on lot, so I stopped going to school as much. Got in fights (no knock down drag out fights - don't get excited. I'm nimble, but I'm a lover), got objects thrown at me, even got told that I was going to hell by a teacher**. But you know, I just assumed that for the most part, that's just part of everyone's experience. I ignored it as much as possible. I still did the required work for school, got straight A's, and, despite their right to expel me for missing too many days, I remained enrolled. From 8th grade to Freshman to Sophomore, I stayed close with a core group of friends, "freaks" as people would refer to our type as back then. We'd hang out at the mall in Kenner, go bowling, watch movies, eat at diners late at night. We loved comics, science, live music, skateboarding, and smoking cigarettes. We painted our nails, wore GNCOs and chain wallets***. We'd park near the airport hoping for a Wayne and Garth moment. It happened once, which was awesome, except just as the vessel crossed overhead into view, we realized it was a cropduster. Majestic as fuuuuck. 

Then, everything went to shit. My best friend at the time in 9th grade is suspended for suspicion of selling marijuana to another student. Me to the principal's office. Mother of God.

-v

* Real talk - I coulda gone pro. My good buddy who played with me every school day (that I attended), asked me to go to a Magic Pro Tour in Orlando one year. My folks wouldn't let me go with him. I had to be diligent in school and stop getting in trouble. He won 8th place, complete with an $8,400 scholarship. Fuck man. That coulda been ME!

** a story for another day when i maybe mention things related to religion

***I had this voodoo rune I'd wear around my neck that had a wide "X" imprinted on it. It was the rune for "love" according to the nice voodoo lady, but my friends designated as "straight-edge" instead (yeah I went through a phase...whatever). Story about that thing to come. 

PS - Steven Seagal: Lawman was filmed in Jefferson Parish. Steven Seagal ended up there because our sheriff, who funny enough was Asian American - the illustrious Harry Lee, asked him to train his team in martial arts. His sister was in playboy or something, or so the asian american family telephone passed through the generations.