I was 13 when someone assumed I was my father’s girlfriend
It happened at my grandma’s funeral. At the holiday party of my extended family. On vacation. At restaurants. At the aquarium. At the comedy club.
It is difficult enough to be constantly reminded that people think you don't belong. Even if they're not thinking too deeply about it, every time someone asks "Are you paying together?" or "Are you with them?" It can be a harsh reminder that they don't see what I see, that to them, I am an Asian woman beside a normal, white couple.
Then, we add to that those mortifying times when people decide you aren't travelling alone. That you do belong...somehow in a menage a trois. I was in college when we went on our annual family vacation. We decided to use AirBNB, and this time, the woman who owned the house would be living there too. She watched as my mother, my father, and I entered her home with our luggage. She gave a wide smile, gave me a once over and asked..."What is she to you?" to my parents, as if I couldn't understand English. I wasn't sure what she expected the answer to be. Was I a travelling prostitute? A private chef? A life coach who went on vacation with her clients? My mom got irritated right away, firmly stating that I was her daughter. My father did nothing to defend me and answered all of the woman's ignorant questions about China. My father described how beautiful the country was, how he'd like to go back, how it was so great when I was adopted! He was and still is very much trapped in a delusional wonderland of The Fairytale Adoption. I asked myself why he didn't come to my aid, why wasn't he as offended as my mother or myself? Why wax poetic about a romanticized version of the orient with this nutjob? She made me feel completely outcasted from my own family on my own vacation!
When I told him I felt that he had left me unprotected, that I wanted him to defend me as my mother had, he just got upset. He couldn't understand what he had done wrong at all. He was just being polite. Right. Social graces come above everything, but apparently, adoptees aren't afforded even a modicum of decency in the realm of common courtesy.
I remember each and every time someone has wrongly assumed I was warming my father's bed. Bleach my brains out. I was at a holiday party with loose acquaintances of my extended family. The people there were my parents' age and older. They saw me, my grandparents, and my parents enter the house. By the appetizers, a woman pointed with her finger at me and my dad, back and forth. "So...you are what to him?"
"We're father and daughter," I say, but I wonder why it even matters. Let's say, for instance, that I said I was an escort, what was she going to do? Call the police on me? Scream us out? She had her answer and I knew she was going back to her friends and husband to spread the word. This wasn't a case of 90 Day Fiancee! I was simply an adoptee. What was funny was our relatives were also adoptees, now grown, but they were white. No one questioned them.
I was thirteen years old when my father and I went to the aquarium. Fresh out of elementary school and beginning my second year of middle school. My body: coltish, stickish, pre-pubescent. I had uneven wire glasses, a smattering of acne. I had only learned about periods a year before. It was supposed to be a father-daughter day, the kind other kids can have, but as I walked with my dad, he started putting physical distance between us. He forbade me from holding his hand. He said that I was causing him to get dirty looks from people. While I myself had not witnessed any of these so-called dirty looks, my dad was feeling awkward. He was insulted at being labeled as a "creepy, old, white man" and he placed that blame on me. My presence was causing him to be insulted. He didn't think of how insulting it was for me. He didn't think that perhaps even more awkward than being a horny older man was being a thirteen-year-old prostitute. An Asian girl for hire. Maybe a mail-ordered bride or a sex slave sold into prostitution in the black market of America. (They're real, by the way.)
I had to console myself alone. He was emotionally unavailable the rest of the trip. I had to deal with being seen as nothing more than a fetish to an outside world. I could have had an Asian mother, been half-white and half-Asian, but no one thought of that, not even my father. I felt terrible, believing I had hurt my father. I stopped hugging him for five years, feeling ashamed of myself. He took my boycott as a protest and got angry with me. He couldn't understand anything. And if I bring it up today, a good ten years after the fact, he denies the entire thing.
