On Being Half-Asian in the MS Delta

I wrote a piece for Scalawag (originally published in Rethink MS) about being mixed-race Asian-American in the Delta.  You can find the piece here.

In part, I wrote:

“Mississippi was not an ordinary place to be half-Japanese. In the Delta, I was perpetually aware of the stares, the crawl of eyes always on me reminding me China-man, you do not belong here. Black people at the gas station and street corner, teenage boys leaned to the front of the Sunflower food store, White women in floral prints in line at the drive-in and passing in the aisles of the video store, men in the fitness club pumping iron, stopping mid-set to stare, resuming with a shake of their head. The feel of eyes walking the Wal-Mart parking lot, eyes at the Double Quick, eyes at the bank in line in the heat, sweat beading on my forehead and eyes taking in the sweat as something new, look, Asians sweat too, that man is sweating, his yellow skin sweats, look. I could feel eyes at night as I slept crawling along my neck, an aggregate gaze lingering inches off my ear. I simply wasn’t a part of the Black-White binary—steeped in a history of violence and hierarchy. And perhaps I was lucky to be outside it.”