The most grievous, most recent event was when I was in a hotel with my father. I was doing a program in another state for college and my dad flew down to get me so we could fly back up together. He wanted to see the state. The hotel wasn't run down or in a seedy area. It was small, by the road side, across from a Red Lobster on a major road. In the morning, we had a breakfast buffet in the common dining area. Only three other groups of people were eating breakfast and no one seemed to be paying any attention to us. At all. But then my father started to get uncomfortable and started loudly and obnoxiously making jokes about how I wasn't really his prostitute. I kept kicking him under the table, telling him to shut up.
But he continued to crack his jokes, making several mentions of my mother and how I was his daughter and how he adopted me from China. As if anyone in that buffet gave a shit, but now, he was the loudest one in the room. He refuses to admit his booming TedTalk voice is loud, but it is. I was mortified. I called my mom on my cell phone, telling her what had happened. She just said rather unhelpfully, "You're leaving today. You'll never see any of those people again."
I told my mother how much these incidents hurt my feelings, but she could only hear me recently. She didn't think it was a problem and even when it happened in front of her, sometimes she just didn't think much of it. Why didn't she warn me this could happen? Why wasn't I prepped? I had to go through all that alone.
In that moment, you can't afford to think of yourself. You don't have the time to think of the hurt and the sting and the insult about being othered from your family or being accused of fucking your dad. You could be, god forbid, embarrassing your family at the party or making a scene. Sometimes, your parents don't even understand what is happening in that moment, but will be quick to accuse you of being rude.
So in that moment, when all you want to do is cry and hide and die, you need to go outside of your body and see the scene as an objective third-party. Which, by the way, takes more skill, emotional intelligence, and maturity than anyone ever thinks to give you. You need to think, "Well, I suppose it is an honest mistake," even if it isn't. And then, with all the social grace never afforded to you, it's up to you to maneuver you and your entire family out of the awkward hole. This is such an unfair burden on the adoptee and rarely anyone thinks about it.
A thirteen-year-old should not have to go through that. I shouldn't have to 1) convince you of my father's honor and 2) convince you of my own honor, while my father just uselessly leaves it up to me! (We shouldn't be sexualized by people at that age, regardless!)
End note: It wasn't until I showed my mother the post by Red Thread Broken that she actually believed me that this was a problem. And not just a "Me" problem but a common problem. That validation was invaluable.
It is difficult enough to be constantly reminded that people think you don't belong. Even if they're not thinking too deeply about it, every time someone asks "Are you paying together?" or "Are you with them?" It can be a harsh reminder that they don't see what I see, that to them, I am an Asian woman beside a normal, white couple.
Then, we add to that those mortifying times when people decide you aren't travelling alone. That you do belong...somehow in a menage a trois. I was in college when we went on our annual family vacation. We decided to use AirBNB, and this time, the woman who owned the house would be living there too. She watched as my mother, my father, and I entered her home with our luggage. She gave a wide smile, gave me a once over and asked..."What is she to you?" to my parents, as if I couldn't understand English. I wasn't sure what she expected the answer to be. Was I a travelling prostitute? A private chef? A life coach who went on vacation with her clients? My mom got irritated right away, firmly stating that I was her daughter. My father did nothing to defend me and answered all of the woman's ignorant questions about China. My father described how beautiful the country was, how he'd like to go back, how it was so great when I was adopted! He was and still is very much trapped in a delusional wonderland of The Fairytale Adoption. I asked myself why he didn't come to my aid, why wasn't he as offended as my mother or myself? Why wax poetic about a romanticized version of the orient with this nutjob? She made me feel completely outcasted from my own family on my own vacation!
When I told him I felt that he had left me unprotected, that I wanted him to defend me as my mother had, he just got upset. He couldn't understand what he had done wrong at all. He was just being polite. Right. Social graces come above everything, but apparently, adoptees aren't afforded even a modicum of decency in the realm of common courtesy.
I remember each and every time someone has wrongly assumed I was warming my father's bed. Bleach my brains out. I was at a holiday party with loose acquaintances of my extended family. The people there were my parents' age and older. They saw me, my grandparents, and my parents enter the house. By the appetizers, a woman pointed with her finger at me and my dad, back and forth. "So...you are what to him?"
"We're father and daughter," I say, but I wonder why it even matters. Let's say, for instance, that I said I was an escort, what was she going to do? Call the police on me? Scream us out? She had her answer and I knew she was going back to her friends and husband to spread the word. This wasn't a case of 90 Day Fiancee! I was simply an adoptee. What was funny was our relatives were also adoptees, now grown, but they were white. No one questioned them.
I was thirteen years old when my father and I went to the aquarium. Fresh out of elementary school and beginning my second year of middle school. My body: coltish, stickish, pre-pubescent. I had uneven wire glasses, a smattering of acne. I had only learned about periods a year before. It was supposed to be a father-daughter day, the kind other kids can have, but as I walked with my dad, he started putting physical distance between us. He forbade me from holding his hand. He said that I was causing him to get dirty looks from people. While I myself had not witnessed any of these so-called dirty looks, my dad was feeling awkward. He was insulted at being labeled as a "creepy, old, white man" and he placed that blame on me. My presence was causing him to be insulted. He didn't think of how insulting it was for me. He didn't think that perhaps even more awkward than being a horny older man was being a thirteen-year-old prostitute. An Asian girl for hire. Maybe a mail-ordered bride or a sex slave sold into prostitution in the black market of America. (They're real, by the way.)
I had to console myself alone. He was emotionally unavailable the rest of the trip. I had to deal with being seen as nothing more than a fetish to an outside world. I could have had an Asian mother, been half-white and half-Asian, but no one thought of that, not even my father. I felt terrible, believing I had hurt my father. I stopped hugging him for five years, feeling ashamed of myself. He took my boycott as a protest and got angry with me. He couldn't understand anything. And if I bring it up today, a good ten years after the fact, he denies the entire thing.
The most grievous, most recent event was when I was in a hotel with my father. I was doing a program in another state for college and my dad flew down to get me so we could fly back up together. He wanted to see the state. The hotel wasn't run down or in a seedy area. It was small, by the road side, across from a Red Lobster on a major road. In the morning, we had a breakfast buffet in the common dining area. Only three other groups of people were eating breakfast and no one seemed to be paying any attention to us. At all. But then my father started to get uncomfortable and started loudly and obnoxiously making jokes about how I wasn't really his prostitute. I kept kicking him under the table, telling him to shut up.
I told my mother how much these incidents hurt my feelings, but she could only hear me recently. She didn't think it was a problem and even when it happened in front of her, sometimes she just didn't think much of it. Why didn't she warn me this could happen? Why wasn't I prepped? I had to go through all that alone.
In that moment, you can't afford to think of yourself. You don't have the time to think of the hurt and the sting and the insult about being othered from your family or being accused of fucking your dad. You could be, god forbid, embarrassing your family at the party or making a scene. Sometimes, your parents don't even understand what is happening in that moment, but will be quick to accuse you of being rude.
So in that moment, when all you want to do is cry and hide and die, you need to go outside of your body and see the scene as an objective third-party. Which, by the way, takes more skill, emotional intelligence, and maturity than anyone ever thinks to give you. You need to think, "Well, I suppose it is an honest mistake," even if it isn't. And then, with all the social grace never afforded to you, it's up to you to maneuver you and your entire family out of the awkward hole. This is such an unfair burden on the adoptee and rarely anyone thinks about it.
A thirteen-year-old should not have to go through that. I shouldn't have to 1) convince you of my father's honor and 2) convince you of my own honor, while my father just uselessly leaves it up to me! (We shouldn't be sexualized by people at that age, regardless!)
End note: It wasn't until I showed my mother the post by Red Thread Broken that she actually believed me that this was a problem. And not just a "Me" problem but a common problem. That validation was invaluable.
I'm sorry that you too have experienced the awkwardness and intrusiveness of these types of assumptions and that it doesn't sound like you had the parental support that you needed during these situations. However, I am glad that my blog post was able to create dialogue between your mother and you. Keep writing! We need more of us Chinese adoptees speaking our and supporting each other!
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